A hall in the king's palace, with high windows at the hack.

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

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

CÉbÈs (not seeing the king): They are all asleep.

The lamp sputters and smokes.

(He painfully stretches himself on his back.

The King(groaning, in a low voice): Ah!

(Pause.

CÉbÈs (lowering his voice): Two, four,

Six, eight, twelve,

Fourteen,

Sixteen, eighteen, thirty-six,

Seventy-two, a hundred and forty-four. I wish that I could sleep, too.

The King: Ah!

CÉbÈs: I am thirsty. I would like a drink!

But I will not drink.

I am sick! The night is long. If only I could sleep a little!

(He closes his eyes.

The King: Ah!

CÉbÈs: Who is sighing? Is anyone there?

(He turns his head and sees the king.

(Silence.

The King: Ah!

(He catches sight of cÉbÈs.

Can't you sleep, my child?

CÉbÈs: I cannot sleep.

The King: Are you thirsty? Would you like me to get you a drink?

CÉbÈs: Pardon me, Sire. I shall not drink till he returns.

The King: Sire! Is there still such a title? Do not call me Sire, my child!

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

They did not trouble themselves much about me.

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

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

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

Even the servants have gone. Not a single one is left.

(The bells begin to chime midnight.

It is as it is in the city. Only the poor remain and those who have no choice.

(The last strokes sound.

What hour is that?

CÉbÈs: Midnight.

The King: There is no one here any longer.

But I cannot sleep and I wander through the palace

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

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

It seems that we have been beaten everywhere. It is a shameful thing!

Our blunders

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

—Terror is upon us!

(Silence.—The snores of the watchers are heard.

Hark to these watchers who watch!

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

(Silence.

I tell you that a panic has seized the city

And each man cowers in his home and dares not stir from his door.

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

Oh! oh!

Will this terrible night never end!

Sight was horrible to me; I went to bed. O Sleep,

Kill me with your leaden dart!

But I cannot sleep and I open my eyes again in the black Nothingness.

It has no knowledge nor any real existence

But the gloom takes weight and stiflingly presses upon us.

Oh! oh!

I shudder from head to foot and I cry aloud in my anguish!

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

And I see again these frightful places and I meet

Only Madness and Horror!

—Am I keeping you awake, my child?

CÉbÈs: I cannot sleep.

The King: Well, I will wait here with you.

CÉbÈs: How far away is the enemy?

The King: Not more than a day's march.

I think the battle must have already been fought.

—Still five hours till dawn! We shall see. Very soon we shall know.

CÉbÈs: This very morning! It must be so.

The King: Where are your parents, CÉbÈs?

CÉbÈs: I do not know, Sire. The war has swept them away.

The King: I have only one daughter and I have no male child.

CÉbÈs: Are you speaking to me, Sire?

The King: How pale you are, my poor boy! You are very ill. TÊte-d'or

Was wise to leave you here. We will look after you, lad.

I look at you! I wish to contemplate

A thing still young, as I myself have been,

And the dawning of power in astonished eyes!

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

The evening has been glorious, a golden day awaits him.

I also have been young. I have been a young man also,

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

And this is what I am, and this is what I see!

CÉbÈs: I shall be the first to die.

I have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

I have not strength enough to rise and walk.

Yes! What a thing it is to live!

What an astonishing thing it is

Only to live! What a mighty thing it is, only to live!

He who lives

And treads the earth under his feet, what does he envy the gods?

I die,

And only ask to once again behold him.

The King: Of what are you dreaming?

CÉbÈs: I dream of the day.

The King: Go, die!

CÉbÈs: What did you say?

The King (rising and running about distractedly): Go, die! We all must die!

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

I am weaker than a woman in childbirth.

(He is seized with a fit of coughing.

A-ha! A-hha! O my country!

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

But what of that! I loved you, O my realm!

And must I see you thus destroyed and ravaged!

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

Uproot yourself,

Ancestral beech whose branches shade the courtyard!

Down to the dust with you, genealogy!

And let the walls be rent asunder from base to battlement!

—Hola! You there! Wake up!

(He jostles against a sleeper, who grunts.

What are you muttering down there?

(He kicks him.

The Watcher (asleep): Oh hum!

The King: Wake up there, sack of wool! Wake up, block!

(He kicks him.

The Watcher (talking indistinctly in his sleep): Ho! Ho!

Do not push me! I am falling! I am falling!

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

The Watcher (waking and rubbing his eyes): Eh? Eh?

What's that? What? What? What?

What? What time is it?

Eh?

(He sees the king.

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

The King: Well, Watchers!

(Silence.

Behold you sleep, and the first part of the night is not yet spent!

They care for nothing but eating and drinking and talking to each other!

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

Their souls are simple! They are not capable of thinking for themselves.

Do you know where we are? Do you know for what we are waiting?

We must watch and listen! We must listen and wait!

(The song of the nightingale is heard.

The nightingale is singing. All night he pours out his soul.

All night the tiny bird sings of the marvels of God.

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

But, like hulking lackeys you sleep!

And it may be that someone has entered and looked at you,

Like the bird that flies and does not alight.

But they sleep and leave me all alone!

And I David, The King, with my white hairs,

I wander through the palace in the pangs and agony of death,

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

I hold back with my hands my escaping soul!

The First Watcher: Pardon us, O King.

The Second Watcher: O King, why do you waken us and keep us from sleeping?

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

The light troubles my eyes. I am going to sleep.

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

The Third Watcher: O King, you yourself are yawning!

It is weariness. It is the wind, the exhalation of the void within us.

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

In truth we are dead.

As tired

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

At first the heart was silent,

And then, like a tom-cat that yowls very softly, it began to voice its lament.

The Second Watcher: Be still, heart! Be still, poor heart! What would you have?

The Fourth Watcher: And even now they come to extinguish us

As you quench a stinking lamp with a damp cloth.

The First Watcher: O night! O chasm of blackness!

O open door through which whistles the wind!

We had come hither and stretched ourselves on your threshold.

But the abyss gave back no words. Who can fathom its secret ways?

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

The night is black and there is no more hope.

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

Therefore let us lie here and sleep,

Or go, if you have a wife, and lie with her.

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

Or the mouse in the cupboard or the fly against the pane.

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

Why are we born, since now it seems better to die?

What should we do and why should we do it?

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

Or one who yawns from the fumes of a reeking opium pipe.

This parish dreams and is like a people who, like a nation of hens

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

(Pause.

The First Watcher: Such is the report that we have to make to you.

The King: Wretched nonentities! He is a fool who puts his trust in you!

I knew you and your fathers before you, a broken reed to lean upon!

In my old age and bitter need there is little comfort in you!

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

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

Is it not you who have brought us to this pass?

Curse you, and curse all men who have power in their hands,

Who have power in their hands, O God, and do not know how to use it!

Why do you come to break our sleep and keep our eyes from slumber?

You curse me, do you, old phantom? And I throw back your curse in your teeth!

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

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

For they took me when I was only a child and they gave me dirt to eat.

A curse on my father and on my mother also!

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

The King: Madman, be still!

The Fifth Watcher: Why did you waken me, old man? Now you shall not silence me!

Whom else shall I curse? I am full of malediction!

My bile pours forth in a flood and boils up even to my eyes!

And so great is the spasm that shakes me

That my ribs are cracking with it and my bones are riven apart!

I will curse myself!

Myself, because I am worthless, lost, dishonored,

Degraded below all beings and cowardly beyond all measure!

And I will bury my teeth in my arms and tear my face with my nails!

Come then, O Death! Come, O Death!

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

The King: Who is there?

(Silence.

Come in!

(The princess enters, timidly.

The King (shading his eyes with his hand): Who are you?

The Princess: Father, may I come in?

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

What have you been doing, my child?

The Princess: Pardon me, father!

I was all alone, for the servants have run away

And I was frightened.

The King: We are left alone in this abandoned palace

Around this little light placed on the floor.

The Princess: Shall I wait here with you, father?

The King: Stay.

(She seats herself at some distance from CÉbÈs.

CÉbÈs (half-aloud): I am thirsty!

(She pours some water into a glass and gives it to him.

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

O God, how long the night is!

(The nightingale sings again suddenly, close to the window.

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

(The nightingale sings again.

CÉbÈs: O bird! O voice strong and pure in the night!

But the measure of time will not be changed.

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

What do you say, O bird? But you are only a voice and not a message.

The Princess: Do you think we shall have tidings soon?

CÉbÈs: With the first hour he will be here,

Bringing the news as a laborer brings his tools.

If only I do not die before he comes!

The Princess: Do not say such a thing!

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

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

And if you knew the terror that is in my soul

You would not treat me like a little child who says he cannot sleep.

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

Comes again.

The Princess: You speak to me brutally as everyone does nowadays.

You do not want me to console you and perhaps in this you are wrong.

(She moves away for some distance.

The Fourth Watcher: Well, after all....

That young man with the army he has raised, he may be able to....

The First Watcher: What foolishness!

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

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

And at the same time looked at me. For his voice is strong and piercing

And he looked at me in such a way that I felt it in the pit of my stomach,

And the flame of confusion mounted to my cheeks.

Grant that he may return with a glorious victory.

The Fifth Watcher: And then what will you do?

The Fourth Watcher: O I shall live in joy!

Holding my face to the sun, holding my hands to the rain!

The Fifth Watcher: Listen to him! You will live in joy, will you, carrion?

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

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

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

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

This I see and exult. Let me perish beneath the sword!

I do not wish to live in joy. Where is the joy in life?

But I long to die, like a man that has been flayed.

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

But nothing will keep me from dying of the malady of death

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

Making no scrutiny or examination,

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

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

For we have come to the end of things.

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

And seven days a week, and his work has taken form.

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

And trapped by the hands and no longer can he turn his eyes away.

And at last they loosen him that he may die on the ground,

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

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

And his eyes are like those of a little child and there is surprise in them.

So....

The First Watcher: So what?

The Third Watcher: Let him alone, he is choking.

The Fifth Watcher: I tell you that you are captives who cannot be delivered.

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

We are shut in this secret place with a flickering lamp in our midst.

Shall I not be permitted to spit against the walls of my prison?

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

(Silence. The king makes a sign to the princess.

The Princess: Father, what is it you wish?

(He speaks to her.—She listens, her head bent.

The Fourth Watcher: O when will the sun come again!

CÉbÈs: O when will the sun come again!

O the golden Marne,

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

Yet a few hours,

A few hours and the sun will thrust his splendor from out the Gloom!

O there were years before I had finished growing

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

I saw the Dawn brighten above the woods,

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

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

Yet I know that never again shall I watch you rise in the East.

The Princess (to the king): Do not ask this thing of me! I could not do it.

The King: It is my will!

The Princess: Then your will shall be obeyed!

(She goes out. Pause.

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

Pause.

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

The First Watcher (breaking the silence): Who is there?

The Second Watcher: Hush! Listen!

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

(She closes her eyes again.—Silence.

The Fourth Watcher: What did I say of the sun?

Here in this room there is another sun who gazes upon us in his splendor!

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

Who is this, of the height of a human being,

Who stands in a flowing robe between the lamp and the dark?

Turn towards us and hold your face before us!

Ahhh!

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

Do not reopen your eyes! Let us feast on your loveliness

Now that you do not look at us.

The Princess (sighing): Nnn!

The First Watcher (half-aloud): What does that mean?

The Second Watcher: Do you not understand?

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

Look!

The Princess (sighing again): No! ah!

(She slowly shakes her head. Then remains motionless.

The Fourth Watcher: Will you awake?

The Princess (very softly): Ah!

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

The Princess: Ah!

Must I leave you, lovely land?

The First Watcher: What land?

The Princess: "I sleep" it is called.

I have fled from life, I am dancing in a dream,

My feet are set among strawberry blossoms and lilies of the valley.

I cannot move from my place.

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

(She opens her eyes.

The Fourth Watcher: Look and see! Alas, you have ceased to smile.

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

The Fourth Watcher: Living men, and I am one also.

The Princess: And why do they stay here, seated on the floor?

The Fourth Watcher: It is night, and there is no light while it endures.

The Princess: And what is that lamp?

The Fourth Watcher: Lampas est expectationis.

The Princess: And for what are they waiting?

The Fourth Watcher: For Death, who is on the way, and the door is open for him.

The Princess: And what dwelling is this?

The Fourth Watcher: It is the house of the King.

The Princess: And why have they placed the lamp upon the floor?

The Fourth Watcher: I will tell you that. It is so that they can see it.

(Short pause.

The First Watcher: And who are you that question us?

(Short pause.

The Princess: I do not know. Indeed I do not know who I am!

And you, do you not know? Oh, who among you will tell me?

The Third Watcher: Gaudium nostrum es et dilectio, et jussimus te valere.

The Princess: Truly?

The Second Watcher: Have you come again, O woman?

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

The Princess: Then you have known me before?

The Second Watcher: Ask me no questions, for I am a surly man.

(Pause.

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

It is I. What do you want of me?

You dreamed of me, you say? Well, I am here.

—Why do you keep your eyes lowered? Are you afraid to look at me?

The Third Watcher: There is nothing that we want,

O woman, and we do not ask you for anything.

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

The Fourth Watcher (rising hurriedly): Make way! Let me go!

The Princess (stretching her hand towards him): Stay!

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

With the face of bygone things and of regret,

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

The Princess: Shame? And I myself, can I not be ashamed before them,

Like a wise and modest man who stands erect amidst drunkards?

Ah! Ah! I see and I know! Alas! I see! I see and I understand!

The Fourth Watcher: We salute you, O beauty! We salute you, reproach!

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

The Princess: Truly, I pity you!

The Fourth Watcher: Be sad, for we are sad.

(The nightingale sings again.

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

And my voice shall be uplifted like the piping of a flute,

Higher, louder, enfolding the city and the night.

I will sing and cast away all bounds and all restraint!

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

For my voice is that of love and in my heart is the fire of youth.

(She opens her mouth as if about to sing.

The Fourth Watcher: Be silent!

The Princess: You do not wish me to sing?

The Fourth Watcher: Be silent!

The Princess: Then I will talk to you and will not sing....

Did you think I had gone away? In truth I was always with you.

And I will not tell you who I am, for you know it and do not forget.

Every woman is only a mother. I am she who rears and nourishes,

And entreating you for yourselves in the sacred name of pity,

Receive from you for her portion

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

And you did not think to see me; but at last I have shown myself!

The Third Watcher: Is it you?

The Princess (after silently contemplating them): O fools!

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

And you will not always be able

To steal away from me like a thief of the night.

What have you done? How have you fled from me?

I could call to each of you

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

Showing his deeds of folly and how he had sinned

Through his own fault and not the fault of another,

So that before me he would be like a man who gives himself up for lost.

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

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

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

And I shall be harder and more bitter to you than a shrew to her husband!

The Fourth Watcher: What could we do?

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

The First Watcher: With what does she reproach us?

She is a woman. Have we not known

Women like her? And have we not found them nothing and less than nothing?

The Princess: And was I then so ugly,

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

What have you done for me? And yet what is there that I could not give you?

Sometimes the Muse descends to wander the ways of earth,

And profiting by the evening hour when the townspeople sit at supper,

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

All alone like a solitary stag.

And I, though I love that calm retreat,

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

But I cry, at the cross-roads, and in the city streets,

In the bustling market-place and by the doors of the dance halls,

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

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

The Fourth Watcher: Save our souls for us if you have the power!

The Princess: From this time forth we are strangers!

Let the shadows and the lamp bear witness to our divorce!

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

Here in this murky light,

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

Not to repair the breach, but to proclaim it!

You invoke me at a moment when you are beyond all aid!

What have you made of me?

It is most fitting that you should taste of death!

But as for me, I suffer an iniquitous punishment and am a reproach to you

Unavailingly!

Alas that I should have met so much stubbornness and ignorance!

Alas, I could cry aloud in my grief and if you could not endure

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

Oh! It is late! And I

Must go away alone like a widow harshly evicted from her home!

You will think of me with regret in the hour of your agony,

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

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

And you, sick man?

(CÉbÈs raises his eyes, sees her, and begins to laugh.

The Princess: Why do you laugh?

CÉbÈs: That thing on your head is so queer!

I can't help laughing when I look at it!

The Princess: Look at me more closely.

Don't you think that I could cure you?

CÉbÈs: What shall I do to be cured, Most Beautiful?

The Princess: You must believe me and love me, CÉbÈs.

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

(Silence.

What more have you to say?

The Princess (making a movement): Farewell!

CÉbÈs: Do not go! Stay with me!

The Princess: Take my hand. (He takes it.) Listen to my last word.

CÉbÈs: I am listening.

The Princess: Farewell!

CÉbÈs: Not that! Not that cruel word! Do not go!

The Princess: Farewell!

The song draws to an end!

And the face of the singer, The Gatherer-of-Flowers,

Fades in the dusk of evening

Till only the eyes remain and the violet ghost of the mouth.

He who loves goes forth to greet The Bride,

And the door is opened by invisible hands.

Farewell, for I am going.

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

The Princess (rushing to the middle of the stage): O my father,

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

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

And you, my father, is it thus I see you, gnawing your beard,

And fixing blood-shot eyes on the ground! Let me go, I beg of you!

The beautiful and illustrious lady who spoke just now is gone

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

Good-bye, father! Good-bye to you all!

For the sadness rises also in me and I must go,

Groping my way through gloomy corridors.

O father! O mother that I never knew!

Soon I shall lie full length on the ground with outspread hands,

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

—Off with you, heavy and importunate robes!

(She goes out.

The King (springing violently to his feet): Go! It is well!

No imagined terror! Here is horror itself.

Look at me, me the old man!

By this hoary beard that I tear with both hands, I swear

That disaster incarnate

Stands before you and cries, "Adsum!"

You heard the sound of his rage like a battle beneath the horizon,

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

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

Now in the day

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

The Fifth Watcher: I defy you! I fear you not!

—Mangle me, cut me to bits and my severed head shall spring and bite!

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

A blinding mass, I shall vomit

Against heaven my malediction like a dart.

The King: Ruin! Destruction!

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

O my desolate fields!

O my strong men who strew the roads, like crushed beetles!

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

Past is the time of ploughing and reaping and peaceful sharing of daily bread!

And we ourselves like dead animals shall rot among weeds and nettles,

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

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

Solitary, searching for Wisdom, fixing on Duty his arid eyes,

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

That I should cease to see and feel!

Oh, this life

Looks with two faces upon us:

Dawn, her cheeks anointed with honey and honeycomb,

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

That I should fall,

Striking the echoing pavement with the head

Of an anointed King!

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

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

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

For in its splendor the army of the heavens passes above the earth,

And is reflected in the puddles and the open wells in the market-gardens.

Wait patiently and listen to the cock crowing in the night,

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

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

And the light and the breeze will enter through the windows vast and high!

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

(Prolonged silence.—The sound of cannon.

The First Watcher: It is he! There is news!

(The messenger enters, out of breath.

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

It should be not haste but joy that makes you speechless, if

You only bring us tidings that are not of disaster,

Laugh only; do not keep that ominous air

Cassius!

The Messenger: O

Triumph!

What glory! What human heart will be strong enough to bear

This!

And you, my brothers that I now behold again,

Listen to this resplendent news!

The Third Watcher: Speak! What? You say....

The Messenger: ... That we have gained the victory? Yes.

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

Is still intact with its people in its length and in its breadth?

I listen trembling! How,

How is it possible?

You do not say that we are victorious, we?

The Messenger: Yes. That is what I said!

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

And I will utter such a cry

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

What!

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

The Messenger: I said that we had conquered.

Did you not understand? I said that we had won the battle.

The Fourth Watcher: What is a single battle? The menace is always there.

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

The Third Watcher: Of course! He was here! He has shown himself in their path.

The Second Watcher: You say that the enemy is retreating?

The Messenger: Retreating! Routed! Fleeing!

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

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

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

The Fourth Watcher: Triumph!

The First Watcher: Do you say nothing, Sire?

The King: O my children!

I cannot speak,

For an hour better than I have deserved

Has come upon me,

On me, the incapable, useless governor of this country!

O Messenger, you have restored their taste to bread and wine.

Let the bells ring out till all the air resounds,

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

The circle of the earth and the height of heaven!

Let the singers of our triumph stand forth together,

And let their mouths exhaling

A song of benediction, eat of the sun till evening!

Wine! Wine! I wish to drink with you, O Messenger,

Even as two carters do who meet in a roadside inn!

(Wine is brought.

O fortune, I drink to you with this trembling hand! Accept this toast!

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

The Messenger: I cannot

Put wine between my teeth till that excessive joy

Which buoyed me upon my horse as I galloped towards you

Has spoken.

I say that the kingdom has been saved by handfuls of gold and jewels!

He was not ashamed to beg, on the bridges, at the cross-roads,

Stretching out his princely hands,

Burying in the mud his armored knees....

The Third Watcher: We have seen him!

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

He kneels, stretching out his hands to the chains on the rocks of Occismor,

Till he was buried up to the thighs in alms!

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

He had come, our king, unique in his beauty, adorned with marvellous deeds!

And, full of a secret sadness, we recalled his face, shy and terrible.

The First Watcher: It is thus that....

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

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

"Oh!" one said to him, "Oh, war!

When shall we have peace?"

"You wish to live in peace?"

"Surely," he answered, "Yes, indeed."

"Coward, you cannot! Even now they come to rob you of your goods

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

And the questioner said, "What can I do?"

"Fight!" he answered, "Resist!"

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

"O man insulted and outraged,

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

These words were repeated and often he who heard them

Did not forget them, but, leaving his wife alone in her bed to weep,

He paced all night the floor of his room, pondering this question,

"If I try, why cannot I?"

Until a little phrase, full of a sense of strength,

Impinged upon his consciousness: "I can!"

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

The Messenger: Then it was

That in the unhappy soul was born the fury of the captive!

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

Still not sure of themselves,

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

That everything was according to his command.

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

To a man they gladly left their families and their work.

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

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

And the soldiers waiting their turn to set out,

Heard behind them the rustling of the flag, cock of the war, song of sails!

All: Come! Speak! Speak!

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

They knew another flag.

The First Watcher: What flag?

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

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

The monstrous standard of our wretchedness, enormous, charged with chains!

They saw it while they set their feet on a soil enriched by the flesh

Of their fathers and mothers, like fallen leaves!

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

But finally full of a rage like the lust for gold,

They rushed forward all together, raising discordant cries.

And then a sudden panic

Arose as if all at once, though it was day, the Night

Rearing up her giant head with its diadem of stars,

Confounded the sense with the blast of her prodigious horn.

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

Like colts stampeded by a clanking chain,

Turned tail and fled!

Thus did we raise that army, having gotten under it,

Thus did we tilt it backward like a cask,

Spilling a great tumult of men

On the earth and in the reedy beds of streams.

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

Oh who has seen such a massacre, the piles of wounded and dying

Gasping like a catch of fish in the bottom of a boat!

All: Triumph!

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

God!

We chased them with a shoe like rats!

Doddering gray beards with a gesture

Put to flight battalions, and children whose voices broke,

Catching him by the bridle, led away the horse and his rider.

This I saw.

I saw the captured flags brought in like fagots!

I remember soldiers, black-bearded, or with chins

Bristling with white hairs,

Who in the evening, while the soup was cooking,

Stood, their feet in the heather, like smiths worn out with toil,

Red like the arbute-berry in the ruddy gloaming,

Contemplating through the branches the scarlet sky from which comes life.

—As for him,

Those who stood by his stirrups, taking his orders,

Listening with parted lips to what he said, for the first time saw on his face,

Like that of a man who, in the midst of a crowd, mocks at an absurd misfortune,

The inconstant smile of a young girl!

All: Triumph! Triumph!

The Messenger: Now let these eyes which have seen such a spectacle

Cover themselves with a film, and let this vase

That has contained such an image dash itself to pieces!

To think that I, I should have lived to see such a day!

Rejoice! Victory whinnying like a virgin mare

Rolls on the battlefield,

Lashing out with shining hooves, turning her trout's belly to the sky!

CÉbÈs: O messenger!

The Messenger: Who calls me?

CÉbÈs: Is that all that TÊte-d'or said to you? Won't he be coming soon?

The Messenger: Are you he whom he calls CÉbÈs?

CÉbÈs: Well?

The Messenger: In that case, TÊte-d'or gave me a message for you.

CÉbÈs: What? Did he think of me?

The Messenger: He told me to say that he will soon be here. Listen, all of you!

These are his words, "Say that I shall be there.

I am coming, I myself."

CÉbÈs: He is coming?

The Messenger: He is hard upon my heels.

(Trumpet without.

The First Watcher: Hark!

The Third Watcher: I hear the voice of the trumpet.

(Pause. Noise of arms without.

The Fourth Watcher: He is here.

(tÊte-d'or enters.

The King (advancing to meet him): You have preserved this kingdom,

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

You have given a second birth to everything.

Young man, I greet you with the name of Father.

May blessings gather on your beloved head.

Enter, conquering hero,

Welcome to this hearth and to this shadowy hall almost bereft of light,

And first I salute you as is fitting.

(He hows before him.

(All come and one after the other bow before him.

Hail!

TÊte-d'or: I thank you, Sire.

I thank you all. Who am I? What have I done?

That which must be already exists. From whom is this knowledge hidden?

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

CÉbÈs: O TÊte-d'or!

TÊte-d'or: Find an excuse! Pretend that you still are sick!

CÉbÈs: Stay here with me. I want to talk to you.

TÊte-d'or: He wants to talk to me.

The King: Do you wish us to withdraw?

TÊte-d'or: Do this for me.

Do this for me, my friends! I ask your pardon.

You shall hear what I have to say to you presently.

(They all go out.

TÊte-d'or: Well, CÉbÈs, here I am! The same as ever!

I come again, having conquered!

CÉbÈs: By these victorious hands, dear friend!

TÊte-d'or: Give me a brotherly welcome.

(They embrace.

CÉbÈs: O man with the power to conquer!

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

Then I saw that what I wished for was.

CÉbÈs: But how?

TÊte-d'or: I am telling you! I was more firm on my horse than on a rock.

—But I wanted to talk with you and there you are still in your bed.

CÉbÈs: Do not pity me.

TÊte-d'or: Are you feeling better?

CÉbÈs: Because I am not worth your trouble, hero!

TÊte-d'or: You do not render me a true account.

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

And are you not mine?

(Silence.

Eh?

CÉbÈs: Well?

TÊte-d'or: What?

CÉbÈs: Nothing.

TÊte-d'or: You twist the chain of my sword but do not speak.

CÉbÈs: TÊte-d'or....

TÊte-d'or: Well?

(Silence.

CÉbÈs: Did you bring back your army with you?

TÊte-d'or: Yes, it is close behind me.

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

TÊte-d'or: Yes, for I saw and knew.

CÉbÈs: What?

TÊte-d'or: My opportunity and how to seize it.

The eyes and the brain cry at the selfsame instant:

"This thing must be!" I take that which is due me.

CÉbÈs: And I, I do not see and do not know!

What could I have done?

Yet I am wise though in one thing only.

TÊte-d'or: Which is?

CÉbÈs: Will it bore you if I tell you everything? Or shall I speak freely

As to the man in whom

I have put my trust?

TÊte-d'or: In what thing?

CÉbÈs (very low): To give

Myself.

But to give myself to whom? Not

To one as weak as I am.

Nothing imperfect can satisfy me for I do not satisfy myself.

So I seek a man who is perfectly just and true,

That he may be perfectly good and I may love him.

I am only a child, TÊte-d'or, but I tell you I have within me

A thing older than I,

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

But I open my eyes and see the sun as it rises and sets,

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

To which of them shall I speak? I shall speak to him and he will make reply.

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

I can only pay with myself.

And all men are full of faults,

—But you, do you think that such a man exists?

TÊte-d'or: You lay your hand on an old wound!—He exists.

CÉbÈs: He exists then.

But which of us speaks and is not understood?

Has he rejected me, or am I in any way to blame?

I bear witness to the Truth

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

But I see a fly, a plant, a stone, yet him I do not see.

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

For I raise my hands and move them here and there!

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

I do not care to be loved. But I know how to love and I would see and have!

And against these sure desires there is only a vague perhaps.

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

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

CÉbÈs: You have come, O Conqueror,

To all the rest like the promise of a future of happy days!

For me alone you bring no rescue!

TÊte-d'or: What do you mean?

CÉbÈs (lying down again): I am dying.

TÊte-d'or: What did you say?

CÉbÈs: What the doctors told me, and it is the truth.

TÊte-d'or: No!

CÉbÈs: I shall not live through another night. I shall not live till noon.

TÊte-d'or: No! No!

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

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

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

Why was I born? For I die and then I shall exist no more.

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

For I am like a man buried alive, and I am confined as in an oven!

Give me light! Give me light! Give me light! Give me light! For I would see!

Give me air, for I stifle!

Give me to drink, for I do not want the water that they bring me.

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

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

TÊte-d'or: Oh! That I could do as does the eagle,

Who, letting fall a useless prey, perishes in his ravaged eyrie!

Why did you cross my path?

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

On my heart, he pressed his face against this throbbing regret!

And again he asks my help in the hour of his death!

I do not understand! I have done my best

And I have turned my steps towards that house of sin,

And I thought that, having renounced all selfish hope,

To-day I would work with my hands.

You speak of desire, the necessity of the present hour constrains me!

The rapacious desire drags me forward through this place of horror.

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

CÉbÈs: You weep? Is that your only answer?

TÊte-d'or: I beg you

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

It is most horrible

That you should draw these woman's tear-drops from me.

You question me and, like a brutish thing,

I can reply only by these vain waters!

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

Answer! When a man dies does something still survive?

TÊte-d'or: Be still, and try me no more.

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

TÊte-d'or: I answer that man has been conceived according to the flesh.

CÉbÈs: And to die is not to escape?

TÊte-d'or: This world was made for man and a limit was set about him,

That he might not escape and that no one might enter in.

CÉbÈs: Then I shall die and shall no longer exist?

TÊte-d'or: I will tell you what I know when I do not know it.

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

You did not breathe in the days when you lay in the womb of your mother,

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

And having come out of her you breathed and uttered a cry!

I also have uttered a cry,

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

Humanity divide before me like the separation of the waters!

And now I return to you and find you in the lassitude of death!

Must everyone that I love die and leave me alone?

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

Pit of weariness! Horror in which I stand! Is there someone here?

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

We can eat; we can lay a dish before ourselves and feed;

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

Then go to the common home! And now I say to you,

Hope not to still survive, being dead,

For how can any man see without his eyes, and how else will he be able

To grasp than with his hands?

CÉbÈs: If this is so,

O my body you have been of little worth,

For you die and I must die along with you.

I shall die like a four-footed beast, and shall exist no more.

Why then has it been given to me to know this?

(He begins to scream.) Ah! Ah!

TÊte-d'or: Yes, cry!

CÉbÈs: Night! O Night!

TÊte-d'or: The night is vast and wide, and the sun is lost in it,

And the silence, that no voice breaks nor any word, endures.

CÉbÈs: Forever and ever!

TÊte-d'or: Cry! Cry!

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

O TÊte-d'or, can't you do anything for me? For I suffer!

TÊte-d'or (changing his tone): Do not be afraid! I am here! Do not be afraid

To die. All is vanity and nothingness.

CÉbÈs: Do not go! Be my nurse! Stay here. Let me be with you

A little longer. Do not be disgusted with me because I die.

TÊte-d'or: Look, I hold your hand. What was it I said just now?

Come! Death is nothing. Smile! Won't you smile for me?

CÉbÈs: Alone!

TÊte-d'or: What's that?

CÉbÈs: Alone....

TÊte-d'or: Alone? What are you saying?

CÉbÈs: ... I die!

TÊte-d'or: Am I not with you?

CÉbÈs: Alone I die!

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

Then why do you say that you love me? Why do you lie?

For who can love me

Since I cease to be when my body dies?

A bitter indignation boils within me!

My bowels bloat! I am racked with fearful retchings

That strive to rive apart the fastening of my bones!

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

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

Among the broken dishes and dead cats, in earth that is full of fat pink worms!

(He tries to get up.

TÊte-d'or: What are you doing? Stay where you are!

Come, you cannot get out of bed!

(He holds him back.

CÉbÈs: I want to get up, to walk again! Oh! I can live!

Leave me alone! Let go of me!

TÊte-d'or: Stay where you are! Are you mad? Don't you recognise me?

What would you do?

CÉbÈs: Will you not let me go, wretched man! O coward!

I hate you—O the great beast, he holds me!

—Will you not let me go!

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

TÊte-d'or: You see!

CÉbÈs (screaming): Ho, ho, ho!

TÊte-d'or: Be quiet! Calm yourself!

CÉbÈs (screaming): Ho!

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

CÉbÈs: Oh! O God!

TÊte-d'or: CÉbÈs!

CÉbÈs: Let me alone!

TÊte-d'or: Have you forgotten....

CÉbÈs: Leave me!

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

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

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

With the deprecating smile that masks the shudder of shame behind.

And those that are mocked and cannot make reply, and cowards,

And those who from the darkness of their souls exhale a prayer devoid of savor!

And you, do you not also pity me?

And I say to you like that woman

When she lay at the roadside in the shadow of death;

"Why do you let me die?"

TÊte-d'or: Take me with you if you wish! Do you think that I am not weary?

Groaning, I strove to tear myself from those strong and bony hands.

And now you weep and would bring me again to that terrible repose!

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

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

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

And the ravening beast and the thistle with purple flowers!

And you, who are dying, you counsel me to die!

I cannot loose my limbs from these tough ligatures!

O world! O self! O shameful destiny!

Let me be iron and like a thing of wood!

CÉbÈs: What hope....

TÊte-d'or: I look at you and is it thus you lie!

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

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

TÊte-d'or: Neither do I, I do not understand! I am tired!

You speak of hidden things that the thick tongue shudders to say,

Tales with no basis of reason, blood that flows like saliva!

A little word of consolation watches beneath all wretchedness,

Sweet forget-me-not of fire that lights us mournfully with its faithful gleam!

—Beyond the silence a voice like the human voice

Spoke to my soul and it melted and flowed like iron in the foundry!

Still it resounds! That fervent hope warms us again like coffee!

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

For there is a force and a spirit in me

Like the bellows blowing on iron in the fire.

I beg of you, do not ask me anything more!

CÉbÈs: Yet it must be.

—Mother, my brother! O nurse with sides caparisoned in steel!

TÊte-d'or: Well?

CÉbÈs: O brother, so at the last you have found no word to tell me! Ah well,

I, I have something to tell to you.

TÊte-d'or: What?

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

And it troubles me no more. TÊte-d'or!

TÊte-d'or: What, brother?

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

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

For every tie is dissolved and I am like a severed branch.

(tÊte-d'or takes cÉbÈs in his arms.

TÊte-d'or: Thus in my turn I take you in my arms.

CÉbÈs: They say

That if in the midst of his path through a dreary solitude,

Of a sudden the wanderer halts at the summons of his heart,

It is love, that locks the man and woman in agonised embrace.

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

And invents those phrases that begin with O,

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

TÊte-d'or: What have you to say to me?

CÉbÈs: O TÊte-d'or! I am not a woman and neither am I a man,

For I am not of age, and I am already as if I were no more.

TÊte-d'or: Who are you then?

CÉbÈs: O TÊte-d'or, all pain is past!

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

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

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

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

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

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

CÉbÈs: Then love me more for I scarcely can be called a living man.

And I am like a bird that one seizes on the wing.

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

Brother! Child!

O all the tenderness of my heart, I have taken you between my hands!

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

Shall I call you my child or my brother? For I am more mindful of you

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

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

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

CÉbÈs: O TÊte-d'or, as you gave yourself to me

Even so I give myself to you,

And as you did not trust your secret to me,

Neither shall I entrust to you mine.

I am strangely light and like a thing that can no longer be held.

(He kisses him on the cheek.

Good-bye!

And now put me back on my bed.

(Meanwhile the first faint signs of dawn appear.

TÊte-d'or: The day!

CÉbÈs: The chilly violet of dawn

Glances across the distant plains, tinting each track and rut with its glamor!

And in the silent farms the roosters cry

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

It is the hour when the traveller, huddled among the cushions of his coach,

Awakes, and peers through the pane, and coughs, and sighs,

And souls new-born in the shadows of walls and forests,

Uttering feeble cries like little naked birds,

Fly back again, guided by flaring meteors, into the regions of obscurity.

—What is the hour?

TÊte-d'or: The night is over.

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

Colors the roofs and the towered gateways once again is born.

I feel the freshness of the breeze. Open the window!

(tÊte-d'or opens it.

(Prolonged silence.

TÊte-d'or: Can you hear me?

(Pause, cÉbÈs turns his eyes towards him and faintly smiles.

TÊte-d'or: Can you hear me still?

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

O CÉbÈs, everything is hushed and there is no voice to break the stillness.

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

There lies before us the plenty of the fields.

It is night. The meadow is thick with harvest and far away one can almost hear

The swish of the scythe in the lush grass.

Already the fires of the routed stars are paling.

And the nightingale who sings at intervals

When the ascension of the starry heavens above the earth begins....

(He stops.—cÉbÈs is dead.

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

Oh, horrible!

(He sits down.

I am alone. I am cold.

What difference does it make?

Indeed it matters little that he is dead.

Why should we mourn? Why should we be disconcerted by anything that may happen?

What man of sense would lend himself to such buffoonery?

He who bursts into tears and whose head is bowed with his sobbing

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

—He is dead and I am alone.—

Am I of stone? The leaves of the trees seem made of cloth or iron

And all outdoors is a painted scene to be looked at or not at one's pleasure.

And this sun, whose earliest rays formerly made me resound

Like a stone that clangs against bronze, why, let it rise!

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

Yes, and like an insensible trunk of coral,

I could see my limbs drop from me.

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

(He rises.

To-day!

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

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

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

Hola! Hola! Hola!

(He leans against the wall.

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

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

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

The Man Out of Office (in his group, feverishly): Pig!...

That's right! Go on! Keep it up! Play with your good moment!

Hmmm! We shall see! We shall see!

(He rubs his hands.

What has he done with the funds of the commissariat?

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

Look how he plumes himself! See how he struts among those nanny-goats!

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

And the other trollop came to join them. Such scenes as they had!

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

(He presses his hand.

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

The people did it all.

The Citizen: All the same I say it was you! You did the organizing!

It isn't the soldiers who win the battles. You did the organizing.

All the Women (together): It is true!

(Nodding of heads.

Murmur (in the crowd, spreading to the stairways): It is true.

(Uproar outside.

What is that?

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

(He talks to him in a low voice.

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

Clamor (outside). Jacquot! Jacquot! Jacquot! Jacquot! Jacquot! Hurrah!

The Tribune of the People: Say that I am going to speak to them!

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

The Man Out of Office: See them! Not him!

His Excellency the High Prefect! Serious as a tethered ass!

Did you know that he writes verses in secret?

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

The High Prefect (authoritatively): Don't alarm yourself!

The Tribune of the People: Tell me, Albert....

The High Prefect: Don't alarm yourself. All this is absurd!

He has profited by the....

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

He has overtaxed the people outrageously!

He is an adventurer,

A fellow picked off the streets! And as haughty as a god!

None are allowed to touch him and if any approach too near,

Men or women, he fetches them a rap on the head with his stick.

The people know their friends.

The Go-Between (making a gesture with his arm): This way!

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

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

(The go-between speaks excitedly to the man out of office and his group.

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

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

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

The High Prefect: Hmm! He has the army back of him!

(The tribune of the people re-enters the hall with the king.

(Little by little a silence falls.

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

(The silence has become complete. All keep their eyes fixed on tÊte-d'or.

(Pause.

Someone (near cÉbÈs): He is dead.

TÊte-d'or (turning towards the assembly): Who says that he is dead?

Someone: He is paler than any of us and his lips are discolored.

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

TÊte-d'or: Is it yet day?

The Young Man: Day?

A Woman: The sun is rising.

TÊte-d'or: It rises!

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

Pour on the tawny earth their burden of rain.

Those who are dead depart, and those who are living

Must stand before the world and confess their o'er burdened souls.

I stand alone and wounded.

The King: This child is dead?

TÊte-d'or: He is dead.

(The king drops his head on his breast.

Yes, that sight is bitterer than sourest herbs! Oh!

I was for him as Athens was for Argos,

Yet I shall bear this also and my patient heart shall not be shaken

For now I must proclaim myself to all.

—O soul, farewell, enter before us into the splendor of Noon!

(Pause.

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

TÊte-d'or: What is this woman doing here? Clear the hall of these females!

Who let loose these mares upon me! Out! Off with you! Begone!

(The women go out.

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

O King, is it thus you grant access to your presence?

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

(He stands silent, with downcast eyes.

The Tribune of the People: Speak! What have you to say?

TÊte-d'or: You have seen what I have done.

Nevertheless I shall tell it again that you may contradict me.

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

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

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

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

And I spoke with the voice of command. And those who slumbered

Heard, and thrilled at the call of the leader,

Like the blast of the trumpet, like the creating word!

Thus I gathered an army about me. I conceived and I executed.

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

That is what I did. Has anyone anything to say?

The King: That is what you did, TÊte-d'or.

The Tribune of the People: Well and good. But you didn't do it alone.

TÊte-d'or: I say that I did it all alone,

I alone! I did it! I alone! Not another, but I!

—What will you give me, then, as a proper recompense?

—What will you give me

That you have not received from my hands?

(The high prefect breathes through his nose as if he wished to speak.

The Schoolmaster: You only did your duty.

The Tribune of the People: You have only done your duty to your country.

TÊte-d'or: What duty? What country?

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

And I know how you welcome the man with swarthy cheeks

When he takes off his cap uncovering a forehead that still can redden.

I was hungry and you offered me no bread. I am hungry!

And behold I stand at your door!

The King: Ask then, that we may know what you wish.

TÊte-d'or: Examine me well and inspect me from every standpoint.

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

And considering everything, calculate

If

The buyable bulk of myself comprises the profit

Winnowed out by your wisdom's sieve.

Someone: What does all this mean?

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

TÊte-d'or: Hear me, men that are here!

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

Up to this time, O grass, you have only heard the murmuring of yourself.

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

I am the strength of the voice and the power of the living word!

The Tribune of the People: Then what do you ask?

TÊte-d'or: I ask for everything.

I ask you for everything that you may give it to me.

That supreme power may be mine to do everything and to have everything.

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

Let nothing in the world escape me when I pronounce the sacred word!

And as that burning king, the heart,

Is throned in the midst of the lungs that envelop him,

Receiving all the blood in himself and sending it out again through his gates,

Even so it is that the contemplation of my intellect was made

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

To reign.

(Murmur. Exclamations. The sound of words whispered from one to another.

The King: TÊte-d'or....

The Tribune of the People: Let me! I will reply to him.

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

The Schoolmaster (with a grimace): This young man is utterly mad!

The High Prefect: Hmm! He has the army back of him.

(The tribune of the people looks at them out of the corner of his eye.

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

TÊte-d'or: Yes. You have understood rightly.

(Murmur.

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

Listen to me, young man, your success has destroyed your sense of proportion.

Gently!

You yourself have informed us of all that you imagine

You have done (very loudly) for your native land,

And that it was not done through any love you bore her,

And thus you doubly spare us

The trouble of thanking you.

You have done it all

Alone! I take you to witness, gentlemen!

Alone! But science declares, young man,

That no one can do anything alone.

(He claps his hat on his head with an air of defiance.

If one of those brave soldiers who have won the day were here,

If one of those thousands and thousands of heroes

Who have saved this land were here,

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

And if, sir, following your example,

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

We should see to whom in actual fact belonged

The greater part of the credit for our glorious victory.

But at least, my friends,

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

In the darkest hour we kept our faith in our country!

Cries: True! It was he! He did it all!

(Loud applause.

The Tribune of the People: No,

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

Do you know who did it all? I will tell you.

The people, my friends. The noble people of our native land! They did it all!

(Silence.

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

(He solemnly bares his head.

(Loud clapping, hurrahs, uproar.

Someone (in the crowd): Very good indeed!

Another: No more the one than the other!

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

According as we find it good.

I do not know what dark designs you cherish. But if you tamper with our liberty

You will find, sir, that you have to deal with me!

(He crosses his arms and plants himself opposite tÊte-d'or.

The Man Out of Office: You are not by yourself in that, Jacquot.

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

(To tÊte-d'or.

Don't imagine yourself the least bit bigger than anybody else.

TÊte-d'or: Another? Who is this?

A Voice (in the crowd): I am Envy!

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

(He makes a horizontal gesture.

One is no greater than another.

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

TÊte-d'or: Kill me then, for I shall not renounce mine!

The Man Out of Office: They will cling to their liberty.

TÊte-d'or: I also would be free.

The Tribune of the People: Are you not free, then, madman?

TÊte-d'or: While there is something not beneath my sway I am not free.

(Murmur.

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

For if you do not kill me I will put my hand upon you with power.

The Tribune of the People: TÊte-d'or....

TÊte-d'or: Let me speak in my turn!

Listen, noise! Listen, nothing!

And listen, flocks dispersed in your folds and pastures, and you

Dogs that believe yourselves the shepherd!

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

A Voice: Look at that woman!

TÊte-d'or: Who says that I am a woman?

Truly I am a savage virgin on whom you will not easily lay your hand!

Indeed I am a woman! Behold what manner of woman I am!

I bear a longing in me

Like the seduction of fire

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

To seize, that I do not desire

To lay hold on like roaring flame

That is not nice in choosing the fuel with which it burns!

Let not my day be disputed!

The Phoenix

Finds her nest in the furnace, aflame with blistering light;

The enraptured lark soars upward towards the sky,

Yes, and the infinite fields of shining air

Overflow with the passionate cry of that throbbing cluster of plumes!

And it is thus I also rise, not like a little bird,

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

—I shall not live for you, but you must live for me.

And that is why I stand alone before you like a virgin.

(Pause.

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

The Schoolmaster: But what does all this mean?

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

The King: Say what you have to say. The King will be the last to speak.

The High Prefect: Maker of Demands, you are exorbitant in what you ask.

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

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

Like a sovereign on the consecrated throne,

And not to administer

With prudent thrift for the common good of all,

But like a man at his desk to whom his tenants bring their money

That he may spend it in another place.

TÊte-d'or: I have saved you all! Like a man who takes another in his arms.

The High Prefect: All society, TÊte-d'or,

Exists for the common advantage.

And each one has his place that he may serve the rest.

And the Sovereign, if one is needed, is he who serves everyone,

With his officials, according to their functions.

TÊte-d'or: And what is the good that they seek in living together?

The Schoolmaster: And you, what good have you to promise us, seducer?

But they seek for peace and to live in peace by the fruits of their daily toil.

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

Man is like the insatiable fire which at the last will consume the world,

And at present sleeps beneath the ashes and is used for cooking food.

But behold I appear before you like roaring flame

Mightily rearing itself under the mouth of the wind!

The Schoolmaster: There is no other good than that which I have named.

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

TÊte-d'or: Serve?

And what is the function for which they fashioned me? What implement am I?

I am not the spade nor the bag nor the scales. But I am the fire and the sword!

I have no place among you but now I shall make myself one,

And I present myself before you

Like the Bear who puts his paw in the hive and takes the honey and honeycomb.

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

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

And I shall bear him with me

Into the heart of the hurricane, into war.

That is why, O King,

Shadow, sign, you must disappear, thing that is and is not!

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

The King: My son, listen to what the king has to say.

TÊte-d'or: What have you to say, old man?

The King: O young man, the old man is the man of the present time.

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

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

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

And that broad field

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

The higher levels are good but nothing will grow on the flats.

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

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

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

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

But the creaking of the great door still is dear to my heart

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

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

If you tread the hallowed law of inheritance under your feet?

TÊte-d'or: Father of the family, I shall not respect you.

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

O miserly old man who would keep what you cannot use,

Slothful monarch, most like the pitiful king of the chess-board

Shut in by the castle, guarded by pawns, and assaulted by the knight.

You are the man of the present hour, but already that hour is over.

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

By the air and by the earth,

That I would rise above the will of others.

And as for what my right is, listen all!

I did not gain that victory, but a beggar, a man unknown,

I enter here and claim the book and crown!

Out of my way, old man!

The King: I will not let you pass.

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

Out, for there cannot be two kings in the hive! One of the two must vanish.

The King: I will not let you pass.

TÊte-d'or: You will not stand aside?

(The king shakes his head.

Then die!

(He draws his sword and kills him.

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

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

A Voice (at the back of the hall): Death to him!

Five or Six Voices (at the back): Kill him! Seize him!

(They surge forward.

TÊte-d'or: Back!

Vile scum, who of you will venture to defy me and confront me face to face!

Here is your King!

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

I tear it to pieces and throw the bits in your face, as I throw you

This!

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

Listen to me, you that are gathered here!

(Murmur in the hall. Tremendous uproar below.

Listen to me, you that are under my feet!

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

O King!

You asked me what right I had to reign. Will you deny the right of blood?

Look, with this I emblazon the title upon my face, like a light!

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

And I glory in that purple.

(He goes up to the throne and kicks it over.

Thus I overthrow you, throne of a day!

For I shall stand and not be seated.

Cries (in the crowd): Kill him! Seize him!

TÊte-d'or: Now the moment has come between you and me

When either you must kill me or I must become your master.

Look, I am alone and unarmed!

(Pause.

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

Because you are cowards, because you bear the brand of a threefold degradation.

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

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

And the third is the spirit of the word and of speech.

But I shall let loose upon you a speech that you do not know,

Insatiable, irresistible,

I shall establish over you the empire of the sword,

The sword that pierces and divides, the sword that penetrates and pursues!

O imbecility! O inertia! Enormous burden of ignorant men! Behold I have risen,

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

And the world is crushing me, but I shall prevail against it.

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

In the name of the infinite ocean!

By the tragic birth of this day!

By the tempest

With which the peaks and pyramids that loom over desolated cities

Arm the South, assaulting the bleeding sky!

By the echoing crash of the thunder, by the sulphurous lung of ruddy lightning!

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

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

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

By the tranquillity of the murky air!

By armed apparitions in the blackness of the pines!

By the dreadful force of conflagration and irresistible flood,

By the whirlwind! By silence!

And by all terrible things!

Will not you that are here recognise at last who I am?

(Silence; then a lamentable voice in the crowd.

TÊte-d'or! TÊte-d'or!

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

TÊte-d'or: I have not come like the humble god of the soup,

Benevolent, blinking his eyes in the steam of meat and cabbage.

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

Here you are pinched for room, I propose to lead you forth

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

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

By force and by possession.

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

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

The Go-Between: He has us in his hand. In an hour the army will be here.

The Tribune of the People: I will show the daughter of the King to the people.

(The air is filled with the clamor of bells. Cannon in the distance.

The Go-Between: Do you hear?

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

He is going to fetch the King's daughter and show her to the people.

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

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

The Brother of the King: Her?

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

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

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

And no women!

Someone (aside): His wife hates the Princess.

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

(The tribune of the people brings him the sword.

TÊte-d'or: Take it!

(He hands him the sword in its sheath.

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

(The tribune of the people shakes his head and gives him back the sword.

I said, "Do what you please." Can you not keep it yourself?

The Tribune of the People: I ... I am the ... the....

The clamor of the yelling crowd.

TÊte-d'or: Who would like my sword?

(He holds the sword in his hands. No one answers.

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

Sword! Sword!

Gage, unfailing hope, you

That have already conquered once!

I will lift you up like a torch, sign of immortal victory that I hold!

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

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

Man lives in illusion and piles up books around himself like straw.

But now I will devour all! I hold you, uplifted sword!

I stand in the midst of animals and I will not be seated.

And anger rises in me!

(He throws away the scabbard.

I defy you, arid country! You that refuse me any joy,

I will make you my domain!

Shine bare, bright blade, till this enterprise is ended!

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

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

If you fancy that you are men, and if your blood

Boils at the badges of your servitude,

Vent your pent rage! Oh cry,

And end your infamy!

Come! Let us set out!

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

Someone: TÊte-d'or, what can we do?

TÊte-d'or: And I, I say to you, "Who will dare to dare,

And, stamping the earth, cry 'I can' in the silence of Nothingness?"

The Same: Will you dare, yourself?

(Silence.

TÊte-d'or: Time that moves and disposes all things

Withdraws from us like the sea,

And now on the solid earth there stands

For the first time a king.

(He picks up the crown from the floor.

Vanish, like wreaths of smoke, dreams, prestige, past, and you

Who look at me, I bid you dare

To contemplate with new eyes a new day!

In the name of everything, and not

Of the appearances that the dream of custom brings,

But of everything as it actually is, and in the name of truth and reason,

I place this crown on my head.

(He puts the crown on his head.

To-day for the first time the king of men uplifts a head encircled with gold!

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

For what can chaos itself and the night of creation avail

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

And fears neither pain nor death?

Murmur (in the crowd): He has put the crown on his head.

(Silence.

TÊte-d'or (shouting): Search my heart and if you find there

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

I do not come here with an unworthy thought.

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

Shall he be the only one to speak of this? Will you be silent forever?

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

I have listened to you and I have understood, and also

I fought at your side when you gained the victory,

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

Like a runner carrying in his mouth a draught of water to one that thirsts!

Now that this air has fanned my martial cheek

And my eyes have been dazzled an instant by this miracle of suns,

I will fight, I will march in the place from whence it blows and shines.

And now I see another thing, O King!

You, who like a beggar before a prince,

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

And I kneel before you! Remember that I was the first to kneel.

Sigh, then Cry (among the onlookers): We kneel before you, O King!

(All except the leaders, kneel.

TÊte-d'or: Rise! Rise!

Voice: We kneel before you.

TÊte-d'or: Rise! Do not humble yourselves before me.

(They rise.

Voice: Then we will rise and now we stand at our full stature. Hail, O King!

TÊte-d'or: I, the King! Ah!

What did you say?

Who am I? What have I said? What have I done?

Voice: Did you not stand before us and did you not....

TÊte-d'or: Alas!

Who am I?

Alas! I myself am weak!

Voice: ... say

That you would make all force recoil before your face?

TÊte-d'or: I am only a beggar! I cannot do it! Come!

If anyone knows another course to follow

Let him announce it and I will live in the grass of the field like an ox.

Voice: We do not know of one.

TÊte-d'or: "I wish. I know. It shall be."

That word

Is sure. If the earth

Were only a quicksand, I would not be deceived.

Voice: Do you hesitate, now?

TÊte-d'or (he shakes and spreads out his hair)

—By this hair,

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

Golden veil that I raise with my hands!

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

Imparts its counsel of peace.

Oh!

Is it not sure and visible, this thing?

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

See where I stand in your midst like a candelabrum.

—Bind up my hair, Cassius, and braid it like the tail of a horse.

(While Cassius binds up his hair.

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

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

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

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

I salute you, O King.

(He takes his bloody hand.

TÊte-d'or: Thank you, sir!

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

O King!

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

The Tribune of the People (from where he stands):

I also salute you.

(tÊte-d'or makes no answer.

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

TÊte-d'or: Salute also, voice of the streets, clamor of the markets.

Do your duty and cry! Cry and I will try to understand.

The Man Out of Office (hastily following this example): I salute you, O King!

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

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

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

(Silence.

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

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

As the sunlight gains an added sweetness

When it inundates old roofs after centuries of soot!

Suffer this hand to touch you! O effulgent Autumn, guide us!

(He rises.

And now I stand again.

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

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

Space is free! The earth is flat like a field of beets in October,

The world shall behold! And it shall be astonished!

And like a perjured judge

Passing sentence against itself, shall fall from its rotten judgment seat,

While our trumpets through the fields shall blare so loudly

That never from that day forth shall the clang of copper and bronze

Be thought sonorous.

TÊte-d'or: In the midst of the Earth there is a field

And he who, from spurs to crest

Wreathes himself with the fumiter and bluets that flower there,

—By the plains and the amphitheatre of mountains,

By the seas, by the swollen rivers and by the murmuring forests,

Shall be hailed as King, Father,

Stem of Justice, Throne of Thrift!

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

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

I shall not fear! But I shall fare forth like the famine and the cyclone!

Hate and Anger

And Vengeance and the frenzied Image of Pain

March before me, and Hope unveils its solemn face!

Come! the time commands and the road will no longer be denied.

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

(Enter the princess veiled in black.

What woman's shape is this that stands before me! Unveil!

The Princess: O Father, are you here?

TÊte-d'or: He is here.

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

And if you ask why I wear this mourning veil that prevents my seeing you

It is to honor you, like my native land

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

And I have learned that CÉbÈs is no more.

I salute you, victorious head!

(She removes her veil and looks at him.

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

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

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

(Silence.

The Schoolmaster (weeping, to tÊte-d'or): Behold her, O King, and have pity!

I was her tutor and when she was but a child I held her on my knee,

When in her picture book I showed her the images of the creation.

And on her fÊte-day, according to ancient custom,

When the women came to cure their baby's spasms,

At mid-day when in her cymar of flowered silk she appeared on the topmost step

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

All the people were like a man on whom there suddenly falls

The healing shadow of whispering branches,

So much upon the air, like a sweet and gracious breeze,

Poured forth the fragrant smell of the ancient, royal vine!

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

Behold her, O King! Like a purchased ewe she is here beneath your hand.

(Silence.

The Princess: Will you not kill me also?

(She slowly raises her head and looks about her.

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

Not a friend is left me and everyone turns towards me a hostile face.

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

And you, my father's brother, stand at his murderer's right hand!

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

The Princess: O Father! O Father!

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

It is thus that they have wearied of allegiance and thrown you to the earth,

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

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

Are stains like those on the walls of a slaughter-house!

(She tears her mantle in two.

Treason! Treason!

Sun, behold this impious act!

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

You have had enough of me,

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

I will go out from the midst of you, O iniquitous and fraudulent hearts!

I strip you from me like these vain adornments!

(She tears off her ornaments and throws them down.

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

And now permit me to depart if I am free to go,

For I cannot endure the glance of yonder basilisk!

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

Behold this hand, behold me, young girl, it is I who killed your father!

I offered him as a fitting sacrifice

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

For I saved this land with my sword, and turning upon its incapable master,

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

The Princess: Father! Father!

TÊte-d'or: Cry! Call him!

"Father! Father!" See, doubtless he hears. Call louder!

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

And you, where were you before you were born, work of the womb?

So, having lived, we return to the same nameless nothingness

A human soul inflated with love and malediction!

That is why I shall do my part here and shall rise like a lofty tree.

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

And your own shall flow like a spring.

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

Let it flow, let it submerge the world!

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

—And now,

And now, depart! There is no place for you here.

The Princess: Let me carry my father with me.

TÊte-d'or: Take him! Carry away the fallen.

The Princess (kneeling before the body): Sire!

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

And as you carried me here and there in your arms when I was already grown,

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

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

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

I killed him scarcely seeing him, like a partridge shot in a dream,

Or as the hurrying traveller pulls up an importunate fern.

—I have said what I had to say and soon

I shall announce to you what we shall undertake.

My time is at hand.

Like the arch of the rainbow my glory shall rise above the world,

Announcing to those who see it the birth of a new day!

I breathe you again! I worship you, sweet perfume of victory!

Rose, give me your scent! Sun, cover your face in your bed of celestial down!

And bury this child.

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

This dead child! The dawn of my future glory!

(He goes out with a convulsive sob.

(Pause.

(Enter the group of Mourners who take their places around the body of cÉbÈs.

(Drum-beats. They raise the body on their shoulders and sombrely go out.

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

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

Cassius (to an officer): What is the matter?

The Officer: They say that he has been assassinated.

(cassius mounts upon the throne and draws his sword.

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

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

Clamor: TÊte-d'or!

(The soldiers form in ranks, around the flags, and march about the hall.

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

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