"Der Tag" Part 2

(_They have to go, chagrined, but deferential._)

EMPEROR. The decision lay with me, and I said there shall be peace. That be my zenith!

(_He goes back to the chair; he sleeps peacefully; in the distance a bell tolls the Angelus, and suddenly this is broken by one boom of a great gun, which reverberates and should be startling. The SPIRIT OF CULTURE returns, now with a wound in her breast; she surveys him sadly._)

CULTURE. Sleep on, unhappy King. (_He grows restless._) Better to wake if even your dreams appal you.

(_He wakes, and for a moment he scarcely understands that he has been dreaming; the realization is tragic to him._)

EMPEROR. You! You have come here to mock me!

CULTURE. Oh, no.

EMPEROR. I dreamed there was no war. In my dream they came to me and I forbade the war. I saw the Fatherland smiling and prosperous, as it was before the war.

CULTURE. It was you who made the war, O Emperor!

EMPEROR (_huskily_). Belgium?

CULTURE. There is no Belgium now, but over what was Belgium there rests a soft light, as of a helm, and through it is a flaming sword.

EMPEROR. I dreamed I had kept my plighted word to Belgium.

CULTURE. It was you, O Emperor, who broke your plighted word and laid waste the land. In the l.u.s.t for victory you violated even the laws of war which men contrive so that when the sword is sheathed they may dare again face their Maker. Your way to Him is lighted now by smouldering spires and ashes that were once fair academic groves of mine, and you shall seek Him over roads cobbled with the moans of innocents.

EMPEROR. In my dream I thought England was grown degenerate and would not fight.

CULTURE. She fought you where Crecy was, and Agincourt, and Waterloo, with all their dead to help her. The dead became quick in their ancient graves, stirred by the tread of the island feet, and they cried out: "How is England doing?" The living answered the dead upon their bugles with the "All's well." England, O Emperor, was grown degenerate, but you, _you_, have made her great.

EMPEROR. France, Russia?

CULTURE. They are here around your walls.

EMPEROR. My people?

CULTURE. I see none marching but men whose feet make no sound. Shades of your soldiers who pa.s.s on and on, in never-ending lines.

EMPEROR. Do they curse me?

CULTURE. None curses; they all salute you as they pa.s.s. They have done your bidding.

EMPEROR. The women curse me?

CULTURE. Not even the women. They, too, salute you. You were their Father and could do no wrong.

EMPEROR. And you?

CULTURE. I have come with this gaping wound in my breast to bid you farewell.

EMPEROR. G.o.d cannot let my Germany be utterly destroyed.

CULTURE. If G.o.d is with the Allies, Germany will not be destroyed.

Farewell.

(_She is going. She lifts a pistol from the table and puts it in his hand. It is all she can do for her old friend. She goes away with s.h.i.+ning eyes. The penny dip burns low. The great Emperor is lost in its shadows._)