The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tête-d'or, by Paul Claudel.

NEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON - HUMPHREY MILFORD - OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
MDCCCCXIX

Table of Content

O day! Having felt, like the touch of water upon the head,
The desire to be alone and to weep where none could find me,
Laughing I walked where the fragrance of the riotous garden spread
Its honeyed share, and left the flowers and the trees behind me.

And from behind me, borne from the breathing depths, as I went,
With eyes half-closed, there came to fall upon my hair
The holy benediction of things most excellent,
And seeds and shreds of down were softly mingled there.

Behind me the eternal woods uplifted leafy domes,
Behind me banks of blossoms, packed to the brim with sweets,
Towards the expectant nose, prepared to breathe their balms,
Like some strong nuptial body upraised their ardent heats.

Roses and yellow asphodels that sturdy stems upbear,
In the mellow disarray of their golden panoply,
Shone forth like lamps that gleam through the white and liquid air
When but a single diamond adorns the sleeping sky.

For like one who stops and turns and listens to the sea
When to his ear is borne its low, mysterious whisper,
Above the shining earth, beaming resplendently,
I saw that star, First-Born of the dawning Future, Vesper!

O only child of the King, among so many slaves!
Pilgrim unique o'er city paths seeking the distant sea!
Planet of morn, re-born in evening's dusky caves!
Star anadyomene in the depth of the garden's greenery!

Mysteriously o'er the hour a subtle influence reigns,
Deepening peace, maintaining, with strange and mystic art,
The secret length of the days that are gone where only the honey remains
Of animate life, enhived in this everlasting heart.

Feebly the dying breeze stirs in its dark retreat.
O joy supreme, O love beyond what words can say!
Over this sordid world that has so enslaved my feet
Endureth the ineffable unfolding of the day!

In such an hour there passes in laughing ecstasy
The poet, sprung from a race obscure, who never shall grow old,
His golden dream fulfills itself in the twilight. Silently
He is merged in the springtime of the gods, the eternal age of gold!

Gazing into the eye of the world with an eye on fire to see,
As one gapes for the juicy plums that the topmost branches bear,
As, 'twixt his dusky brides, hard Jacob bowed the knee
To gain from the hand of a father the blessing on an heir,

I live! Come, rain and storm! I shall not be unmanned!
Bearing my destiny, aware of the term of Fate's delay,
Laughing I walked beneath the grim and terrifying land
Of burning constellations that cross a milky way.

Dramatis Personae

Simon Agnel, later Tête-d'or, afterwards the King
Cébès
The King
First Watcher
Second Watcher
Third Watcher
Fourth Watcher
Fifth Watcher
The Princess
Cassius, the Messenger
The Tribune of the People
The Go-Between
The High Prefect
The Schoolmaster
The Brother of the King
The Man Out of Office
The Chief of Staff
First Captain
Second Captain
Third Captain
Fourth Captain
The Deserter
The Standard-Bearer
First Subaltern
Second Subaltern
The Messenger
The Centurion
The Commander of the Cavalry
The Commander of the Second Army
Citizens, Soldiers, Officers

Place

Act I: The Open Fields.
Act II: A Hall in the King's Palace.
Act III: A Waste Place in the Caucasus.

Act I

Enter, at the back, simon agnel, dressed like a peasant. He bears upon his shoulder the body of a woman, and carries a spade.

I turn my face towards the Future and the lowering arch of the sky. My soul is full of weariness!

There are still some patches of snow. I hold in my hand a sprig of pussy-willow.

Loud and low like a child that one hears in the distance, like children left alone beside the glowing embers!

A desire to reach the end of the road, to follow the lure of the plain that stretches towards the horizon,

One day I caught her by the throat, crushing her body against the side of the barn,

I have seen strange roads, strange cultures, strange cities. One leaves them behind and they are gone.

By many mountains and rivers we wandered seeking the South and that other ocean.

Turning hence my unworthy eyes what have I sought among multitudes of men but the testimony of my own soul!

We had re-united our souls through our lips, and with artless arms she clasped me to her breast!

And I brought her here that this place whence I had set out might mock me! There she lies fallen at my feet!

Horror incarnate, shame, infamy teeming with desires, this is the knowledge I have gained at the last!

She looked at me and I do not know what she wished to say. Who can understand a woman?

Simon: There! Go! Enter, enter into the raw earth! Lie at your ease, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, your mouth pressing against the clay,

(He throws the earth into the grave. When it is full he walks on it, stamping it down.

He is bent like a scythe. His hands hang down below his knees. He has never been the same since his daughter went away.

Here, where you cannot hear the noise of the roads or the fields, the sounds of ploughing and sowing,

Wakes all alone and while the rain drives against the windows, he hears the sound of a falling silver spoon.

What shall I repeat in my silence, "I shall find strength, I shall make the effort...."

Ah, where shall I look? Where shall I go? The skies are like iron and I remain here, the woman's legacy, full of vague menaces and anguished cries.

—What is there left in life? I have travelled. I have seen the world. O worthless calendar of petty days!

(An old man, bent almost double, enters, trundling a wheelbarrow on which is a basket and a hoe.

The Peasant: Eh, I don't know. I think it can't be more than five o'clock. The days don't get much longer.

I have no other wealth than these old clothes. But I shall stretch myself on a stone and be content.

The dry brambles shiver; the branches creak or sway without a sound; the brooks gurgle among the reeds.

Why should you force me to speak only to mock at me? Simon: I will take you by the hair of your head and shake you.

I tell you that you are a man and not a child, like some pale seedling pushing its way through the mould.

Cébès: Ah, well! I am very wretched! O that I might set forth clearly things that are obscure!

To express the weariness that has no beginning, but has become a part of one's consciousness like the familiar things of every day?

Who like an emperor dethroned, his head thrust through a sack, sits motionless with haggard eyes,

The multitude of foolish men who interrogate each other, fight, talk, and cast their eyes this way and that,

And then, turning towards us the hairy side of the head, disappear like the Manes;

The clouds that cover the hills with shadows; the cries of beasts, the hum of the villages, the clatter of the highways;

The wood, and the chant of the coursing wind; the carts that are charged with sheaves and flowers;

And the Victories that pass their appointed way like harvesters, with swarthy cheeks,

All the diseases spy upon us, ulcer and abscess, epilepsy and shaking palsy and at the last, comes gout and the gravel that clogs urination.

Phthisis lights its fire; the pudenda grow mouldy like grapes; and the bag of the belly

Who will open the door? Who will descend into the blackness of my dungeon, bearing in his hand the yellow flame?

O the Spring that renews the year and the strong love that triumphs over virginity!

O the ferment of life when the Springtime prepares its nuptials! There is not a thing that grows

But feels the divine delirium entering like a creator, producing the flower and the seed.

I will open wide my jaws and I will raise my arms and hold them extended like branches!

O Cébès in this you were right that not to an older man nor to any one of an age unlike your own did you address yourself so obscurely,

(Or rather I think of a carpet whose maker disposes the colors one after the other)

—And a baby is weaned at eleven months, but the weaning of the spirit is slower.

And till he learns to forage for himself (the amount being equal to the expenditure) the breast is not taken away, the communication with the source.

—So if you put your ear against my heart—... But I myself am full of sorrow.

So that I fled into solitude there to obscurely nourish this grief that I felt unfolding itself within me.

For it was there before I was born and will be there when we are here no longer,

How many an afternoon I have passed beneath its shadow, having quieted the clamor of my thoughts.

O tree, receive me again! Alone I left the protection of your branches. And now it is alone that I return, O immovable father!

Take me once more beneath your shadow, O son of the Earth! O wood, in this hour of sorrow! O murmuring branches, impart to me

For you yourself are only a ceaseless striving, the unwearied drawing of your body out of inanimate matter.

Thrusting down, stretching out in every direction your strong and subtile roots! And the sky, how you cling to it! How your whole being breathes it in through one great leaf, Form of Flame!

Of which you lay hold with that mouth made of all your arms, with the cluster of your branches, with the clutch of all there is in you that breathes.

All the earth and all the sky, these are what you require that you may hold yourself erect!

Let me also hold myself erect! Let me not lose my soul! That essential sap, that innermost secretion of my ego, that effervescence

Which constitutes my true self, oh let me not squander that to make a useless tuft of leaves and flowers! Let me grow in my unity! Let me remain unique and erect!

But it was not to hear your murmuring that I came, O branches that now are bare mid the air opaque and nebulous!

But it is you that I would question, deep-reaching roots and that primal depth of the earth where you are nourished.

—Cébès, a force has been given to me, stark, savage! It is the fury of the male. There is no woman in me.

You have robbed me of the light of my eyes! You have carried away my hope and my joy!

You have taken from me the woman I love and brought her to her death! So now it is to you that I make my cry!

And as did that woman when she died, I will hold them close against my cheek, thus,

I am here alone and the multitude of men is about me on every hand, in the fields or in the houses that they have made, beside the lamps that they have lighted.

And I will not be afraid and I will make a vow repeating the words that have been taught me.

Simon: Know that a right has been given to me! Know that a force has been given to me!

Simon: In whom do you put your trust! For a terrible thing has been shown to me, to me who was but a child.

In the midst of this vast universe we are like two little children who wander in the dark. Yet there is a force in me, and I pity you!

Simon: Love me! Understand me! Swear that you will be loyal and put yourself wholly in my hands.

Understand me! With your hands lay hold upon this sorrow! The irresolute man bereft of knowledge!

All things change. I must be strong and resist! I have been a wandering fire, I must rise like a rooted flame!

Simon: It is my blood; thus man, though he has no breasts, knows how to pour forth his milk!

But that crucified thing with its lips of granite draws towards heaven a band of briars,

Receive my blood upon you! Oh, I will stab myself to the heart that my blood may burst forth like a fountain, as you drive in the bung of a cask with a resolute blow!

It is my blood. Thus do we greet each other, you and I, we who walk through the shades with warm blood in our veins.

Like two brothers who, after death, recognise one another in the eternal night, although they cannot see

And throw themselves into each others' arms, the tears streaming down their cheeks.

O equilibrium of things in the night! O energy that acts with unconquerable power, according to its nature!

I also will do my work. Creeping beneath it I will cause the great stone to tremble!

And with a blow I will take the burden upon me, as a butcher takes on his back a side of beef!

Mother, why have you cleft through the midst the skin of my eyelid! Mother, I am alone! Mother, why do you force me to live!

Far better it would be for me if to-morrow the dewy earth in the East should not be reddened by the dawn! O night, you seem very beautiful!

Act II

Night. Cébès, sick, lying upon a bed. A little lamp is placed on the floor. Here and there men, stretched out asleep, snoring.

Pantomime—Enter, as if half-crazed, the king, barefoot, his clothes in disorder. He runs hither and thither about the hall in great agitation.

They have left us all alone, my daughter and me, and everyone has fled, for the enemy is at hand.

The Prime Minister did it all. He explained to me how matters stood. He was always making me late to dinner. I have a bad digestion; I ought to have my meals at regular hours.

They held a meeting, some ten or twelve of them, and they brought a great pile of papers. One sees strange people nowadays.

Then they all went away. The Prime Minister went away also, taking with him the crown jewels to put them in safe keeping.

From the kitchen to the immense garrets and I seem to hear behind the doors the quiet breathing of sleepers, and the fire upon the hearth sends out a little glow.

These poor folk who arrived yesterday, seeing the palace empty, asked if they might spend the night here. They are visionaries; they wish to watch and pray.

Surpass our misfortunes, and all is submerged in dishonor. And at will the enemy crosses our frontiers.

They whistle, wheeze and snort, they are so fast asleep! It is a voice, a horn, a leather trumpet!

O people! O city! O my wretched country, destroyed, devastated, plundered like an unguarded sheep-fold!

And I leap out of bed and run hither and thither, striking my head against the walls.

The young man sleeps very tranquilly. He dreams, and in his dream is the morning sun.

And I have been a little, little child. Now I have lived three score and fifteen years, and I am old and at the end of my life.

O my country! My country! Behold your King wanders alone through his palace and can give you no aid.

You were weary of me. And everyone said that I built too much and did not know what I was doing and they took the money from me.

Ah! Ah! Ah! Tremble, you lofty chimneys that tower to the stars and midst the marguerites and glow-worms are mirrored in the brimming moat.

The King (catching him by the foot and dragging him across the hall): Will you wake up, or won't you?

(The king goes to the middle of the hall and strikes furiously on a gong. All awake and look at him, dumbfounded, not moving from their places.

Like brutes, like dogs that wag their tails! And when they cease their chatter, they fall asleep.

And you, could you not watch? The worries of your wretched trades cannot trouble you now. That care has been taken from you. Could you not watch and wait?

And I tread my mitre under my feet and like an infant or an animal that one clutches to one's breast,

Go! Put out the light and lie down with us. Pillow your head on my side. All too soon will come the day.

(He drops his head on his chest. The king gazes at him and, opening his mouth little by little, begins to yawn.

We talked and our words were only an empty sound; and from morning until evening we gave ourselves no rest.

As a man who comes home drunk in the morning and goes to bed without undressing or taking off his boots.

So we remained here and the thought has come to me that there is nothing that can be changed.

The Third Watcher: They die together. All the people shall be found cold in death, men and women and children and babes at the breast.

And let not the maid-servant make too much noise in the kitchen or the baby in the room below,

We have begged and it has been in vain. Our sin has found us out. Who can conquer our ignorance?

We cannot attain to ability and we sway and stagger like a man who stands in a hot bath,

Ranged on the ramparts of the quay, watch how the red sun drops away into a night that knows no day....

My curse upon you, watchers that sleep! My curse upon you, sleepers, dreamers of dreams!

The Fifth Watcher: A curse upon you yourself, old man! Be accursed, crowned carrion, lapdog, clown!

A curse on your royal race, temporal King, on the office that you hold, on the system that permits your impotent sway!

A curse on all my teachers, from the one who taught me to read to the one who turned me loose with a box on the ear, dazzled and full of words!

A curse on the food they gave me, and on their ignorance, and on the example they set me!

(A scratching is heard at the door. The door creaks. Silence. The scratching comes again.

The King: Is it you, my daughter? It is so dark here! I did not recognise you. And besides I am so old!

Cébès (shaking his head, without looking at her): I do not want to drink. It is not worth the trouble any longer.

The Princess (listening, with the glass in her hand): It is the first nightingale. He is trying out his song again, after the terrible winter.

O mystery of the night! And you, O season of the nudity of love when for leaves there are only blossoms on the trees!

Cébès: Such a thing? Do you think I do not know what it means? Go and listen to the rabble who rave in the shadows of the room.

I lie here, and I die before my time through the sin of my parents. The sweat runs down my face.

Woman, you do not comfort me. I have nothing in common with you. I wait until my older brother

The Fourth Watcher: Oh you, you are frozen like a well, and like a well condemned!

But indeed there is a power in him. I could not stand against him when he talked

Listen to what he says! And already he has forgotten what he said a moment since and remembers it no more.

You will live in joy? But I tell you that you are already dead and life has departed from you and that you weep because the man is at hand who will drive you from your place!

Do not hope! For I say to you that the sword is loosed against you and it will not rest till it has devoured you, sweeping you from before the face of the sun.

Like the plague upon the poultry, like the pestilence upon the pigs, the sword has come upon you!

Fools! 'Tis enough for you that cozening life anoints your lips with its greasy thumb.

Unless I lay hold on joy, like a thing that one grasps with one hand and tears with the other,

And put it in my mouth like an everlasting food, and like a fruit that one crushes between the teeth, so that the juice gushes down the throat!

Alas for me! There is a shadow upon me. And I know that there is something here invisible to my eyes.

Man has worked and has not rested from labor; he has worked the livelong day from the morning until the evening, he has worked the whole of the night,

He pants and perhaps he wishes to rest. But his work is alive under him and it does not wish to stop. And he has become its slave, for he is snared by the feet

And, drowned in night and utter wretchedness, alone and stretched in his dung, he gazes upward,

Like the drunkard sprawled in the gutter, staring with bleary eyes at the star of February in the pallid western sky.

And the stone is sealed above you; it is sealed and firmly cemented and bound with iron bands.

And after that I shall drop my head on my breast and my heart will break of sorrow.

Where the boatman half believes that he rows over hills and vineyards and houses whitewashed to the eaves, and gardens where the wash is hung out to dry!

When I went for a swim before the break of day, and as I climbed the muddy bank, pushing my way through the reeds,

And like one who puts on his shirt, all naked as I was, I raised both arms towards the burning poppies of gold!

O when will the sun come again! Could I but see you once more, sun that makes bright the earth!

(The princess re-enters. She wears a red robe and a golden mantle that covers her from head to foot. On her head is a sort of mitre and a thick black braid is thrown across her shoulders. She comes forward, her eyes closed, moving rhythmically and very slowly, and stops at the edge of the lamplight. All look at her in silence and with great attention.

One of the bystanders rises and, taking the lamp, he holds it close to the face of the princess and examines it. Then he replaces the lamp on the floor and returns to his place.

The Princess (in a low voice, opening her eyes for an instant): One with closed eyes who is about to awaken from a long sleep.

Who is this, clothed in such a garment, with hands hidden beneath a tissue of gold?

Our unworthiness is bodily present among us! There is not one of us who can escape it! Beautiful and blind,

(Pantomime. The princess seems to be awakening from sleep, with slow gestures and eyes always closed.

The Fourth Watcher: Come, make an end, if those eyelids still are faithful to one another.

A dull voice says, "Come!" A clear voice says, "Go!" But I cannot move from my place.

The Princess (stretching out both arms and pointing to the bystanders): Who are these?

Your absence has been long, but I have not forgotten, and often I dreamed of you.

The Princess (looks pensively from one to another. They lower their eyes): I see more clearly now. I see you all. Surely the darkness shall not hide you nor the light of the lamp.

The Princess (looking at him): So it is you. I know you now. (She turns towards the first watcher) And you! (She turns towards the second watcher) And you! (She turns towards the third watcher) And you! (She turns towards the fourth watcher)

The Fourth Watcher: I understand only your beauty! It is all a play but why does she turn herself towards us

Alas! and things that were never to be? I remember the sweetness of love! Do not shame me before these men!

O Notary of the dying, now you are drawing near us bearing your book and scroll.

The Princess: I am not sad! The nightingale sings and I will also sing! Let him sing and I will sing also!

The bird sings in the summer and is silent in the winter, but I will sing in the chill and bitter air, and when all is frozen I will rise, drunk with ecstasy, towards the naked heavens!

A boundless labor hard to undertake! But because I do not speak with your speech you despise me.

Fools! What shall I say? What shall I leave unsaid? Did you believe that you could hide from me? I penetrate to the bottom of your souls. Nothing is hidden in obscuring shadow.

By his name and summon him to stand and face me, And one by one I could recount his acts,

O presumptuous fool! O vile and brazen companion! O horrible and ridiculous violence!

You have rebuffed me and have thrust me forth, but to-day I shall call you to account and you shall answer me!

I shall call you to account with a sharp and piercing voice, and it shall pass through your heart like a sword!

The Third Watcher: Shall we shriek before you like mandrakes? Shall we cause the moon to tremble with our cries, more dreadful than the shrieks of the murderer caught in the clutches of the law?

So far from pleasing that no one of you would have looked with favor upon me, and followed after me, and taken me for his mistress?

Passes by, with laurel wreathing her brow; walks, barefoot, beside the flowing stream, singing immortal verses

Cannot always remain in the fountains and caves and deserted hollows among the oaks,

"Who will barter handfuls of blackberries for handfuls of heavy gold and give the flesh of his heart in exchange for a lasting love?"

(She goes to each of the bystanders and, forcing him to raise his head and seizing it by the hair and the chin, she looks in his face, her eyes close to his. Then she resumes her former position in silence.

Many a time in such dim shades, I have warned you earnestly. But you would give no heed.

Now that your souls are numbered with those that are marked for death, I come to you once more

To hear the cries of your wife in the agony of her travail, how could you bear to hear my grievances against you?

But I abandon you and leave this dwelling. And may the spiders weave their webs here!

(Pause. She moves backwards till she is near the bed of Cébès and, bending her head towards him.

Cébès: I have given my troth to one and to one only, and I will die and will have no other love.

(Cébès half rises and, stretching out his hand towards her, passes it over her face. There is a tense silence.

You commanded me to show myself before you and I am here, a wretched girl decked out in these fantastic robes!

I have spoken, adding what was needful to phrases learned by heart. I suffer! I suffer! My soul is shaken in me!

And in her place there is only I myself, an every-day young girl, careful of her nails and her complexion.

Or, with a hidden spring of blood welling up between my breasts, I shall mock the maid who falls asleep in her chair.

And now with nodding funereal plumes The Agony of Death strides terribly towards you, like a colossus, with copper cheeks, shaking the flimsy structures you have reared!

"I wandered in, the night with foam as thick as a camel's slaver, dripping from my jaws! I was an outcast! The hounds of hell were gnawing my heart!

I stride before the legions, mid blood and the crackle of fire, like a flaming windmill, brandishing a flail, clenching between my teeth a sword as big as an oar!"

Let the thunderbolt flay me and like Ajax voiding lightning and the water of the sea from mouth and nose,

The forest flames! The rivers are choked with wreckage! The belfries full of clanging bells crash into chaos!

O the grocery and the bakery! O villages ill guarded by the Cock of the Cross, O towns devoured by the ravening grave-yard!

Or we shall be forced to take refuge in woods and caves and learn again the language of nymphs and ravens.

O race! O dynasty! Long have I lived! Long has the King been governor of this country.

A helmsman made wise by steering in the uncharted sea, practised in deciphering the slow changes of the stars!

And Care, with swarthy face like an old fisherman, taciturn, shedding tears of pitch!

The Second Watcher: Peace, peace, O King, and do not speak so loudly! Be still! If you cannot sleep, keep silence!

For this is the dreadful part of the night that was not meant for the eye of man,

And this is a task that was not intended for him. Nevertheless let him sleep his sleep;

And soon it will be the hour when the baker throws the dough on the kneading board with a dull thud, a sign that the dawn is near.

I think that the sun will rise and will strike with a ruddy light the wall overgrown with the ancient royal vine,

I shall think only this and shall keep my eyes upraised. For they are made to see and if they close it is only to open again.

The First Watcher: Speak! Why do you open your mouth so wide? Why do you nod your head? If

The Third Watcher: That this Kingdom is saved? That we live once more? That this land

The Fourth Watcher: My hair stands on end and my tears pour forth like the melting snow!

That one would think that a dead man had risen from his tomb, sending the stone flying!

That armed horde that fell upon us terribly arrayed, those successive lines, those strong columns that, marching like one man, advanced across the valleys and the plains, that interminable line of cannon....

The Messenger: The enemy is retreating, struck with terror. Halted as though he had seen The Angel of Death!

The Fourth Watcher: You bring warmth into a frozen place and into a pitch black night a dazzling brightness.

Be patient with me! Repeat it yet again! Nourish my heart with that sustaining word!

The Messenger: We have conquered! We have driven them before us! Our strength has prevailed!

Let the round brazen throats beneath the bell-ringer's feet fill with our jubilation,

O fortune, since you have given us this hour, conduct us where you will! (He drinks.) Excellent glass of wine!

The Messenger: ... Fixing before him his sparkling eyes, like an Andromeda with horse's mane, more proud than the god of the wind when at the water's edge

For each man looked at him with astonishment, and struck with a vague shame, he gave in silence all that he had and placed it on the ground before him.

The Messenger: If anyone dared to speak to him, unaddressed, saying, "Who are you?"

He looked at him a moment, and answered, "I am what I seem to be. You are not mistaken."

And the man is at hand who will take you, caught by the scruff of the neck, and geld you like a domestic animal."

"And conquer also, perhaps?" "You can do it," he replied and he looked at him fixedly.

To-day you can wash away your shame and rise from your baseness and give the lie to the name they have bestowed upon you!"

The First Watcher: It is astonishing! It is utterly astonishing! I did not believe what they told me.

Renouncing life and crying "Forward!", they flocked to where the bugle sounded the assembly.

When, like a superintendent among his workmen, he walked among them, looking at them all, assuring himself

They turned to him their ranks of eyes of every kind and hue, and they were comforted again.

There was on the slope a mighty growth of broom, tree of yellow flowers, dear to the bees.

He had it cut down and, having kissed it, he bade them bear it before him. Then he mounted his horse.

The Messenger: But when they came to the field where they had to die or conquer,

The Messenger: What flag? Not a tatter of silk, not a woman's shirt that a child waves about on the end of a bean-pole!

But like some old gibbet that creaks beneath its burden of corpses, like a mast with its sinister yardarms,

At first they kept their ranks, fighting shoulder to shoulder, and thus it was for some time.

They were astounded, those others, and they trembled, and suddenly the serried ranks of our foes,

Think of it! That innumerable horde turned their backs, and ran before us! Zounds!

The Messenger: Sharp cries resounded on the bleeding air, and the mad galloping of horsemen, and cannon whose flashes glared through the pall of smoke!

The men that work, the women that bear children, and the fields that yield food.

(To cébès) And you, will you not give me a word of welcome, thus happily returned?

Tête-d'or: I bayed at their heels! I made them rise from the dung in which they sat.

Am I not your tutor? Do you think that all I have done can go for naught? Was it in vain, that adoption that bound us so close together on that night of sorrow?

Cébès: You have gained the victory! You knew how to command all these men according to their corps and their battalion, and they obeyed you!

And it has its own secret source and seeks its own end, in spite of my sodden intellect and unsure senses, and it makes my life bitter.

And nature, and I find no happiness there. And I see other men and they are like myself.

Each cries, "Like us you must pay for the right to be alive!" But as I say I have no handicraft,

That there is nothing here I am not ready to leave behind as one rises from a chair.

And if I do not find him why have my eyes been dowered with the faculty of seeing, and my hands with fingers as if they saw!

And will someone speak of self-control and of works of betterment by which the noble man consecrates himself like a temple?

And why will it later be otherwise? For I am made of flesh and blood, as my mother made me.

Tête-d'or: What is it? You look at me strangely and there is something in you that I do not recognise.

Cébès: It is not the pain that I fear, and the cramps, and the horrible struggle to vomit,

When my mouth is filled with bile and blood and the sweat pours out of my body like water from a sponge.

This I can bear, for my heart is stout, and I shall look in your face, my brother, in the hour of my torture.

The shadows had closed about me so that I slept in darkness and woke in darkness. And I saw nothing; and I was deaf and heard no sound.

But you, give me water to drink, that I may die in peace, for I am consumed with thirst!

O brother! I have put my trust in you! Will you not help me? I beg you, soldier, head of gold, O my bright-haired brother!

Why, like pride, having kneeled before me, did you clasp me in your arms like a tree or a fountain?

And he asks, and I cannot reply to this poor luckless child, and he is dying before my eyes!

To leave me alone and not to question me. What do you want of me? Shall I hide you in my belly and give birth to you again?

Cébès: You shall not escape me thus. Answer and I will question you. For you are my teacher and must answer me.

Cébès: Answer! Is there an end of the personality? For as for the bodily form we know that it disappears.

And my answer is silence, and the breath that blows from the open and black abyss.

But her blood entered into your body and flowed in you and your heart was moored to her heart through the middle of your belly,

A cry like a babe new-born, and I have drawn the keen and burning sword, and have beheld

Must you wither in my hands like a flower of the stream before I had asked "Who are you?" and you had answered me?

Is there something stable here? Who will carve a letter upon the face of the Mountain?

But the gravel sets our teeth on edge and ever from our eyes there flow invisible tears.

Cébès: As for you, you live. You live and you watch me dying at your feet! Oh! Oh!

For I do not know who I am and I flee away and vanish like a spring that disappears!

Alone I die! And I pant in vain for breath and there is something in me that is not satisfied;

More alone than the strangled babe that its murderous mother buries at the bottom of a dunghill,

(He bites his hand, frees himself, struggles to his feet and falls, tête-d'or puts him back on his bed.

Tête-d'or: You turn my heart to ice! Do not howl like a wolf in this unholy night!

(His mouth still open, he slowly lays his head on his pillow. Then he begins to smile. Pause.

Tête-d'or, there are many kinds of men, the weak and the strong, the sick and the well.

I pity them; the incompetent and the stammering, the poor of spirit and those that ask for alms

The wind ruffles my hair and the heartbreak of the earth lies stark and bare before my despairing eyes! And I look and am filled with shame!

O the fate of the bee and the fly whose life lasts only a season and endures but a single day!

And the birds of the wood are also alive; and the caterpillar that crawls on the leaf and the broom that roots in the sand,

Cébès: Come, let's not talk of it. Things are better than you think. But, tell me....

I do not understand ... you follow me ... eh? What inner pride, what secret flame....

O glowing geranium! O clot of sunlight! It throbs! It bleeds like a fragment of living flesh!

Cébès: It has not been permitted that I should die in such despair! And now I am beyond all pain,

Cébès: Take me in your arms and hold me, for there is no longer any strength in me. And put me on your shoulder like an armful of leafy branches.

O Tête-d'or! you have baptised me with your blood. Now like a babe I lie upon your breast and pour forth on your bosom all myself,

They do not recognise themselves and the lover feels a pang like the stab of a knife beneath his ribs,

Imitating the piercing cries of sea-birds, for their silence is like the peace of the waters.

The snare is broken and I am free! I am the plant that has been uprooted from the earth!

There is a joy that comes with man's last hour. That joy am I and the secret that can no longer be told.

O Tête-d'or, I give myself to you and deliver myself into your hands! So hold me while I am with you.

Tête-d'or: O Cébès, whom thus I have taken in my arms, I will question you in my turn. Hand yearns to hand

And mouth to mouth, yet never do they meet, for an invisible barrier lies between.

That is the pang of love through which it is like the water that boils and disappears.

Tête-d'or: O brother, I have jealously taken from you the woman you loved. And you would have been happy with her. But it was destined that your love should be given to none but me.

O burden! O sacrifice that I bear in my arms like a sheep whose feet are bound together!

Than a father would have been of that pallid little face. And my heart is attached to yours by a stronger and sweeter tie

Than that which binds a brother to his little brother in the nursery when he plays with him in the evening, and lulls him to sleep with stories and helps in taking off his shoes.

O my friend that I have found in the gloom, are you going to abandon me and leave me all alone?

Cébès: It is over!—And the daybreak that kindles the sea to flame and with far-reaching fires

"Put the table under the tree for we shall eat out of doors."—How beautiful the night is!

And like the smell of the cupboard in which the bread is kept and like the breath of the oven when the door of it is opened,

(tête-d'or remains motionless for an instant, then he lays down the body, shuddering.

Will pucker his face into the same wrinkles when he is roaring with laughter. Thus they bawl and contort their mouths. Puppets!

I would as soon see the lung of a cow that floats at the door of a slaughter-house!

Why should I live? I have no concern with life. I find no pleasure in existence. This is not good for me!

To-day has come and I must show who I am! There is myself to think of! It must be done!

Alone against them all! I will march forward and I will maim with the blow of an armored fist the slimy muzzle of bestiality!

I will speak before this assembly of slovens and cowards. And either I will perish at their hands or I will found my appointed empire!

(Tremendous hubbub outside. Slamming of doors. Calls on the stairs. Enter a great crowd of people. Prominent among them is the tribune of the people. Three or four women accompany him. He is surrounded with people who jostle him and shake hands with him. Beside him, carrying his overcoat, is the go-between. In the group are the high prefect, the schoolmaster, and other public officials. Also the brother of the king. Among the others is the king to whom no one pays the slightest attention. Those representing the people are dumb actors. Enter after everyone else the man out of office. He holds himself apart with three or four ill-dressed people. No one appears to notice the presence of tête-d'or, although all keep a certain distance away from him.

(The hall is filled in a moment and through the open door one can see people crowding the vestibule and lining the stairs and climbing on benches to see better. All talk at once. Noise of many feet.

The Tribune of the People (speaking and laughing very loudly, in sudden outbursts): Ah, well, yes, it is I, here I am.—Good morning, old fellow.—Eh?—Good morning.—Perfectly mad about me, aren't you! Just can't get along without me! Oh! Oh! Oh!—What's that, my dear?—Good morning,—Yes, sir!—Don't eat me. There is something for everyone! Ouf! Good morning!—Make room for me, I am far from small!

And how about the automatic guns? I shall attack him before the assembly. We shall see!

Someone (of his following, in a low voice): Do you know the story about him and the wife of the High Prefect? He had set up an establishment with the wife of the Paymaster-General,

A Citizen (loudly to the tribune of the people): Sir, you have saved the State!

The Tribune of the People: Don't say that! I love my country, Sir! (Very loudly) I did not despair of my country!

The Go-Between (excitedly): The whole city is roused. They are all clamoring for you. You must speak to them from the balcony.

(Someone passes a paper to the tribune of the people. the go-between reads it over his shoulder.

(The go-between goes out on to the balcony. He can be seen bending over the rail and waving his arms. The tribune of the people takes the arm of the high prefect and walks across the hall with him, talking and gesturing.

The Tribune of the People (pointing sideways at tête-d'or with his chin): Eh?

Shall I say the enervation? in which we were. One does not like that, once the panic is past.

(The tribune of the people goes out on the balcony and is seen speaking in the glow of the dawn.

(Bursts of applause from time to time. Uproar in the hall. Groups form here and there, one of them around the bed of cébès. Noise of a breaking pane in the upper story.

A Citizen (all alone in the midst of the hall, contemplating the tribune of the people): What a man! What a bag of wind!

(The tribune of the people, smiling, re-enters the hall, and looking about for the king, he finds him and leads him out on to the balcony. He is seen to speak, patting the king on the shoulder.

The Go-Between (who stands near the high prefect, glancing quickly and furtively in all directions, and especially towards tête-d'or) (to the high prefect in a low voice): What do you think of him, eh?

Someone (in a low voice): Why are there no lights? The dawn makes us look hideous.

(The crowd recoils, leaving the king, with his brother beside him, in front, opposite tête-d'or. To the right and behind the king, the high prefect, the schoolmaster and the other officials of the Government, to the left the tribune of the people, the man out of office. A young man, with the group of women, stands close to tête-d'or.

—The pallid morn illumines the mud of the roads, And under the hedges the cabbage leaves and the flowers

A Fat Woman (of about fifty standing near tête-d'or, in a loud voice): Speak, general, what have you to say?

As for you, I scarcely know who you are or what is the meaning of this assembly.

But it is well. I will speak before this rabble and they shall hear what I have to say.

I say that this land was like an estate without a master, like a building that robbers themselves have abandoned, taking even the locks and bolts.

O King! they left you alone in your palace and old women brought their goats to pasture in your garden.

Everything was piled in a heap, and like cowards, the citizens lifted their impotent hands in air.

I appeared in the market-place! I appeared in that land made desolate, bringing the force of hope to a perishing people,

I hurled the enemy to the ground and tore the sword from his hand. I killed the lion that sprang upon you to devour you.

What have you done for me? I wandered your roads like a vagabond. My bed was the breast of the earth.

Weigh me, measure me. Study each foot as you would with a horse, and put my teeth to the test.

Another: His voice is strange. It strikes the heart so that it vibrates like a plucked string and gives out notes.

Listen to me, O you that hear through the ear and the hole that pierces the skull!

Listen to the command, listen to the word that ordains, hearken to intelligence!

For who shall fix the limits of the intelligence and the place where it is stayed, and who shall set a bound to the power of its arm?

To establish itself on a royal seat, on the throne of the memory and the will. It is my wish

(The man out of office makes an exclamation. The go-between seems disturbed and agitated and looks to left and right.

The Tribune of the People (to tête-d'or): If I have rightly understood what you just said, young man, you are asking for absolute power.

The Tribune of the People: You heard! It was not I who put the words in his mouth!

Perhaps he would say that you were not your country's sole defender and we should hear the true account of how these events occurred.

We advertised broadcast all that we had done according to the measure of the power with which in that hour of peril the people honored us,

(He slowly lifts his right hand) Here I swear it to you! (he holds it uplifted) and I ask you all to join me in the oath!

No, my friends! Your pardon! Not that! A man is only a man. Do not say that I did it all, I alone.

The Tribune of the People (slowly and impressively): My friends, honor to the people of our country!

The Tribune of the People: As for you, sir, we shall recognise what you were able to do

(He likewise crosses his arms and plants himself beside the tribune of the people, confronting tête-d'or.

The Man Out of Office: Hah! Who do you think that you are, sir? All men are equal!

The Tribune of the People: Don't flatter yourself that the people will consent to renounce their rights!

I say to you, kill me while there still is time! You are a cityful and I am all alone. Kill me, then!

(He shakes his head violently. His helmet drops off and his long yellow hair falls down on to his shoulders. He becomes very red. All are silent and stare at him open-mouthed.

Unconquerable. And I say to you that there is no one here, however vile, that I do not wish

But like the Sphinx, shrilling momentous cries, the flying horse, woman-breasted, eagle-taloned!

(the tribune of the people, the man out of office and the others withdraw a little leaving in front the group of the king and his officials.

The High Prefect: Sire, will you make no answer? Why do you stand there motionless and mute, like a man who does not hear or one who has nothing at stake?

For he who demands must give an equivalent return, And you offer us nothing but stand before us with dishevelled hair,

And say that you wish to be Master and he who speaks unchallenged, and that you would seat yourself

Tête-d'or: You have not answered well, Schoolmaster. You think you are very wise and in truth you are only an ignoramus.

And that is why society exists. Men join together that each may serve his neighbor.

I shall beat upon the drum and the sound shall be heard in the four corners of the earth, and I shall reunite all that is male about me.

Woman, your son is no longer your son! I shall take the peasant from his plough, I shall take the man from his trade, and I shall bid the bridegroom rise from the bed of his bride, and I shall divide the flesh from the flesh!

Clear the path to the throne, such as it is, and I shall mount on a table to speak to the multitude, and I shall tread it under my feet.

Respect that which is mine. Respect the possessions of the father of the family.

This kingdom was made by my fathers and I am its rightful monarch according to the law of inheritance.

And I am like a man who goes about his estate, saying, "These trees were planted by my father.

Belonged to his cousin, who died, leaving no children, and it was gotten after a lengthly lawsuit.

And yonder farm was part of my grandmother's wedding portion; her marriage is still remembered."

Thus my fathers sat, throned in their wooden armchairs, ruling honestly, giving ear to the needs of their people and settling their differences.

And the people held them in reverence although often they were harsh and unjust and gluttonous and overfond of women.

And me they have found too old and they have set me aside, like an old man who remains wherever they place his chair.

When it opens wide to receive the carts, piled high with the harvest, that the horses straining their utmost can barely draw.

Do not take what is mine; do not despoil my daughter. For where will be the blessing that you will earn among men

For I am like a first-born son forced from his heritage, whose place the steward has taken, the son of a favored slave.

Your right, I do not know what it is. But as for me, despised by all, I have sworn in my misfortune and in my solitude

Tête-d'or: Out of my way, old man! For your hour is over and the night is past and another day is born.

(Stir of horror in the crowd and tremendous confusion, spreading and increasing to the furthest recesses of the hall and to the lower story. Then a sort of silence.

(A great noise, the uproar commencing below and spreading to the back of the hall. The spectators of the front rows are very pale and stand as if fascinated, staring with an expression of horror and curiosity at the blood, which pours forth on the floor in a great stream, tête-d'or laughs.

And as for this contract, if there is anyone who putting his hand upon you has made you convey yourselves to this ancient shadow,

(With a violent movement he tears of his sword and throws it into the midst of the crowd.

(He stamps his foot violently. He casts his eyes about the hall with a savage glare, then bringing them back to the king, who is stretched at his feet, he laughs, and, raising his hand to his face, smears it with blood.

You have watered me with your blood and I am covered with it like one who sacrifices,

Do you say nothing now? I say to you that you have no power to act and this is the reason why.

And the first is ignorance through which you cannot answer yes or no, but stand open-mouthed like men bereft of their wits.

And the second is the woman, on whom there hangs a curse; and she was made to remain at home and submit to the strong and capable hand; but you have taken the woman to be your mistress.

Like a nurse that overlies a child you lay upon me; but I have risen and dashed you to the earth.

(He marches across the hall with an ominous air, then halting, he turns towards them.

By the team of the winds that drag their roller over the tossing mass of roaring forests! By the winter

With its wind that bends the pines, routs the battalions of clouds, and riddles with sand the withered potato leaves; and with its blinding snow;

And with its flooding rain that bombards the roads and the bushes and the windmills and the ploughed fields!

Someone (his eyes fixed on the blood): I have never seen the shedding of human blood!

—Utter a bitter cry, my soul, rush forward! Men, I propose to wash away your shame and to lift you from your baseness.

And, having drawn you up in lines and columns, to advance with you against the whole world,

That you may become acquainted with all the earth, and indeed that you may make it yours

(Murmur in the crowd. Four groups form. In the first the tribune of the people and his adherents. In the second the man out of office. In the third, the officials of the state. In the fourth, the brother of the king.

The Tribune of the People (shouting): Never! I will not permit the setting up of a tyrant.

(He goes to the Second Group. To the man out of office, pointing to the tribune of the people.

The Man Out of Office: Does he plan to make himself dictator? I shall oppose him in that. I prefer the other one.

The Go-Between (to the brother of the king): He says that he wants to have them crown the daughter of the King.

It is to me that the crown reverts. What does Tête-d'or intend to make of this little kingdom here?

The Go-Between (in the group of the officials): Well? Which? What do you say? The daughter or the brother?

The Chief Justice: The brother? Never. A thoroughly impractical theorist. A man unstable as water. And he would always be close at hand watching whatever we do. I prefer the ruler that's far away.

Tête-d'or: Tribune of the People, my sword is close beside you. Pick it up and bring it to me.

You are the ruler, do what you please. You are like a man with a knife in his hand before a loaf of bread.

Then I will draw you myself, O sword disdained that no one cares to take! O how you rest in your sheath!

O people whose tongues stutter and stammer, here is a searching question between my hands!

You are plunged in indescribable ignorance, but the illusion lies where he who does not know declares that he knows.

And if anyone is tired of this scurvy tailor's life, let him come and follow me! If there is anyone

Dissatisfied with this vile, monotonous afternoon devoted to the process of digestion, let him come and follow me!

And I will march before you, holding the sword in my hand, and already there is blood upon its blade.

Yes, and thereat eternity may take a voice and lament. She shall not shake my royal heart.

Against the man whose soul in the uttermost depths of shadow, in the crowning horror of silence, stands firm

Anything save an immortal desire, take it and cast it on the dunghill for a hen to carry away in her beak!

Cassius (rushing forward): Will none of you speak? Who dares to say "What shall we do?"

As for me I shall follow you, O King! Here you are again, O King, like a rose preserved in honey! Hail!

And it was I, all unworthy, my breast distended with an intolerable joy, who bore the tidings hither.

Were not afraid to tear your veil before this shadowy country and to reveal yourself!

Splendid, saturate with Aurora, fleece imbrued with the blood of the Mother, token of freedom,

I will dare! I will turn my steps to a place where never a leaf nor tinkling spring

Unafraid shall I go forth, like a flaming tree! And like the sun I shall descend to drink.

The Brother of the King (advancing): O Tête-d'or, you have killed my brother!

And you have taken his crown, despoiling his daughter and me, and in the place of the ancient right you put a right that is new.

But you have placed the crown upon your head. And that it is to which I am attached, and I am as it were a witness of this new wedding.

My brother is no longer my brother and his daughter is my niece no more, and if occasion demands I will give you my aid against her and against your enemies.

The Officers of State (coming forward according to their rank and taking his hand): We salute you,

Tête-d'or: Do your duty, you who are like the senses of the King and like his memory.

The Tribune of the People (coming forward and raising his hand): I salute you, O King.

Do not trust that man nor the others.... I will watch your enemies and keep an eye on all.

Tête-d'or: Thanks, dog of the gardener! Be active and vigilant and I will give you your part.

(All have trodden in the blood of the king. The whole stage is covered with footprints and there are the marks of bloody hands on the walls.

(cassius, who was behind tête-d'or, now steps in front of him and kneels again. tête-d'or slowly lowers his eyes till their glances meet and they stare at each other with a certain wildness in their gaze.

Cassius: O golden hope, most cherished violence, arriving at the end of our dreary day

And my cry is Forward! Let every man arise! Bring forth the chariots and the cannon!

And let us go out from this wearisome ravine, that the wind of the open sky and the warmth of the sun may strike upon our faces!

—I turn my steps to a region where the drum is never silent, where the baldric is never turned,

To a road that is bordered with fire, a place of brutal acts and terrible cries!

I shall march! I shall fight! I shall crush the barrier beneath my conquering feet! I shall break the vain resistance like rotten wood!

The Princess: Victorious Tête-d'or! My father bade me come to give you greeting!

Who has come before you and from whose darkened face you have removed the sombre veil.

(tête-d'or stands, sword in hand and crowned, his feet on the wide robe of the king. To his right, the brother of the king and the Magistrates of the republic. To his left the Representatives of the people. The bystanders make a hedge on both sides leaving a free passage to the door.

(The princess slowly stretches out her arms and kneeling she kisses the ground, where she remains prostrate.

(Two women lift her up clasping her under the arms and she stands before tête-d'or, her head bowed on her breast.

In the glory of youth and beauty, like a sunflower upturning its beaming face to the sun,

And now, poor child, you are like a shattered blossom, like the sunflower stripped from its stalk, turning its drooping face to the earth!

I knew you all by your names, I have grown up among you and now you have betrayed me.

O you in whom my father trusted as in a son, putting his arm about your neck! And you! And you! O teacher that taught me from childhood, you also are ranked with my foes!

The Brother of the King: Young girl, I do not know you! But I am he who stands at the right hand of the Prince.

O King of this country, august as the ascension of the hand when it begins the sign of the cross,

They have thrown you aside like a worthless thing, like a bone that one tosses to dogs!

And they bear your blood on the soles of their shoes, and upon the sides of their den

Listen to me, O you who are gathered here about this pool of blood. The thought of your pernicious hearts is laid bare!

You do not want me to be your queen! And I renounce you also and will trouble you no more.

All! All! Take all again! O vanities, I divest myself of you, and I shall go forth naked from this place!

Tête-d'or: Do you think to astonish me, young girl, do you think that I am afraid of you?

And his blood spurted upon me, and he tumbled at my feet, writhing in the agony of death.

I put him to death as was just, and the punishment meted out did not exceed the crime.

What is a man that is dead? And who exists beyond the grave to still be mindful of us?

The Princess: The blood of my father is on you. It has fallen upon you like rain,

Tête-d'or: Joyfully, joyfully, I accept the omen! So be it! So be it! I long to see that day!

Let the vein of my heart be pierced, let my blood leap forth like a lion, let it gush like a subterranean sea beneath the iron of the drill.

O sacred dead, let me touch you and be not angry thereat, for these are the hands of your daughter.

Even so I shall bear you away, O sole remaining possession, O my dead and fallen race.

(With difficulty she puts the body on her shoulders and goes out, carrying it thus on her back.

Tête-d'or: Though every heart should glut itself with anguish it shall not shake me for mine is full to the brim!

For it is not fitting that I should soil by commerce with the dead the Majesty of Empire.

(Increasing murmur outside. Confused noise of bells and voices. Discharge of cannon at regular intervals. All go out except cassius. Military music is heard approaching amid a tremendous hubbub. All at once it breaks of and loud cries are heard, which draw nearer, and the noise of an armed crowd running.

(They enter the palace. Frightful clamor. The soldiers, some of them carrying their standards, crowd into the hall. Others enter through the windows. Rattle of sabres on the stairs. The discharge of firearms. Scene of confusion through which can be heard only the cry, "Tête-d'or!"

(He vainly tries many times to make himself heard. At last there is a kind of silence.

Cassius (shouting at the top of his voice): He is not dead, but has made himself our King!

(Discharge of artillery in the court. The hall fills with smoke through which largely enters the light of the sun.

Act III

The Caucasus. A natural terrace in a lofty place, opening toward the North and the East and surrounded by colossal trees. A formidable vertical trench is open towards the West, cutting through the mountain like a street.

Night. All the upper part of the scene is occupied by the constellation of the Great Bear, distinguishable through the mist. From below at a great depth the rumble of wheels and the jingling of harness, suggesting the passing of troops.

The princess, clothed in leaves and the skins of animals, is stretched on the ground.

Will this dreadful night never end? And yet already I see the stars of morning, and Mars, ruddy and golden, gleams above my head.

O constellations bending over man, O shining city in the skies of night, take pity on me!

But now the mountain is full of unaccountable noises and I do not know whither to go.

(Hoof-beats without. Enter on horseback cassius bearing the Sword. He rides to an eminence from which he can observe the whole country.

This is the threshold that opens on the everlasting North and the regions of the sunrise.

Here is the rampart; the slanting joint through which Europe is bound to the Earth of the Earth.

Cassius: The earth is unrolled like a carpet. And the distance is veiled in mist.

(The chief of staff and another Captain dismount and taking tête-d'or's horse by the bridle they lead him to the place where cassius stood.

Toiling upwards we have reached the level of the world and here the ascent is over.

"The Door" this place is called, for here in ancient times, the wandering peoples of the Plain, at this high pass,

Halted to sacrifice, as the bones will testify, offering fire to the gods of Space,

Another Captain: Strange beings inhabit this mountain. This has the hide of a beast, the hair of a woman.

(He hands them his gourd. They put it to her lips. She drinks and indicates by gestures that she can stand alone.

The Captain: Sire, will you not keep this bread for yourself? For the day will be long and hard.

Tête-d'or: I am not hungry. And see how she is clothed against the chills of the night in this bleak place.

—O herald, your armor mirrors the red disk of the sun, and you are all agleam!

The Deserter (starting up from the thicket where he had been lying in wait): Give me your bread!

(He doffs his hat and awkwardly makes a pretence of bowing, in mockery. Then he stares at her chuckling without saying anything.

Don't pretend that you can't understand what I say. See, the red is creeping to your cheeks. Ah! Ah!

Do you think I don't know you? Others perhaps might not recognise you, but I, I recognise you!

(He strikes her with all his strength. She falls to the ground, then, rising, she stands before him, motionless.

One by one I can cut off your limbs with my knife if such should be my humor. Do you hear?

Ah! Ah! So you do not recognise me? I had a place in the palace, in the kitchens! Eh? You didn't trouble your pretty head about the likes of me! It was I who seasoned the dishes to suit your gullet.

And you thought of me no more than if I had been a rat, or a snake in the cranny of a wall.

The Deserter: Why was your father, old scamp that he was, made king instead of me?

Why is it that some have all they want, as much as they wish to drink and eat, and that others have nothing at all?

I am a married man and I had children dependent on me, yet I had to work in the fields. I was not made for that sort of labor, I have my certificate.

If the bread were turned to someone who had a nose and a mouth and it commanded you to do its will

Yet he has not even the right to keep it for himself, but here I take it from you again, by force.

The Princess: What do you mean to do with me? Why do you take me beneath this gloomy tree?

The Deserter: There is a hawk that someone has fastened by the wings to the trunk of this pine with two nails. See how its head droops.

The Deserter (pulling out the nails): They do not hold firmly.—They can be used again. That stone will be my hammer.

The Princess: I tell you this, my friend. These hands that do not know how to work

And those who saw me took no thought of food and, young or old, their hearts burned within them.

Alas, my beauty has abandoned me! If it were otherwise you would not wish to kill me nor would you have humiliated me in such rude fashion, striking me in the face.

Should not accept the excuse that you did not know who I am and your name should be a thing accursed forever.

For I was the honor of our native land and there is no more beauty there since I am there no longer.

And what will they say if they learn that it was you who killed me, nailing me thus?

Will you dare to raise your hand against me? What common ground can there be between me and you?

(He finds a large stone and mounts on it. Seizing the right arm of the princess he fastens it to the tree with a cord; then spreading out the fingers he manages with much difficulty to drive a nail through the hand.

The blood jets from my hands! But in spite of these arms made fast above my head, I remain what I have been.

(He slowly eats his bread to the last mouthful, without removing his eyes from her, and, picking up the crumbs, he swallows them.

The Deserter: Fasten the pelt more closely around your shoulders for it exposes the flesh beneath the arm, and it is not fitting you should uncover yourself so before a man.

Ah! Ah! The tears are flowing from your eyes! Now I can die, for I have seen you weep!

And, rearing up, they will rend you piece-meal and tear your limbs from your body,

—O light that fills all space! O sun that makes the day, like a judge considering everything!

See me pinioned thus, and these nails that are buried up to the head in my hands.

(Long silence which is supposed, to last many hours and during which the stage remains empty.

(Enter from the left the standard bearer on horseback with the subalterns and the Escort. The first subaltern mounts upon a rock.

The Second Subaltern: Why is it that the King did not take his standard with him?

The Standard Bearer: I do not know for till to-day I always stood at his side, when, at the crisis of the battle, he mounted on his horse,

The Standard Bearer: And we also remain motionless at this threshold of the world.

Assuredly you will see the King of the world reigning, but you have not seen what we have seen!

Terror and bewilderment march before him, and, as if they did not know how to use them,

And they have arisen against him like the sea, and they have subsided and lapped the dust at his feet.

And the submarine volcanoes appear like sunken lotus flowers and like fountains of gushing wine!

Assuredly it is just that we should adore like a god one who commands with wisdom.

Thus his power increases, image of boldness divine and of justice that cannot be moved,

The Standard Bearer: Never has such an army been seen! And one would think it was led by Love himself.

(Pause. Vague clamor in the distance. All keep their eyes fixed on the Standard.

The Standard Bearer: The Standard of the Empire is here, but they march under various ensigns.

Fishermen in a bark are throwing their net about him, spurred foresters are mounting towards him through the spreading oaks.

Hoist ocean weeds or the lead of the sounding-line, and floating above them one sees

The Sword-fish with scarlet fins, or the god of the Sea, with eyes of horn, disgorging his tongue like a stone,

Other flags are green like a field, and grass is fastened there and the hair of animals and bones and sacks of earth.

The image of the wheat arises from the furrow amidst a flight of pigeons with outspread wings; and words come out of the mouth,

Others still! And they represent nothing defined, but are like a field of flowering buckwheat,

Or the shimmering azure, full of the leaves of peartrees, when seen through the fringe of drooping lashes,

The Second Subaltern (bending over the precipice): There is someone below who signals that he wishes to come up.

(They do as he says. The cord runs out. Then the soldiers pull it up and after a time an armed man appears hanging from the rope. He comes to the ground.

I will tell you what I saw, and why I fled and could not stay where I was, and called to you to draw me up to this place and not to leave me below.

The Messenger: At least I will tell what I know, for our detail was on guard at the crest of the mountain yonder,

And we saw our army advance in good order across the plain, and the men were like tiny specks.

And at noon they stopped to eat, and then resumed their march, and always we followed them.

The Messenger: Then a smoke arose from the earth and a thick dust blown by a violent wind, blotting out the army,

And one man only remained, alone in the midst of the plain and we recognised who it was

The First Subaltern (bending over the precipice): I see a crowd of men approaching at a gallop.

(They let down the rope after having fastened a large plank to it by means of chains.

(The soldiers hoist the tackle. And soon over the brink of the precipice, on the plank where lies the body of tête-d'or, emerges the group of Captains, so crowded that some dangle their legs in the void, and others are clinging to the chains.

(The group rises almost to the height of the sun, which it obscures, then the tackle turns and the plank slowly descends to the earth. They alight.

A Captain (shouting and indicating the Standard with a gesture): Rend the silk from the ensign and tear the banner in two!

That here we may hold the rites of burial, on this portal of the world, at this place whence all the earth is visible.

Let the woman weep over her first-born son! The man shall cry, mourning the death of his King, and tears shall appear on his face,

Now the earth turns its face towards night, and you, who stood in your place like a mountain, disappear! You see this, Father!

Gaze upon this! Behold it, mountains, and you O forests, that sprang from the fraternal tree!

Let a shudder run through the roots of all that grows because the King of men is dead!

The Standard Bearer (to one of these who is caring for tête-d'or): You hold his hair on your arm and you bury there the comb.

And also the comb buries itself in my soul and I see this as though it were in a dream.

And we saw in their hands the primitive arms and tools, and in their midst were set the kings and the chieftains, and above their heads the ancient idols swayed,

For our forebears descended on Europe, who like a man with outstretched arms lies upon the bosom of the waters,

By the spirits of turbulence and wrath that rise from the restless and uninhabited sea.

Fear entered into us and a distaste for fighting, and for going forward forever on the face of that desert land.

As the nomads of the caravans are wont to cry to each other with an enormous perforated shell, we heard the blowing of a conch or horn!

And nothing could longer restrain us, but the army like one man irresistibly recoiled.

Cassius: This the King saw and he did not try to prevent it, and he alone remained.

Then he threw his sword to the ground, and dismounting from his horse he unbridled it.

Cassius: This we saw! And they threw themselves upon him tooth and nail like savage rats.

And there were some who took him by the arms and others by the legs and others caught at his head from behind,

And we, unhappy wretches, we saw him towering out of the midst of them, engulfed as far as the girdle.

Crying out in a dreadful voice, and with his loins dragging his living prison this way and that!

Sought for the joint of the armor, like a cook who opens a crab with the point of a knife.

What a clear and poignant cry we heard him give, like mighty Pallas feeling the grasp of the Satyr,

Three times we charged that multitude, and in the end, yielding beneath our despair, they scattered like a flock.

Who pursues him like a mountain across the dazzling ricefields, thus they saw our army charging close at their heels.

Let your tears pour forth in floods! Go to your homes and throw yourselves on the ground!

I have brought my host to this desert, confounding marches and battles with things in story books.

Come, do not be afraid! See, I am weak and defenceless! Throw yourselves upon me like animals!

Pour forth its sap like tears! And let me become as red as Mars, and let me be resplendent with your shame

Than some vile candle-end whose liquorous eye pours forth its flame! This wretched body, this ignoble thing,

The King: Bring me health to drink in a cup and hold it to my lips! Restore my strength again!

As on the day the maternal habitation put the male out of doors! Let me be naked!

Open your arms at the moment of your death, and press to your breast in farewell, the sheaf of your geniuses with their sublime faces!

Second Captain: He remembers! He remembers! Wrath enters into him and he rears himself up like a half-killed cat!

The Centurion: Answer us, Tête-d'or! Who will establish justice among the people? The justice that rests on force?

(He tears off the bandages) Rend me, hiccough! Off with you, rag! And let each spring

Creatures who revel in omnipotence, behold me, lying in this cursed place, a wretched man pouring forth streams of blood!

And the troating warrior, like a tower, the shaggy horse with hands of horn! Ah! ah!

—Redness, hole, mouth, gullet of glory, insupportable gate! O you mighty Beings,

Let them cut off my hands and my feet, and to you I will stretch the stumps, and on my bones

Two eyes to see this, stupidly ranged about him, like cattle that gather around a watering-place!

And the wall is so high that the trees that cling there appear like tufts of laurel.

And here and there, detaching themselves from the ancient rock, the forms of monsters watch on the cornices, and what might be the ruins of bygone cities.

And man will not make a higher ascent lest together his path and he plunge headlong!

You, springs, tomb of the forests where I have lived so long, branches charged with malediction, paths, deep-sunken roads,

The King:—A slumber vile, inert, constraining. A detestable oblivion. There only the soul exists.

I have striven with agony. In what have I fallen short of what I might have done? All, all failed!

That cowards may be shamed and infants in the wombs of their mothers may be given ferocious souls!

And they call us, pressing against the base of the cliff, for they think that you are dead.

For I strip myself since they have abandoned me. And to them revert the effects of the deceased.

First Captain: Pardon us, O King! And do not keep your anger against us, but pardon!

Repeated with an idiot's stubborn fury, a confusion of faces and words. All this for a moment.

And yet with attentive ears they hearken to the rustle of laurel leaves or, with wide eyes regarding the holy redness,

And I brought you an order, and this is the order I gave you, I commanded you to go forth!

And I led you up to this empty space. For here is the place where it has been ordained that I should die.

The King: Why, alas? Farewell, my comrades. It was destined that this should be.

The King: Destroy the roads! Block the approaches with stones and the trunks of trees

This will suffice. Do not lament. And do not order my army to display some emphatic sign of grief.

Nor that the sooth-sayer, urging on his plough, sees Tagus sprout from the furrow;

Nothing. It is a matter of no importance. I care but little about that Afterwards

When he has put on his boots, and dashing out, skims over the mud as if he were on wings!

But keep your heart immovable like a millstone, like the holy bonds of your inheritance!

Take a resolution and steadfastly follow it! Tread everything under your feet, your wife and your house and yourself, as you would tread on a garment. Beware of any change! For aside from yourself what is there, can you tell me? And you yourself are something.—Lay your foundations there.

I have believed myself a power more than human, an elemental force! I have appeared in the midst of your monotonous week.

Who, never knowing human incertitude, held to his one inextinguishable desire, is now no more.

First Captain: The future is only a landscape reflected in the water, the past is of less account than a beechnut and the present is nothing at all.

The Master of the Cavalry: See, it is time for us to return, for yonder beyond the mountain,

It is the moment when in summer at the time when cherries are ripe and the air is filled with a universal song

And the children bathe above the mills and naked eat their lunches, while a blanched half-moon is suspended in the sky;

Trees, waters, the borders of ditches, the expanse of ripening fields flame beneath the mysterious splendor of the hour of Saturn.

—Now that it is Autumn perhaps some old woman at home, mother or servant-maid,

Thinks of us as she gathers in the washing from the line or sits in the courtyard working at her sewing.

Birds, that pass in the desert day, flee more swiftly, far away, wild geese and herons!

Arrest with a long and piercing cry the traveller on his road, so that he says to himself, "What has it seen?"

What furnace fires these cantons of gold? What chase leads the wind in the desert and the country of infinite trees? What lament is this that rises?

That it may bear away the flame of his soul, and that the oak may be shaken to its base.

We have let him slip from our hands like flashing gold that falls and sinks in the stream!

(They all go out at the back, except one of the captains who goes in another direction.

The Princess: His soul returns to him. He has been wounded in some combat. He is covered with blood.

The King: What did you say? Draw nearer. I have robbed you of everything. Come and avenge yourself upon my body with the malice only known by women who hate. (He laughs.)

The Princess: It is not just that he should die stretched on the ground here. I must carry him back.

With these maimed hands, these arms that are weaker than tendrils of ivy, this body that cannot even support its own weight.

I have done it! I have rivalled the black ant that drags a burden greater than itself.

The King (he looks at her with friendly eyes): Behold the courage of the wounded, the strength that sustains the weak,

The fellowship of the dying. She could carry me here with these bleeding and dislocated hands.

Through this same meek courage with which you have dragged me here, through this naive endurance,

The woman in her sphere is the image of an inspired resignation, teaching good will to men,

Consider it! I was man! And through me the strength of the man has satisfied his will,

And suddenly I have been broken! I have been thrown, like carrion, under the shadow of a tree!

Those others, I did not wish to have them see me die. But we cannot hide ourselves

The King (scrutinising her): Your face is beautiful and in itself sets forth your sovereignty.

That I have walked the roads with weary feet, in shame and poverty, despised, insulted, denied, and that I have come to this place and that I die!

I die indeed like you! This last, this lingering suffering has frozen me to death.

O let me be like the gathered flower that smells the sweeter, and like the new-mown grass!

O I am happy to think that there is not one of my many sufferings but had its source in you,

Happy is he who can take this rapture in his arms and kiss it on the softness of its cheek!

Dyes golden the saliva on the lips and the tears in the eyes and the dew in its rose-leaf cradle,

Call back the army that I may explain to them everything, having woefully arisen.

Wretched men, most wretched among you all is the person of the King that lies here.

Incarnate suffering, to make your way to me, emerging from the tomb like a man that had been flayed!

As a traveller benighted in bitter cold takes refuge in the entrails of his horse,

Has been enmeshed in a whirling fury, as his face is enmeshed by the soft and terrestrial flame of his hair;

But now I, a better mother, I myself like a rigid son, shall give birth to a hairy soul!

Breast against breast you mingle yourself in my terrestrial blood! Drink the slave!

The people I knew, the times of rejoicing and of mourning, the changes of the weather, the countries I have seen,

The Commander (perceiving the princess): But who is that? Whom have you left beside him?

The Captain: It is most astonishing. I saw them all depart before I set out myself to meet you.

The Commander: Hola! Is there someone living in the shade of the trees and the night?

The Commander: A glimmer of life like the fire in a dying coal. The four limbs are dead; but still the heart stirs beneath the touch of the fingers.

First Officer: Speak to him. Perhaps he will hear. And if he hears he may contrive to speak.

Another Officer (who supports the princess): Ah! A thing horrible and very strange!

The Commander: Who can she be? Let her be Queen? Who? Have any of you seen this wild, creature before?

The Princess: Why should I hide it? Your former King who was killed by that man there....

The Commander: Go search for it, one of you. The royal treasures are packed among our stores.

The Commander: And they place upon your foot the imperial sandal with fastenings of gold.

The Princess: What is there still to do? Throw the mantle over my shoulders. Quick, I am in haste! Fasten this clasp!

The Princess: The sceptre. (They present it to her.) How shall I hold it? (To the commander.) See this hand!

—Oh, that I had been dowered with that soul! Here, all ungrateful more vainly than the urn of Aquarius empties itself....

(Pause. The commander gently and respectfully lays the body of the Queen on the ground.

The laws of custom broken, human weakness surmounted, the obstacle of circumstances

Before our rear-most legion will see its flaming buckler sink in the blackness of the sea.

Exalt these shining feet which thus adorned to tread the earth no more shall retraverse

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tête-d'Or: A play in three acts

TÊTE-D'OR