INTERCESSION

There’s nothing in the stocking. Never mind,Nanko, when Christmas really comes, you’ll see.

(With a sudden note of fear in her voice.)

Mother, where’s father?

Rada(putting an arm round her).

He will soon be with us.It’s all right, darling.

Bettine.

Mother, mayn’t we tryThe new tunes on the gramophone?

Nanko.

Now, wait!I’ve an idea. It’s Christmas Eve, you know.We’ll celebrate it. Where’s the Christmas-tree?We’ll get that ready first.

(Bettinepulls the little Christmas-tree out from the corner.Radaglances from the child to the men, as if hoping that her play will win them to help her.)

Bettine.

It’s nearly a week,Isn’t it, Nanko, since you had your tree?

Brander.

Here, put it on the table.

Nanko(clapping his hands).

Yes, that’s best.I fear that we shall want a new tree, soon.This one is withered. See how the needles drop.There’s no green left. It’s growing old, Bettine.What shall we hang on it?

Tarrasch.

What d’ you thinkOf that now? (He hangs his revolver on the tree.)

Bettine(laughing merrily).

Oh! Oh! What a great big pistol!That’ll be father’s present! And now what else?

Nanko(eagerly).

What else?

Brander.

Well, what do you say to a ring, Bettine?How prettily it hangs upon the bough!Isn’t that fine? (He hangs the ring upon the tree.)

Bettine(staring at it).

It’s just like father’s ring!

Tarrasch.

Now light the candles. Isn’t it?

Nanko(clapping his hands and capering).

Yes, that’s right!Light all the little candles on the tree!Oh, doesn’t the pistol shine, doesn’t the ringGlitter!

Bettine.

But oh, itislike father’s ring.He had a little piece of mother’s hairPlaited inside it, just like that. ItisMy father’s ring.

Rada.

No; there are many others,Bettine, just like it, hundreds, hundreds of others.

Brander.

And now—what’s in that package over there?

Bettine.

Oh, that’s the new tunes for the gramophone.That’s father’s Christmas present to us all.

Nanko.

Now, what a wonderful man the doctor was!Nobody else, in these parts, would have thoughtOf buying a gramophone. Let’s open it.

Bettine.

Yes! Yes! And we’ll give father a surprise!It shall be playing a tune when he comes in!He won’t be angry, will he, mumsy dear?

(Branderopens the package.Nankorubs his hands in delight. They get the gramophone ready.)

Nanko.

Oh, this will be a merry Christmas Eve.There now—just see how this kind gentlemanHas opened the package for us. Now you seeThe good of war. It benefits the health.Sets a man up. Look at old Peter’s legs,He’s a disgrace to the village, a disgrace!Nobody shoots him either, so he spoilsEverything; for you know, you must admit,Bettine, that war means natural selection—Survival of the fittest, don’t you see?For instance,Isurvive, andyousurvive:Don’t we? So Peter shouldn’t spoil it all.They say that all the tall young men in FranceWere killed in the Napoleonic wars,So that most Frenchmen at the present dayAre short and fat. Isn’t that funny, Bettine?

(She laughs.)

Which shows us that tall men are not requiredTo-day. So nobody knows. Perhaps thin legsLike Peter’smaybe useful, after all,In aeroplanes, or something. Every ounceMakes a great difference there. Nobody knows.It’s natural selection. See, Bettine?Ah, now the gramophone’s ready. Make it playA Christmas tune. That’s what the churches doOn Christmas Eve: for all the churches now,And all the tall cathedrals with their choirs,What do you think they are, Bettine? I’ll tell you.I’ll whisper it.They’re great big gramophones!

(She laughs.)

Now for a Christmas tune!

Tarrasch(adjusting a record).

There’s ironyIn your idea, my friend, that would delightThe ghost of Nietzsche! Certainly, it shall playA Christmas tune. Here is the very thing.

(There is an uproar of drunken shouts in the distance.Branderlocks the outer door.)

Bettine.

The inn is full of drunken men to-night,Mother. D’ you hear them? Mother, was it an innLike that—the one that’s in my Christmas piece?

Brander(toTarrasch).

Don’t do it, we’ve had irony enough.Don’t start it playing, if you want to keepThis Christmas party to ourselves, my boy.The men are mad with drink, and—other things.Look here, Tarrasch, what are we going to doAbout this youngster, eh?

Tarrasch.

Better keep quietTill morning. When the men have slept it offThey’ll stand a better chance of slipping away.They’re all drunk, officers and men as well.

Brander.

That’s the most merciful thing that one can say.

Nanko.

Oh, what a pity! I did think, Bettine,That we should have some music. Well—I know!Tell us the Christmas piece you learned in school.That’s right. Stand there! No, stand up on this bench.Your mother tells me that you won the prizeFor learning it so beautifully, Bettine.That’s right. Now, while you say it, I will standHere, with a candle. See, that illustratesThe scene.

(He lifts one of the candles to illuminate the picture of the Madonnaand child. For a moment he speaks with a curious dignity.)

You know it is not all delusionAbout this Christmas Eve. The wise men sayThat Time is a delusion. Now then, speakYour Christmas piece.

Bettine(with her hands behind her, as if in school, she obeys him).

She laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night,

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

“For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

“And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying:—

“Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace....”

(There is silence for a moment, then a pistol-shot, a scream, and a roar of drunken laughter without, followed by a furious pounding on the door.Bettineruns to her mother.)

Brander.

Here, Tarrasch, what the devil are we to doAbout this child?

(He calls through the door.)

Clear out of this! The houseIs full. We want to sleep.

(The uproar grows outside, and the pounding is resumed. There is a crash of broken glass at the window.)

Bettine.

Mother, I’m frightened!It is the Boches! Mother, it is the Boches!Where are the British, mother? You said the BritishWere sure to be here first!

Brander.

Bundle the childInto that room, woman, at once!

(Radasnatches the revolver from the Christmas-tree and hurriesBettineinto the bedroom just as the other door is burst open and a troop of soldiers appear on the threshold, shouting and furious with drink. They sing, with drunken gestures, in the doorway:)

“Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutscher Rhein....”

First Soldier.

Come on!They’re in that room. I saw them! The only skirtsLeft in the village. Comrades, you’ve had your fun—It’s time for ours.

Brander.

Clear out of this. You’re drunk.We want to sleep.

Second Soldier.

Well, hand the women over.

Tarrasch.

There are no women here.

First Soldier.

You greedy wolf,I saw them.

Nanko.

Come! Come! Come! It’s Christmas Eve!

THE VAMPIRE

Second Soldier.

Well, if there are no petticoats, where’s the harmIn letting us poor soldiers take a squintThrough yonder door? By God, we’ll do it, too!Come on, my boys.

(They make a rush towards the room.)

Nanko.

Be careful, or you’ll smashThe Christmas-tree! You’ll smash the gramophone!

(A soldier tries the bedroom door. It is opened from within, andRadaappears on the threshold with the revolver in her hand.)

First Soldier.

Liars! Liars!

Rada.

There is one woman here,One woman and a child....And war, they tell me, is a noble thing.It is the mother of heroic deeds,The nurse of honour, manhood.

Second Soldier.

God, a speech!

Nanko(who is hugging his Christmas-tree near the fire again).

Certainly, Rada! You will not denyThat life’s a battle.

Rada.

You hear, drunk as you are,Up to your necks in blood, you hear this fool,This poor old fool, piping his dreary cry.And through his lips, and through his softening brain,The men that use you, cheat you, drive you outTo slaughter and be slaughtered, teach the worldThat this black vampire, sucking at our breasts,Is good. Men! Men! The pestilence of your deadIs murdering you by legions. All the trainsOf quicklime that your Emperor sends behind youCan never eat its way through all that flesh—Three hundred miles of dead! Your dead!

First Soldier.

Hoch! Hoch!A speech!

(They make a movement towards her, which she arrests by raising the revolver.)

Rada.

I do not hate! I pity you all.I tell you, you are doing it in a dream.You are drugged. You are not awake.

Nanko.

I have sometimes thoughtThe very same.

Rada.

But you will wake one day.Listen! If you have children of your own,Listen to me ... the child is twelve years old.She has never had one hard word spoken to herIn all her life.

Second Soldier.

Nor shall she now, by God!Where is she? Bring her out!

First Soldier.

Twelve years of age?Add two, because her mother loves her so!That’s ripe enough for marriage to a soldier.

(They laugh uproariously, and sing again mockingly:)

“Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutscher Rhein!”

(They move forward again.)

Rada(raising the revolver).

One word. If you are deaf to honour, blindTo truth, and if compassion cannot reach you,Then I appeal to fear! Yes, you shall fear me.Listen! I heard, when I was in that room,A sound like gun-fire, coming from the south:What if it were the British?

Soldiers.

Ah! The swine!The dogs!

Rada.

Bull-dogs; and slow. But they are coming,And, where they hold, they never will let go.Though they may come too late for me and mine,You are on your trial now before the world.You never can escape it. They are coming,With justice and the unconquerable law!I warn you, though their speech is not my own,And I shall be but one of all the dead,Dead, with that child, in a forgotten grave—I speak for them, and they will keep my word.Yes, if you harm that child ... the British.... Ah!

(They advance towards her.)

I have one bullet for the child and fiveTo share between you and myself.

First Soldier.

Come on!She can’t shoot! Look at the way she’s holding it!Duck down, and make a rush for it.

Soldiers.

Come on!

(They make a rush.Radasteps back into the bedroom and shuts the door in their faces.)

Second Soldier.

Locked out in the cold. Come, break the damned thing down!

Bettine(crying within).

O British! British! Come! Come quickly, British!

Brander(trying to interpose).

She’ll keep her word. You’ll never get ’em alive.

Tarrasch.

Never. I know that kind. You’d better clear out.

First Soldier.

Down with the door!

(They put their shoulders to it.Brandermakes a sign toTarrasch. They try to pull the men back. There is a scuffle andBranderis knocked over. He rises with the blood running down his face, whileTarraschstill struggles. The door begins to give. A shot is heard within. The men pause and there is another shot.)

Brander.

By God, she’s done it!

(There is a booming of distant artillery.)

Hear!She was not lying. That came from the south-west.It is the British!

(A bugle-call sounds in the village street.)

Tarrasch.

The British! A night-attack!

(They all rush out exceptNanko, who peers after them from the door. Leaving it open to the night, he takes amarron glacéfrom the table, crosses the room, and begins to examine the gramophone.

Confused sounds of men rushing to arms, thin bugle-calls in the distance, and the occasional clatter of a galloping horse blow in from the blackness framed in the open door. The deep pulsation of the British artillery is heard throughout, in a steady undertone.)

Nanko(calling aloud as he munches).

Come, Rada, you’re pretending. They’re all gone.Rada, thesemarrons glacésare delicious.It’s over now! Come, I don’t think it’s rightTo spoil a person’s pleasure on Christmas Eve.

(He tiptoes to the door and peers into the night.)

Come quick, Bettine, rockets are going up!They are breaking into clusters of green stars!Oh, there’s a red one! You could see for milesWhen that one broke. The willow-trees jumped outLike witches; and, between them, the canalDwindled away to a little thread of blood.And there were lines of men running and falling,And guns and horses floundering in a ditch.Oh, Rada! there’s a bonfire by the mill.They’ve burned the little cottage.There’s a manHanging above the bonfire by his hands,And heaps of dead all round him.Come and see!It’s terrible, but it’s magnificent,Like one of Goya’s pictures. That’s the wayHepainted war. Well, everybody’s gone....To thinkIwas the fittest, after all!

(He returns to the gramophone.)

I wonder how this gramophone does work.He said the tune that he was putting inWas just the thing for Christmas Eve.I wonder,I wonder what it was. Listen to this!

(He reads the title.)

It’s a good omen, Rada—A Christmas carolSung by the Grand Imperial Choir—d’ you hear?—At midnight in St. Petersburg—AdesteFideles!Fancy that! A Christmas carolUpon the gramophone!So all the future ages will be sureTo know exactly what religion was.To think we must not hear it! Rada, they sayThe Angel Gabriel composed that tuneOn the first Christmas Eve. So don’t you thinkThat we might hear it?Everybody is gone, except the dead.It will not wake them....Come, Rada, you’re pretending! Do not makeThe war more dreadful than it really is.

(He accidentally sets the gramophone working and jumps back, a little alarmed. He runs to the bedroom door.)

Rada! I’ve started it! Bettine, d’ you hear?The gramophone’s working.

(The artillery booms like a thunder-peal in the distance. Then the gramophone drowns it with the massed voices of the Imperial Choir singing:)

Adeste Fideles,Læti triumphantes,Adeste, adeste in Bethlehem!Natum videteRegem angelorum:Venite, adoremus,Venite, adoremus,Venite, adoremus Dominum.

(Nankotouches the floor under the door of the bedroom and stares at his hand.)

Nanko.

Something red again? Trickling under the door?Blood, I suppose....

(A look of horror comes into his face as he stands listening to the music. Then, as if slowly waking from a dream and almost as if sanity had returned for a moment, he cries:)

It’s true! It’s true! Rada, I am awake!I am awake! And, in the name of Christ,I accuse, I accuse ... O God, forgive us all!

(He falls on his knees by the bedroom door and calls, as if to the dead within:)

Awake, and after nineteen hundred years....Bettine, Bettine! the British, they are coming!Rada, you said it—they are coming quickly!They are coming, with the reign of right and law.But, O Bettine! Bettine! will they remember?Are they awake? I only hear their guns.What if they should grow used to it, Bettine,And fail to wipe this horror from the world?God, is there any hope for poor mankind?God, are Thy little nations and Thy weak,Thine innocent, condemned to hell for ever?God, will the strong deliverers break the swordAnd bring this world at last to Christmas Eve?

The Imperial Choir.

Æterni ParentisSplendorem Æternum,Velatum sub carne videbimus,Deum infantem,Pannis involutum,Venite, adoremus,Venite, adoremus,Venite, adoremus Dominum.

Nanko.

Will Christ be born, oh, not in Bethlehem,But in the soul of man, the abode of God?There, in that deep, undying soul of man(I still believe it), that immortal soul,Will they lift up the cross with Christ upon it,The Fool of God, whom intellectual fools,The little fools of dust, in every land,Grinning theirWhat is Truth?still crucify.Could they not thrust their hands into His wounds?His wounds are these—these dead are all His wounds.Bettine! Bettine! the British, they are coming!But you are silent now, so silent now!Will they lift up God’s poor old broken Fool,And sleep no more until His kingdom come,His infinite kingdom come?Will they remember?

(He bows his head against the closed door, while the gramophone lifts the chorus of the Imperial Choir over the deepening thunder of the guns:)

Nunc cantet, exultans,Chorus angelorum,Cantet nunc aula celestiumGloria, Gloria,In excelsis Deo!Venite, adoremus,Venite, adoremus,Venite, adoremus Dominum.

Now the muttering gun-fire dies,Now the night has cloaked the slain,Now the stars patrol the skies,Hear our sleepless prayer again!They who work their country’s will,Fight and die for Britain still,Soldiers, but not haters, knowThoumust pity friend and foe.Therefore hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.Thou whose wounded Hands do reachOver every land and sea,Thoughts too deep for human speechRise from all our souls to Thee;Deeper than the wrath that burnsRound our hosts when day returns;Deeper than the peace that fillsAll these trenched and waiting hills.Hear, O hear!Both for foe and friend, our prayer.Pity deeper than the graveSees, beyond the death we wield,Faces of the young and braveHurled against us in the field.Cannon-fodder! Theymustcome,We must slay them, and be dumb,Slaughter, while we pity, theseMost implacable enemies.Master, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.They are blind, as we are blind,Urged by duties past reply.Ours is but the task assigned;Theirs to strike us ere they die.Who can see his country fall?Who but answers at her call?Who has power to pause and thinkWhen she reels upon the brink?Hear, O hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.Shield them from that bitterest lieLaughed by fools who quote their mirth,When the wings of death go byAnd their brother shrieks on earth.Though they clamp their hearts with steel,Conqueringeveryfear they feel.There are dreams they dare not tell.Shield, O shield, their eyes from hell.Father, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.Where the naked bodies burn,Where the wounded toss at home,Weep and bleed and laugh in turn,Yes, the masking jest may come.Let him jest who daily dies.But O hide his haunted eyes.Pain alone he might control.Shield, O shield his wounded soul.Master, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.Peace? We steel us to the end.Hope betrayed us, long ago.Duty binds both foe and friend.It is ours to break the foe.Then, O God! that we might breakThis red Moloch for Thy sake;Know that Truth indeed prevails,And that Justice holds the scales.Father, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.England, could this awful hour,Dawning on thy long renown,Mark the purpose of thy power,Crown thee with that mightier crown!Broadening to that purpose climbAll the blood-red wars of Time....Set the struggling peoples free,Crown with Law their Liberty!England, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer!Speed, O speed what every ageWrites with a prophetic hand.Read the midnight’s moving page,Read the stars and understand:Out of Chaos ye shall drawDeepening harmonies of Law,Till around the Eternal SunAll your peoples move in one.Christ-God, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.

Thou whose wounded Hands do reachOver every land and sea,Thoughts too deep for human speechRise from all our souls to Thee;Deeper than the wrath that burnsRound our hosts when day returns;Deeper than the peace that fillsAll these trenched and waiting hills.Hear, O hear!Both for foe and friend, our prayer.

Pity deeper than the graveSees, beyond the death we wield,Faces of the young and braveHurled against us in the field.Cannon-fodder! Theymustcome,We must slay them, and be dumb,Slaughter, while we pity, theseMost implacable enemies.Master, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.

They are blind, as we are blind,Urged by duties past reply.Ours is but the task assigned;Theirs to strike us ere they die.Who can see his country fall?Who but answers at her call?Who has power to pause and thinkWhen she reels upon the brink?Hear, O hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.

Shield them from that bitterest lieLaughed by fools who quote their mirth,When the wings of death go byAnd their brother shrieks on earth.Though they clamp their hearts with steel,Conqueringeveryfear they feel.There are dreams they dare not tell.Shield, O shield, their eyes from hell.Father, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.

Where the naked bodies burn,Where the wounded toss at home,Weep and bleed and laugh in turn,Yes, the masking jest may come.Let him jest who daily dies.But O hide his haunted eyes.Pain alone he might control.Shield, O shield his wounded soul.Master, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.

Peace? We steel us to the end.Hope betrayed us, long ago.Duty binds both foe and friend.It is ours to break the foe.Then, O God! that we might breakThis red Moloch for Thy sake;Know that Truth indeed prevails,And that Justice holds the scales.Father, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.

England, could this awful hour,Dawning on thy long renown,Mark the purpose of thy power,Crown thee with that mightier crown!Broadening to that purpose climbAll the blood-red wars of Time....Set the struggling peoples free,Crown with Law their Liberty!England, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer!

Speed, O speed what every ageWrites with a prophetic hand.Read the midnight’s moving page,Read the stars and understand:Out of Chaos ye shall drawDeepening harmonies of Law,Till around the Eternal SunAll your peoples move in one.Christ-God, hear,Both for foe and friend, our prayer.

The Gresham PressUNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITEDWOKING AND LONDON

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