O I* \ V .-6' V '^.. o^ .x^^ ^^A v'^ ; "c^, ' a'' c> .^:^-^^ .^^ '^^ ' '^v- •\ ./ ~ ,/ .*^^-- * ' (1 , "<> 0^' A^% \^^ ^^^ v^^ \V- ^> ,0 c •*bo^ ^^" % <'- .^"^■f ■ J I- . if .r -0^ .-^^ o H -T-^ •^^ %^ ^ , X V ^ %<^'^ A^^"^^- A-^' .^V" , V^ - •^OO^ .^^ '^'^-. ". ci-, ■:<-, .y ^. J t-.; S^ A' ■^^.. V^^ .#' o .-b,^ V^"^^V\o../-'^ ■fi , ^, cP^ 0^ o - ^ c, ^ V* "^. r. rO ci-. 'X' A>' «*« /// ..\'' o. A^^. ^^ ^'^. Tff^ •>■■: v\^' .'^' , fti- \ ■■ • ~ - - ,*^ ''■*- THE COCKPIT Romantic Drama in Three Acts By ISRAEL ZANGWILL The War God Plaster Saints Chosen People Ghetto Comedies Ghetto Tragedies Italian Fantasies The Melting Pot The Next Religion Jinny, The Carrier The Voice of Jerusalem The King of Schnorrers Children of the Ghetto The World and the Jew The War for the World The Principle of Nationalities THE COCKPIT Romantic Drama in Three Acts, BY ISRAEL ZANGWILL THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1921 All rights reserved Copyright, 1921, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1921. NOV 18 I'd 21 §)C!.A6277'75 Printed in the United States of America TO ALFRED SUTRO My dear Alfred, Your inspiring criticism and commendation of this play while it was still plastic has suggested to me to dedicate it to our old friendship. That friendship was already well and truly laid before "The Walls of Jericho" rose, and it was cemented by holidays to- gether In Europe ere, caught in the coil of passports, visas and commerce-strangling currencies, the inhab- itants of that unhappy Continent had turned into a mutual irritation society. The multiplication of "Sov- ereign States" has intensified the old plague of Custom Houses, and on the eve of a fresh journey across the Channel, I think with horror of the swarms of able- bodied varlets, waiting, in fancy costumes, at every frontier, to turn me out of my train In the middle of the night in any weather, when they ought to be at work reconstructing the Continent of which we are all citizens. For what, in effect, does one find even In the heart of "The Cockpit"? Peasant populations toiling from dawn to darkness, the women following the men to the fields, with distaffs on their backs, and their chil- dren tugging at their skirts, and all for a crust dipped in soup, a song, a folk-tale, or the smile in a baby's eyes. It is hard to tell one people from another. I have not yet learnt what has happened In Valdania or Bosnavina since I dropped the curtain on these quar- relsome countries, but of one thing I am certain — that their individuals are intermarrying. If the politicians would only leave It alone, "The Cockpit," linked as never before by railways, telegraphs, cinematographs and aeroplanes, would become of itself "The Melting Pot." Curiously enough, this pendant to my play on that theme was written near Geneva while the League of Nations was in session — in the Switzerland whose French, German and Italian provinces offer a work- ing model and prophetic emblem of a saner Europe — and it receives its last touches on the eve of the Wash- ington Conference, which provides our war-worn humanity with a fresh spurt of hope. One recalls that it was Abraham Lincoln who said of his countrymen: "We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last great hope of earth." But I am forgetting that for the reader the curtain has not yet risen. I hasten to efface myself, wkh the perhaps superfluous assurance that in accepting the dedication of this play, you, dear Alfred, are in no way committed to its vision or analysis of the factors of "The Cockpit." Believe me in admiration and affection, Yours sincerely, Israel Zangwill. October, 1921. "There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that under- standeth, there is none that seeketh after God. . . . Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues have they used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitter- ness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And the way of peace have they not known." — St. Paul: Epistle to the Romans. "He who chooses to avenge wrong with hatred Is assuredly wretched, but he who strives to conquer hatred with love fights his battle in joy and confidence; he withstands many as easily as one, and has very little need of fortune's aid. Those whom he vanquishes yield joyfully, not through failure, but through increase in their powers. Hatred, which is completely vanquished by love, passes into love." — Spinoza. All performing rights of this play in every country are strictly reserved by the author. Applications for Ameri- can and filming rights should be ad- dressed to Mr. L. A. Steinhardt, of Messrs. Guggenheimer, Untermyer & Marshall, I20 Broadway, New York City, U. S. A. THE COCKPIT Romantic Drama in Three Acts DRAMATIS PERSONAE Nicholas Stone Oliver Randel Duke D'Azollo Colonel the Marquis Fiuma Count Cazotti Baron Gripstein General Roxo The Cardinal The Patriarch Marrobio Captain Theopolou Corporal Vanni Vittorio Duchess D'Azollo Countess Cazotti Norah Peggy A Neiu Yorker with a past An American Architect Ex-Regent of Valdania Governor of the Palace of San Marco Prime Minister of Valdania Financier, afterivards President of the Man-Po'wer Board Governor of Scaletta, afterivards War Minister Head of the Catholics of Valdania Head of the Greek Church in Val- dania A Mahdi, head of the Moslem rebels Of the Rolmenian Cavalry Of the Palace Guards A Pacifist Poet Mistress of the Robes, and Grand Mistress of the Court First Lady of the Bedchamber Nicholas Stone's Irish Servant Of Neiv York and Scaletta Court Officials, Dames and Maids of Honour, Pages, Choristers, Priests and Guards. The action passes in our day. Act I at Nicholas Stone's Sitting-Room in Nevj York, Acts H and HI in the Throne Room of the old San Marco Palace at Scaletta, the capital of Valdania. Act I The scene represents a spacious sitting-room in New York on a sunny afternoon in the spring. The room is soberly furnished, but with every sign of ease and refinement. A central table of fine wood. A grand piano littered with music stands by the right wall — right from the actor's point of view, not the spectator's — at L. a desk with a telephone, and a waste-paper basket holding a Sunday paper, etc. A door in the right wall leads to the kitchen regions, a curtained portal to the left towards the upper regions, while the door in the back wall gives access to the entrance hall. As the curtain rises, NORAH, an Irish servant of ^5, is ushering in OLIVER RANDEL, a manly young American, who carries a portfolio. NORAH [Grumpily, in an Irish accent modified by years of A 7n eric a] Sit right down! I'll tell Mr. Stone you're here again. OLIVER Oh I know he's always busy on his books. Miss Stone will do as well NORAH [frith sardonic humour] Miss Peggy? You're sure she'll do as well? OLIVER [Enthusiastically] Quite ! NORAH She's out. OLIVER Oh! . . . Where? NORAH On her horse. [OLIVER makes an instinctive move doorwards.] She'd keep you on the run — like a movie. And Mr. Stone'll keep you waiting, like a dentist. OLIVER [Sitting down] Oh, I've time to burn. May I look at that paper? [Points to waste-paper basket.] NORAH [Astonished] Yesterday's? OLIVER The Sunday paper is like the Sunday roast — it lasts days. [ NORAH extracts it.] Thanks . . . just the one I haven't seen . . . No, never mind the comic part! NORAH Faith, there's nothing heartening in the rest — if half the headlines is true, I'm sorry I ever came to America ! 2 OLIVER [Busy turning the pages'] But think how you'd be oppressed, if you had stopped in Ireland I NORAH I guess if we Irish got top-dog here, we'd oppress America! [Turns to go upstairs. Her eye catches a comic illustration.'] Gee! That's funny! OLIVER [Staring eagerly at a picture] Ah, here it is! NORAH Here what is? [Turns back."] OLIVER Oh, nothing. NORAH Then why didn't you say so? . . . [Resumes walk to stairs.] You're in luck. There's the master coming down. You can tell him you're here yourself. [Moves slowly towards R., her head bent over paper, her face agrin. Enter NICHOLAS STONE, a noble, white-bearded, spectacled veteran, with the scholar's stoop and shabbiness. He comes peering into his desk at L.] NICH. [Surprised, as he perceives the visitor] Mr. Randel? OLIVER [Rising] I intrude, I fear. But I'm going West to-morrow. NICH. Going West, young man? Obeying Horace Greeley? OLIVER It's the big new University they're to build NICH. Oh, ah — the how many million dollar University? And have you sent in your design yet? OLIVER It's all over. I've won. Out of eighty-three com- petitors ! NICH, [Seizes his hand] I congratulate you. OLIVER My picture was in all the Sunday papers. NICH. [Dropping his hand] I take back my congratulations. OLIVER [Smiling] Oh, sir, you may gird at our press — but at least they give an architect as much space as an assassin. 4 NICH. Not quite. You've got your hand on a full-page pic- ture of General Roxo. OLIVER [Lookinff at it and reading] "Valdania's grand old man." You are severe. NICH. What are all these national heroes but glorified assas- sins? [/Is NORAH is going out] Coffee, Norah, please. NORAH [Gurgling over paper] Sure ! [Exit with heaving shoulders.] OLIVER [Proffering portfolio] Would you like to see my design? NICH. [Waving it aside] Ah, I know how good American architecture is, and the best out of eighty-three ! If I could only be as sure the University will teach Americanism ! People have such a mania for buildings — theatres before they've got plays, opera-houses before they've got music. OLIVER [Opening portfolio] But that's just what my design expresses — Ameri- canism. NICH. Mayflower Americanism? OLIVER Of course! Note the severe and solemn lines — the old Puritan Americanism which the slums of Europe are swamping. NICH. {JVaving it away] I thought you didn't understand. No man born here can — no man who hasn't suffered from Europe! No, Mr. Randel, that old Puritan America wasn't America. OLIVER Not America? NICH. No. Only England over again — writ even narrower. America is still being born — born out of the travail of all races. God help the world if she proves an abor- tion — if she hardens into the same old nationalism as Europe-^the same old fetish of the flag. OLIVER [Fiercely] Fetish? NICH. [Laying a fatherly hand on his shoulder] Yes, I know you offered your life in the Great War OLIVER Oh, I only flew — it was much safer than the trenches. 6 NICH. Tell that to the marines! But anyhow it was for our ideal you adventured, not our flag. OLIVER The flag stands for it. NICH. Flags have a way of standing only for themselves. In all history there has been only one honest flag — the skull and cross-bones! OLIVER You are cynical, sir. NICH. On the contrary. My faith is so burning that it re- duces the toughest shams to tinder. [Extends hand.] I'm afraid I must get back to my book. The Nemesis of Nationality; a good title, is it not? OLIVER [Holding out his hand] Yes, but NICH. [Dropping his hand] You don't think it a good title? OLIVER It's a bully title. But ... but unless I see Miss Stone to-day I mayn't be able to say good-bye to her. 7 NICH. I will convey your adieux. OLIVER [Embarrassed] I'd rather convey them myself. . . . You see now that the papers . . . [Correcting himself has lily.] I mean, now that I'm making good, I want — I want to ask — her advice ! NICH. Little Peggy's advice ! Why, she's wrapped up in her music — she knows nothing of the world ! No, no, my young friend, if you want advice, come to me. You mayn't think it, to see me buried in books, but I've been quite a man of affairs in my time — when you were both in your cradles! Come now, what is the trouble? OLIVER You're so busy. I'd rather wait for her. NICH. But that's so dull for you. What could you do? Ah, you could read my MS.? OLIVER [Joyously] The very thing I wanted ! NICH. [Beaming] Come along then — I'll put you on the roof-garden. [The telephone bell rings.] 8 Ah, why would Peggy Insist on that? Do get the MS. yourself — you know my study. [OLIVER exit L. NICHOLAS ffoes to telephone] Yes, I'm Mr. Stone. ... I can't hear. ... Of course I'm home, but who's speaking? General Secre- tary? General Secretary of what? Corpo li Bacco, they've rung off. [Enter NORAH with coffee-tray.] NORAH I'm so glad you've got rid of him. NICH. Mr. Randel? He's waiting upstairs for Miss Peggy. [Her tray rattles.] What's the matter? NORAH Can't you see he's a thief? Oh, he won't pinch your books! It's a body-snatcher, he is! NICH. [Dazed] A body-snatcher? NORAH It's Miss Peggy he's after! NICH. Eh? Nome di Dio, what would the house be without her? But no ! no ! he's going West. He only came to say good-bye! 9 NORAH The most dangerous word of all ! Get him West be- fore he can put his tongue to it. [Puts tray on table.] NICH. [Agitated'] I'll get rid of him at once. . . . [Goes L. Pause.] But it's a pity to disturb him in the middle of my MS. After all, he can't carry her off this afternoon! NORAH He can carry her heart off. NICH. Well, but why not? . . . Some years hence, of course. . . . He seems a gifted young man NORAH A farmer's son for the likes of her ! NICH. Ah, but remember, Norah, in her peculiar situation it's not so easy to find a suitable — indeed, perhaps the humbler the young man's origin the better ! NORAH Sure, you're joking. NICH. Not at all. Because — don't you see? — his folks will make fewer inquiries. They won't go poking into the ID past, they and their lawyers, demanding pedigrees, birth-certificates, who knows? We are rich — that will cover everything. NORAH I guess you're right. I hadn't thought of the family ferreting out that Miss Peggy is a NICH. Sh! NORAH All the same, she can do better than this Mr. Randel. Besides, he's a Protestant! . . . I'll run up and tell him the 'phone message was to say she won't be home till morning. NICH. [Smiling] What a brilliant liar you are! NORAH Sure, It's as easy as truth! [Goififf L.] NICH. [Sighing] Ah, truth's not always so easy. . . . You've never breathed a word to her about Valdania? NORAH Faith, I've nigh forgotten the country exists — I almost believe with the darlint she was born In New York! II [Going towards stairs L.] As for the language, divil a word do I remember ex- cept Cor pa di Bacco! NICH. Too late, Norah, I hear her latchkey. NORAH [Returning] That young man has the divil's own luck ! Anyways, don't leave 'em alone, sir. Two's courtship and three's conversation. [Exit R.] [PEGGY in a riding-habit dashes through central door, flushed from her ride, a radiant figure, whose face mirrors with tremidous flashings an eager young soul untarnished by experience.] PEGGY [Leaving door open and rushing to piano- music] Where's my "Neapolitan Fantasy"? NICH. What's up? PEGGY [Searching wildly] I met Teresa — she wants to take the manuscript to Europe — she sails Saturday. NICH. But why can't Teresa travel without your manuscript? 12 PEGGY She's going to show it to a publisher, stupid. There's more chance over there. NICH. But / offered to publish it PEGGY No, no, it mustn't be paid for — my music must win out of itself. Ah, here it is ! [Picks up MS. music] Heigho ! Teresa set me just hungering for Europe ! NICH. You would leave daddy? PEGGY I'd take him too. NICH. There's too much globe-trotting, carissima. People ought to stay put. [Closes door.] PEGGY At that rate, daddy, you'd be in England. [Rolling up MS.] NICH. [Embarrassed] Yes, but Is that the piece suggesting Naples during an earthquake? 13 PEGGY An eruption of Vesuvius. NICH. Ah, an eruption. It should be popular with pianists. They love fireworks. PEGGY Don't tease. \^Lays music-roll on table.'] What appalling cups! [Rings bell by door sharply, then starts taking of her riding-hat. Enter norah.] Why these dreadful enamelled cups? NORAH Faith, the master is that fond of toasts, the gentlemen always crack 'em together — they forget it's coffee, not drink. I tan't have my best china chipped. PEGGY Rubbish! You give the house too poor an appear- ance as it is, monopolising the work, scarcely allow- ing us even a cook. NORAH [Bridling] I guess I've made Mr. Stone comfortable all these years. PEGGY In our position we ought to have a proper staff. 14 NORAH I'm not going to have more servants — they'd only- make more work for me! PEGGY Don't talk to me in that tone ! NICH. [Upset] Peggy ! PEGGY Take away those cups ! NORAH [Overawed] Yes, miss. PEGGY [Stamping foot] But you're not doing it! NORAH I must get my tray, miss. [Exit humbly R.] PEGGY [Smiling] You see, daddy, you let her domineer too much ! NICH. I see you are your father's daughter! PEGGY I like that! Why, you don't even assert yourself. 15 NICH. [Confused] I — we — I mean I can't assert myself against Norah. ,We both owe her too much. PEGGY Oh, I know she nursed me and all that. But all the same [norah returns with tray and the new china.] I'm sorry, Norah, I spoke severely. NORAH Bless you, Miss Peggy, I like it when you talk like that — it's only natural. PEGGY No, it isn't, it's unnatural. Haven't you been almost a mother to me? NORAH [Blubbering] Don't, Miss Peggy, or I'll be dropping my best china. [Goes to table and changes cups.] Divil take the "Drys." I've been in many God-for- saken places, but never one where you had a detective down your throat! [Exit R.] NICH. [Laughingly] That's another reason for not going to Europe — you said you were hungering for it, but people would think you were thirsting. i6 PEGGY Don't pretend to be a Philistine ! You know very well that we Americans have no romance, no art, no music . . . NICH. I ought to have known college turns out Europe-snobs ! Parasites on her decaying civilisation. I ought never to have let you learn Italian, You'll end with the gang in Florence who won't go home ! PEGGY But if America shocks them! NICH. A shock is God's message to set what shocks you right. PEGGY You can't remedy rawness. NICH. More easily than rottenness. I wonder what your idea of a European city is. Naples, I suppose, with Vesuvius in continuous performance. PEGGY No, daddy, my European city snuggles among snow- mountains that play bo-peep with you through the mists. And at their feet the women sing strange, sad songs as they strip the vines. 17 B NICH. What's the matter with Cahfornla? PEGGY [Not listening, growing more and more rapt] And you look up in terror at the giant's castle perched on the crags and the waterfalls hurling themselves down upon you. NICH. [Uneasily] How about Niagara? PEGGY But in the thirsty summer the giant drinks them up, and you see the mountain-girls coming down to the wells, with their wooden water-kegs strapped on their backs. NICH. [More uneasily] Eh? PEGGY Such enchanting girls — just like those in Matthew Arnold's poem, you know: "The red-snooded Phrygian girls Whom the summer evening sees Flashing in the dance's whirls Underneath the starlit trees In the mountain villages." NICH. [Relieved] Ah, it's from Matthew Arnold you got it! PEGGY I suppose so. It makes me cry to feel it all so fresh and magical. And the white sails on the lake! Like giant butterflies poised on the water. And the steep cobbled streets with Madonnas and beggars at every corner. And the sleepy old mosques and bazaars NICH. [Visibly startled again'] Mosques and Madonnas ! Aren't you mixing things up? PEGGY Now you've blotted out my dream-city! And it was looking so beautiful! . . . [Drops on the music-stool; her fingers abstractedly strike out a strange barbaric melody.] NICH. [Still more agitated] What are you playing? PEGGY Nothing — only a bit of tune that often comes Into my head — I must develop it some day. . . . Ah, there's my dream-city again with the band playing it in the Piazza ! What a motley sun-splashed crowd — fezzes, broidered bodices, gold-braided uniforms, gipsy rags, cockades, turbans, cassocks, gaberdines — and all, as the music crashes, turning Into one great soul that strains up to the balcony! NICH. [Alarmed] What balcony? 19 PEGGY A side of the Palace gives on to the square — and one great shout goes up to it. Viva II Re! Viva II Re! NICH. [Trying to laugh it off] I told you you'd end in Italy! PEGGY [Still dazedly] Is it Italy? NICH. If your dream-mob cheers its King in Italian. PEGGY [Smiling at herself] I suppose it's because there are so few other Kings left! NICH. Fortunately. But you mustn't indulge in day-dream- ing. PEGGY But it's so lovely floating down on the raft. NICH. [Startled again] The raft? PEGGY Seeing the old-world villages on the banks and NICH. Don't, Peggy! 20 PEGGY One must forget Fifth Avenue. NICH. Heavens! You've made me forget Mr. Randel. That coffee is for him. PEGGY Oliver? . . . Mr. Randel, junior, do you mean? NICH. Yes, he's waiting for you — on the roof-garden. Won't you go up to him? PEGGY And why can't he come down — for his coffee? NICH. Well, bring him down. He's got such interesting news. PEGGY The University? I'd already wired my congratula- tions. There's nothing else? NICH. I fancy there is. A much greater subject for congratu- lation. {^Exit PEGGY L., wondering y smoothing her hair. NICHOLAS rings agitatedly. NORAH appears.'] 21 NICH. You said you'd never told Peggy about Valdania. NORAH [Indignantly'] And have I ever even told her what her mother was like? "Look in the glass" is the most she's gotten out of me. NICH. But she's just given me an exact description of Sca- letta ! And played the National Anthem ! NORAH You don't say! The cute little memory! NICH. But she wasn't three. NORAH I wasn't two when mammy gave dad a black eye, but I remember every word of the conversation. Says dad NICH. Never mind that now. I've sent her up to Mr. Ran- del, and I hope she'll say "Yes." The sooner Europe is blotted out the better. And she'll go West with him — still further from Europe. The very husband we need ! NORAH But, Mr. Stone 1 22 NICH. Don't let us fly in the face of Providence. NORAH Providence? And him a Protestant? NICH. And suppose she's the instrument to convert him? NORAH That's so. . . . But if she ain't stuck on him? NICH. She calls him Oliver! NORAH If I had married all the men who called me Norah? Did she hurry up to him when you said he was here? NICH. I'm afraid not. NORAH Then she'll have him. {^JVrings her hands.] Oh, acushla ! Acushla ! NICH. Don't. It's harder on me. . . . Sh! They're com- ing down ! [Motions her kitchenwards.l 23 NORAH [Blubbering] But the children must be brought up CathoHcs ! [Exeunt she R., he C. Enter L. slowly and alone OLIVER, vaguely looking for something. He sees only the Sunday paper with his picture and disgust- edly tears it in two.] PEGGY [From stairs] OHver ! OLIVER [Dropping paper with a joyous cry] Peggy ! PEGGY [Appearing L., coldly] You forgot your portfolio. [Tenders it.] OLIVER [Frozen] Thank you. ... I was looking for it down here. PEGGY [Smiling tremulously] Wouldn't do to go Vv'est without your design. OLIVER Oh, hang my design I [Hurls it away.] PEGGY I guess they'll hang all the designs. OLIVER You're heartless. 24 PEGGY Oh, no, Oliver, I do admire your University. And by the time It's ivy-covered OLIVER I shall be grass-covered. PEGGY Laurel-covered, you mean. You are going to be famous. I am so glad. OLIVER You are spoiling all my success. PEGGY Exactly what I should do. We shouldn't get on to- gether, dear Oliver. OLIVER Because I haven't come back from the war with your reverence for Europe? PEGGY Because I can't feel your reverence for America. I can't sink Into this petty American domesticity. Oh, Oliver, can't you understand? OLIVER Of course I understand — It is the artist in you. But you could go on composing — I should be only too proud of my little singing-bird. 25 PEGGY It Isn't only the call of my music. OLIVER What else, then? PEGGY I don't know. Something strange, from afar — like a call to service — I can't settle down so — so finally. OLIVER But I can wait — years — If only there's an outlook — not a blank window. PEGGY That is not fair to you. No, you must go West un- trammelled. OLIVER That's impossible. [Picks up portfolio. Huskily] Good-bye then. PEGGY . Good-bye. [Desperately] You'll write to me from the University scaffolding! OLIVER [Eagerly] May I? 26 PEGGY Of course. {Holds out hand.] Aren't you going to shake hands? OLIVER [Throwing down portfolio to take her hand in both of his] Oh, Peggy, then you do care a little ! PEGGY You never asked me that. You only wanted to ab- sorb me. OLIVER You darling! [Their lips meet.] PEGGY How wonderful you are! ... It almost seems as if the rest were irrelevant — even music. OLIVER And I thought I was happy when I won the competi- tion! PEGGY I have never even thought I was happy. OLIVER Never happy? You? 27 PEGGY My mother died when I was a baby, and father has always been so busy prophesying. OLIVER My poor little girl! I must make up to her for everything. PEGGY Yes, for everything. [She opens her arms to him.] Oh, Oliver, if I should lose you now! OLIVER Why should we lose each other? I will speak to your father at once. PEGGY No, no! It is all too sacred! OLIVER But, dearest, I leave New York to-morrow. PEGGY [Clinging to him] So soon. Oh! [NICHOLAS heard deliberately humming in the doorway.] OLIVER Ah, here he comes ! [She retreats.] Don't run away! PEGGY I can't face even daddy — yet. . . . Besides, I must change my riding-skirt. A rivederla, carissimo. {Kisses her hands to him and runs of L. Enter NICHOLAS with e la' orate unconcern.] NICH. Well, young man. And how far did you get? OLIVER [Surprised] Eh? [Ecstatically] Oh, sir, Peggy NICH. Peggy? Didn't you read any of my MS.? OLIVER [Embarrassed] Oh, that! I — you see Peggy came up and we — we want to marry. NICH. What! OLIVER I hope you're not angry. NICH. I can't say I'm delighted to be robbed of her. OLIVER Then you consent! 29 NICH. You go as fast as your aeroplane. Sit down, sit down, young man, and let us talk. [They talk.] You realise that there are great differences between you. OLIVER Naturally. Peggy is an angel. NICH. That of course. But I had in mind such things as religion OLIVER After you've come back from the war, you don't take much stock in religion — religious differences, I mean. NICH. [Drily] Yes, religion does usually mean that. But there's race, too. Peggy's not American. OLIVER Gee! Is there any race that's not American? But I knew you were English-born. That's no difference. NICH. But we're not English. Moreover — I meant to carry the secret to my grave, but it is borne in on me as I speak to you that I ought to tell you this much — Peggy is not my daughter. 30 OLIVER Not your ? But she calls you daddy! NICH. She doesn't know. And she must never know. OLIVER [After a pause] I will keep your secret. NICH. It doesn't mean that she won't inherit my wealth. OLIVER Oh, sir, I'm not worrying about that. NICH. You mean you are worrying about her birth? OLIVER No, no. I thank God she was born at all. Why, even if she were nobody's daughter ! NICH. Would she were ! But she's somebody's daughter. That's the trouble. OLIVER Her father may claim her? NICH. Not he — he's safely dead. Still I can only consent to the marriage on one condition. 31 OLIVER I accept. NICH. But listen ! You must take Peggy out West with you. OLIVER What! To-morrow? NICH. Of course not, but as soon as possible. OLIVER Say, I told you I wasn't kicking. I guess I'd best put off my trip till she can come along. NICH. Good. And you must always live in America. OLIVER [Disconcerted] Oh! Never go to Europe you mean? But Peggy ! NICH. Yes, I know. I've been trying to explain to her that we've got to stay here and make God's own country a fit place for God to live in. But it'll be all right if you keep away from the Balkan parts of Europe — not that Europe isn't all Balkans nowadays, a pit of steel-spurred cocks each crowing on its own little dunghill. God! to think of all those millions of peaceful citizens turned into murderers as quails in 32 Turkestan are turned into fighting-cocks by tobacco smoke. OLIVER You can't do away with war. NICH. So the British once thought about cockfighting. Henry VIII made it a national institution and cockpits grew almost as thick as cinemas to-day. At Shrovetide school-children had to pay the masters cock-penny for a cock to pit against another school-cock. But now if you want to pit the main openly, you must go to the Philippines. OLIVER Do I gather Peggy was born in the Balkans? NICH. [Hesitating] Ahem! There or thereabouts. A mongrel State, Arabised Italian by lingo, with Catholics, Greek- Orthodox and Moslems always fighting one another or their neighbours. In the Second Crusade they all fought on the Moslem side under the Sultan of Ikon- ion, for it wasn't until the Armenians began assassinat- ing them that any accepted Christianity. In fact the Moslem are still the most numerous element, though the Christians combine to keep them under. Some twenty years ago a sanguine Chancellor arose who tried to modernise his people. But they murdered the Queen and blew up the Chancellery. 33 C OLIVER Sounds worse than Mexico. NICH. A home for incurables. The Catholics ruled the roost, but if ever the Orthodox got top-dog they hanged Catholics and Jews. But the Catholics always got their own back and hanged Orthodox and Jews. Sometimes, of course, both had to combine and then the lamp-posts held Moslems and Jews! The only thing the three religions had in common except Jew- baiting was the hatred of a neighbour State, which a century ago had annexed a barren mountain-province, and their real God was their fifth-century filibuster, Alpastroom, whom they all expected to rise one day from his grave in Rome and win back the lost province. OLIVER [Smiling] Talk of Rip Van Winkle ! NICH. These lunatics took it seriously; there's a national pro- verb: "When Rome yields up our royal seed, Bosnavina to death shall bleed." {Starting up.] Oh, but I didn't mean to give away names. I'm a for- getful old fool. And that coffee, too ! Must be Iced by now. Never mind. Let's drink confusion to the cockpit. [Goes to table and pours coffee for Oliver.] 34 OLIVER Fd rather drink to Peggy's present country. [Takes cup.] NICH. Same thing. [Pours for himself.] It's the Melting Pot versus the Cockpit. [Holds up cup.] To America ! OLIVER To America ! [They clink cups. An unusually imperious rat-tat- tat. They pause in their drinking.] NICH. Who can that be? [norah appears door C. with a frightened face.] NORAH It's soldiers! NICH. Soldiers! NORAH Two autos-full. And General Roxo — him that used to be Captain Roxo. NICH. [Alarmed] He recognised you? 35 NORAH No, I recognised him, NICH. Tell him I'm engaged — I can see nobody. OLIVER But I can make myself scarce. NICH. Nonsense ! Drink your coffee. Leave us, Norah. NORAH Si, Signor — Mr. Stone. [Exit NORAH.] NICH. [Sipping his coffee] Strange how Europe will keep breaking in! OLIVER Is it that Valdanian headliner? NICH. Yes, the fire-eater our fool press has been booming. [Re-enter NORAH.] NORAH The General's Secretary complains he 'phoned you and you said you'd be home. NICH. Ah! I thought he said general secretary. Tell him I was cut off — I'm sorry but I've business with a friend. 36 OLIVER But, Mr. Stone, if I'm to cancel my journey to-mor- row I must get busy too. Let me do my wiring while you work off your visitors. May I leave my portfolio ? [Without waiting for a reply he opens the door, revealing in the hall-way a group of officers in peaked caps, cloaks and swords, headed by gen- eral ROXO, a one-armed veteran, glittering under a loose cloak with stars and medals, and his secre- tary, the MARQUIS FIUMA, a handsome man in the ^. thirties, carrying a wallet of papers. Oliver hows to them as he passes and ROXO seizes the oppor- tunity to advance.^ ROXO Pardon my persistence, Mr. Stone, we had meant to wait upon you later in the week, but in the midst of an official reception at our legation, a cable reached me necessitating instant arrangements for returning to Valdania by this afternoon's boat. Our only chance was to take you on our way back to the hotel. And I feel sure that as a good patriot NICH. So good a patriot, General — er ROXO Roxo. NICH. Roxo, that you find me toasting America. Z1 ROXO Ah, I thought from your name you'd been naturalised. NICH. Fifteen years ago. ROXO [Advancing^ Fifteen centuries cannot extinguish the flame of the fatherland. Even Valdanians born in the States NICH. [Coldly] May I ask you to come at once to the point of your visit? ROXO The Marquis Fiuma can put it more briefly. [The MARQUIS bows and NICHOLAS hows hack. The SUITE drifts in hehind the MARQUIS. But NICHOLAS, Standing as on guard, does not invite anybody to sit down. FIUMA lays down his wallet.] FIUMA As you doubtless know, Mr, Stone, the death of Tito the Fifth two years ago left us without an heir to the throne, and Polish and Bolshevist adventurers prof- ited by the consequent anarchy to overrun Valdania. Thanks to our heroic General Roxo {The GENERAL makes a deprecatory gesture] all were beaten off, and Valdania took advantage of 38 the war-unity to turn herself into a constitutional country, clipping the wings of my class [Smiling] and replacing the Chancellor and the Council by a Parliament. NICH. Really? I have not followed your politics. Our pa- pers gave you no space till his excellency arrived. So, General, you have made Valdania safe for democracy! FIUMA Not so safe as money could make It. We are In woful need of the sinews of . . . peace. And the Gov- ernment naturally thought that a mission — headed by our national hero — to our enriched emigres NICH. [Coldly] Yes, I know America Is the milch-cow of Europe. But why come to me? FIUMA Seven years ago, we are told, you subscribed fifty thousand dollars to our famine fund. NICH. Only what other Americans did. To feed famished foreigners Is one thing — to Interfere in their politics another. My blood Is English. [Rings.] 39 ROXO I am sorry. I am very sorry. We thought you were a Valdanian. This is truly an intrusion. My love for Valdania must be my excuse. . . . [To NORAii, who has answered the ring, from door C, where she has been waiting^ Haven't I seen your face before? NORAH Sure, you haven't seen it behind. ROXO Come, amici, we shall have a little longer for packing. God keep you, sir. NICH. Thank you! A pleasant journey! [fFith a sudden impulse] But why should I stoop to mislead you? Only my mother was English, my father was a Valdanian. ROXO AND SUITE Ah! [They turn back.] NICH. But my interest in Valdania has long been submerged in a bigger ideal. ROXO There is nothing bigger than Valdania. 40 FIUMA AND SUITE Bravo ! ROXO And she will not be denied, you see, my brother. NICH. She must be denied, she shall be denied. I am less brother to you than to the young American who has just left me. What is this mysterious tyranny of race, and birth? It is true I am a son of Valdania. But 1 have left her behind me as a barbarian camp. FIUMA [Half drawing szvord^ Si g nor! NICH. You came for dollars, you shall have truths. My mother's English property has enabled me to help many causes. But for Valdania not a cent. [Angry murmurs.^ ROXO You would forsake your own flesh and blood ! NICH. You speak of my flesh and blood, I speak of my soul. In the Middle Ages every human soul was considered so important that God and Devil were at wrestle for it. To-day we are treated as mere dogs of a pack. But I am man, not animal, and I assert my spiritual freedom, 41 FIUMA And are you not free to help Valdania? NICH. Ah, if you had come to me with a petition. But you come with a claim, a demand. Valdania is no more to me than the rest of the cockpit you call Europe. Does she need food? I will help her again. ROXO Thank you — the hand I lost for my country is not held out for alms. Valdania calls on her sons to safeguard her renaissance. The Moslem extremists, unconcili- ated by the Constitution, still demand dominance, and under their rebel Mahdi, Marrobio NICH. Ah, then it is not all such plain sailing. And I don't suppose even your Catholics and Greek-Orthodox have quite buried the hatchet. And you come to ask America to finance your petty wrangles! ROXO No, to end them by strengthening the new Govern- ment. Otherwise Bosnavina, to say nothing of Italy or Greece, may seize the opportunity to absorb us. Had there been an heir to the throne, the whole peo- ple, weary of slaughter, would have rallied round the crown. But alas ! with every scion of our royal house scrupulously assassinated 42 NICH. And It is into this welter of blood you ask me to dip my hands ! No, General, better for humanity if Italy or Greece does swallow you up — or even Bosnavina ! ROXO Signor Stone ! FIUMA Traitor! SUITE Tradittore! [The swords of the suite flash out.] NICH. I am an American — and if you wish to get home un- electrocuted ROXO Put up your swords, Signori. Remember this man's blood is not wholly Valdanlan. FIUMA God be thanked. [He and the others sheathe their swords.] ROXO Ay, and may He forgive you, Signor, the wrong you do your father's memory. Why, when Poland men- aced our freedom, your docks here in New York were blocked by Valdanians struggling to board the boats 43 and die for the fatherland. Thousands were pros- perous — they had wives and famihes — but Httle Val- dania called, and her sons answered "Here!" NICH. As I answer — "Here!" Here is my duty — to America. To help Valdania would be to roll the world backward. ROXO A pretty excuse for disloyalty and meanness. Come, amici. Ah, Signor Stone, in our little Valdanian hos- pital in Brooklyn, a paralysed old pauper of eighty, when he heard who I was, sat up, and crying "Viva Valdania," lifted his poor withered hand that I might pull off his silver ring — his one little treasure — for the holy cause. You may imagine if I kissed him on both cheeks and if we wept together. Addio, Signor. You set me pining more than ever for the Piazza da Pietra. NICH. The Piazza da Pietra? ROXO Ah, I suppose you knew it as the Piazza Grande. But we have re-named it in honour of our great murdered Chancellor. NICH. In honour of — ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha I 44 ROXO Signor ! I will not hear our immortal martyr laughed at. NICH. Like Figaro, I hasten to laugh lest I should weep. Ah, General, if only you had thought me such a great Chancellor when I was alive ! ROXO Eh? NICH. I am the immortal Da Pietra. [Sensation.] ROXO You Niccolo da Pietra ! The jest is ill-timed. NICH. It would be, if you hadn't to catch your boat. Good- bye ! ROXO Is it possible? NICH. Pietra only means Stone ! ROXO Then you were not blown to pieces and burnt with the Chancellery? 45 NICH. To the best of my belief. ROXO But — but I attended your funeral service. NICH. I read of It with pleasure. ROXO Then — then you sneaked off to America, you ! leaving us to struggle alone these twenty years ! NICH. And had I not reason? As I told you just now, I have not followed your struggles — I had wider hori- zons. But when / struggled to give Valdania the Con- stitution you now say has been achieved, did you not fight against me as desperately, If not as dishonestly as the Cazotti journal? ROXO I thought you meant to question the King's divine right. NICH. Tito himself understood me better. Despite his abom- inable cruelty to the young Queen, he had the intelli- gence to perceive that If our Internal chaos continued, Bosnavlna would bite off another province. 46 ROXO It is what I have since learned to understand. NICH. Ha ! By granting equal rights even to the Moslem, I aimed to create a common Valdanian citizenship. By safeguarding the Jews, I encouraged the upbuilding of our industries. I won over King Tito to constitution- alism. The country began to take its place in the new Europe. You know my reward. I could have for- given the reactionaries their attempt to murder me. But that they should have murdered the young Queen ! ROXO They said it was through her that you had won over the King. NICH. Yes, I know, and that I was her lover. ROXO Were you not? NICH. The Queen was as pure as our mountain-snows. I had an immense pity for her In her cold, high loneli- ness. Poor Margherlta ! If ever sovereign wore a crown of thorns ROXO Then why did you not remain to revenge her? 47 NICH. Revenge? The righteousness of fools. The eternal whirligig of blood. No, I preferred to shed only ink — to return to my early love, literature. [Goes to desk, takes cheque-book.] But I have liberated my mind at the expense of your precious time. You shall have a cheque, after all. It was worth it. ROXO No, Da Pietra. . . . Not your money now. It is you we want. NICH. Me? ROXO Come back with us ! [Excited murmurs of approval among the suite.] NICH. Back? With the sentiments you have just heard? ROXO Your head spoke but not your heart. What is Amer- ica to you or you to America? It is a childish people, with its mouth always full of candies and sweet senti- ments. Come, Niccolo da Pietra. We will build up the great Valdania of your early dream. Sail with us ! FIUMA AND SUITE Bravo! 48 ROXO You see ! The news will spread like wild-fire. It will be a trumpet-call. NICH. General Roxo, the trumpet of Resurrection Day could not blow me back to Valdania ! ROXO Then you will let Cazotti rule? NICH. Cazotti? ROXO You did not know Cazotti was Prime Minister? NICH. Cazotti ? Not the blackguardly journalist who fought against all my reforms? ROXO . The same. He has now carried them all. NICH. But It was his journal that provoked my assassination! ROXO I shouldn't be surprised if he threw the bombs. FIUMA You are Imprudent, my General. Cazotti has his spies everywhere. Forget this, SIgnori. 49 D NICH. I can believe anything of Cazotti. And you Catholics work under this upstart Greek Church adventurer! ROXO For Valdania's sake. FIUMA He Is indispensable. With his own newspapers, his own cinemas, with a millionaire Jew, Baron Gripstein, to back him, with the bulk of the Moslems won over by equal suffrage, with his own Greek Church party solidly behind him, we Catholics had only the choice of joining his coalition or being swamped. ROXO But the Premiership is not enough for him. What he covets is the crown. NICH. Nonsense ! A pretty Napoleon ! ROXO There is no nonsense about it. It is the cable warn- ing me of it that drives me home. Since King Tito's death we have made shift with a Regent. NICH. Who? ROXO The Duke D'Azollo. 50 NICH. That profligate dilettante, divided between his Old Masters and his young mistresses? ROXO Precisely. A mere warming-pan for Cazottl. You see, to get a suitable Prince is not easy. NICH. \^SmUing grimly^ No, indeed, with the German factory under a ban ! ROXO And if we took a Prince from a neighbour State, we should come hopelessly under its influence. As for the northern powers, none sees any prestige in association with our bankrupt finances, and the few possible Princes shrink from repeating the fate of the Queen. NICH. I don't wonder. ROXO Moreover, by the Constitution our sovereign must be Catholic — we are still the ruling sect, you see. NICH. Then that rules out Cazotti ! ROXO No, alas! Cazotti will Vert! 51 NICH. Ha! Ha! Ha! ROXO It is no laughing matter. In the difficulty of finding a Prince, Cazotti's papers and cinemas will propose and picture Cazotti, then Parliament will offer him the crown. Twice he will refuse, but the third time — ah, Niccolo da Pietra, if only in the assassination of the Queen, the infant had been spared! There would have been to-day a native sovereign for the nation to rally round-; NICH. [TVith sudden harshness'] Let Cazotti be rallied round and murdered! I'm afraid I mustn't keep you any longer. [Holds out hands.] ROXO [Not taking it] Then you persist in your living death! FIUMA You will let Cazotti king it — the jackal roaring while the lion blinks ! NICH. [Using his rejected hand to pick up fiuma's wallet] Your papers! ROXO Come, Signorl. Valdania shall hear of this recreant Yankee — his name shall stink in history. 52 NICH. It will be better policy, General, to keep it in good odour. ROXO [ Turning] No ! By the tombs of our fathers which you have deserted NICH. But I haven't — I'm lying in one of them. Bombed, incinerated, pedestalled on your Piazza, I'm a bigger national asset to you dead than alive. Think it over on the boat. [Enter PEGGY unmarked L., in her changed toilette. 'I ROXO [Drawing sword with his left hand] And if I ensured our national asset ! PEGGY [Alarmed] Daddy! [All turn towards the new-comer. ROXO's sword droops and slides into its scabbard, then his body droops, and he falls on one knee, as if hypnotised.] ROXO [In a dazed, awed whisper] The Queen ! NICH. Are you mad, General? 53 ROXO [Unheeding] She alive, too ! [fFith a sob] O God of Valdania! NICH. But this is my daughter ! My daughter, Peggy ! ROXO [Rising slowly, passing his hand across his forehead] Your daughter? And yet you say you were not the Queen's . . . ? NICH. Silence! Not before the child. Go back to your room, Peggy. These men are crazy specimens from the cockpit you hanker after. Why don't you go? V PEGGY Ah! [Rushes to the telephone.] ROXO Yes, ring up the police! And they shall arrest the gentleman you call father as a kidnapper. NICH. What are you talking about? ROXO None of your innocence. I see it all now, Fiuma. 54 The little Princess was no more blown up than he was. He took advantage of the wreck of the Palace to steal the nation's hope. FIUMA AND SUITE Traitor! Tradittore! ROXO But the God of Valdania has not forgotten us. lie has saved our royal seed for this fateful hour. It is our Queen, amid, our dear Margherita! FIUMA AND SUITE [Saluting her with flashing/ swords] Viva la Regina! Viva Margherita! [PEGGY Stands dazed, looking from them to her father.] ROXO Ah, Your Majesty, this is a great day for Valdania! PEGGY Valdania! Where exactly is Valdania? NICH. Valdania, my child, is the very heart of the cockpit I rescued you from, and to which these race-bigots would drag you back. PEGGY By what right? 55 ROXO By divine right, Madam. Are you not our Queen? PEGGY I their Queen, daddy? NICH. In a way, I suppose. PEGGY A Queen? I? NICH. Alas! PEGGY I don't understand. NICH. You are the last scion of the royal house of Valdania. PEGGY But then, daddy, you must be King, not I Queen. NICH. No, Peggy. I love you — I have watched over you — > as a father. But that is all my claim PEGGY You are not my father? Oh, this is some dream . . . 56 But here is my music. . . . Here are the cups I scolded Norah about . . . here is Oliver's portfolio ROXO It is no dream, Your Majesty. ... To revenge himself on Valdania, this man has stolen and hidden you . . . NICH. My child will not believe that. PEGGY [Fretfully'] But what am I to believe, daddy? Why did ? NICH. I will explain to you, carissima, when these gentle- men are gone. ROXO Gone? Do you suppose we will go without our Queen? NICH. Since you have gone without her so long! FIUMA Be serious, Signor. We demand our Queen, and this very instant. NICH. I am sorry. She remains here — under the American flag. 57 ROXO She goes with us — under the Valdanian flag. NICH. But I am naturalised. ROXO What of it? She is not your daughter. NICH. [Staggering] My God ! . . . All the same she is no criminal. FIUMA Criminal? Her Majesty? NICH. Then you cannot extradite her. ALL THE OTHERS [Taken aback] Ah! NICH. [Pursuing his advantage] And she is of age, thank God. You can't take her against her will. ROXO And do you suppose you could keep her against ours? That any place on earth could be safe from our loyal devotion? Happily, we know her royal will. Our sovereigns have never yet abandoned their people. And never did Valdania need a sovereign so urgently. 58 PEGGY The country needs me, you say? ROXO As it needs rain in drought and sun in winter. You alone can give it unity and happiness. PEGGY Is it so wretched, then? ROXO Madam, it is a beautiful country — our snow-peaks, our vineyards PEGGY Ah, and the blue lake ! Oh, daddy, and you pretended it was all my fancy. . . . But it is a Paradise. ROXO Disunity has made it an Inferno. But when Your Majesty comes back ! NICH. Into that lunatic asylum? Never! PEGGY But, daddy, if the patients need my ? NICH. You do not understand 59 ROXO Silence, Signor da Pietra ! How dare you interrupt Her Majesty? FIUMA [Raising sword] Insolente! PEGGY [Pitifully] Signor da Pietra? Are you not even Nicholas Stone? Oh, why are you so wrapped up in mysteries? Why all this falsehood? NICH. I could bite my tongue out for telling the truth. What devil drove you here, Roxo, to tempt me into it? PEGGY But what is the truth? Who are you? . . . Why don't you explain? NICH. If, after all these years, Peggy, you cannot trust me- PEGGY How can I trust you when you have torn me blind- folded from my own world — when you have let grow up in me — ah, but I knew inwardly I was called away from happiness I [Covers her eyes.] 60 NICH. God! Why is life so complex? Believe me, carissivia, I meant it all for the best. PEGGY But you took me from my country, my people, my duty! ROXO And your throne, Madam. PEGGY [Ignoring him] And my mother ! How often I asked you about her, but you turned the question aside, so that I feared to ask it, I grew afraid she was a bad woman, of whom not even Norah would speak. And the gentle voice I remembered, the soft wet cheek pressed to mine, they were the Madonna's, I thought, pitying the lonely little girl. Ah, how often I cried in the night. All the other girls had mothers — and I — even the memory of one was denied. [Sobs.] NICH. Oh, Peggy; if only I had realised! But I suppose a man can't. . . . Don't cry, carissima. Your mother was a Madonna. And in the land you remember as a Paradise, they murdered her. PEGGY Oh, my poor mother ! My poor mother ! 6i NICH. You see how knowledge hurts. I saved you that suf- fering at least. PEGGY Ah no! This is a beautiful suffering. [Comes closer.] Oh, daddy, and it was to save me you took me away? NICH. Ah, you have understood ! I knew you would ! It was Norah that brought you to me by the subway to the Chancellery — when the left wing of the Palace blew up. There was a fashion for English-speaking nurses, and Norah had been chosen as a Catholic. I was Chancellor then, and I felt my house was no safe place for you; but I had hardly gone out with you and Norah when the Chancellery blew up too, with all the witnesses of your visit. It was really you that saved me, rather than the reverse. PEGGY I'm so glad, daddy. I'm so glad. NICH. For days, while the reactionaries held Scaletta, we lay hid in a mountain cave, you and I, while Norah, being unknown to the crowd, went foraging for us — fortunately there was plenty of money in my pocket, and she being so pretty 62 PEGGY Norah pretty? NICH. Ah, it was more than twenty years ago. Anyhow she managed everybody and everything, even got passages first in a gipsy-caravan, then on a timber-raft PEGGY Ah, the raft! NICH. We drifted with the timber-men to Bosnavina, thence got by way of Rolmenia to Genoa, where, finding an emigrant ship, I thought it simplest to wait in New York till Valdania settled down. Travelling as Mr, Stone, the English widower, with his orphaned daugh- ter and her Irish nurse ROXO I thought I recognised her. PEGGY [Stamping her foot] You are not to interrupt — nobody must interrupt. [roxo withers.] NICH. When I got on board I was breathing fire and revenge — oh, my sentiments would have delighted General Roxo. I meant to come back, to counterplot — but that fortnight on the Atlantic 63 ROXO [Exhibiting a wrist-watch] We shall lose the boat — I beg Your Majesty's pardon! NICH. But that fortnight on the Atlantic — the first breathing- space In my political career — the nights on the lonely sea under the silent stars — oh, it was like a religious revelation ! Why go back — why drag you back to that cockpit of races and religions ? PEGGY Yes, daddy, yes. [She holds out her hands to him.] NICH. [Taking them] You see, General, she chooses Columbia. ROXO [Solemnly] Her Majesty has no choice — she is chosen. PEGGY By whom? ROXO By God. Madam, If this man has left you a Cath- olic NICH. [Hotly] Do you suppose I would turn her from her mother's religion? 64 ROXO And do you suppose her mother would have had her abandon her duty? [PEGGY winces. Her hands drop from NICHO- LAS'S.] NICH. Duty to what? To a hornets' nest, to a den of cocka- trices, to a Kingdom where she must cross the ambi- tions of a desperado, who combines the modern demo- crat with the mediaeval condottiere? PEGGY Is it the danger, daddy, that you fear for me? NICH. Not merely the danger. But they are deceiving you — you can bring the country no peace — the country will only rob you of yours — you will have terrible shocks. PEGGY Didn't you say a shock is God's way of telling us to put our country straight? NICH. But you can't straighten a shambles. Shall you be murdered too? PEGGY If it is God's will ! Have I the right to shrink from the task? 65 E ROXO The royal blood has spoken. FIUMA AND SUITE Brava! Bravissima! NICH. You would leave me, Peggy? PEGGY Of course not, we will go together. NICH. Impossible ! You don't understand the etiquette of a Court. It would no longer be the old relation. I couldn't sit without your command, or dine side by side with you. I should have to bow and smirk, call you Majesty, never contradict you PEGGY Oh, no! NICH. Oh, yes! l^Growh from FIUMA and the suite.] You hear! But it must not be, Peggy. You have wealth, beauty, youth — a brave young lover. [ PEGGY winces again.] What more can you ask of God? PEGGY [Slowly, struggling with herself] Is it not what God asks of us? 66 NICH. spare her, General, for her mother's sake ! Have pity. ROXO There is no place for pity in high politics. But why speak of pity? She will have the throne, the homage of millions. The eyes of Europe will be NICH. But she is so young. Ah, let me go in her stead. ROXO You? Nicholas the First! Ha! Ha! Ha! NICH. You know what I mean — I can crush Cazotti, con- ciliate Marrobio, unify Valdania. It is what you just asked. ROXO 1 did not know then we had a bigger card to play — the Queen. We can't accept a substitute. NICH. Then I must go with her? ROXO And lessen her prestige? No, no, we can afford no rival sensation. Her Majesty must arrive alone. 67 PEGGY [Pitifully] Alone? NICH. Alone? Do you suppose I would let her go without mef ROXO Where would you get a passport from? NICH. From Washington, of course. ROXO And do you suppose our Consul would viser it? PEGGY / will viser it. ROXO [Bowing] Your Majesty's prerogatives do not override the law of Valdania — and that forbids entry to criminal aliens. NICH. Criminal alien? I? ROXO And is a kidnapper not a criminal, or an American not an alien? NICH. I will appeal to the American Government. 68 ROXO You? Who are naturalized under a false name? Ha! Ra! Ha! . . .Madam! [Bows] Excuse my left arm. PEGGY [Not taking it] I can't go without my — without Signor da Pietra. ROXO Your Majesty heard the State reason that makes his resurrection impossible FIUMA [Catching peggy's shrinking eye] For the moment at least. PEGGY [Relieved, with a grateful look to fiuma] Ah, for the moment. NICH. You expect me to surrender a girl to a band of sol- diery? ROXO Is a strange man's house a proper place for her? [NICHOLAS winces.] My wife, Your Majesty, is waiting in a car below. You shall appoint her Dame of Honour. It will be the first expression of your royal will. Ah, Signor da Pietra, you know the game is up. You know you can- not keep a Sovereign from her State ! Madam ! [Offers arm again.] 69 PEGGY [Pi li fully] I — I must decide at once? ROXO [Extending his wrist-watch] Boats do not wait. PEGGY [Wildly] But my trunks — my manuscripts ROXO Can come by the next boat — with Signorina Salvador. [Turning to one of the suite.] Captain Salvador, your sister must remain behind. We shall need her cabin and passport, [The CAPTAIN hows.] She will provide the little Your Majesty will need for the voyage — for, of course, you must remain in your cabin. PEGGY [Dazedly] But — but — I have no Court gowns. ROXO I will cable the Duchess D'Azollo to meet us In Paris. She will make an excellent Mistress of the Robes. PEGGY But it is all so sudden. ROXO History Is sudden. Suppose CazottI proclaims him- self King? What a work to undo It! 70 PEGGY But Teresa — my friends — I must say good-bye ROXO No, no, they would spread the news before we've settled our story. PEGGY Settled your story? ROXO We can't expose your kidnapper — un-name his Piazza. Besides Cazotti would proclaim himself immediately. Not a whisper, Signori, till we are safe in Scaletta. Come, Madam ! [PEGGY makes a hesitant movement doorward. A rat-tat is heard at the street door.] NICH. Ah, Oliver at last, thank God! PEGGY [Frenziedly] No, no ! I dare not see him — don't let him come ! NICH. But you must see him ! You shall ! PEGGY Do you wish me to hate you? Haven't you made me suffer enough? 71 \_Wincing, NICHOLAS goes silently to door C. and opens it, holding the handle and speaking into the hall-way. 'I NICH. Tell him that my visitors are still here, that I shall expect him to dinner. NORAH Si, Signor. [He lets the door close. There is a tense moment in which the street door is heard opening, and then a muttered dialogue. Then the door C. opens and NORAh's head is thrust in.] He wants his portfolio. [PEGGY rushes to get it, clasps it to her breast, then slowly parts with it to norah, behind whom the door closes. Another tense silence till the bang of the street-door is heard.] PEGGY [Frenziedly] But you'll explain to him, daddy — you'll tell him that there are greater things than happiness. NICH. [Icily'] I will represent to him Your Majesty's point of view. PEGGY [Breaking down] Oh, daddy. Don't talk to me like that ! NICH. Carissima! 72 [She falls into his arms and dings to him wildly. Roxo and his suite stand in silent dismay. Roxo frantically shows his wrist-watch to riUMA. JVith a sudden inspiration the MARQUIS dashes to the piano and starts the wild, barbaric national anthem, which PEGGY unconsciously played earlier. ROXO and his suite stand at the salute. As the first notes break out a strange thrill passes visibly through the girl, even Da Pietra trembles, and as it goes on, she gradually and unconsciously detaches herself from him, and listens spellbound. As it reaches its close, the Valdanians take up the words in fiery emotion.^ Dio di Valdania, Salva la patria, Serva la gloria Del suo monarca, Del suo popolof Viva la Valdania! The song gets more and more frenzied. At its climax, in the intoxication of emotion, general ROXO again offers his arm, and this time PEGGY, hypnotised, takes it — the suite, now standing in a double row, lift their swords with a flash and clash them together into an arch, under which the QUEEN and ROXO pass out.] THE SUITE Viva la reginaf Viva Margherita! Viva Margherita! NICHOLAS stands like a granite image of despair.] [Curtain.] 73 Act 11 The throne-room in the old San Marco Palace at Sca- letta. It is a vast oblong apartment furnished only with heavy old chairs in embroidered Spanish leather against the rear wall. The throne, ornate and gilded, stands on a dais to the left under a pur- ple canopy, with its hack to the wall. Both chair and canopy are blazoned with the arms of Val-, dania, a serpent encircling an eagle, a crown is sculptured above the chair, and over it on the wall hangs a great old-fashioned sword and buckler, re- puted to be Alpastroom's. The floor is mosaic, the rear wall barbaric with battle frescoes ("Alpas- troom falling at Rome," etc.), above which hang captured flags. In the centre is a great hearth, now fireless. There are busts of kings or stone figures in niches, and here and there, on narrow oak tables by wall, candlesticks with wax candles. A worn stone step on either side of the rear wall mounts to a balconied casement of coloured glass; that on the right picturing the Madonna and Child, the other full of heraldic blazons of the old Val- danian provinces. The exit to the right is marked by two marble pillars, while rich Oriental hangings to the left denote the entrance to the more private parts of the Palace. Near the right casement is ranged a file of guards under a corporal with fixed bayonets. They are dressed in kilts with quaint feathered caps, and from their voluminous and bril- liantly coloured silken sashes hang scimitars and 75 yataghans. The casement behind is open out- wards, showing the stone balcony and the far-off shimmering lake and snow-peaks, but not the Pi- azza da Pietra, which though immediately with- out is too far below to be visible. Its existence an- nounces itself, however, as the curtain rises, by the chaotic buzz and laughter of a great holiday crowd, and the festal anirnation is accentuated by the joy- ous carilloning of bells and the stamping and trampling of police-horses. Colonel, the MARQUIS FIUMA, now Governor of the Palace, in a new mili- tary uniform, blazing with decorations, is writing in a note-book.'] VOICES FROM BELOW [Dominant over the din and bells] Order of Procession, Official! Portrait of Queen Margherita — One Lira ! Only Two Soldi — Postcards of the Convent ! Keep back please, keep your line ! l^Noise of horses wheeling and backing. Some shrieks.] Holy Virgin! Mind my baby! The Convent at Rome where Her Majesty was edu- cated — Only Two Soldi ! FIUMA Close the window — I cannot think! [corporal vanni obeys; noises grow subdued, the high-pitched bells give the dofninant festal note. The MARQUIS writes silently. Enter excitedly 76 GENERAL ROXO, noiv military Governor of Scalelta, booted and spurred, in full gala costume, hut zvith a black band on his only arm. The GUARDS salute, he acknowledges the salute mechanically, hardly seeming to see /7.] ROXO How many men have you guarding the Queen's apartments? FIUMA Nine, excellency. ROXO Double them ! Marrobio has been seen near the Chamber of Deputies. FIUMA The Mahdi ? He has ventured down from his moun- tains? ROXO The Moslem dog is desperate. The Coronation am- nesty robbed him of nearly all his followers. FIUMA But why didn't you order his arrest? ROXO In such a crowd! There'd be a panic — innocent peo- ple trampled on, while he perhaps got away. Ah, the rogue knows there's safety in numbers. But Captain 77 Molp has closed all the city gates — we've cut off his retreat. FIUMA Better have cut off his advance. But I should have thought the danger-zone is Parliament, especially while the Queen stands reading her speech. He can't get in here. ROXO Marrobio is a man of genius. And profiting by his ancient acquaintance with the Palace, he may even get into the Queen's room. And it would scarcely be an auspicious inauguration of your new Palace duties, my dear Colonel, if FIUMA Enough, excellency. And thanks for the warning! [Hurried exit through the hangings L.] ROXO Corporal Vanni ! Your salute just now lacked snap. Be careful It is more precise for Her Majesty — why that blackguard has never pipe-clayed his belt! Let him have a day in the cells — to-morrow! VANNI Yes, my General! ROXO And go back to the ranks yourself. 78 VANNI Yes, my General ! [roxo hurries out betzveen the pillars. The GUARDS have scarcely time to salute. After an instant the men begin to titter at the CORPORAL.] VANNI Silence, pigs ! I am still swineherd to-day. [They grow rigid. A pause.'] Say, comrades, if any of you would like to buy those brooches with the Queen's picture, come to me. My brother-in-law makes 'em. [guards relax] The Jew hawkers are all profiteers — do you know what they pay for the picture postcards of the Con- vent where our Margherita was hidden away all these years? . . . Not a single soldo . . . [A noise in the corridor.] Attention ! [guards rigid.] Ah, false alarm. [guards relax.] As I was saying, my brother-in-law can afford to let me have the brooches cheap because, though this pro- cession Is nothing to the Coronation, he's let his shop front for double then — he ought to pay Entertainment Tax! GUARDS {In parasitic laughter] Ha! Ha! Ha! 79 VANNI [Beaming] They should make me Chancellor of the Exchequer — [Curtains L. part, showing the MARQUIS FIUMA returning. GUARDS grow rigid.] FIUMA [Crossing to corporal] Be sure you let no one in a turban pass to-day unchal- lenged — except, of course, the Turkish Ambassador. VANNI Yes, my Colonel. [marquis is moving out.] But how shall I know it's the Turkish Ambassador? FIUMA By his coming to the State Banquet, imbecile. But that won't be till thirteen o'clock. [He turns and smiles as the curtains part, reveal- ing the DUCHESS d'azollo. Mistress of the Robes and Grand Mistress of the Court, with her two beautiful maids of honour. The DUCHESS is aged and stately, with a mantilla and a great necklace of rough uncut stones; the girls wear little red fezzes covered with seed-pearl and gold design, while their hair, coiled or plaited, is rolled under the edge of the cap.] FIUMA Ha, aunt, you're up! Headache better? DUCHESS D'A. Never mind my headache ! Who are all these strange men hovering about our apartments? 80 FIUMA Detectives, Duchess. DUCHESS D'A. [Drily] So I thought by our detecting them. FIUMA Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! But seriously, aunt — if it won't frighten these charming damsels — Marrobio's on the war-path. DUCHESS AND MAIDS [In horror'] Marrobio ! FIUMA Oh, not in the Palace — only near Parliament. DUCHESS D'A. See how curses come home to roost! If King Tito had not had a Moslem mistress ! FIUMA [Indicating maids of honor] Sh! DUCHESS D'A. Oh, they know all about the Mahdi's parentage. I repeat, if King Tito had confined himself to Chris- tian ladies FIUMA My hair wouldn't be turning as grey as yours, aunt. However, let us be thankful for large mercies, seeing 8i F that Marrobio Is the only jar in this wonderful har- mony. Confess, Duchess, though you didn't like the Duke's Regency drying up, the Queen's coming has worked miracles. Moslem, Greek-Orthodox, Cath- olics, are at one in adoration — it is a religion! DUCHESS D'A. [Drily] With the Duke as High Priest. FIUMA Uncle always had an excellent taste in pictures. And when did a people have a more artistic head on its stamps and coins? DUCHESS D'A. Ah, you are all in love with her! i-'IUMA [Smiling evasively] You don't include the Prime Minister? DUCHESS D'A. Why else did Cazotti fish her up? If it wasn't that Margherita is her mother's image I should suspect he'd foisted some love-child of his own on the throne. Why didn't he tell us all these years he had rescued the infant Princess and was educating her in a Roman convent? FIUMA [J bit embarrassed] Hasn't he explained that he wanted the country to settle down constitutionally, that he couldn't risk her being murdered like her mother? 82 DUCHESS D'A. But he could risk the Duke being murdered as Regent! Anyhow, it's too dreadful his making his wife a Dame of Honour. In King Tito's day she wouldn't even have been received at Court. FIUMA And do you suppose Cazotti can help himself? His wife Is his cross. DUCHESS D'A. It's all a dreadful warning against democracy. Since the creature's been Lady of the Bedchamber, she con- siders herself one of the Royal Family. Have you noticed how she copies the Queen's dresses? By the way, I do think that horrible Jew-Baroness Gripstein should be forbidden to wear a necklace just like mine. FIUMA What do necklaces matter? What revolts me is her horrible husband wearing the Order of the Re- deemer [Boom of distant gun. The duchess and MAIDS shriek.'] No, no, that's not Marrobio, that's only the gun pro- claiming the Queen has left Parliament. [Re-enter roxo R. The guards present arms.] ROXO Ah, Duchess, I'm glad your headache is better. 83 DUCHESS D'A. My headache was only for royal consumption. The idea of expecting me to ride with the Countess CazottI ! ROXO It is with the Queen you would have been riding: it was your duty to accompany Her Majesty to the opening of Parliament. DUCHESS D'A. I am sure that the Queen prefers the company of my husband ! [Sweeps out L. with her ladies,] FIUMA [Laughingly, to GENERAL ROXO] Dear aunt! She's jealous! ROXO [Smiling] How absurd! Why, the Duke told me over a cigar that the Virgin Queen fills him with a strange new reverence for womanhood, and that this is the first time he's ever been in love innocently. FIUMA And it's the first time the Duchess has ever been jealous! How funny! I suppose, having nothing to hide this time, he takes no precautions. But I sym- pathise with the old boy's latest passion. I'd propose myself, if I didn't know I'd be ordered ofF to instant execution. 84 ROXO You are not far wrong. An asset like the Queen is not to be wasted. FIUMA [With a half-angry, half-comical grimace] Wasted? ROXO You know Valdania must lay her out to the best ad- vantage — she can restore our political fortunes. FIUMA [Consciously shocked and unconsciously jealous] You are already devising her marriage? ROXO Already? Do you suppose there were no Princes in- specting her 9t the Coronation? FIUMA Poor Queen ! Surely a better way to restore our politi- cal fortunes would be to win back our lost province. ROXO [Roaring] What? FIUMA That's what they are saying at the Officers' Club — Death to Bosnavina ! ROXO Death to Valdania, they mean. You remember the old saying: ^5 "Who draws the sword of Alpastroom Writes our or Bosnavina's doom." FIUMA [Laughingly] A safe prophecy. But our young bloods drink to "The Day" and believe the Queen is our war-mascot. They even toast her by her obsolete title of "Duchess of Bosnavina," and they would die for her to a man. ROXO Hush! [Indicates soldiers.] FIUMA They don't count. ROXO [In low tones] Bosnavina has her filthy spies everywhere — not to mention Cazotti's. [,Iloud.] Withdraw your men, Corporal, till I give the word. VANNI Yes, my General. Into file, right turn, quick march. [Exeunt guards R.] FIUMA You seem very agitated. General. ROXO Because we're not ready for war. And Bosnavina — 86 our friend in her War Office informs us — grows stronger daily. FIUMA Then why not get our blow in before she's too strong? All the young officers keep asking me — thinking I'm in the know — When are we going to get our knife into the beastly Bosnavinians? ROXO These cockerels crow too soon. FIUMA No ! They feel "The Day" dawning. Why, as Dra- matic Censor, I've had three plays this month all breathing Delenda est Bosnavina. ROXO [Alarmed] Crista/ You stopped them, of course? FIUMA Of course. It's not for playwrights to interfere In politics. ROXO Nor for new-whelped officers. Let them stick to their dicing and womanising. [Going out i?.] FIUMA With all respect, General, you shouldn't have stopped duelling. It lets off some of the blood. 87 ROXO [Turninc/] They don't meditate a raid, these hotheads? FIUMA [Hesitating] No. ROXO The truth! FIUMA I don't know that I've the right. ... I must see what my men are up to. [Goes L.] ROXO [Red-hot] Because if they compromise us before we're ready, I shall hang them like dogs ! FIUMA It — it isn't exactly a raid on our irredenta — that's too mountainous. But the delta of our river which Bos- navina has always possessed ROXO Yes, damn her! FIUMA It is there. They claim that the land is only silt washed down by our waters, and therefore morally ours. ROXO Unquestionably. Nevertheless FIUMA I only gathered vaguely, you know, but I fancy the plan is to swoop down and plant our flag on the Cus- tom House. ROXO Tomfoolery! What good will that do? FIUMA Well, they think that this deed of derring-do — while you are dilly-dallying — will raise Valdania to blood- heat and ROXO While I am dilly-dallying! My God, when I think of our Revenge day and night — what else have I to think of now my poor Lisa's dead? [JVipes his eyes.] They come, these cackling cubs, stuffed with military science from their French or Italian schools, and preach I'm only a slugabed, who must never be made a Marshal. FIUMA No, no, sir, you are still the nation's hero. ROXO I was — six months ago. But it takes less time to kill off a national hero than to bring a babe to birth. 89 . . . They are right. I've lost my grip these black weeks. [Blows his nose.] I didn't realise there's so much healthy war-spirit. FIUMA Isn't it natural, now we're so happy and prosperous? ROXO And it's all through the Queen, God bless her. [Wipes his eyes.] But I understand now why Cazotti has put a larger army into the Queen's speech. FIUMA Has he? Trust him to keep his ear to the ground. ROXO And he pretended it was to conciliate me! But if the country is coming along of itself. . . . All the same. Colonel, warn our young bloods that with this new- fangled League of Nations always making trouble for the weaker, the first blow must come from Bosnavina, not from us, and if they dare stir a finger before we're ready FIUMA The aide-de-camp on service here to-day is the wildest — I'll speak to him at once. [Exit L.. ROXO hums happily and moves R.] ROXO [Calling genially'] Come along. Corporal! 90 VANNI Suhito, my General! Left turn, march! [Re-enter guards and take up old position.] ROXO You may keep your stripe. VANNI Thank you, my General ! [Exit ROXO R., hmnming on happily. GUARDS salute.'] You see, you swine ! [Stretches himself.] . . . Time the Queen got home I I'm ravenous. On duty since dawn. They never consider us, these grandees. I don't mean the Queen, God bless her — she'd chuck us her own macaroni if she knew! But I suppose we're better off than those poor devils down there, standing all night on the Piazza, eh? True, they've got their grub with them. Good idea ! Has anybody got any string? [Various pieces are offered to the tyrant.] That! Wouldn't even go round your neck! . . . Ah, that's more like it! . . . [He ties pieces together to the end of a bayonet.] Fools hunger, wise men fish. [guards laugh. He pushes open casement R., let- ting in noises as before. But the bells have ceased and the cries of the hazvkcrs are nozv dominated by the gipsy-like strains of folk music from the guzlas (the two-stringed mandolines) and the shrill 91 sounds of bagpipes. The CORPORAL goes out on the balcony and drops his fishing-line into the Pi- azza, shouting down.] Hi there! Don't eat It all I [Laughter and applause comes up from the crowd, other noises are stilled in the general interest. The corporal's men move from their file and crowd around casement.] Tie it on! Thanks! Ah, that's coming, coming, com- ing [// breathless moment, followed by a loud roar.] Damn ! [guards join in laughter.] No, it's too dirty now. ... A tin of meat? Thanks, Abdullah Mashallah, or whatever your name is . . . May your shadow never grow less! . . . Pass it up to the urchin astride Tito's statue and he'll pass it to the rascal trespassing on the flag-staff. . . . Tie it round tight, you son of a squirrel ! That's it — coming — coming — coming — Come ! [Crowd and GUARDS clap hands in vast aiJiuse- ment. COPORAL re-enters, closing casement and begins detaching the package from his fishing-rod.] Cristof He gives good weight! USHER [fVithout R.] The saints preserve your excellency! [A lightning rush of GUARDS to get into line, and of the CORPORAL to pocket the package and string.] 92 VANNI [Looking off] Oh, it's only the Jew-Baron. But it pays to salute him. Attention, pigs ! [Enter BARON GRIPSTEIN in gala attire wearing the sash of the Order of the Redeemer. He is a some- what florid personage of sympathetic and intelli- gent appearance with marked Semitic features. The GUARDS present arms.'] BARON GR. [Beaming] Ah, Corporal, this is a great day for our country — you must all drink to it. [Distributes notes.] VANNI AND GUARDS The saints preserve your excellency! [Re-enter fiuma L.] BARON [Turning] Buon giorno, Marquis. You're looking so much better that when I carried a candle behind you in the Corpus Domini Procession. [marquis stares frigidly.] Ah, 3^ou are wondering why I am so early for the Ban- quet. But I had business with the Comptroller of the Household and I know I couldn't get through the crowd again even to escort the Baroness. Marvellous weather, is it not? Queen's weather we are beginning to call it. It was the same, you remember, when Cazotti brought her home from the convent, and the same at the Coronation. 93 [fiuma has insolently turned his back on the BARON and is writing in his note-book.'] Oh, how she has pulled the country together — I never was so proud of being a Valdanlan. But I see you have no time for gossip. I don't wonder, with your responsibilities to-day. A rivederla at the Banquet. [Exit R. The guards salute.'] FIUMA How dare you salute a Jew? VANNI So sorry, my Colonel. We salute everybody with the Order of the Redeemer. Attention ! [roxo re-enters and the fresh salute stops the discussion.] FIUMA Did you see the Jew? ROXO I met him, but I didn't see him. FIUMA And I didn't hear him. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! ROXO This is no time for amusement. Marrobio has eluded us. FIUMA Escaped through a city-gate? 94 ROXO Would to God he had! Captain Molp got the Queen safely into the carriage and it is moving faster than the crowd likes. But what if Marrobio is lurking just below us to stab or shout her as she alights ? FIUMA He'd be torn in pieces. ROXO He'd think it worth while and that Paradise and its houris awaited him. FIUMA We ought to have arrested him while we had the chance. ROXO Perhaps you were right. But I hate wasting life. Til see if I can espy him. \^He mounts step R., pushes open casement and steps on balcony. The noises ahnost instantly change into one great cry of "Roxof Roxof Viva Roxo/"] [He shrinks back modestly.] For heaven's sake! [Closes casement.] This is not my day. FIUMA [Smiling] What about the forgotten national hero? Eh? 95 ROXO [Steps down] We were speaking of silly young officers. [Hums happily again, turns genially to COR- PORAL.] Your men must be famished. What? There's time before the Queen arrives to snatch a mouthful. VANNI God bless you, my General. Right wheel, forward! ROXO But keep your ears open for the National Anthem — or I'll cut 'em off. VANNI Ah, my General, when shall we cut 'em off the beastly Bosnavinians? ROXO You prattle too much. [Exeunt GUARDS R.] ROXO One thing puzzles me, Colonel. How did Marrobio in his remote fastness know that to-day the Queen would open Parliament? FIUMA I suppose one of his amnestied followers passed on the date. ROXO Unless it was Cazotti ! 96 FIUMA The Prime Minister! Oh come, excellency! That's too cynical. [Looks toward Piazza.] I suppose there's no other measure we can take. ROXO None. In war there is always the unexpected. And this dare-devil descent of Marrobio's ! We can only pray that the God of Valdania will protect our Margherita. FIUMA Amen! ROXO And baffle Cazotti. FIUMA No, I won't say "Amen" to that. Cazotti has ob- viously abandoned his hopes of the crown and finds consolation in the prestige he has extracted from the very collapse of them. Yes, he may rob your excel- lency of the glory of restoring the Queen, he may stamp his fraud on the mob with films and picture postcards, but as for conniving with a rebel to mur- der her — no! no! What was it Da Pietra called him? A modern condottiere ! And murder isn't modern. ROXO I wouldn't trust him if a mediaeval opportunity came 97 G his way. Look how he had Marrobio's lieutenant murdered. FIUMA Do you mean the one who surrendered at the Coro- nation Amnesty? But you acquiesced ! ROXO It was a painful State necessity. The amnesty was indiscreet, too wide — the man probably meant to spy — But what I might do or permit for State reasons, Cazotti is capable of doing to gain the throne. See, anyhow, that the office of royal taster isn't abolished — the most subtle poisons are modern. FIUMA But If you are right, what can one do against such a man? ROXO Only what I do do; work with him. It's the only means of keeping a check on him. Let him rob me of my glory, I use him for the glory of God and Val- dania. You see how he is coming our way with his Army Bill. As a matter of fact, I find it easier to handle a devil like Cazotti than an angel like the Queen. FIUMA [S1mUng^ What has Her Majesty done now? 98 ROXO Oh, nothing new. I'm only thinking of the trouble she gave us over his convent story. These American college girls have such a primitive sense of truth. FIUMA I rather admired It. ROXO You're getting as sentimental as the Duke. Public personages cannot keep private consciences. I don't know what Cazotti would have done if his most rev- erend eminence, her Confessor, hadn't Instructed her that a fiction in the State interest Is not merely venial but a virtue. Even so, you remember, the obsti- nate creature would go Into a Roman convent for a term. FIUMA Which only gave Cazotti the opportunity of photo- graphing the place, with Margherita In the back- ground. ROXO And himself In the foreground. FIUMA And himself in the foreground. USHER [outside R.] Way there for the Prime Minister. 99 FIUMA Talk of the ! [Enter CAZOTTI in gala dress, with stars and or- ders. He is short and stout, like Napoleon, with a big head carefully modelled on his. Manner genial. He comes forward holding out both hands. '\ CAZ. What luck to find you both before the Banquet! ROXO [Taking one hand] What luck to be found! FIUMA [Taking the other] Dear Count Cazotti, what can we do for you? CAZ. Exercise your military censorship over the newspapers. The Queen has altered the Queen's speech! ROXO Your speech, you mean. CAZ. Ah, I know in your heart you militarists would like to bring back autocracy. But that's impossible in these days of popular control. One would have thought all this glory and huzzahing quite enough for a young girl without her itching to interfere in State affairs — there must be fair division, what? Why, here am I who have carried the real burden of ICO Valdania for years, and yet were I to go out Into that crowd FIUMA [Slily] Your excellency wasn't cheered, coming? CAZ. I dodged the route — I was In a hurry to stop her in- discretions getting into print. ROXO But the papers are in your own hands. CAZ. Mine? I parted with all such interests when I took office. FIUMA Ahem! CAZ. Word of honour. Marquis. To Baron Gripstein, If you want to know. ROXO Our press in Jewish hands ! CAZ. The best way to keep It tame. No, It's not Gripsteln's papers I'm afraid of — they had the official speech in type before It was delivered — It's these irresponsible Pacifist organs lOI ROXO [Alarmed] She didn't cut out the increase of the army? CAZ. Oh no! I worded it "Reform of the Army" and she thought it meant diminution. ROXO AND FIUMA Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! CAZ, [Smiling] Ah, but she poured out a programme that wouldn't leave a penny for our glorious army — roads, bridges, canals, railways, irrigation, schools, colleges — all the things she found in America and can't find here. Would to God she had been brought up in my Roman convent. ROXO Didn't she promise everybody a bathroom? CAZ. Ha ! Ha ! We had enough worry building her own bathroom. You remember the trouble to put in the telephone. The old Palace doesn't lend itself to these new-fangled devices; especially as it began life as a monastery. FIUMA But how on earth did she know we need canals and bridges ? 103 CAZ. It's that old fool, the Duke D'Azollo, who motors her about — Oh, I'm sorry — I forgot he was your aunt's husband. FIUMA He often forgot It himself. [Laughter.] But won't the Queen be angry If we cut out her canals and ? CAZ. That's all right. I just met the Baron in the corridor, and he'll have a special copy of the Gazetta printed off for her, with her Indiscretions in full. That's the only paper she reads herself. The rest are summar- ised by her secretary and he will report that they are all enthusiastic about her bathrooms — I beg her par- don, canals. [roxo and he laugh.] FIUMA How we all deceive her! Her position Is pitiful. CAZ. Pitiful? It Is magnificent I FIUMA It isn't very magnificent to be cut off from the people you've been brought up among! To have your letters and wires stopped without your knowledge! It's like writing to the dead, she said to me once, with tears 103 in her eyes. To make me feel worse, I had to suggest that the reason she got no answers from Da Pietra and Ohver Kandel was that they would not forgive her for deserting them — and now she goes about re- signed, ecstatic even, like a young nun cut off from her past. You may imagine the relief to me to have no more letters to open ! ROXO What! While I was at my poor wife's death-bed, you have let Her Majesty stop writing heart-to-heart letters ! FIUMA I don't understand ROXO What other means have we of discovering her secret thoughts? And when it comes to providing her with a Prince Consort CAZ. Most true. We must at once find her another cor- respondent. ROXO Not possible. One can't suddenly create for her a friend to whom she'll pour herself out. CAZ. I have it. Til remove the Duke from the capital. 104 ROXO Banish him? CAZ. No, no — send him on a mission. Then we can read her letters before delivery. ROXO Splendid ! FIUMA I don't like it. And besides, he won't go. CAZ. I'll send him to study canals — then he won't dare dis- please her by refusing. ROXO Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! One of your best combinations. CAZ. And on second thoughts, why suppress her peace pro- gramme at all? It's the very thing to keep the Paci- fists off the scent. Eh, General? ROXO I don't know what you mean. CAZ. Come, come! I play cards on table. If you're not out to smash Bosnavina, why all these ice-axes, cat- shoes, skis and alpenstocks that the War Office still 105 accumulates against Marrobio under your demand? So many mountain-batteries, such heaps of munitions against one practically isolated individual? ROXO I don't deny that since my boyhood the Revenge has been my dream — if I have been converted to Da Pietra's policy and yours, it is to unite all Valdania for the great day. But the hour is not ripe. CAZ. It is ripe — the people are itching for their lost moun- tains — the young officers drink to "The Day!" FIUMA [Startled] You know? CAZ. Everything, my dear Marquis — even to the projected raid on the Delta. ROXO A fatal folly. We are not ready. CAZ. So you said twenty years ago. You never really change. ROXO And you're always changing. CAZ. I change with the times — like the thermometer with the temperature. 1 06 ROXO Or the weathercock with the wind. Then is politics only inconsistency raised to a career? CAZ. To a science. The science of public opinion. Val- dania feels her life tingling. Now is the moment to strike. Now or never. ROXO For you perhaps — I, too, play cards on table. My Queen has trumped your kna . . . Jack. And you seek to recover your old ascendency over the people. CAZ. It is the people that seeks to recover our old ascend- ency over Bosnavina. ROXO The people's heart is sound, but its head is wood. CAZ. The better to butt with! Come, I'd make you Afar- shal Roxo. ROXO [Alarmed-] For God's sake ! There are five reasons that forbid war, any one sufficient. CAZ. And the first? 107 ROXO Marrobio. So long as he is unhanged, we dare not draw off our forces. CAZ. But he Is all but deserted. ROXO The opportunity would win him fresh followers. Apropos, you know him from the old Tito days. Do step out on the balcony and see if he's in the crowd. CAZ. [Agitated] He's In Scaletta? ROXO Alas! CAZ. And you ask me to make myself a target for him ! No, thank you. FIUMA I'll look, If you like, though I don't know him from Adam, [Going to casement] except by his clothes. Ha ! Ha ! What sort of man is he? ROXO Tall, noble even. [ FIUMA mounts step L. and pushes open casement L. A military march is heard in the distance.] 1 08 FIUMA Ah, do you hear? The Queen must be close on the Strada Da Pietra. That's her own peace-song. . . . [Steps out on balcony and looks down.] There's a whole group of Moslems just below — tall, short, and in-between. ROXO Never mind. We must trust to God. [fiuma comes in.] FIUMA [Closing casement] Jolly tune, isn't it? Makes a good march. [Descends step to the rhythm, now heard more plainly.] ROXO The Queen has quite a httle talent, musicians tell me. But it's a mistake for royal personages to expose themselves even to praise. The University can make them Doctors of Science or Music, but they oughtn't to know anything of either. CAZ. Ah, but look what an asset to have the Queen's own music for a war-march. Let us make it the Valdanian "Tipperary." ROXO [Roughly] It's a long, long way to Tipperary. CAZ. Ah, yes^ your five reasons. And the second? 109 ROXO We've no general ! No, don't say me — I'm a cavalry man, not a mountain-fighter. Besides, I'm getting too old for campaigning — my wife's death has not left me unshaken — my absent arm reports itself sometimes — even to-day — oh, only a twinge ; I just mention it. Still, my present home duties are about all I'm fit for. But even if I felt as young as when I fought Da Pietra, Valdania lacks — and that's obstacle number three — an honest man at the War Office! CAZ. You accuse 1 FIUMA But, General, if they've got you your Ice-axes ! ROXO The Commissions were good — I speak my mind. And suppose somebody tried a coup on the Bourse ! No, by God, I won't be betrayed from the rear. CAZ. Well, take the War Office yourself. Only find me an- other great general. ROXO There is none. I make no pretences. Valdania has no great mountain-fighter — except the Mahdi ! CAZ. Except Marrobio ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! no FIUMA Ha! Ha! Ha! What a joke! ROXO But the grim truth. One needs guerilla experience, and all the military genius of his grandfather, Boris the Bloody, which skipped over Tito, has come for our sins to Marrobio. . . . [Pricks up his ears] Why has the music stopped? CAZ. It must be the halt at the Palace of Justice. The Deputation of Judges ROXO Damn the fools ! Multiplying risks like that. That's where Marrobio will be. [Bitterly.] He's a judge — of positions. CAZ. Don't let's get off the track. What's your fourthly? ROXO We dare not attack Bosnavina and have the League of Nations on our back. CAZ. Pooh! I'm surprised at you, General. Bosnavina shall open the ball. We've only got to insult that pod of pepper, her Ambassador. Ill FIUMA Ha! Ha! Ha! It was just because Bosnavina did not open the ball that we nearly got our war months ago. ROXO [Agitated] Eh? What Is this I hear? FIUMA {Smiling] You didn't know? At the Coronation Ball the Queen led off the Cotillon with the American Minister in- stead of with Prince Condrexoulok. The Prince flung out of the ball-room, grinding his false teeth. CAZ. Seriously, it was all I could do to prevent war. ROXO Good God! Why wasn't I told? FIUMA You were away. Your wife was dying. ROXO What did that matter? With the country in danger! But you were Chamberlain then, sir. Why did you convey the Queen's command to dance? Why didn't you warn her? FIUMA I did. Only she wouldn't take me seriously. She said she wanted to talk about America and that the poor 112 Minister looked so drab amid all his parrot-coloured colleagues. Not that I quite understand myself why our best-hated neighbour must always have prece- dence. ROXO Prince Condrexoulok is the doyen of the diplomatic corps as well as a Highness, and, anyhow, an Ambas- sador is bigger than a Minister. FIUMA Well, we can't insult him in the ball-room- any longer, for he can only walk with a stick now. CAZ. We'll find a way. What's your fifthly? [Music strikes up again.'\ ROXO Ah, they're moving on. Thank God! ... I beg your pardon? CAZ. Your* fifthly? ROXO Ah, yes; fifthly and finally, no money! CAZ. Pah! Now that the Queen has brought stability, and our standing on the Bourses has risen, a loan on the world-market, Gripstein assures me 113 H ROXO The Baron? We're to go to the Jews! CAZ. Fiddlesticks! The man's as fervent a CathoHc as you, and an even fiercer Anti-Semite ! ROXO And a Knight of the Order of the Redeemer! A man with no quarterings — not even a shield! Ah, Cazotti, how can I work with you, when you give a Jew ? CAZ. But it was the Duke who insisted on it — the outgoing Regent. ROXO Whose pictures Gripstein bought back for him. FIUMA [Smiling] The Baron certainly pays his way! CAZ. But the pictures are only to be the Duke's during his lifetime. Then Gripstein gives them to the nation. ROXO The nation shall refuse them if I'm alive! CAZ. Hoity-toity! We've already accepted two hospitals and an officers' orphanage. You tried raising money 114 without him. You went to America. What did you bring back? ROXO [Roaring] I brought back the Queen! CAZ. Hush! Yes, of course! But the Queen is scarcely convertible into cash. Ah, here comes the converter himself FIUMA The converted, you mean. [Laughter. He and ROXO ostentatiously turn their backs on the BARON, who enters R.] BARON GR. I've arranged it all, your excellency. CAZ. Then 'phone it all off, please. We want the Queen's actual speech reported in full everywhere. BARON GR. Then you adopt her peace-programme? CAZ. Enthusiastically. You approve? BARON GR. I am enchanted. It is just what Valdania needs to re- store her position among the Powers. 115 CAZ. Only It will mean money BARON GR. And why not that loan on the world-market ? CAZ. Because — to tell the truth — these gentlemen object to your agency! BARON GR. [Skirting suddenly round to face them, with Oriental emotion and gesture] Ah, Signori ! But I owe Valdania everything. My wealth, my nationality, my wife, my children, my reli- gion. [Foice husky with tears.] In Germany I was a pariah; my sons couldn't have been officers. And you refuse me the opportunity of proving my gratitude ! FIUMA And increasing your profits I BARON GR. No, Marquis. The State shall have my commission. [JVipes his eyes.] On my honour as a Knight of the Redeemer! ROXO The man seems genuine. . . . [Holds out his hand.] Excuse my left hand! [The BARON grips it fervently.] ii6 But . . . see how I trust your honour — suppose the loan was wanted for war ! BARON GR. [Ecstatically] For war against Bosnavina ! ROXO Hush! You approve? BARON GR. I am enchanted. It is just what Valdania needs to restore her position among the Powers. The great Valdania ! Ah, how happy my boys will be ! The dream of "The Day" is their day-dream. When are we going to get our knives into those beastly Bosna- vinians, they keep asking me. Only yesterday my Sigismondo repeated the old prophecy: "When Rome yields up our royal seed, Bosnavina to death shall bleed." And I thought to myself, surely it means now — the Roman convent yielding up our beloved Queen ! [The three look at each other.] CAZ. Ahem ! Your reading may be — useful. Though it Is usually read to mean the resurrection of our national hero, Alpastroom, who was buried in Rome and whose sword is piously preserved in this very room. BARON GR. [Proudly] I know, I know. [Looking at it over the throne.] 117 "Who draws the sword of Alpastroom Writes our or Bosnavina's doom," FIUMA [Laughing] Ha ! Ha ! That oracle always amuses me. And if he fell In Rome, how comes his sword here? BARON GR. Ah, we must not question our old traditions. They are the poetry of life. I'll 'phone at once about the news- papers and take soundings for the loan CAZ. But to build canals, etcetera, remember. Indeed, we can always begin with strategic railways. What a blessing In disguise the Queen's speech is proving! BARON GR. Your peace-programme shall be welcomed in all my papers. [Going.'] FIUMA But won't that be awkward — if we do get our war? CAZ. Bless you, my young friend, the public has no mem- ory. The head of wood, what? Ha! Ha! Ha! . . . Oh, and Baron, let there be telegrams from Bosnavlna on the oppression of our co-nationals — school-children lashed for speaking Valdanian, our women raped, and so on. And — wait a moment — the Gazetta must have ii8 a leader on the spread of Valdanian culture through the Balkans BARON GR. My Sigismondo shall write it. He is particularly keen on our mission. [Exit R., murmuring unctuously.] "When Rome yields up our royal seed " FIUMA These Jews are incredible. . . . [Music swells. A fiery roll of the drums.'] Ah she's coming! ROXO They won't have eyes for me now. [Rushes to balcony R, and peers down. Now only a mere buzz of intense expectation comes up, to- gether with the marching and the music. My God! Fiuma ! He's there! FIUMA [Rushing to join him] Where? ROXO That towering figure — just where the Queen must dismount! God help her! FIUMA What can we do? ROXO Rush your men at once 119 FIUMA Arrest him ? ROXO Not till she's passed. Wedge him in so that he can't move a finger. [National Anthem breaks out, as at end of First Act.] Quick ! Quick ! [As FIUMA rushes down, CAZOTTI deliberately rushes up and blocks him a moment on the stone step.] CAZ. So sorry. . . . [Rushes on balcony.] Where is he? [guards hurry in R., munching and wiping their mouths. Distant cheers begin, rolling rapidly nearer.] VANNI Halt, swine ! Right wheel ! CAZ. Her milk-white horses are red with rose-leaves! ROXO God grant it may not be with blood. [Desperately] Where are our men? Why don't they come? 120 CAZ. I can't bear to look. [Comes down and sits on the step with his back to ROXO, his face betraying his real hopes.] ROXO Ah, there's our men! . . . But the soldiers won't let 'em pass! God, damn their cabbage-heads! CAZ. Why this silence? ROXO [Jt white-heat] Another address ! They've stopped the carriage. [Stamps foot.] Corpo di Dio! Who allowed it? CAZ. The Master of Ceremonies, I suppose. I had noth- ing to do with it. ROXO Don't excuse yourself — who accuses you? [Looks again.] Damnation! Little girls with bouquets — she's kissing them, curse them ! [Stamps foot.] Marrobio's eye Is focussed on her like a burning-glass. Oh! [Covers eyes, then when he re-opens them gives an exultant cry.] 121 Ah ! Our men have wriggled in ! Bravo, Fiuma ! Bravo ! [Claps hands.] CAZ. [Disconcerted, dolefully clapping hands] Bravo, hravissimo! ROXO She's inside! Ouf! [Drops on chair trembling all over.] CAZ. Thank God! [JVipes his forehead.] [There is a stir in the Palace. From either side courtiers come trooping in, the duchess and her maids, and other ladies of honour in elaborate and fantastic Court costumes not quite fVestern, some wearing gold sequins for decoration and others long ear-rings, officers and aides-de-camp glittering with epaulettes and gold lace, Chamberlains, Comp- trollers, Heralds in tabards, Stewards with cocked hats and swords and strange traditional costumes. The National Anthem still vibrates in the back- ground. All dispose themselves looking towards R. From the corridor comes the stir of an advanc- ing procession, and trumpeters are heard sound- ing a fanfare on silver trumpets. The excitement mounts to fever heat. The gentlefnan usher, a magnificently gilded being, enters.] 122 USHER Way for the Queen! [Preceded by trumpeters, equerries, grooms and other gentlemen-at-arms, and finally by two hal- berdiers walking backwards with their long staves, and accompanied by pages bearing bouquets, QUEEN MARGHERITA enters. Stepping with heredi- tary dignity, the crown still on her head, her arms full of roses, arid semi-barbaric heirloom jewels flashing^ from her gold-brocaded gown. Behind her comes an honorary guard of Mohammedan Aghas in zvhite kilts and scarlet fezzes, coats and shoes, with great sashes stuffed with weapons, and between them and the QUEEN walk the duke d'azollo and the countess cazotti. The COUNTESS is a vulgar, golden-haired beauty, evi- dently made up, the DUKE is a white-haired, courtly old figure with an artistic face. He carries a mass of parchment addresses, and his gold-epauletted coat is almost invisible beneath decorations. As the QUEEN enters, all those already assembled curtsey or bow elaborately.^ QUEEN [Smiling and drawing a long breath'] So that's over! . . . Well, General, you see how right I was to refuse your police escort. ROXO [Beaming'] Your majesty is always right. QUEEN But you surely didn't need all those soldiers! 123 ROXO Pure decoration, Madam. By the way, when will Your Majesty redeem your promise to review them? QUEEN When have I time? With all those papers CazottI makes me sign. Ah, here he is! How did you get here before me? COUNTESS CAZ. That's just like my husband's little ways. [Titter of courtiers^ CAT.. \JFith angry side-glance'] I flew, Madam, to welcome you home after your Par- liamentary success. QUEEN Then you didn't really mind my little additions? CAZ. Mind? The Government has gratefully adopted them. QUEEN [Clapping hands girlishly] You make me so happy! If only daddy were here to see how wrong he was ! CAZ. Ah, but King Tito lived in different times. QUEEN [Clouded] King Tito? Ah! Yes, of course [Bites her lips and turns to duchess.] 124 I am so glad your headache is better. Your husband has been so kind with the addresses and bouquets. You'll put them all in water, won't you, Marchesa? [The DUKE hastens to hand the addresses to that Lady-in-JFaiting. The QUEEN laughs a ringing, girlish laugh.] No, not those, dry as they are ! [ The MARCHESA and the pages go off with the flow- ers and parchments, save a few roses retained by the QUEEN.] DUCHESS D'A. Your Majesty must prepare for the Banquet. CAZ. Not before pacifying the people. Listen! [Cries of "Margheritaf" "Margherita!" are com- ing up from the Piazza.] You must show yourself a moment. QUEEN But they've just seen me ! ROXO Quite so. Why expose yourself unnecessarily? QUEEN Those silly alarms again! I shall go just to frighten you. [CAZOTTI hurries to open casement L. The QUEEN steps out, and the air becomes one vast vibration ''Viva Margherita! Viva Margherita!" She 125 comes In again, shaken with emotion. But the cries redouble. *' Speech! Speech!" Between laughter and crying.'] Another Queen's speech? [Laughter of the COURTIERS.] COUNTESS CAZ. But my husband makes those ! Go along, Alexis ! CAZ. [In fierce whisper] Hold your tongue ! [Enter BARON GRIPSTEIN R. He grasps the situa- tion immediately and waves his handkerchief.] BARON GR. Speech! Speech! COURTIERS [Waving handkerchiefs] Speech! Speech! [queen returns to balcony. A magic silence falls.] QUEEN [In a clear but trembling voice] My own, my dear people, I thank you all — Moslems and Christians alike — for your welcome of me. I feel so happy to think that after all the years of un- rest and blood, our country is at peace — at peace for evermore. I thank God that through me [Breaks down with a sob. The countess ca- ZOTTI starts forward with her handkerchief.] 126 CAZ. [Aside to gripstein] Splendid, that bit about perpetual peace. See it's re- ported. [gripstein scribbles in note-book.'] QUEEN [Recovering] When at my Coronation I took the oath of fidelity to your service, I was afraid the burden would be too great for me. But your love is lightening it. I pray God that I may never lose that love or your faith in me, because it is all that I have In the world — all that — that [Breaks into tears and retreats into the room amid frantic vivas from within and without. The COUR- TIERS shout and wave handkerchiefs. The Na- tional Anthem breaks out again. ROXO closes the casement in relief. The duchess and countess rush to wipe the queen's tears, but the COUNTESS wins.] QUEEN [Smiling through her tears] It's just like a first-night In New York! CAZ. [In icy reminder] So one reads. Your Majesty. ROXO [Equally alarmed] Her Majesty Is tired. DUCHESS D'A. Come, Madam. [The QUEEN goes with her L. MARQUIS fiuma 127 rushes in R. and whispers excitedly to ROXO. The QUEEN turns with a sudden thought.] QUEEN Oh, as to that review, Roxo [roxo ffoes on talking; FIUMA nudges hi77i.] What are you so absorbed about? ROXO Nothing, Madam, just professional. QUEEN [Mockingly] More precautions on my account? ROXO The contrary. Colonel Fiuma has just captured the last of the Moslem rebels. BARON GR. Marrobio! The saints be praised. Bravo, Marquis. QUEEN Captured? But I amnestied them all. ROXO This was their leader. He wouldn't accept your grace. QUEEN [Sniiling] Well, I dare say he will now. But everybody seems so pleased, Fiuma, I feel I ought to give you some- thing. The Order of the Redeemer — Second Class? 128 FIUMA [Overwhelmed] Oh, Madam, that is too much! [She extends her hand graciously, which he kisses, bowing low.] QUEEN And you, too, Cazotti, you must let me express my gratitude for your kindness to-day. CAZ. Better wait, Madam, till I have carried out your re- forms. I shall have the honour of submitting to you to-morrow the members of a roving Commission for Canals and Bridges under the Presidency of the Duke D'Azollo. QUEEN Splendid! [Claps her hands. The COURTIERS, led by GRIP- STEIN, clap theirs.] DUKE D'A. [startled] Me? I'm too old — I can't leave my wife! DUCHESS D'A. What nonsense ! [Laughter.] DUKE D'A. [Making a wry face] Everybody wants to get rid of me. 129 I QUEEN You know I shall miss you very much. Come, sit down a moment, and let me persuade you. DUCHESS D'A. But, Madam, your toilette for the Banquet! QUEEN I've only to take off my crown and do my hair. But don't let me keep anybody else. [Everybody melts away with backward bows while the dialogue proceeds. '\ DUCHESS D'A. Well, give it to me now — it will save time. COUNTESS CAZ. Excuse me. Duchess. That is my crown. [Takes it off.] DUCHESS D'A. Your Majesty will find me in waiting. [Exit with dignity.] QUEEN [To COUNTESS] No, nothing else now. [Exit COUNTESS backward with crown.] And there's no need to keep your men like toy soldiers, Corporal. They can come back for the reception. VANNI God bless Your Majesty. Right turn, march. [Exeunt GUARDS R.] 130 QUEEN Why don't you sit down? You know the D'Azollos have the right to sit, even were I standing. DUKE D'A. I am not here as your premier Duke, but as your pre- mier adorer. QUEEN Oh, please ! Haven't I had enough to-day of bobbing statesmen and crawling councillors, not to mention the poem declaring my face turns even the sun to a rush- light. [Laughs girlishly. '\ Ha! Ha! Ha! DUKE D'A. So it does. Your Majesty. QUEEN Oh, do forget my Majesty, now we're alone. DUKE D'A. If I can remember to forget It. QUEEN Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! That's like Norah I DUKE D'A. Who is Norah? 131 QUEEN Never mind. [Siffhs.] Dear Norah! DUKE D'A. Now you're sad. QUEEN [Recovering herself] Because you're so disobedient. Sit down at once, or I'll get up and then you'll have to melt away. DUKE D'A. Anything but that. [Sits.] QUEEN That's right. Do you remember my first levee? How I got up from that thing [Points to throne] to stretch my limbs, and everybody melted away. Oh, how astonished I was! Ha! Ha! Ha! Do you know, the only way I can reconcile myself to all this literally religious ceremonial, is by reminding myself I don't really exist. DUKE D'A. What! You've melted away, too? QUEEN As Queen I mean, I don't exist — any more than dryads and naiads in ancient Greence. They repre- sented the spirit of Nature, and I represent the spirit 132 of Valdania — it Is themselves my people adore In me, the greatness of their own history, their heroic past What are you smiling at? DUKE D'A. At your taking them seriously. It's their greatness that doesn't exist. QUEEN Oh surely! A thousand years of national his- tory ! DUKE D'A. Of natural history — animal squabbles and supersti- tions. No art, no letters, nothing. A pity Italy has never annexed us. QUEEN That at least I shall not take seriously. I know what a devoted Regent you made ! DUKE D'A. Oh yes, I could do my royal mumming with a grave face. But I had my royal robe cut with a specially large sleeve — to laugh In ! QUEEN Then why did you cry at my coronation? DUKE D'A. That's another matter. The Incense got Into my eyes. 133 And there was the organ music, the lovely hand hold- ing the sceptre, the ecstatic face QUEEN I didn't feel ecstatic, I assure you. When the car- dinal dumped the crown on my head, it felt like a cold iron clamp : the weight of responsibility turned me sick. I nearly fainted. And oh, how scared I was when I woke up this morning and remembered I had to read Cazotti's speech before all those great minis- ters and officials ! The dawn was just breaking over the mountains. Have you ever watched the dawn? DUKE D'A. Only in landscape-painting. QUEEN Don't jest. It was so beautiful as to be terrible — like God burning over the virgin snows. And below slept the city — a luminous twinkling network; like a second starry heaven. Ah, how I prayed to be worthy of my people's trust! And then there came into my head all that Valdania lacks and I resolved to put into the speech the things Cazotti had so strangely for- gotten. DUKE D'A. A very dangerous resolve, my dear, for both of us. QUEEN Do be serious, Duke. 134 DUKE D'A. I'm as serious as the Duchess. Queens who say things out of their own heads are apt to lose them. You are moving in a world of pitfalls and politicians. Be con- tent to charm the Court and give the people a vision. Neither you nor I were meant for Blue Books. QUEEN You say that ! You who are always so interested In bridges and canals! DUKE D'A. When you speak of them. I watch your lovely lips like a deaf man. QUEEN Oh! [Rises indignantly.] DUKE D'A. [Sitting stoutly] Does that mean I am to melt away? But you see I exercise the privilege of the D'Azollos. QUEEN You do yourself injustice. What about the day we saw all those crude floating bridges? Didn't you ex- plain to me that they made the river unnavlgable and shipping Impossible? DUKE D'A. I meant how delightful It Vv^as to escape the penny steamboats that have ruined Venice. 135 QUEEN [Collapses into chair] Oh! DUKE D'A. That's right! QUEEN But the day our car stuck in the river-swamp. You showed me how on the Bosnavinian bank there were flourishing cities, while on our own side only millions of reeds and willows DUKE D'A. Precisely. Picturesqueness plus immunity from in- vasion. QUEEN Invasion! Why should Bosnavina invade us? DUKE D'A. To anticipate our invading them, of course. Don't they hold a province of ours? QUEEN If we drained that marshland, we'd gain a finer pro- vince than we lost. Besides, all that was before you were born. DUKE D'A. Nations have long memories as asses have long ears. Aren't you still called "Duchess of Bosnavina," though we haven't set foot there since the Middle Ages. Everybody knows the Revenge is inevitable. 136 QUEEN [Springing up again.] I will not hear of it! [He rises too.] I shall formally renounce the title. The Bosnavinian Ambassador specially congratulated me at the Corona- tion and said that Peace was Bosnavina's supreme interest. DUKE D'A. And yet you are not uneasy? QUEEN [Moves from him] You men are all so cynical. You base politics on hate. Why do you never try Christian love ? DUKE D'A. I suppose because, like radium, it can only be got in minute quantities. Besides, one can't turn one's other cheek to a mosquito. QUEEN The Bosnavinians are not mosquitoes, but children of God like ourselves. And you call yourself a Christian! DUKE D'A. I? Aren't you mixing me up with the Baron? The Church is only a State form — like your washing of the beggars' feet at Easter — after they had been soaped and scented! I never even thought there could be a God till you incarnated. 137 QUEEN Now you are blasphemous ! DUKE D'A. Religious, my dear, for the first time. When you talked of God burning over the virgin snows, I felt like one of our mountain-roads after a thaw, that keep miraculously amid their slush some little patch of purity. Have your way! I'll go and study canals till I die of rheumatism and boredom. QUEEN [Holding out hand impulsively'] Oh, thank you ! No [Laughingly] I don't mean you're to die. Ha! Ha! Ha! [He is kissing her hand and she is laughing, when a sudden shattering explosion vibrates through the Palace. They start apart.] What's that? [A brief pause. Then the DUCHESS and COURTIERS run in pell-mell from L., some of the ladies caught in the middle of their toilettes, the countess CAZOTTI without her wig, revealing a comical grey head. The duchess comes to nestle against her husband. ROXO and CAZOTTI rush in together, GRIPSTEIN in their rear.] ROXO Ah, the Queen's safe! CAZ. Thank God! 138 BARON GR. A thousand candles to Our Lady! COUNTESS CAZ. But what is it? What has happened? DUKE D'A. Nothing to go grey about! [The COUNTESS claps her hand to her head and runs back L.] DUCHESS D'A. One for the crown. Thank you, dear! ROXO [To the queen] The fireworks stored up for to-night must have gone off in the vault. QUEEN I'm sure it's a bomb. I heard one once in New CAZ. [Hastily] Forgive my interrupting you, Madam. But Fiuma is investigating. QUEEN I hope to God nobody is hurt. . . . Ah! [marquis fiuma enters R. and whispers to ROXO.] Always these whisperings ! Report to me, Fiuma. A bomb, Is it not? FIUMA No, Your Majesty, only a hand-grenade. 139 QUEEN Anybody hurt? ROXO [Answering quickly] One man killed, Madam — Corporal Vanni ! QUEEN [fVincing] Oh! . . . Not the Corporal I just spoke to? ROXO I'm afraid it is. QUEEN [Overwhelmed] And he said to me as he went out, "God bless you !" ROXO A gross breach of discipline ! And I gather that he owes his death to a still grosser breach. It seems he fished up the grenade from the Piazza, thinking the tin held food, and, being Interrupted, put it in his pocket and forgot all about it, till taking it out just now QUEEN Poor creature I BARON GR. But he was standing just here, General; we might any of us have been killed. ROXO Precisely. 140 BARON GR. Hear, O Israel! QUEEN But what demon ? ROXO Marrobio, Madam. QUEEN Marrobio. And who Is Marrobio? CAZ. The brute you spoke of pardoning. QUEEN The Moslem rebel? But what can be his motive? ROXO It's a sort of Holy War he preaches. His followers believe he bears a charmed life. QUEEN Why was I not told about him? Have you ever spoken to him? ROXO Not since he was a boy. He was — about the Palace. QUEEN Then my parents knew him? 141 ROXO [Embarrass ed'\ Er — possibly . . . [Cries of "Margherita'^ "Margherita" break dully from without.^ But the people are calling for Your Majesty. QUEEN What, again? CAZ. They want to see for themselves you are safe. QUEEN What do I matter, when that poor Corporal ? DUKE D'A. Come, Madam, it will relieve them. ROXO [To FIUMA] Not a word about the wounded! [The DUKE opens the casement L., and leads her on to the balcony. The reception is more delirious than ever. The crowd starts singing the National Anthe?n.] QUEEN [Coming in, shaken] It is really very sweet of them! [Cries of ''Marrohio! Marrobiof" now resound from the Piazza.] What do they want now? FIUMA To lynch Marrobio. 142 QUEEN How horrible! It's like the South ! [Stops herself abruptly.] But you won't give him up? ROXO No, Madam, we can do our own lynching. QUEEN Not without trial? ROXO He'll be lucky if it's without torture. QUEEN You never torture, surely? ROXO Only to get a confession. And this man has publicly harried Your Majesty's forces for five years. QUEEN Where have you put him? ROXO For the moment in the Palace dungeon. QUEEN Has the Palace a dungeon? ROXO Naturally. 143 QUEEN How strange ! Things going on around and under- neath and one knows nothing. Just bring him up a moment. ROXO I beg Your Majesty's pardon? QUEEN I want to see this Marrobio. ROXO To see him? A rebel who tried to blow up your Palace? QUEEN And you are surprised I want to ask him why? ROXO To ask him why? QUEEN Yes, don't you think it's best to talk things out? You have never spoken to him since he was a boy. ROXO But this is unheard-of. The Queen cannot come in contact with criminals. It is not her sphere. QUEEN Whose sphere, then? 144 ROXO The Law's. QUEEN But am / not the Law? Don't all your legal docu- ments begin "The Queen versus " ? ROXO That Is a mere State form. QUEEN A form! A form! The Church! The Law! Every- thing to you men is a form. But don't you see that here — for once — it is a reality? The Queen versus Marrobio! Even a private plaintiff may see the de- fendant — the Queen has less rights than her meanest subject. CAZ. Infinitely greater rights, Madam. She has the pre- rogative of pardon. QUEEN And why should I pardon without enquiry? Let the man be brought at once. DUKE D'A. You are overwrought, Madam. The explosion QUEEN Let me be left with General Roxo ! [duke bows. COURTIERS beffiti to melt away.] 145 K DUCHESS D'A. Your toilette, Madam. QUEEN [Stamping foot] Let me be left with General Roxo ! CAZ. [To FIUMA] Tito's daughter begins to peep out. [To QUEEN.] I hope I may stay, too. Your Majesty raises a serious constitutional question. QUEEN Ah, you must be two to one. Take the Marquis, take the Baron. Be four to one! [Throws her roses away.] FIUMA If Your Majesty will excuse me, I must see to my casualties — my corporal. [Bows and exit R.] BARON GR. [Fery upset] Please don't count me against you. Madam. QUEEN You treat me as a divinity, yet the first simple thing I ask of you, you refuse me. It's the same when I want to talk to somebody on our drives — my ladies always object to this or that — I begin to think you all have something to hide from me. Why are you hiding this Marrobio? 146 ROXO Not hiding him, Madam. But It is utterly unprece- dented that a sovereign QUEEN The rulers of Israel always spoke with the enemy in the gate. And didn't King Solomon judge cases him- self? Am I not right, Baron? BARON GR. Oh, please, I'm no authority on ancient history. QUEEN I only want to know why he tries to kill me. CAZ. But we know quite well, Your Majesty. He wants to rule Valdania, he and his fellow-Mussulmans. QUEEN On what ground? CAZ. He pretends they are the largest sect. QUEEN And isn't it true? CAZ. Er — in a way. QUEEN Then it's not so unreasonable. 147 BARON GR. But we Christians united CAZ. And even if they were an absolute majority, we can't submit to a degraded population whose children are educated by slaves; to tyrants who, when they did rule, seized the peasants' crops and wanted to abolish even our Latin alphabet. Have you ever been in the Mos- lem quarter? QUEEN My ladies always objected. DUCHESS D'A. [JFho has lingered anxiously'] Forgive me. Madam, but your toilette. ROXO {Looks at his wrist-watch] I implore Your Majesty — there's only a quarter of an hour to the Banquet. QUEEN Then why waste time? CAZ. After all, General, where's the harm? ROXO [Jt white heat] Because you let your speech be altered, you think [Almost apoplectic.] But military procedure is sacred! 148 QUEEN Oh, very well. CAZ. AND BARON GR. Thank you, Madam. QUEEN [Goin^ L.] I shall not appear at the Banquet. ROXO [Gasping] Not appear? QUEEN I am only a State form. The Duchess can receive for me. DUCHESS D'A. [Upset] But what can I say? QUEEN That I have caught your headache. [The DUCHESS winces, bows and retires in a rage.] ROXO [Abruptly] Have your way, Madam. CAZ. AND BARON GR. Thank you, General. QUEEN Thank you. 149 ROXO But first we'll have the guard in — and doubled. QUEEN [Dismayed] Oh, but I can't talk before others. Which is the way to the dungeon? ROXO Go down that slimy staircase ! In that dress I I'll send for him. QUEEN But I must see him alone. ROXO See Marrobio alone ! I shall resign first. QUEEN [In consternation] But why? ROXO I am responsible for Your Majesty's safety. QUEEN And allowed a grenade in my guard's pocket. [He winces.] No, I beg your pardon. But you must let me protect myself. [Smiles winningly.] ROXO [Mastering himself] You shall see him alone. But on my conditions. 150 QUEEN Name them. ROXO That Marrobio is lashed to this pillar. [Points R.] That you sit on your throne and approach no nearer. That the guards be doubled at each entrance. That the interview last five minutes. QUEEN Ten. ROXO [Shozving wrist-watch] Five. QUEEN Very well. ROXO And while Marrobio is being — prepared for the in- terview — may I suggest that Your Majesty's toi- lette ? QUEEN [Sutiling] How practical! [Bewitchingly.] No wonder you win wars. [roxo bows and hurries out R.] BARON GR. O, Madam, may I have the honour of escorting you? 151 [Parts the hangings and shouts pompously] Way for the Queen! [Exeunt L.] CAZ. [PFhistling] Whew! What a vixen! [JValks about in perturbation, surveys throne, bites his nails, then trims them nervously with a little pocket-knife.'] I wonder how it feels! [Perches uneasily on the throne and darts of at the sound of Roxo returning R. Enter ROXO with a squad of soldiers carrying ropes; amid them MARROBIO stands, smiling disdainfully, a superb type of Oriental manhood in green turban and robes, with a touch of the Prophet and something of the King. The soldiers begin to rope him to the marble pillar. CAZOTTI approaches cau- tiously.] MARRO. [With a terrible glance] Ah, Cazotti, Fate entwines our paths again. CAZ. [Shrinking back] Why haven't you handcuffed him? MARRO. Handcuff me!! ROXO Rebel as he is, he is a soldier — and of the blood! 152 CAZ. But he is serpent and tiger in one — have a care ! ROXO Don't be alarmed. His day is done. MARRO. Says the poet: Even when dry — The fish cannot die — Unless willed from on high. CAZ. We shall see. MARRO. If Allah willed it, so be it. The mantle of life, Cazotti, is not always the cloak of honour. [Closing his eyes, he repeats piously] La Ilaha ilia Allah Muhammad Rasul Allahi! [fVith a sudden bound he has escaped from his captors, almost overwhelming CAZOTTi and is nearly L. when, aroused by the shouts, the other set of GUARDS from L. corridor rush through the curtains and hurl themselves at him. Even so, he is not easily overpowered, and some are about to use their scimitars.'] ROXO No, no! Not steel! MARRO. [Ceasing to struggle as suddenly and fold- ing his arms with a smile] Said I not the fish would live? 153 CAZ. Only that Her Majesty may gaze on you. MARRO. [Turning fierce again] To gloat over me? May a div prick the eyes from her unveiled visage ! [He stands passive now, with smouldering eyes, while they drag him back to the pillar and lash him afresh. ROXO bends to look at the cords.] Back, magician, would you breathe on the knots? ROXO Fudge ! I'm only inspecting them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. The devil himself could not get out of that. MARRO. The Prophet was tied with eleven knots, yet he had but to recite the last eleven verses of the Ku'ran. ROXO Recite away! To your stations! [Soldiers exeunt, both ways. To CAZOTTi] Would you mind receiving Her Majesty? The poor wounded are asking for me. CAZ. There arc wounded? ROXO Four, including the Corporal. 154 MARRO. Ha ! Allah Is just. CAZ. I thought the Corporal was dead. ROXO He may yet live. [Hastens out R.] MARRO. [Uplifted] It is an oracle ! [He rises his eyes heavenward and commences murmuring his prayer.] I put my trust in the God of the daybreak, To deliver me from the evils which He hath created, From the mischief of the moon when she is covered with darkness, From the malevolence of those who breathe upon knots, And from the [CAZOTTI, who has been walking up and down ponderingly, now stops suddenly at the pillar.] CAZ. [In a hoarse whisper] Would you like revenge and a fighting chance? MARRO. Hell mocks the mocker. [Murmurs on.] I put my trust In the God of mankind 155 CAZ. But listen! If I cut your knots, will you swear never to betray or injure me? MARRO. [Looks piercingly at him] Ha ! Your fingers, too, thirst for her throat. CAZ. Hush ! Swear ! MARRO. [Solemnly raising! his eyes] Aksamtu Billahi! CAZ,. [Sawing at first knot] Ah, they're tough. But it's best not to cut them quite. You can seize your moment for springing at her. And then — the balcony! You know the Palace. MARRO. [With eyes heavenward] Allah answers the prayer of the faithful. [As CAZOTTI cuts.] One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . eight . . . nine ! Leave the knife ! CAZ. No ! Look above the throne I MARRO. Ah, the sword of Alpastroom! Allah is great! 156 CAZ. May He prosper your hand! . . . Ho there! Guards! [They appear at both wings. MARROBIO still seems tied to his pillar.^ Keep your eye on the wretch while I inform GENTLEMAN USHER [Parting hangings L.] Way for the Queen! CAZ. Ah, she is here. [Enter QUEEN, her hair dressed for the Banquet.'] QUEEN Ah, thank you, Cazotti. See these men are withdrawn — far — beyond eavesdropping. CAZ. Under protest. Madam. [Waves GUARDS hack R. and L. Goes L. himself toward QUEEN, who seats herself on the throne.] You see I fulfill the conditions ! [cazotti bows very low and exits through the hangings L. The queen and MARROBIO look at each other, she with curiosity, and impressed; he, tense, with glittering eyes, a wild beast crouched for the spring. She is the first to break the thrill- ing silence.] So you are Marrobio! 157 MARRO. And you are Margherita ! QUEEN I wished to see you. MARRO. You repaid my compliment. I left my mountains to see you. QUEEN And to murder me. MARRO. With Allah's help ! QUEEN [Shrinks back] You glory in it! MARRO. Even though I sup to-night in Paradise. QUEEN I came in the hope of saving your life. But this tone on the brink of death MARRO. Death is as near to your throne, Margherita, as to my pillar. QUEEN I know we are all in the hands of God, but remember you are likewise In the hands of my ministers. 158 MARRO. When the cock crows, the eagle swoops. Allah can change night to day, says the Book, and day to night. [Glares bale fully at her, begins to wriggle at the cut ropes.] He can bring life from the bosom of death and death from the bosom of life. QUEEN But it is you who have brought death into this Palace. Why? Why? MARRO. It is a Jihad, a holy war. Kill your foes, says the Prophet. Bathe yourselves in their blood. QUEEN How horrible! Is that the law of Islam? MARRO. And is it not the law of Roxo? Whence comes his glory save from slaying thousands? QUEEN In fair fight and with fair weapons. MARRO. No fight can be fair, no weapon unfair. Ma sha'llah! You to condemn Islam — you with your peace-trap ! QUEEN My peace-trap? 159 MARRO. Your proclamation of amnesty. My lieutenant sur- rendered and you butchered him. QUEEN It is not true ! MARRO. You lie ! She-dragon with the eyes of a gazelle ! It was your Coronation sacrifice to your God. QUEEN I swear by your God — by Allah MARRO. Astaghfir Allah! Profane not his name ! It may be they hid their infamy, for your eyes seem wells of truth and your eyelids flutter like the wings of a love- bird. But what of my brothers driven to baptism or the shambles — the veils torn from our women — the ? QUEEN By whom? When? MARRO. Through the ages. Only Da Pletra knew tolerance. And him you Christians murdered. QUEEN But they tell me you Moslems ruled even worse — you seized our peasants' crops, you 1 60 iMARRO. Somebody must pay the taxes. But we did not force our faith by the sword. QUEEN Mahomet did. MARRO. Muhammad was God's messenger. He was later than Moses or Jesus — the seal of the Prophets. But Satan is goading humanity to destroy us. The Cross spreads its giant arms over the firmament and the Crescent dwindles like a dying moon. QUEEN Because you misgovern! You don't catch up with Western civilisation. MARRO. Western civilisation ! When the Westernmost Conti- nent has only just caught up with our ban on the wine-cup. Western civilisation ! Have you ever vis- ited our quarter? QUEEN My ladies objected. MARRO. No wonder. There you would have found no rowdy streets filled with reeling wine-skins and unveiled females, no noisy hawkers and shop-keepers, no cham- l6l L bers open to the public gaze, only our cobblers and coffee-stall keepers on their carpets, never a knife raised, nor a voice, save that of the muezzin calling to prayer or the school-children chanting the Ku'ran. Cleanness of soul and body, charity, hospitality, love of our neighbour, equal chances for the poorest . . . And we are the Gadarean swine that must be driven out of Europe ! Ah, but Allah is merciful and He has set your hands in murder against one another, and the sun of civilisation that rose in the East is setting in blood in the West and must rise again in glory in its ancient quarter! [He ends ecstatic, transfigured.] QUEEN If what you say is true, we have both to learn from each other. In any case this feud of Cross and Cres- cent can have no foothold in Valdania. Does not our proverb say: Moslem, Christian, Jew, or other, Every Valdanian is my brother? MARRO. Your brother? Ha! Ha! Ha! But I am your brother. QUEEN [Puzzled] You my brother? MARRO. Have they hidden that, too ? 162 QUEEN They have hidden something. Just now when I pressed the Duchess, she MARRO. You did not know I am King Tito's son? QUEEN You? My mother had a son also? MARRO. Your mother? Nay, my mother, Zarah, peace be to her. She was kicked away Hke an old Turkish slipper when policy brought a Northern princess here. QUEEN My father was married twice? MARRO. Nay, nor to two women at once, my guileless gazelle. The pleasures which Allah in His mercy has per- mitted the faithful are not enjoyed by the infidel — openly. Nor could my mother, peace to her, consent to marry a Nazarene. I am merely King Tito's eldest-born. . . . Ah, you start back. But the name wherewith you Christians brand Innocent offspring Is an Infamy unknown to Islam. QUEEN {Slowly^ Then — Is It you who should be ruling here? MARRO. Nay, nay, If I rule here, It will be by the sword. 163 QUEEN But what need of the sword, brother? I would gladly surrender the throne. MARRO. [Dazed] Yallah! You say? QUEEN If it is yours morally. If God released me. Your shoulders are broad — it is all too terrible and tangled for a girl. I would rather make my music. MARRO. JVallahi! You make music, indeed. It is like the sing- ing of bulbuls in my heart. What manner of Christian are you who talk like a Muslim? QUEEN I only talk like every other Christian. MARRO. By the beard of the Prophet, I have talked with arch- bishops and archimandrites, patriarchs and cardinals, but never heard I talk like this. Ya Walad! You would resign your throne to the spawn of Tito, the rebel, the murderer awaiting the gibbet? QUEEN If he would repent, if he would render equal justice to Moslem and Christian? MARRO. It is as if the air were full of the perfume of myrrh 164 and rosewater. But do you imagine, O daughter of innocence, that if you yield up that throne, your fellow Christians would set me upon it? QUEEN I could point out to them that your sect is the largest, and that on the principle of self-determination MARRO. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! If I did not know you were my father's daughter, I should say you were an American. QUEEN [Startled] An American? MARRO. Was there not a great white prophet whose rumour reached even to my mountains? We deemed him a second Muhammad, for through him should the People of the Book find justice. But what was the end of the matter? We are as frogs whose pond is dried up ! The Sheikh-ul-Islam is dishonoured, the very capital of our faith in the hands of the Kafirin! Ah! [JVith renewed fierceness.'] What proof have I that you, too, are not a snake whose slaver is steeped in honey? QUEEN [Sadly] Ah, / believe you. But you will not believe me. MARRO. Quoth Lukman the Wise: "Learn from the blind, who 165 believe only what they touch." If you speak truth, my sister, come and cut my cords. QUEEN I have nothing to cut with. MARRO. There is a sword over your head. QUEEN {Looking up] That old thing! MARRO. It will be sharp enough. [The QUEEN stands on the throne and manages to pull the sword out of its scabbard. She gets down and begins to move forzvard.] QUEEN Oh, but I can't leave my throne — I promised my min- isters. MARRO. [Derisively] Ha ! Ha ! And you offered to leave it for me. Luk- man was wise Indeed. QUEEN His wisdom was blind. [Calls towards hangings.] 166 Ho there ! Is there a chamberlain or squire on service? [CAZOTTI answers the call; evidently he has been on tenterhooks. '\ CAZ. Can I do anything, Your Majesty? I have been so anxious. \_Startled.'\ You have drawn the sword of Alpastroom ! QUEEN To cut Marrobio's cords. {Hands it to him. He takes it dazedly."] CAZ. / am to cut Marrobio's cords? QUEEN If you please. \^The two men's eyes meet. CAZOTTI walks slowly and nervously and pretends to slash at the already cut knots.] MARRO. [Counting as before] One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . eight . . . nine. [He throws of the ropes with a tigerish move- ment, and drags the sword from. CAZOTTl's hand. CAZOTTI recoils instinctively. MARROBIO slozvly walks over to the QUEEN, who awaits him, smiling. As he reaches the dais, and sees she does not flinch, 167 he prostrates himself at her feet, his head in the dust, his sword spread out on the floor.'] My sovereign! QUEEN Rise, my brother! MARRO. [Rising] This sword that cut my bonds has cut a covenant 'twixt me and you. Henceforth it shall be sacred for the defence of Your Majesty's friends, for the de- struction of Your Majesty's foes. QUEEN [Rising from the throne] Give me the scabbard! [marrobio mounts dais and easily reaches the scabbard. He shows the queen an inscription on it, and she girds the sword on him. While the two are thus absorbed at L., ROXO enters hurriedly R., holding out his wrist-watch.] CAZ. [JFho has remained R.] Say nothing! Marrobio is won over! ROXO [Staring] Is it possible? CAZ. Ay, and by giving him the command against Bosna- vina, we get two of your points in one. Then with Gripstein supplying the money, and you at the War Office 1 68 ROXO Ah, but the fifth point? How make Bosnavina de- clare war? CAZ. [Picking up the mass of cords] Trust Providence to cut that knot too. [Beckoning he throws the cords to a GUARD espied QUEEN Now you are girded, [Turns, perceiveS' ROXO.] Prince Marrobio has consented to stay for the Ban- quet — he will, of course, have the place of honour. ROXO But, Madam ! QUEEN Silence! I will hear no more of your miserable objec- tions. I have done more in five minutes to bring peace than you in five years. {Turns her back on him and mounts haughtily to her throne.] ROXO [To CAZOTTI] It Is intolerable. I shall resign. CAZ. [Smiling] Naturally. To go to the War Office. For, fifthly and finally 169 ROXO [In a low, awestruck voice] You are right. She gives a bastard Mussulman the place of Prince Condrexoulok. It is the finger of God. GENTLEMAN USHER [Appearing R.] Is Your Majesty ready to receive? QUEEN Quite. [To MARROBIO, who begins to move down.] Remain at my right hand, brother. [Curtain] 170 Act III [The Throne Room in the San Marco Palace as he- fore, save that a fire of logs is burning on the great hearth and two captured Bosnavinian flags hang on the wall in place of the sword of Alpastroom, and if ever the casement is opened, the mountains are seen snowy to their base. At a table drawn up near the fire, the DUCHESS d'azolla and various MAIDS OF HONOUR are making bandages. They are drably attired: some in mourning, and one in the Red Cross costume. At R. the old line of smart, stalwart soldiers is replaced by a collection of aged or decrepit civilians in ill-fitting uniforms, under CORPORAL VANNI, now minus his right arm. For an instant the ladies zvork in silence, then faintly through the closed casement comes the high clear cry of the muezzin from the nearest minaret.^ MUEZZIN [From afar] Allah Akbar la ila ha ilia Allah . . . [Two of the soldiers prostrate themselves.] DUCHESS D'A. Fifteen o'clock by the minaret. [Rising.] I am afraid we oughtn't to waste these candles, and we shall spoil our eyes if we work much longer. [As the ladies gather up the work, a church-bell chimes three.] Put back the table, Corporal. 171 VANNI [Motioning to his men to obey] I have only one arm now, Your Highness. DUCHESS D'A. Ah, poor fellow. I hope it's not paining you. VANNI Not when I look at those captured flags and my brother-in-law's letter. DUCHESS D'A. [Eagerly] From the front? VANNI Yes, but I never found it till I came out of hospital this morning. DUCHESS D'A. Ah, then the news will be stale. Thank you. [Exit with ladies L.] VANNI [Prodding the praying Mussulmans with his foot] That's enough, you holy fakirs. [Goes and opens casement R.] Br-r-r! Come along, you stinking Pacifist. [VITTORIO, a decrepit-looking old soldier with a scholarly face, comes in, blowing his fingers.] Hurry up, Abdullah, or I'll catch my death. [Oiie of the Moslem goes out to replace the guard.] You know what you have to look out for — the Rol- 172 menian envoy — blue and gold uniform, white cocked hat. [Closes casement.] Atschew ! Hi there ! [To VITTORIO, who has sneaked to warm his fin- ders at the fire.] Get to your rank, you swine. VITTORIO I won't be called a swine. VANNI Silence, or I'll rip you up like one, you black-snouted son of a sow. You're a pro-Bosni, that's what you are, a beastly Bolshevist. D'you think I haven't heard of the sing-song you wrote about brotherhood? Brotherhood with Bosni butchers! Ugh! Stand at attention, you spy! VITTORIO I am a gentleman and I shall complain to the War Office. VANNI Gentleman! You're lucky to be conscripted and get decent rations, when other gentlefolk are glad of dry barley-bread. Ah, here comes the War Office. Com- plain, if you dare ! [Enter general roxo R., with a portfolio under his only arm. Salute. He is not wearing his dec- orations and walks bent and tottering — VITTORIO steps from the ranks, hesitates, ROXO disappears.] 173 VANNI [Mockingly] Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! VITTORIO It's only because he looks so broken. VANNI Broken, you beastly defeatist! It's his arm worrying him, that's all. I'd gladly give him mine, only then he'd have two lefts and that wouldn't be right. SOLDIERS [In parasitic laughter] Ha! Ha! Ha! Good! VANNI Have I made a joke? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! [roxo re-appears L. Laughter frozen.] ROXO I nearly forgot. Corporal. Where is your look-out? VANNI On the balcony, my General. ROXO You lie I VANNI No, my General! ROXO I beg your pardon. But how was it when I looked up from the Piazza ? 174 VANNI We were just changing the guard. ROXO Aha! So you did leave the Piazza unwatched! VANNI Only for an instant. ROXO In that instant the Rolmenian envoy might have driven up. The new look-out must mount guard before the old is relieved. VANNI Yes, my General. [Exit ROXO.] Ah, he is a wonderful man. Nothing escapes him. The comrades in the hospital chaffed me about copying his arm. But Dio, If I could copy his brain. Cristo! The way he manoeuvred the Bosnis into our river- marshes, while he rushed across and took Ripo ! VITTORIO That was Marrobio. VANNI Yes, but where did the strategy come from? Dio, if I could have heard 'em screaming and gurgling as they sank slowly in the sucking mud! My brother-in-law writes you could see hands clawing above the mud days after 175 VITTORIO [Looking ghastly} Don't. VANNI And what about viy hand that they blew off! Don't say that was Marrobio, too. As if our General would cripple his own soldiers. No, no — it was one of those naturalised Bosnis we so confidingly gave papers to! But we've got 'em all interned now, these friends of yours, and they'll no more come out alive than out of that mud! SOLDIERS Ha! Ha! Ha! VANNI [Beaming] Ah, the fun when we took Ripo ! My brother-in-law with one bayonet spiked — but read it for yourself, Vittorio, rub your nose in it. [Forces letter on vittorio, who reads with grow- ing horror.] And the Bosni women, eh, boys? Some of course asked for nothing better. [soldiers laugh.] Ah, it's a man's life, he says: Why go back to brooch- making when you can make necklaces of Bosni ! [vittorio falls fainting, the letter gripped in h>s hand.] Hi! What's this? Get up, you old woman! [Spurns him zvith his foot.] Time you got your blood-legs ! Attention ! Cover him ! 176 [The SOLDIERS stand in front of their fallen com- rade to conceal him, and CAZOTTI enters R. with portfolio, and the same harassed look as ROXO. He has nearly crossed the scene when he turns.'] CAZ. Corporal ! VANNI Yes, excellency. CAZ. Should the Rolmenlan envoy arrive while I am at the Privy Council VANNI I am to send him to you — I understand. CAZ. No, you don't ! And don't have the Impertinence to interrupt. VANNI [JFith crawling humility] A thousand pardons. CAZ. Her Majesty will be at the Privy Council, and she'd be disturbed to see the envoy. The moment your look- out espies him, a chamberlain must come and say a crisis demands my immediate presence. VANNI I understand. 177 M CAZ. Be careful you do, this time. VANNI I am careful, excellency. I always post a new look- out before the old goes off guard. CAZ. Admirable! I shall not forget your zeal. But when the light on the balcony fails, post him at the Palace- gate ! VANNI Sicuro, excellency. [Exit CAZOTTI. The men turn to examine the fallen GUARD.] Ah, you've come to ! And I suppose you'll be writing that we cut off Bosni ears. But it's only trophies to bring home to the girls, stupid ! The Bosni officers, they slice off the ears of their owrl men to get the cowards to advance. Up with you, Vittorio, you'll want some fresh air after your faint — get back on guard, do you hear? [Opens casement.] Come along, Abdullah, you're relieved. VITTORIO And so am I — of such society I [Throws letter at him.} VANNI I'll court-martial you for that! 178 [A parasite picks up the letter and hands it to VANNI, and the two GUARDS exchange places while he is talking on.] Corpo di Bacco! There's scarcely a brat of sixteen but has got his chance of Bosni-sticking, while I'm cooped up here with the queerest collection of crocks that ever disgraced Her Majesty's uniform. And any day now Marrobio may be looting the Bosni capital. Lucky beggars ! Lucky beggars ! [Enter colonel the marquis fiuma, haggard like the others, his hair lavishly sprinkled with grey; crape on his sword and on his arm. Salute.] FIUMA You know their eminences, the Cardinal and the Patriarch? VANNI Yes, my Colonel — by their holy clothes. They came an hour ago. FIUMA They are not to leave the Palace. VANNI Prisoners, my Colonel? FIUMA Oh, no- [Smiling sadly] Detained at Her Majesty's pleasure. The War Office's order, say. They may have to sleep here. 179 VANNI I will have a watchman posted all night at the Palace- gate. FIUMA Excellent. I shall remember your zeal. [Enter L. CAZOTTI in a raging passion, waving a newspaper.^ CAZ. Perdition, Colonel! Is this the way you censor? Look at that filthy rag smuggled into the Queen's blotter at the Council-Table! FIUMA [Taking it] The Sera! But this was never submitted to me! CAZ. Not submitted? Good God! Then it is Revolution! Withdraw your men, Corporal, well back! VANNI Yes, excellency. [Signals. They withdraw R.] CAZ. Read it — read it aloud — the letters dance before my eyes. Sit down. FIUMA I can't sit — oh, excellency, if you knew how it racks me to think of my friends — the few not killed — freez- ing in Bosnavina, while I in warmth and safety ! 1 80 CAZ. It's not so blasted warm and it won't be so very safe once this wretched article rouses the people. Sit down. We need you, Roxo and I. [fiuma sits, too, though he soon rises again.'\ Ah, I knew something was in the wind — the moment I saw coloured rags fluttering on the Moslem houses near the railway station. FIUMA In the wind — is it a pun? CAZ. Good God, no ! Don't you know the Moslem super- stition? Those living near a cemetery always hang out bits of cloth. What the scoundrels mean to sug- gest is that the station where our soldiers entrain is a cemetery. And if they, who are so proud of their Marrobio, venture on this rebel sally — no wonder ths Christians — but read, read! FIUMA Headline : "Stop the War" — "Yesterday's Day of In- tercession and Prayer for Victory celebrated in all the churches, synagogues and mosques of Valdania " CAZ. Ah, what did I tell Roxo? If you say "God help us," people know it's all up. . . . Excuse me. FIUMA "While it emphasised the unity of the country under its unexampled tribulations ..." i8i CAZ. Cut the cackle. Time presses. FIUMA Er — er — "Eight thousand men have been blinded by chips of granite blown off the mountains of Bosnavina, but still more tragic is the blinding of the whole peo- ple by the Government and the Jew-press." CAZ. Poor old Baron! FIUMA "As a matter of fact these first victories have been followed by overwhelming defeats. Despite three desperate attempts to take the pass — the gallantry of which does not compensate for the terrible casualties — Marrobio had to retire on Ripo. But the enemy, re-pouring through the pass, recaptured the town, and now holds us, foodless, frost-bitten and pneumonia- ridden, with our backs to the swollen river." CAZ. Abominable! There must be leakage at the War Office. FIUMA But if it is true ? CAZ. You, a censor, say that! Truth is always dangerous, in war it is suicidal. Is that all? 182 FIUMA Not quite. "A glance at the uncleared snow in our streets will remind our readers that the period of mountain fighting is over for the year. Our utmost hope, therefore, is to escape annihilation, whether at the hands of the enemy or in attempting to regain Valdania across the bridgeless flood." The Queen was right, you see. If we had built bridges CAZ. There are so many things the Queen wanted that would have come in handy for war. More railways, for instance, and if we had had wireless apparatus, we shouldn't have been cut off from the front for two days by this snowstorm, not to mention we should know where the Rolmenian envoy was. But you young bloods wouldn't wait! FIUMA [Too broken to retort] It winds up : "Let us stop the war while some of our sons still survive to carry on our ancient valorous breed." "Valorous breed!" How these Pacifists con- tradict themselves ! CAZ. It's more important that they contradict us. FIUMA What's to be done? CAZ. Roxo is already ordering the arrest of the staff and the break-up of the printers' plant. And the Press 183 Bureau Is sending out a statement that the retreat was strategic, according to plan. FIUMA But that won't alter the facts. CAZ. Oh, yes, It will. Facts don't exist till they're believed. When the wires are repaired, we may learn the game's up. But for the moment we remain unbeaten. FIUMA Is that all that lies between us and ruin? Roxo was so sure Marrobio CAZ. Even genius can't do the impossible. Marrobio's in- vasion of Bosnavina was premature. Roxo, when he ordered it, was counting on the two million Valdanians there rising up and joining us. FIUMA But why haven't they, do you suppose? CAZ. It turns out they have no grievances. FIUMA No grievances? They weren't martyrised? CAZ. No — in one thing this rag was right — we were misled by the Jew-press. 184 FIUMA To which you — excuse my reminding you — dictated atrocities. CAZ. I had heard them in my childhood from my grand- father. FIUMA But those false telegrams of yours stirred up reprisals against the Bosnavinians here. CAZ. Yes, they were useful in kindling the war-spirit. But they were never meant as data for the War Office. Roxo should have checked them. But it is wonderful, the power of print. I believed them myself when I read them. Even the Baron believes his own papers. FIUMA Poor Baron ! How marvellously he bears up under his bereavements! CAZ. [Rising] Like Roxo, he trusts in God. But I say, keep your fire- works dry. [Going L.] The Palace must blaze with lights to-night and the streets, too. FIUMA But we may be in darkness next week. 185 CAZ. No matter. We've got to play for time. The cine- mas must show our soldiers escalading the pass. Keep the bonfires burning and the rockets always ready. [Moving further L.] FIUMA But ready for what? CAZ. [Roguishly] Aha! Go along now: you've plenty to see to. I thought you knew my motto, "One combination after another." By the way, impress upon the telegraph people to keep the line to Rolmenia clear. It's a mat- ter of life and death. FIUMA Ah, I can't help seeing your hope lies in Rolmenia. But how? Rolmenia is Bosnavina's secret ally. But for Bosnavina being the attacker, Rolmenia would have had to join her. How, then, can she join usf CAZ. [Smiling] Ah, that's the puzzle ! [Enter ROXO L.] You're looking for me? ROXO I didn't want to go back to the Council before dis- cussing what to tell the Queen. She didn't really be- lieve your contradiction. 1 86 CAZ. It was meant only for the rest of the Cabinet. You can't trust them, or anyhow their secretaries. But so far as she is concerned, this rag may be a blessing — make it easier for us. ROXO You would tell her the whole truth — in her state? CAZ. The blacker she feels things the better — follow out your own combination. ROXO You are right, as usual. CAZ. And you were wrong, as usual, to stir up sleeping dogs with that Intercession Service. ROXO At such a critical moment we must go to God. CAZ. And make it more critical? ROXO Prayer is a reconciliation with heaven. Not forty per cent of our male adults go to Mass. CAZ. You forget that our leader and our largest sect are 187 Mussulmans, and pray five times a day. But if we don't get back to the Council, we may find Her Majesty has stopped the war. ROXO I can't smile. It is too serious a possibility. We must get the Council over, so as to get to business. BARON [Outside R.] My poor Corporal, glad to see you back! CAZ. Ah, I want a word with the Baron. I follow you. ROXO But I, too, want the Chairman of the Man-Power Board. [Enter baron, in deep mourning: a broken man.] BARON GR. Ah, excellencies, was it not beautiful yesterday In the cathedral? My slain son, my blinded Sigismondo, my wife dead of grief, the whole terrible burden was lifted from my heart. I felt the God of Valdania would not desert His people. ROXO [Grasping his hand] Amen. . . . How many more divisions can you promise Marroblo? BARON GR. Not one, alas I i88 ROXO You have combed to the last man? BARON GR. And the last boy. Outside indlspensables the only man left under 55 is the Marquis Fiuma. ROXO For heaven's sake, don't tell him that! BARON GR. As your excellencies know, I have conscribed all our neutrals, though it is against the Constitution. CAZ. Yes, yes — would you please put all this in writing for the Queen? BARON GR. [Startled] You are telling her the truth? CAZ. It can't always be avoided. Haven't you seen this? BARON GR. [After a hasty glance at paper] God of Israel ! . . . I saw great crowds with it, but I didn't dare to be seen buying it. . . . But it's not true! CAZ. That's what your papers are going to say. But it is — every word. 189 BARON GR. Our poor Margherita ! Think of the pride and glory of the day when as Colonel of the Queen's Hussars she bade Godspeed to the army — the cheers, the bells, the flowers, the songs, the flags ! How did this horrible fiasco come about? ROXO It's our own Valdanians, Baron, our two million Val- danians in Bosnavina, who had forgotten their pa- triotism, forgotten their mother tongue, forgotten the rock whence they were hewn, who even boast of being Bosnavinians. BARON GR. How horrible! I have Iain awake night after night, puzzling how to get more men, but the only thing I can think of is mercenaries. There are shoals of Italians labourers who go over to America for a sea- son. They would be happier fighting. CAZ. But the money, dear friend, the money? BARON GR. My last million is freely at your disposal. God knows I have little to live for but the glory and happiness of my country. ROXO {Moved} You shall yet witness it. Tell him, Cazotti — tell him everything! lExit L.] 190 BARON GR. [Brightening'] There is hope? CAZ. Yes, but first a httle private business. [Lowers voice.'] Have you succeeded in depositing my securities? BARON GR. Yes, with a man in Amsterdam. CAZ. But is he a Jew? BARON GR. [Apologetically] I couldn't find anybody else. CAZ. I wouldn't trust anybody else. BARON GR. Ha ! He is even a practising Jew — a mediaeval bigot ! CAZ. Still better. A man who sticks to his religion won't stick to my money ! . . . No offence, Baron. Hush, here's Fiuma back. So that's understood. [Enter fiuma R.] FIUMA The wires are just mended and the line for Rolmenia is clear, subject, of course, to delay at Belgrade. The 191 post-offices, they say, are besieged with people de- manding to wire to the front. QA7.. [Crumpling the newspaper^ Ah, the poison works! [Enter R., the countess cazotti, tripping it gaily in a bewitching nurse's uniform.'] COUNTESS CAZ. Ah, there you are, you men, gossiping as usual, while I'm slaving for our poor wounded. And it's the same in the streets, my car had to crawl. Ah, how tired I get every evening. CAZ. But, my dear, the Queen offered to relieve you of your duties. COUNTESS CAZ. As if I would fail Her Majesty! Ah, Baron, you don't make enough of us women. There's no Woman- Power Board, what? FIUMA Because the power of woman is incalculable. COUNTESS CAZ. How charming of you ! But it's just what my patients tell me. I'm the only thing, they say, that reconciles them to being out of the fighting. FIUMA [Exalted] They long to be back? 192 COUNTESS CAZ. They cry if I only mention the trenches! FIUMA That ought to be stated in the papers, eh, Baron? It would give the country a fillip. BARON GR. I haven't much time for my papers now. But I'll see to it. COUNTESS CAZ. I have seen to it. I've been interviewed in them all. Don't you read them? While you cackle, I work. "The Queen of Workers" they always put under my picture. [Enter ROXO excitedly L.] Ah, here comes another prattler. Excuse me. Gen- eral, I haven't time. [Consequential exit L.] ROXO Guard your Palace, Governor. FIUMA What has happened. ROXO Barricade your doors first. [fiuma rushes out R.] 193 N CAZ. You've left the Council again? ROXO To call out the troops and the machine guns. The printers can't be arrested — the offices are blocked by a desperate mob, largely women. CAZ. Ah, I told Saldo It was a mistake to close the schools for the sake of the fuel — the worry of the children, taken on the mothers' empty stomachs — ah, listen ! [Confused sounds from the Piazza.'] ROXO They're only In small groups so far — they know meet- ings are prohibited. The Piazza is black with dema- gogues, each on his tub. BARON GR. Is It Bolshevism at last? ROXO Hardly. A few In red caps or cockades. But the wearers are aged. CAZ. It's lucky, Baron, we've no Man-Power left. What? [Re-enter FIUMA R.] FIUMA My men had already done the barricading. There was a nasty surge towards the Palace. 194 ROXO Ah, the groups coalescing. I pray God we shall not have to fire on them. BARON GR. You would fire on your own people? ROXO I would fire on my own father, If duty demanded. May I suggest, Baron, you'd be more useful motoring down to your evening paper to hurry up the reassuring edition? Interview yourself and say we have a mil- lion fresh men. BARON GR. But what about my statement for Her Majesty? CAZ. Just write simply: "We have not a single man more." [baron hurries off R.] ROXO He's a good fellow, ■ What would Valdania do with- out him? CAZ. And I haven't told him the real situation after all. FIUMA Nor me. CAZ. It's Roxo's combination, not mine. 195 ROXO The time has come when Her Majesty must know, so why not Fiuma? CAZ. Ha! Ha! Ha! The General has a dry humour sometimes. FIUMA And a leaky humour other times. Sometimes he tells me everything, and sometimes nothing. ROXO It's because you're so sentimental about the Queen. We were afraid you'd put a spoke in our wheel. FIUMA I? When the fate of Valdania ! ROXO I told you long ago of certain Princes who came to the Coronation. FIUMA [Bounding] Ah, Prince Igmor covets Margherita ! ROXO Prince Igmor, though the younger son, is his father's favourite and the leader of the Rolmenian forces CAZ. Roxo had already projected disengaging Rolmenia from her alliance with Bosnavina 196 ROXO Bosnavlna, sandwiched between us and Rolmenia, would be caught in a vice CAZ. So imagine Roxo's delight when the Prince began mak- ing sheep's eyes at Margherita. FIUMA Pig's eyes, you mean. I never saw such mean little peepers. ROXO The Prince is an able soldier, but I don't pretend he's a beauty. FIUMA Outrageous ! CAZ. We knew you'd say that. But your personal feel- ings FIUMA Aly personal feelings? What about the Queen's? Do you think she'll look at the little ogre? CAZ. It's fortunate she didn't. He was whisked back be- fore the Coronation Ball by a war-cable. Bosnavina was menaced by Poland and under her treaty Rolmenia stood to join Bosnavina. 197 FIUMA And now Rolmenia is to attack Bosnavina! CAZ. {^Shriigging his shoulders^ The Chasse-Croise of the Dance of Death! ROXO The menace to Bosnavina petered out, but it left a million Rolmenians splendidly strung up for war. FIUMA And these million men are the price of Margherita ! ROXO The salvation of Valdanla. FIUMA How so? Marrobio will be annihilated long before Prince Igmor can mobilise. ROXO Prince Igmor is already mobilised and on the very frontier of Bosnavina. FIUMA And Bosnavina doesn't protest? CAZ. [CJiiickllng] She thinks he's coming In on her side. FIUMA Rolmenia and her Prince are a pretty pair ! 198 CAZ. Don't talk like Da Pietra. One would think you, too, had English blood! All's fair in love and war, and here we have both! ROXO It's true the Prince has no sense of honour — or he'd believe in ours, and be satisfied with the promise of marriage. But he actually refuses to launch his offen- sive against Bosnavina till the marriage ceremony Is performed. FIUMA {Relieved^ Then the whole scheme breaks down. Before the Prince can get here ROXO Oh, he won't come here. How can he leave his army? FIUMA Then how can they marry? By miracle? CAZ. By proxy. FIUMA What? CAZ. You've not heard of marriage by proxy? But It plays no small part In our annals. ROXO The Rolmenlan envoy will represent his Prince. 199 FIUMA That suffices? CAZ. Even a letter of consent suffices. . . . Don't look so dazed — it's all according to law and religion — ask the Cardinal or the Patriarch. FIUMA Ah, that's why I have to keep them on the premises! CAZ. Of course. Go along — you'll find them playing chess. FIUMA Sacrificing their Queen! ROXO Saving her. Shall she be Bosnavina's captive when she can become really its Duchess? CAZ. She will be much happier married — she gets no hys- terical nowadays. This fad of national mourning is a sign of it. Help us to persuade her — she has faith in you. FIUMA Which you ask me to abuse. She will never consent. CAZ. We think better of her patriotism. 200 ROXO And of yours. FIUMA Marry that pig-eyed swaggerer ! CAZ. The instant the ceremony is over, her proxy husband will telegraph a word to his Prince ROXO They won't let us even know the word — they're afraid we'd trick him into launching his offensive for nothing. CAZ. They have got the whip-hand. It is useless protest- ing. FIUMA [Bitterly] So that's why the wires have to be kept free and the fireworks dry! CAZ. But we've got the better of them in the Commercial Treaty, if they don't doctor the clauses; and we've cer- tainly come off with the best slice of Bosnavina. It looks the smaller. But I found out from the Baron where the oil-deposits lie. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! FIUMA So you've done well with our Margherita. 201 ROXO And by her. Practically three kingdoms in her pocket. FIUMA Horrible ! And if the Rolmenian envoy never turns up? CAZ. Ugh! Don't suggest such a thing — his car had al- ready crossed into Bosnavina, before the wires broke down. FIUMA Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! So he cuts across the very country he is to destroy! Politics are certainly amusing. CAZ. It won't be very amusing if he's not here by to-night. Listen ! [Dull cries of "Stop the War." Enter chamber- lain L. with a telegram on a salver'] Ha! At last! This will be news of him! CHAMBERLAIN Sent In from the Ministry by the subway, your ex- cellency. [Bows and goes.] CAZ. [Tears envelope] Carento 13. 5. He's already in Valdania, you see. ROXO Thank God! 202 CAZ. What's this? "Warn danger to the Palace. Country seething with horrible rumours. Hope arrive early this evening. D'Azollo." ROXO D'Azollo? CAZ. Damn! The old fool will be worse than the young one. FIUMA Thank you. CAZ. [Fuming] While he was pottering around on his Canal Commis- sion, he kept the country confident. He was a symbol of stabiHty. Now — oh, this is the last straw! ROXO It's natural he should rush back to protect his idol from the mob. CAZ. If only he won't protect her from us! Chamberlain! [The CHAMBERLAIN re-appears. CAZOTTI puts back the wire on the saher.] Show this to the Duchess D'Azollo. [The CHAMBERLAIN bows and exit.] We must trust to the Duchess monopolising her long- absent lord. 203 FIUMA You won't prevent him from opposing the marriage. CAZ. If he succeeds, it is all over with Valdania. ROXO [Agitated] No, no! CAZ. "Who draws the sword of Alpastroom " ROXO [Thundering] Silence I CAZ. You forget you are speaking to your chief. ROXO We punish doubt even in a plain citizen — in a chief it should be a capital offence. Tell the Queen, If you will, that this marriage is our only hope — that may be prudent — but do not blaspheme against God. He will yet save His people. CAZ. Oh, very well — go and get your miracle, I wash my hands of your combination. [Going L.] FIUMA The crisis, Signori, is too grave for quarrels. 204 ROXO {Joyously extending his hand] Ah, then you will work with us ! FIUMA [Gripping it with a sob] It Is the only chance I have had for heroism. ROXO Good lad! Don't think I don't feel for the Queen — or for you. Don't go, Cazotti, my nerves are on edge. [duchess enters L., further stopping CAZOTTI by holding out the telegram to him.] DUCHESS D'A. [Agitatedly] Danger to the Palace? What does it mean? CAZ. [Savagely] That your husband's coming home ! FIUMA [Smiling a little] Don't be alarmed, aunt. It's only the people want the war stopped. Can't you hear? DUCHESS D'A. The people? What insolence! [Goes towards casement L.] Really, the world seems topsy-turvy nowadays. The Duke, I hear, goes to early Mass ! ROXO There are worse revolutions than that. Your high- ness had better keep away from the balcony. 205 DUCHESS D'A. They would never dare shoot me! FIUMA Have you never heard of the French Revolution? DUCHESS D'A. But we are not In France! CAZ. [Smiling] No — they do things better there ! Here there seems no leading spirit, no concentration. Do you note, Roxo, how spasmodic the shouting is? Fortunately it's too cold to stand about. However, Fm glad you've come, Duchess. I want you please to help with the wedding. DUCHESS D'A. The wedding! What wedding? CAZ. A Court lady's. This very hour, perhaps. You ladies had best dress at once. DUCHESS D'A. Is this a jest, Carlo? FIUMA I wish to God it was I CAZ. We must do something to pacify the people. And 206 It will cheer up the Court, too, to cast off mourning for the nonce, DUCHESS D'A. But who is it? I am dying of curiosity. CAZ. Enlighten your aunt before she expires. And let her stop all the cackle in advance. DUCHESS D'A. But will the Queen be present? CAZ. It will hardly take place without her. DUCHESS D'A. And will she permit grand toilette? CAZ. You will take all your instructions from the Lord Chamberlain. DUCHESS D'A. Quick, Carlo ! I burn. Oh, I hope the Duke will be back for the wedding! [Exit L. with FIUMA.] CAZ! Well, we've won Fiuma over. That's a great asset. ROXO It would be a greater asset to have the proxy safe on 207 the premises. Why doesn't the Rolmenian rascal turn up? I trust the look-out is on the qui vhe. Every instant is precious. [He opens casement R. and steps out on bal- cony.] CROWD [From Piazza] Stop the War! Stop the War! Boo! ROXO [Returning trembling] Good God! CAZ. Frightened of the mob? You! ROXO The sentry's dead! CAZ. Dead? ROXO Half-frozen already. Could you give me a hand? CAZ. Can't you call somebody? . . . Sh ! Here's the Queen. [ROXO closes the casement. CAZOTTI conceals his agitation. The queen, entering L., makes no at- tempt to conceal hers. She is in black, but wears, by Valdanian custom, the crown for the Council.] QUEEN I've dismissed the Council! 208 CAZ. Oh, Madam, why? QUEEN I could see the sunset from the windows. [The two men look at each other. She gazes at the coloured-glass Madonna.] Here at least the Madonna shuts it out — that great ocean of blood. [Falls into a chair L. and covers her face.] Oh, holy mother, if you could blot it all out! [Sobs.] CAZ. [To Roxo] That's what comes of having women monarchs. ROXO Her father gave us more trouble with his mistresses. CAZ. D n etiquette. I can't stand here dumb.. ROXO No, no! Let her have her cry out. CAZ. Time presses. I must tell her. CROWD [Dully from Piazza] Stop the War ! 209 o QUEEN [Listening suddetily] Ah, you hear! CAZ. Only a few Bolshevists, Madam. But we can't stop the war. The deadlock at the pass ended in our defeat. This rag Is only too accurate. QUEEN Oh, I have known it all along — all these long winter nights that I lie tossing in the dark, thinking of our heroes in the icy trenches. Ah, the divine relief when the sun comes up over the mountain-tops and spreads the blue shadow of the firs on the snow! ROXO That divine relief. Madam, can be found even in the dark. If one seeks the peace of God. QUEEN The peace of God? As I lie sleepless I think of the eternal Insomnia of God. ROXO [Shocked] Madam! QUEEN I only quote the Bible. God neither slumbers nor sleeps. Ah, it is the pain of God, not His peace that passeth understanding. Last night, drugged by the In- cense and music of the Intercession Service, I felt I should sleep at last. But oh! it was worse than my 210 nights of insomina ! I dreamed I was escaping from it all — drifting on a timber-raft, exulting in the rush along the river, the leaps down the roaring cataracts, the straining and snapping of the ropes. Suddenly came a strange calm. We had reached Bosnavina. But the sentries did not challenge. They stood frozen on the frontier. CAZ. [Superstitiously glancing at casement /?.] Eh? QUEEN The cattle lay frozen In the fields, the chimneys dripped with Icicles. The raftsmen began building a box with their timber. I said, what Is this? They said, It Is your coffin. Duchess of Bosnavina. Would you sur- vive all your subjects? While they were closing me in It, I struggled vainly to move or speak, but when I heard the frozen clods rattle on the lid, I gave a great cry and the lid flew off, and the coffin soared over lands and seas until It descended at my own doorstep In New York. I tore In, calling "Daddy, daddy!" But they were all three frozen like the others — Daddy, Oliver, Norah. Ah, for once I was glad to wake up, to think this at least was not true. [Springs up.] Tell me, tell me It Is not. All through the war I have never troubled you with enquiries. But now, now ! CAZ. Calm yourself, Madam ! Our American espionage de- 211 partment would certainly have Informed us, had any- thing happened to the Da Pletra household. But as for the other person, if by Oliver you mean the young architect, Oliver Randel, then I can give you the most reassuring news, for he is just happily married. QUEEN Married? CAZ. To a California heiress who adores his architecture. QUEEN [Fisibly stricken] Ohl [Turns away and drops into a chair. ROXO's hand grasps CAZOTTl's in congratulation of his clever- ness. From L. there comes faintly a sound of a Greek Church chant in clear boyish voices: "Happy are those who fear the Lord," etc.] What is that? ROXO Sounds like the chapel choir practising. QUEEN For what? More ceremonies? I'll have no more. Can heaven itself bring back our heroes? Ah, I de- served that coffin! 212 CAZ. You are overwrought, Madam. You did your best to prevent the war. QUEEN [Feverishly] Yes, I did, didn't I? I wrote to the ambassador, I explained. ROXO Never in our history has a sovereign grovelled so! QUEEN But you delivered my apologies — they were delivered? [ROXO hesitates.] CAZ. Of course, Madam. The Bosnavinians were bent on war. QUEEN They were, weren't they? It's not my fault, really? ROXO They had been preparing for half a century. QUEEN And you all did your best, too, to prevent it — you wrote, you conferred ! CAZ. We appealed to the League of Nations — their Com- mittee is still sitting. We cabled to the Pope and the Caliph — we sat up all night 213 QUEEN Then why don't you stop it now? ROXO Now? When we are losing? QUEEN But I asked you to stop it when Marrobio took Ripo ! ROXO It's not In human nature to stop when you are winning. CAZ. There would have been a revolution — not so mild as to-day's. QUEEN But when there was a deadlock at the pass, I asked you to stop, too. ROXO Then we felt that with a little more pressure ! QUEEN So whether you are winning, losing or drawing, you can never stop. The forest is smouldering and you work all night to stamp out the menace. Yet once the fire bursts out, then you are to fold your arms — or, rather, to pour oil on the flames! ROXO That Is the law of war. 214 QUEEN The law of lunacy! We all seem like the cat in the old Arab fable. CAZ. What cat, Madam? QUEEN The cat that bit the meat-knife and found such joy in the blood that she went on biting till she bled to death. ROXO There is no joy in blood, Madam. There is mutual sacrifice. War is God's instrument for exalting and purifying a nation. CAZ. [Impatient] These academic arguments [Enter frenziedly, BARON GRIPSTEIN R., dishev- elled, hysteric, muddy, blood oozing from his fore- head.] BARON GR. Save me. Madam, give me shelter! [Sensation.] QUEEN [Springing up] What has happened? BARON GR. The mob has burnt our quarter. 215 QUEEN What quarter? BARON GR. They say the Jews made the war — I saw them driven back into the flames — women and children. QUEEN God in heaven! ROXO [Roaring] Where are the troops? BARON GR. I don't know. As I passed, my car was stopped, sur- rounded, hooted, stoned. Yes, I remember, there were soldiers, but they joined in the jeering. ROXO I must 'phone to Molp. [Enter fiuma R., who stares at the BARON.] Ah, Fiuma, what news? BARON GR. I thank God my wife did not live to see this day, my son is blind to it. • QUEEN Compose yourself. Fiuma, will you see to the Baron? He has been hurt by the mob. 216 FIUMA I am sorry, Baron. Come with me. [Is leading him out. The BARON submits dazedly. A raucous roar of glee is heard from the mob.] CAZ. This is getting serious. Unfortunately we haven't enough Jews to last them long. [J red flame flickers up behind the casements.] What did I say? The fire is spreading. The Palace FIUMA [At exit] No danger, excellency. They are only burning some- body in effigy. CAZ. Who is it? FIUMA Oh, it's only to warm themselves. QUEEN Ah, you are afraid to say — It must be me ! FIUMA No, Madam, your figure doesn't lend itself to the grotesque. QUEEN Who is it, then? 217 FIUMA The Prime Minister. [Exit L. with BARON.] CAZ. Me ? The ungrateful brutes ! Think how they cheered my war-speech from that very balcony, think of the boys of fourteen who tried to enlist! But this peril from your own people, Madam, added to the enemy's menace, makes it imperative that without a moment's delay, Roxo and I should now explain to you ROXO [Nervously] If Your Majesty will excuse me [Bowing and going R.] CAZ. [Angrily] Why do you leave it to me? ROXO I must 'phone to Molp to protect the Jews. I don't even know if the fire brigade [Cries of "Margherita! Margheritaf" penetrate from the Piazza.] QUEEN Ah, my people are calling me I [Goes to casement L.] ROXO [Rushing hack] For God's sake, Madam! 218 QUEEN I faced the music when it was pleasant [roxo waves her aside and rushes out instead of her. The red flame flickers more strongly.'] CROWD [From Piazza} Boo-oo ! Stop the War! Death to Roxo ! Viva Roxo ! Death to Margherita ! Down with Cazotti ! Silence for Roxo! Boo-oo ! ROXO [Raising his armless sleeve has obtained si- lence, and shouts] Go home, my friends. The Pacifist rag has misled you ! Wait till you see the Gazetta! We have a new army of a million. [Cheers. Voices, "Send them home!" drowned in cheers.] Victory is assured. Viva Marrobio ! Viva Mar- gherita ! Viva Valdania ! [Closes casement amid confused cheering, mingled with some boos. All noise gradually dies down.] QUEEN What is the use of feeding them with lies? 219 ROXO It only rests with Your ?vlajesty to make my words true. QUEEN With me? ROXO Yes, your people are calling you. QUEEN I do not understand. ROXO Cazotti will explain. \^Bows and retires i?.] CAZ. {As ROXO passes'] Coward! . . , [He walks about embarrassed.'] QUEEN I am waiting. CAZ. I — er Just let me find a map, Your Majesty. QUEEN Never mind a map. Go on. CAZ. You have probably remarked that Bosnavina, while 220 bounded on the E. and S. E. by ourselves, has for its Western neighbour, Rolmenia. QUEEN Is this the time for a lesson in geography? CAZ. I only wish to recall to Your Majesty the existence of Rolmen'a. QUEEN I am not likely to forget how that pig-eyed little Prince impressed its greatness upon me, as he curled his detestable moustache. CAZ. [Disconcerted] Your Majesty's memory is . . . appalling. Prince Igmor is a genius. QUEEN So you all said of Marrobio. But never mind the Prince — he's not worth talking about — come to your point. Obviously you are thinking of getting help from his father. CAZ. Your Majesty's divination is as marvellous as your memory, QUEEN And your compliments as superfluous as your geog- raphy. After all, I was first at College before I was 221 first at Court. But I refuse to drag other countries into the war, to slaughter unfortunate men who have nothing to do with our quarrel. CAZ. Then you prefer to slaughter Marrobio and his forces? QUEEN But if we stopped the war ! CAZ. Do you begin that again? That only means our swifter annexation to Bosnavina. Besides, the mere entry of Rolmenia into the war may stop it. Bos- navina, caught between two fires, will surrender, in- stead of Valdania, and the fresh slaughter you fear will probably never take place. Ah, Madam, you have not the right to destroy your country. QUEEN / am destroying it? — I? CAZ. You drew the sword of Alpastroom — will you write our or Bosnavina's doom? QUEEN [^Struggling with herself — after a pause] What does Rolmenia ask? CAZ. The conditions are hard. 222 QUEEN But since we have no alternative CAZ. Cannot Your Majesty guess? QUEEN My brain is too tired. Don't waste time. CAZ. They ask various things. Prince Igmor, who is really an excellent fellow, was satisfied with one thing. But his father wanted not only a commercial treaty, but the lion's share of Bosnavina. QUEEN A share of what does not belong to us! Let them have it all. And for that they will give us a million men. Oh, why didn't you tell me before? My poor Marrobio! CAZ. Yes, Madam. But — but there is one last condition. QUEEN And that is ! [baron gripstein appears L., spruced up again, his cut neatly plastered.] Ah, Baron, you are restored! BARON GR. To my senses, Madam. I am so ashamed. I don't 223 know what I said except it was not "God bless you." May He reward you for your gracious kindness! And it is your wife, excellency, that has dressed my wound. And the Cardinal and the Patriarch have been so sym- pathetic. QUEEN The Cardinal and the Patriarch! They are both in the Palace? CAZ. I sent for them, Madam. They . , . are interested in the Rolmenian agreement. QUEEN Ah, those religious minority questions! CAZ. Your Majesty would enormously oblige me by resum- ing your seat in the Council Chamber and letting their eminences come to you. It is really their department — that last condition you were asking about. And I have to cope with this revolution. QUEEN But can't I leave it to them? CAZ. They rather make a point of your assent. Baron, will you not escort Her Majesty to the Council Chamber and send her their most reverend eminences? 224 BARON GR. I shall be most honoured. [Precedes the QUEEN L.] Way for the Queen! [Moves aside, lets her pass and follows. '\ CAZ. Ouf! Thank God for the Church! [Turning R. he sees CORPORAL VANNI enter with some men and a stretcher.^ What the devil ! VANNI General's orders, excellency. CAZ. Eh? — Ah, that poor sentinel! VANNI Yes, we all liked him. Heart-failure. He flopped just here. CAZ. But, then, Corpo di Dio, there's no look-out! VANNI The General's posted one in Da Pietra Street. The Piazza is impassable. CAZ. Ah! 225 " p VANNI Apart from the Palace being barricaded. He's to bring the envoy by the War Office subway. [roxo enters breathlessly R.^ ROXO He's cornel CAZ. The proxy ? Thank God ! Where Is he ? ROXO Getting out of his snow-sodden motor-coat. Fluma's just bringing him. [Roaring as he perceives the stretcher moving to balcony.] Don't do that now! VANNI [Passing on the roar to his tnen] Cabbage-heads ! You must wait your chance ! [Motions them out and exit R.] ROXO It's a handsome proxy. CAZ. These Rolmenians are as handsome as they are tricky. ROXO Pity the Prince hasn't got his looks. CAZ. The Prince is a mongrel — his mother was a Bosna- 226 vinian — he seems to have picked out the worst points of both breeds. ROXO Ha! Ha! Ha! CAZ. But of the two give me the Bosnavinians. The Rol- menians are a rotten priest-ridden lot. ROXO What can you expect of the Greek Church? ... I beg your pardon. CAZ. What for? Do I believe in any church? [A gold-laced official enters L. with champagne and four glasses.] Ah, we are to drink! CROWD [A dull roar from the Piazza] Death to Margherita ! ROXO Here they are. [Enter L. FIUMA and CAPTAIN THEOPOLOU, a dashing young cavalry officer, in blue and gold, with marks of snow still on him. He carries a well-stuffed portfolio.] FIUMA Captain Theopolou ! Our Prime Minister. 227 CAZ, [Shaking hands] It gives me the greatest happiness to welcome a rep- resentative of His renowned Majesty of Rolmenia and his gallant and chivalrous son, Prince Igmor. [A pop from the champagne bottle the official is opening is like an ironic note of exclamation.} You have had a hard journey, I fear. CAPT. THEO. It was brightened by the thought of seeing the historic capital of culture. CAZ. Your goodness overrates us, but, with God's blessing, your journey will be fruitful. [All take glasses.] We drink to Rolmenia, the illustrious fatherland of antique faith and heroism, whose crystal-pure soul still engenders delicacy and chivalry. [They drink, but FIUMA merely sips.] CAPT. THEO. You are too good. I raise my glass to the happiness of your beautiful and gifted Queen. [fiuma's glass smashes.] CAZ. [Covering up the situation] You will want to rest before the ceremony. CAPT. THEO. And you to examine these. [Proffers portfolio.] 228 FIUMA [Murmuring] Ah, the funeral arrangements! ROXO [Perturbed] You promised CAZ. [Quietly to ROXO] Hush! '^ [Aloud to FIUMA.] After fixing up our honoured guest, will you find the Baron and explain things? He may be so easily swayed — we ought to have got him on our side long ago. ROXO You cannot get him on one side. FIUMA I will do my best. Come, Captain Theopolou! [Exeunt.] CAZ. [Reproachfully] Don't you know Fiuma's word is his bond? [Pulls out from portfolio documents with great pendant red seals.] The Commercial Treaty — The War Treaty — The Marriage Contract — The Letter of Consent — The Nomination of the Proxy. With so tricky a people, they will need study, though of course we could always evade the clauses. But so far 229 ROXO Would I had two hands that I might rub them to- gether! [ The QUEEN bursts in furiously L. The CARDINAL and the patriarch at her heels in full canonicals, their vestments evidently donned for the ceremony. The CARDINAL is all in red, save for the black mantle edged with it and the falling black bands, and wears a red skull cap, holding his black hat in his hand: the PATRIARCH is more gorgeous and jewelled.] QUEEN Do not follow me — my decision is final ! [ROXO and CAZOTTI bow, disconcerted.] Ah, Cazotti, no wonder you didn't dare propose your monstrous combination! CAZ. My combination? ROXO It is my combination, Madam. The only way — un- der God — to save Valdania ! QUEEN Then Valdania Is lost! CAZ. And your throne, too. 230 QUEEN I must go down with my people. CAZ. Nothing so heroic, Madam. Your people will tear you in pieces when they learn why the million men already announced QUEEN My people threaten nothing so terrible as your propo- sition. ROXO You have not the right to die when you alone can save them. When you agreed to come back with me, you knew from your mother's fate that sovereignty meant sacrifice. QUEEN My mother was only murdered — shq was not out- raged. CAZ. We cannot accept that description of royal alliances. No Princess of your house has ever chosen her hus- band. Several have been betrothed at birth; and as for the famous Jacinta, the Metropolitan Archbishop performed her marriage ceremony when she was five. QUEEN Loathsome ! 231 CARDI. No, my daughter, in your exalted sphere, ordinary values are changed. Sovereigns must seek their hap- piness in duty. Yesterday Your Majesty prayed God for victory. To-day He offers you the means. QUEEN [Shocked] He offers — He ? CARDI. Assuredly. QUEEN Ah, you do well to say "He!" A woman God would be more understanding, CARDI. As I may neither contradict nor condone Your Majesty's heresies I must beg leave to retire. PATRI. I associate myself with his most reverend eminence. CAZ, [Desperately] But surely, your holiness. Her Majesty only refers to our blessed Mary. CARDI. Ah, in that case [baron gripstein appears L. and draws hack.] 232 BARON GR. Ah, the Council is shifted. I intrude. QUEEN No; come, Baron. I need somebody human. Do you know of this horrible suggestion? BARON GR. I have just been shocked to learn it. QUEEN [Relieved] Ha! CAZ. Then the martyrdom of your sons is to go for nothing — your blinded Sigismondo, your slaughtered ! BARON GR. [Bursting into tears] My poor children! QUEEN Don't! It's not fair argument. [Sinks into a chair.] CAZ. Hush, Baron! Consider Her Majesty's feelings. You have the man-power statement? BARON GR. [Mastering himself] Ah, pardon! {Fumbles in pocket.] 233 QUEEN [^Waving it away] I don't want It. What you call man-power I call power of suffering. O my poor tortured soldiers! PATRI. Their sufferings will be subtracted from their period of purgatory. QUEEN If my own Church cannot persuade me, how should yours ? PATRI. By showing you that they are at one in the love of the Fatherland, that you are not alone In making sacri- fices. QUEEN And what sacrifices does anybody else make? PATRI. Everybody makes sacrifices. Prince Igmor in accept- ing a Catholic wife QUEEN [Bridling] Accepting? PATRI. Both our Churches in permitting the mixed marriage. 234 CARDL And mine in letting the Prince's Church perform the ceremony. PATRL And mine in permitting the children to be Catholic. CAZ. Is it necessary to go Into these details? The con- tract CARDL Her Majesty must clearly assent, your excellency. The Vatican, which has given me carte blanche other- wise ■ ROXO And since this delicate matter has come up, may I add that in these turbulent times the sooner the dynasty Is assured, the better. Not till the hundred and one guns announce the birth of a prince BARON GR. Ah, but we must be certain marriage minus the bride- groom is legitimate? CARDL It is certain his absence is not among the impedimenta diremptoria or the 235 CAZ. We have been Into all that ! Even this letter of consent [Exhibiting it] suffices ! CARDI. Yes, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis for the year 2 CAZ. Let us not go back. CARDI. But even recently, Baron, the Sacred Congregation of the Rota CAZ. The Baron, I am sure PATRI. I took the opinion of my brother the Archimandrite. State necessity CAZ. Knows no delay. We must to the ceremony. [The QUEEN, who has sat silent throughout, shoots a startled glance at him.] PATRI. You see, Baron, though Our Lord made matrimony a sacrament, it did not cease to be a contract. 236 CARDI. And contracts do not need the joint presence of the parties. PATRI. Our role is simply to bless the contract. QUEEN As you blessed the banners : as you turned church-bells into cannon ! CARDI. The end sanctifies the means. CAZ. We are wandering from the point. If there is any flaw In the legality, so much the better. Her Majesty would remain unbound. QUEEN And do you think that after the Prince had fought for us, I would creep out through a legal flaw? ROXO Brava! Coals of fire for the Prince! CAZ. Even if there is no flaw, Madam, the Prince may be killed In the war. QUEEN A war-widow ! So, Cardinal, it's not a sacrament, but a gamble. 237 CARDI. It was not I who put it so, my daughter. QUEEN You overlook another way out, Cazotti. / may die during the war. BARON GR. God forbid! QUEEN I thought you were a friend of mine. [Enter fiuma L.] Ah, here comes a real friend. [Hysterically] Fiuma, if you know about this plan, tell them it is too horrible. [A pause, fiuma struggles with himself.'] FIUMA [Slowly] It is a martyrdom. No woman in history ever had a ghastlier or a more glorious opportunity. QUEEN You too! [Covers her face.] ROXO You will shine in our history like a star. CAZ. Come, Madam! The Prince at the other end of the cable awaits his answer. 238 [The QUEEN is now ringed round with six men, like a hunted creature at bay. She sweeps out her arms wildly.^ QUEEN You give me no breathing-space. CAZ. What breathing-space has Marroblo? Very soon our soldiers may cease to breathe altogether! ROXO Rolmenia, outraged by our refusal, will join in destroy- ing us. FIUMA Bosnavina will certainly show us no mercy. BARON GR. {Sobbing] Our immemorial glory will be extinct. PATRI. Bosnavina will impose her own bishops. CARDI. Our Moslem will rise and crush the Church. QUEEN And / am to be the scapegoat! Here you stand, six great men, two of you with the keys to heaven, yet you can think of no way of saving your country but by outraging a lonely girl! 239 CAZ., ROXO, FIUMA, BARON, CARDL, PATRI. [All speaking at once] I protest, Madam ! Your Majesty's language ! I would give my life ! But it may turn out happy ! O, my daughter ! I am not St. Peter ! QUEEN [Springing magnijicently to her feet like a lioness and sweeping them all away] No more ! If I have listened thus far, it is not because of your arguments, it is because I feel blood-guilty. Not of the war — no, not of that ! But when, despite all my grovelling, as Roxo calls it, Bosnavina sounded the war-trumpet, then out of the obscure depths of my being rose an answering blood-lust, a mad joy of battle. I longed to crush Bosnavina, to humble her haughty ambassador in the dust, and with my foot on his neck, to hear his "grovelling" countrymen salute their Duchess. Ah, the flags, the cheers, the drums, the drugs that make one drunk! Prancing in an Ama- zonian uniform and a plumed busby as Colonel of my Hussars, I sped the soldiers to the strains of my own music, crying "God and glory!" as one chivies dogs to the chase. When Marrobia took Ripo, victory shrilled through my veins like a trumpet, and I has- tened to the cathedral to offer a "Te Deum." Ah, how God has punished that savage vain-glory! But is my expiation not yet complete? Must I — oh, why did they kill my mother when I need her so? Leave me, leave me, all of you! I must think, I must pray! 240 CARDI. Let me pray with you, my daughter. QUEEN [Stamps foot] Leave me. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! [Collapsing on her chair, sobbing] QKZ. [Quietly to the Church dignitaries] You may prepare for the ceremonial. Come, Roxo, we must study the contracts to see they don't jew us. Baron, we shall be glad of your help. Madam, your very humble servant. [//// bow and exeunt except FIUMA, who stands surveying the queen in silent sympathy. Then he, too, goes out. The queen lises totteringly and turns to the painted Madonna on the casement.] QUEEN O blessed Mary, whose face I have scarcely known from my mother's, help me, send me a Redeemer. . . . Or at least send me a sign. What shall I answer? What shall I answer? CROWD [From Piazza] Death to Margherita ! QUEEN Death? Perhaps that is the answer. [Twilight has now fallen and the flames leaping weirdly on the hearth alone illumine the scene. The duke d'azollo in thick motor-coat, snow- 241 Q stained and perturbed, enters breathlessly R. The QUEEN turns at the sound and gives a great cry.'\ QUEEN Ah, my Redeemer! You have come to save me from them! DUKE D'A. Yes, yes, be calm; I have come to save you from them. QUEEN But how did you know? DUKE D'A. It is in the air. QUEEN [Puzzled] In the air? DUKE D'A. The terrible war-situation. I foresaw the Palace would be barricaded — lucky I knew of the subway. You must escape. QUEEN Escape? From the Palace? DUKE D'A. Oh, my dear, I remember your mother's fate. Don't repeat it. 242 QUEEN But if I escape, what happens to Valdania? DUKE D'A. Valdania is doomed anyhow. QUEEN There are tears in your voice — yes, and in your eyes. DUKE D'A. I did not know I should feel it so bitterly. When they made me Regent, it all seemed a farcical flum- mery — see >vhat you have made of the old dilettante. A thousand years of history to end in the dust! [Brushes hand across eyes.] But I can't think of my country, only of you. QUEEN Only of me? DUKE D'A. You are dearer to me than all Valdania — oh, don't shrink, it's not a love like that. With you, your body seems in your soul. I will get the Duchess — I know of a safe retreat for you both. [The crowd's cry, "Death to Margherita!" again penetrates.] Ah, come ! QUEEN But these poor Ignorant people who are crying out there, I am to leave them at Bosnavina's mercy? 243 DUKE D'A. Whether you live or die, they are at Bosnavina's mercy. QUEEN But if I told you it depended only on me to hurl a million fresh troops upon Bosnavina ! DUKE D'A. Oh, God! Is it possible? [Half sobs.} QUEEN It is certain. Victory is assured. Our heroes will not have died in vain. Bosnavina will be crushed between — but quick ! Find Cazotti or Roxo and tell them my answer is "Yes." DUKE D'A. [In dazed ecstasy] Bosnavina will be crushed? QUEEN Don't stand maundering — go before I change ! [He hurries out L. transfigured, half-sobbing. She falls on her knees before the Madonna at casement i?.] O holy mother, help me up this Way of the Cross ! [The great room is now still dimmer, the flames leap mystically.'] 244 VANNI [Jt right wing, staring to L.] All clear! [Turns head i?.] Come along, you ! [Sees QUEEN and is retiring in confusion and mo- tioning to his men to retreat.] QUEEN Don't be so frightened of me — glad to see you out of hospital. VANNI Thank you, Your Majesty, for all your kindness there. QUEEN And your sister that was worrying so over her hus- band? VANNI Oh, we've heard from him now. And I've had such a long letter about our victories. [Produces it.] QUEEN [Puzzled] Our victories? VANNI [Tendering it] Page 2 is the best, Your Majesty — I can't turn It. QUEEN [Taking it] Poor fellow ! 245 [A weird pause as she reads. Suddenly she stag- gers and crumples the letter in her fist.] So this is what victory means ! Go ! Go ! VANNI [Alarmed] Y-y-yes, Your Majesty. [Hasty exit R.] QUEEN And Roxo said there was no joy of blood. They should have read this yesterday in the Cathedral. [duke now divested of his motor-coat rushes back L.] DUKE D'A. You have tricked me I QUEEN I have tricked myself. I never realised before. [Rolls the letter still smaller.] Our heroes! Our heroes! [CAZOTTI, the BARON and FIUMA tear in.] CAZ. A million thanks, Madam! BARON GR. [Beaming] One per man, FIUMA You will live in history! 246 QUEEN I have lived in blinkers. . . . To be sacrificed to this ! [Hurls letter away.] DUKE D'A. You shall not sacrifice yourself. CAZ. Pardon me, Duke. We have the royal promise. DUKE D'A. It was infamous to exact it. CAZ. Ah, I knew you would try to spoil everything. Roxo is already at the War Office cabling the glad news to Marrobio, dictating the campaign. Our Queen will not play us false. QUEEN False — true — it is all meaningless — let these wild beasts rend each other — let them devour me and be done with it. Bring back your priests. CAZ. [Drawing a breath of relief] Ah! . . . Come, Madam, they await you in the chapel. QUEEN In the chapel? Profane the sanctuary? Let them come here! 247 CAZ. But, Madam 1 QUEEN My consent is the real marriage. You heard their learned exposition l^Haughtily^ You have our ultimatum. \_She walks haughtily to the throne and mounts the steps.] BARON GR. [Sotto voce] But this very hall was the chapel of the original mon- astery. CAZ. So it was! Bravo! And with a little sprinkling- [Aloud and with a deep obeisance to the QUEEN, who has now seated herself on the throne.] Your Majesty's wish is law ! {Sotto voce to baron] By the way, cable your Jew to sell my Bosnavian bonds before Amsterdam learns that {Exeunt BARON and cazotti.] DUKE D'A. [Aloud] Something must be done, Carlo I FIUMA Nothing can be done — now. But if the Prince dares claim his bride ! [He lays his hand on the sword.] 248 QUEEN Ah, no, not that ! It would be murder, trickery . . . oh! [Covers her face.] [From L. bursts out a joyous carol in the fresh voices of boy choristers — "Roses, roses strew and cover'' — and the stir of an advancing procession becomes audible. The QUEEN starts at the first strains.] QUEEN That melody! DUKE D'A. It is your own setting of our nuptial folk-song. FIUMA [Bitterly] Cazotti's cleverness again! [Enter boy choristers in white surplices, singing.] BOY CHORISTERS Roses, roses strew and cover Happy lass and happy lover. Sun on bride is but in keeping, Rain is jealous angels weeping. [Behind and with the choir come other priests in the gorgeous robes of the Greek Church, with tall wax candles and swinging censers. The PATRIARCH in his jewelled vestments comes along, sprinkling from a little chalice and murmuring prayers. The CARDINAL is at his side. One of the acolytes bears 249 two floral crowns on a tray, and another a wine- flask and a glass. Then comes the whole Court in gala attire, the pages and maids of honour hear- ing great bouquets of chrysanthemums and other winter flowers. The countess cazotti carries a basket of flax and hemp seed for strewing after the ceremony. Lastly comes captain THEOPOLOU, walking between cazotti and BARON GRIPSTEIN, who now acting as best man carries a great fir branch, decorated with ribbon, and eliding in a gilt cross tied with red silk. The queen with her black dress and pale face makes a strange contrast with all this flamboyance as she sits rigid on her throne. While the procession is filing in, an official has been lighting the tall candles in the heavy old candle- sticks, and another has been spreading a red silk carpet in the centre of the room. As captain THEOPOLOU enters, he advances alone to do hom- age to the QUEEN; mechanically she puts out her hand, but, as he kisses it, she draws it back as if scorched. The patriarch motions to captain THEOPOLOU to take up his stand on the carpet, which he does.] PATRI. If Your Majesty would deign to descend? QUEEN [Not moving, pointing to floral crown] What is that? PATRI. The bridal crown, Madam. 250 QUEEN It is the heavier of the two. [She takes off her crown, then rising, places it on the throne and descends, like a sleepwalker, and stands beside CAPTAIN THEOPOLOU. The DUCH- ESS and BARON GRIPSTEIN Stand by as if supporting the couple, and the DUCHESS adjusts over the queen's head a wedding-veil, glittering with gold sequins.] PATRL [To captain] You have brought the rings? CAPT. THEO. [Producing them] Blessed by the MetropoHtan. PATRL Gold for the bridegroom, silver for the bride. [Gives the silver ring to the QUEEN.] These you will exchange. Wherein, dear brethren and sisters, we may read an image CAZ. [On pins and needles] Is this the place for the sermon, Monsignore ? PATRL I understand your excellency's impatience. [Joins the captain's right hand to the queen's left. She drops the ring. The BARON hastens to pick it up for her.] Are you Demetrius, surnamed Theopolou, Captain of 251 Rolmenian cavalry, duly empowered by oath and by letter here to hand to represent in this rite of holy matrimony your lord and commander-in-chief, His Royal Highness, Prince Igmor, Alexander, Constan- tino, Moravieff, Parma, Duke of Moldavia, second son of His Majesty, Rodolpho, King of Rolmenia, Archduke of Wallachia? CAPT. THEO. I am. PATRI. And do you, Demetrius Theopolou, as his proxy and in his name, take to lawful wife our sister Margher- ita, Carina, Rosamonda, Queen of Valdania, Duchess of Bosnavina? CAPT. THEO. I do. PATRI And do you, Margherita Carina ! DUKE D'A. Stop! If this be the Greek Church service ■ CAZ. This interruption is unseemly — Proceed! DUKE D'A. You interrupted, yourself, just now! 252 FIUMA Surely if there is any valid objection PATRI. What is it Your Highness wishes to say? DUKE D'A. That by your Church what you are doing now can never be undone. CARDI. Nor by mine. DUKE D'A. Not so. Our Church, though it denies divorce, admits nullity. Besides, the Pope can always CAZ. The form of service is beyond discussion. QUEEN [PFearily] Do get the ceremony over ! PATRI. Do you, Margherita, Carina, Rosamonda, Queen of Valdania, Duchess of Bosnavina, accept Prince Igmor, as here represented by proxy ? FIUMA But what guarantee have we against imposture? 253 CAPT. THEO. UVithdrawing hand from the queen's to grasp sword] Signer ! CAZ. It these Interruptions continue, Valdania is doomed. CARDI. Proceed, your Beatitude. PATRI. [Re-joining their hands — the queen's falls passively, like a dead weight] Do you, Margherita, Carina, Rosamonda, Queen of Valdania, Duchess of Bosnavina, take as your lawful husband, as here represented by proxy ? [roxo comes rushing in L., waving telegrams.'] ROXO Stop the marriage! Marrobio has conquered! [Confusion. Joyous outcries.] ROXO The first cable. Your Majesty, delayed by the snow- storm, runs: "Allah is great. Following the panic of a munitions explosion in Ripo have recaptured the city and taking the pass by surprise have swooped down on Torax. Joined by thousands of Valdanians am marching on the capital. — Marrobio." COURTIERS Viva Marrobio! Bravissimo! Viva Marrobio! 254 [The courtiers clap hands and wave handkerchiefs enthusiastically.^ BARON GR. [Heard hysterically above all the voices as he waves his fir branch^ I knew the God of Valdania would not desert us ! [Breaks down, sobs.^ COURTIERS Sh! ROXO [Holding up the second cable till there is silence] Dated to-day. "Allah Is merciful. Capital captured at hour of the first prayer. 65,000 prisoners, 380 guns. The two million Valdanians risen to join us. Royal family and Government in flight. I present Bosnavina to its Duchess, I kiss the hem of her Majesty's robe and will tapestry her Palace with conquered flags. — Marroblo." COURTIERS Fiva Margherlta ! Fiva the Duchess of Bosnavina ! BARON GR. [Ecstatically] "When Rome yields up our royal seed !" ROXO [Handing cables to FIUMA] Read them in the Piazza, post them up! Corporal, let your men unbar the Palace and spread the news ! [/It a sign from VANNI, the men file out. Exit VANNI.] 255 FIUMA [PFith a sob in his voice] My congratulations, Madam. [Bows and exit.] CAZ. [In a hard tone] And my humble homage to the Duchess of Bosnavina. Your Majesty will rank with Alpastroom! COURTIERS Bravo ! [They wave handkerchiefs.] QUEEN / rank with Alpastroom? CAZ. Did you not draw his sword? QUEEN God help me ! But let the man who saved the throne enjoy it. Pay Marrobio your homage henceforth — congratulate me only on my escape. ROXO Your Majesty Is overwrought. You must rest. QUEEN Yes, I can rest at last. Gorged by spoils and glory, with a second Alpastroom to feed her rapacious patri- otism, Valdania no longer needs me. 256 ROXO Valdania needs you more than ever. QUEEN [Fiercely] What more does she ask of me? I offered her my heart to eat, my body to befoul. Beggared of all that makes life bearable, did I hold back even my one last possession — my loneliness? You saved me from that pit — I bless you as one raised by Christ from hell. Through you I can breathe the air and see the stars. Be merciful once more and let me share my loneliness with God. DUKE D'A. Go into a convent! You! CAZ. You would yield your throne to Marrobio I BARON GR. We Christians will never accept a Mohammedan ruler! CAZ. Death sooner. COURTIERS Ay! Sooner death! ROXO You hear, Madam. You would unchain civil war. A murderous rivalry of pretenders I 257 R QUEEN [Desperately] Then I must be prisoned here? All my life? CAZ. Who prisons you? But the moment when Marorbio is swollen with triumph ! ROXO [Turning on him] There will never be a moment, your excellency. Her Majesty will never be false to her blood or her oath of fidelity. [The sound of the mob cheering outside penetrates dully. "Margherita! Margheritaf"] Hark, Madam ! Your people are calling for you ! QUEEN That mob, mindless as the sea in its smiles and furies! PATRI. Your Majesty's God-given charge. CARDI. To whose service I consecrated you. PATRI. On such a day you must rejoice together. QUEEN Let them rejoice alone. I will have no part in the saturnalia of the sword. 258 ROXO Do not blaspheme the sword, Madam, nor the sacri- fices by which God shapes the peoples. QUEEN By which the devil deforms them. Beasts are less savage than men under blood-lust. No, no, General, leave it to the Church to confuse the sword with the crucifix. If you would have me stay Queen to fend off war within, you must swear to me, Signori, that there shall nevermore be war without. CAZ. Our conquest of Bosnavia assures that, Madam. QUEEN Would it not be surer if we gave Bosnavina her free- dom back, keeping only our recovered province? DUKE D'A. Oh, Madam! [Resentful murmurs from COURTIERS] ROXO Give Bosnavina freedom for revenge ! QUEEN Reason to desist from revenge ! Our grace would turn her swords into ploughshares. 259 ROXO It will be safer, Your Majesty, If we turn her swords into crutches. [Sardonic laughter from COURTIERS.] QUEEN Then you mean to treat her as she treated our prov- ince? CAZ. Are we barbarians, Madam? BARON GR. We shall give her our culture, CAZ. Peace is our one aspiration. Under your Majesty's benign rule Bosnavina will be blest. Marrobio would lash her to madness. QUEEN [Sinking into chair L. C] Then I am to be chained to a crown I do not want! ROXO Just because you do not want it, you are the one fit person to wear it. Will not your eminence replace it on the royal head ! [The CARDINAL brings the crown that has been lying on the throne. As he moves to and fro the cries and cheering of the crowd penetrate again. ''Margherita! Margheritaf" The QUEEN, a broken figure in black, sits motionless.] 260 QUEEN [/Is he approaches her] Let me be ! You have crowned me already ! CARDI. But not for Bosnavlna, Madam. [Applause of courtiers. He adjusts the crown.'] Receive as ruler of Bosnavlna the Crown of glory, honour and joy — and may God crown you with all princely virtues in this life and with an everlasting crown of glory in the life which is to come through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen ! COURTIERS Amen ! QUEEN I ask only that God should crown me with Peace ! CAPT. THEO. Then — pardon me, Madam — had we not better com- plete the ceremony? ROXO You menace, Signor! CAPT. THEO. You do not suppose my Prince or my King will stom- ach your insult! ROXO Your Prince is too cautious. He looks too long before he leaps. 261 CAPT. THEO. He will not have to leap far. Do not forget he is on the frontier of your new possession. QUEEN l^Springing up] A new slaughter? O, my God! ROXO The God of Valdania has not saved us from Bos- navina to abase us before Rolmenia. Beware lest we annex you too ! [Sinister sympathetic murmurs from the COUR- TIERS.] CAPT. THEO. Do not be too sure even of Bosnavina. She will yet witness her Revenge — with our help and God's. I salute you, Madam. [Haughty exit.] QUEEN No ! No ! Call him back ! Let me be bound on your peace-altar. ROXO Sacrifice you to a petty princeling! No, Madam. The Queen of Valdania and Bosnavina can command a higher alliance. 262 QUEEN And it was for this you saved me ! For your unholier alliance! Oh I [Sinks into her chair and covers her eyes.] CARDL Come, Madam, a Te Deum in the chapel! QUEEN To thank God for Victory ! When Bosnavina is pray- ing Him for Revenge ! When Rolmenia hangs like a thundercloud! When only the little candle of my life stands between Valdania and the blackness of civil war! Leave me, leave me, all of you! [All look at one another in hesitation. At a sign from CAZOTTI the procession begins to file out. The CHORISTERS Start their Greek Church chant.'] CHORISTERS "Happy those that fear the Lord," etc. [The hymn mingles with the national anthem, which the crowd has now started outside. As the whole glittering company with its candles straggles out, the great medieval room becomes much dim- mer, and the flames of the logs flicker more weirdly than ever over the blazoned windows and the stone kings. But after an instant the church- hells clang out joyously, rockets and illuminations begin to be seen vaguely through the coloured glass, guzlas tinkle and bagpipes shrill, and the national anthem changes into Margherita's war- 263 march sung by thousands of throats. COR- PORAL VANNI and his men, entering R. with their stretcher, march unconsciously to its rhythm. They disappear on balcony R., the ope^iing of which sends up the melody in fuller volume, while in the frosty air the rockets are seen rising keenly against the sombre background of the mountains. The wind bangs the casement to behind the stretch- er-bearers and the noises dwindle.] QUEEN [Shivering] How cold it is ! [She uncovers her eyes.] Night so soon! [The stretcher-bearers re-enter, with the Pacifist's body under a white sheet, and the joyous street- sounds swell and subside with the opening and closing of the casement. Awed by their burden, they march out solemnly. The QUEEN, left alone, continues her frozen stare at the empty dusk. Then her lips shape a murmur.] QUEEN Daddy was right ! Queen in a cockpit ! 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