Add files from /home/DONE/44829.zip

11 files changed, 6349 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/44829-8.txt b/44829-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2e56e08
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1902 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rada, by Alfred Noyes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rada
+       A Belgian Christmas Eve
+
+Author: Alfred Noyes
+
+Release Date: February 4, 2014 [EBook #44829]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Paul Clark and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+    possible.
+
+    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+RADA
+
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+ TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN
+ DRAKE
+ THE FOREST OF WILD THYME
+ FORTY SINGING SEAMEN
+ THE ENCHANTED ISLAND
+ THE WINE PRESS
+
+
+[Illustration: THE BAYONETS]
+
+
+
+
+                                 RADA
+
+                        A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE
+
+                                  BY
+
+                             ALFRED NOYES
+
+                  WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS AFTER GOYA
+
+                          METHUEN & CO. LTD.
+                         36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+                                LONDON
+
+
+_First Published in 1915_
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+    Thou whose deep ways are in the sea,
+      Whose footsteps are not known,
+    To-night a world that turned from Thee
+      Is waiting--at Thy Throne.
+
+    The towering Babels that we raised
+      Where scoffing sophists brawl,
+    The little Antichrists we praised--
+      The night is on them all.
+
+    The fool hath said ... The fool hath said ...
+      And we, who deemed him wise,
+    We, who believed that Thou wast dead,
+      How should we seek Thine eyes?
+
+    How should we seek to Thee for power,
+      Who scorned Thee yesterday?
+    How should we kneel in this dread hour?
+      Lord, teach us how to pray.
+
+    Grant us the single heart once more
+      That mocks no sacred thing,
+    The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
+      When Thou wast Lord and King.
+
+    Let darkness unto darkness tell
+      Our deep unspoken prayer;
+    For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
+      We know that Thou art there.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ THE BAYONETS                    _Frontispiece_
+
+                                    FACING PAGE
+
+ OVER THE JAWS OF THE CROWD                  16
+
+ THE OLD DANCE OF CHARLATANS AND BEASTS      22
+
+ THE VAMPIRE                                 56
+
+_Reproduced from etchings by Goya_
+
+
+
+
+PRELUDE
+
+
+    Under which banner? It was night
+      Beyond all nights that ever were.
+    The Cross was broken. Blood-stained Might
+      Moved like a tiger from its lair,
+    And all that heaven had died to quell
+    Awoke, and mingled earth with hell.
+
+    For Europe, if it held a creed,
+      Held it thro' custom, not thro' faith.
+    Chaos returned in dream and deed,
+      Right was a legend--Love, a wraith;
+    And That from which the world began
+    Was less than even the best in man.
+
+    God in the image of a snake
+      Dethroned that dream, too fond, too blind,
+    The man-shaped God whose heart could break,
+      Live, die and triumph with mankind;
+    A Super-snake, a Juggernaut,
+    Dethroned the Highest of human thought.
+
+    Choose, England! For the eternal foe
+      Within thee, as without, grew strong,
+    By many a super-subtle blow
+      Blurring the lines of right and wrong
+    In Art and Thought, till nought seemed true
+    But that soul-slaughtering cry of _New!_
+
+    New wreckage of the shrines we made
+      Thro' centuries of forgotten tears....
+    We knew not where their hands had laid
+      Our Master. Twice a thousand years
+    Had dulled the uncapricious sun.
+    Manifold worlds obscured the One;
+
+    Obscured the reign of Law, our stay,
+      Our compass thro' the uncharted sea,
+    The one sure light, the one sure way,
+      The one firm base of Liberty;
+    The one firm road that men have trod
+    Thro' Chaos to the Throne of God.
+
+    _Choose ye!_ A hundred legions cried
+      Dishonour, or the instant sword!
+    Ye chose. Ye met that blood-stained tide,
+      A little kingdom kept its word;
+    And, dying, cried across the night,
+    _Hear us, O earth, we chose the Right._
+
+    Whose is the victory? Though ye stood
+      Alone against the unmeasured foe,
+    By all the tears, by all the blood,
+      That flowed, and have not ceased to flow,
+    By all the legions that ye hurled
+    Back thro' the thunder-shaken world;
+
+    By the old that have not where to rest,
+      By lands laid waste and hearths defiled,
+    By every lacerated breast,
+      And every mutilated child,
+    Whose is the victory? Answer, ye
+    Who, dying, smiled at tyranny:--
+
+    _Under the sky's triumphal arch
+      The glories of the dawn begin.
+    Our dead, our shadowy armies, march
+      E'en now, in silence, thro' Berlin--
+    Dumb shadows, tattered blood-stained ghosts,
+    But cast by what swift following hosts!_
+
+    And answer, England! _At thy side,
+      Thro' seas of blood, thro' mists of tears,
+    Thou that for Liberty hast died
+      And livest, to the end of years._
+    And answer, earth! Far off, I hear
+    The pćans of a happier sphere:--
+
+    _The trumpet blown at Marathon
+      Exulted over earth and sea;
+    But burning angel lips have blown
+      The trumpets of thy Liberty,
+    For who, beside thy dead, could deem
+    The faith, for which they died, a dream?_
+
+    _Earth has not been the same, since then.
+      Europe from thee received a soul,
+    Whence nations moved in law, like men,
+      As members of a mightier whole,
+    Till wars were ended...._ In that day,
+    So shall our children's children say.
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTERS
+
+
+ RADA, wife of the village doctor.
+
+ BETTINE, her daughter, aged twelve.
+
+ BRANDER  { German soldiers quartered in her house
+ TARRASCH { during the occupation of the village.
+
+ NANKO, an old, half-witted schoolmaster, living in the care of the
+   doctor. He has a delusion that it is always Christmas Eve.
+
+ German soldiers.
+
+
+
+
+RADA
+
+A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE
+
+
+ _The action takes place in a Belgian village, during the War of 1914.
+   The scene is a room in the doctor's house. On the right there is
+   a door opening to the street, a window with red curtains, and a
+   desk under the window. On the left there is a large cupboard with a
+   door on either side of it, one leading to a bedroom and the other
+   to the kitchen. At the back an open fire is burning brightly. Over
+   the fireplace there is a reproduction in colours of the Dresden
+   Madonna. The room is lit only by the firelight and two candles in
+   brass candlesticks, on a black oak table, at which the two soldiers
+   are seated, playing cards and drinking beer._
+
+ _RADA, a dark handsome woman, sits on a couch to the left of the fire,
+   with her head bowed in her hands, weeping._
+
+ _NANKO sits cross-legged on a rug before the fire, rubbing his hands,
+   snapping his fingers, and chuckling to himself._
+
+TARRASCH (_throwing down the cards_).
+
+Pish! You have all the luck. (_He turns to RADA_) Look here, my
+girl, where is the use of snivelling? We've been killing pigs all
+day and now we want to unbuckle a bit. You ought to think yourself
+infernally lucky to be alive at all, and I'm not sure that you will be
+so fortunate when the other boys come back. Wheedled them out of the
+house finely, didn't you? On a fine wildgoose chase, too. Hidden money!
+Refugees don't bury their money and leave the secret behind them.
+You've been whimpering ever since we two refused to believe you. What's
+your game, eh? I warn you there'll be hell to pay when they come back.
+
+RADA (_sobbing and burying her face_).
+
+God, be pitiful!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+This is war, this is! And you can't expect war to be all swans and
+shining armour. No--nor smart uniforms either. Look at the mud my
+friend and I have already annexed from Belgium. Brander, you know it's
+a most astonishing fact; but I have remarked it several times. Those
+women whose eyes glitter at the sight of a spiked helmet are the first
+to be astonished by the realities of war. They expect the dead to jump
+up and kiss them and tell them it is all a game, as soon as the battle
+is ended. No, no, my dear; it's only in war that one sees how small is
+one's personal happiness in comparison with greater things. Isn't it?
+
+ (_He fills a glass and drinks. BRANDER lights a cigar._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+Exactly. In times of peace we forget those eternal silences. We value
+life too highly. We become domesticated. Why, I suppose in this
+magnificent war there have been so many women and children killed
+that they would fill the great Cloth Hall at Ypres; and, as for the
+young men, there have been so many slaughtered that their dead bodies
+would fill St. Peter's at Rome. Why, I suppose they would fill the
+three hundred abbeys of Flanders and all the cathedrals in the world
+chock-full from floor to belfry, wouldn't they? How Goya would have
+loved to paint them! Can't you see it?
+
+ (_He grows ecstatic over the idea._)
+
+    Tournai with its five clock-towers, Ghent, and Bruges,
+    Louvain and Antwerp, Rheims and Westminster,
+    Under the round white moon, on Christmas Eve,
+    With towers of frozen needlework, and spires
+    That point to God; but all their painted panes
+    Bursting with dreadful arms and gaping faces,
+    Gargoyles of flesh; and round them, in the snow,
+    The little cardinals, like gouts of blood,
+    The little bishops, running like white mice,
+    Hooded with violet spots, quite, quite dismayed
+    To find there was no room for them within
+    Upon that holy night when Christ was born.
+
+But perhaps if Goya were living to-day he would prefer to pack them
+into Chicago meat factories, with the intellectuals dancing outside
+like marionettes, and the unconscious Hand of God pulling the strings.
+You know one of their very latest theories is that He is a somnambulist.
+
+TARRASCH (_to RADA_).
+
+You should read Schopenhauer, my dear, and learn to estimate these
+emotions at their true value. You would then be able to laugh at these
+feelings which seem to you now so important. It is the mark of _Kultur_
+to be able to laugh at all sentiments. Isn't it?
+
+NANKO.
+
+The priests, I suppose, are still balancing themselves on the
+tight-rope, over the jaws of the crowd. The poor old Pope did his best
+for his Master, when the Emperor asked him for a blessing on the war.
+"_I_ bless Peace," said the Pope; but nobody listened. I composed a
+little poem about that. I called it St. Peter's Christmas. It went like
+this:--
+
+    And does the Cross of Christ still stand?
+      Yes, though His friends may watch from far--
+    And who is this at His right hand,
+      This Rock in the red surf of war?
+
+    This, this is he who once denied,
+      And turned and wept and turned again.
+    Last night before an Emperor's pride
+      He stood and blotted out that stain.
+
+    Last night an Emperor bared the sword
+      And bade him bless. He stood alone.
+    Alone in all the world, _his_ word
+      Confessed--and blessed--a loftier throne.
+
+    I hear, still travelling towards the Light,
+      In widening waves till Time shall cease,
+    The Power that breathed from Rome last night
+      His infinite whisper--_I bless Peace._
+
+ (_TARRASCH and BRANDER applaud ironically._)
+
+[Illustration: OVER THE JAWS OF THE CROWD]
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+Excellent! Excellent! (_To RADA_) You should have seen our brave
+soldiers laughing--do you remember, Brander--at a little village near
+Termonde. They made the old vicar and his cook dance naked round the
+dead body of his wife, who had connived at the escape of her daughter
+from a Prussian officer.
+
+NANKO.
+
+Ah, that was reality, wasn't it? None of your provincial respectability
+about that, none of your shallow conventionality! That's what the age
+wants--realism!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+It was brutal, I confess; but better than British hypocrisy, eh? There
+was something great about it, like the neighing of the satyrs in the
+Venusberg music.
+
+RADA (_sinking on her knees by the couch and sobbing_).
+
+God! God!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+They were beginning to find out the provincialism of their creeds in
+England. The pessimism of Schopenhauer had taught them much; and if it
+had not been for this last treachery, this last ridiculous outburst of
+the middle-class mind on behalf of what they call honour, we should
+have continued to tolerate (if not to enjoy), in Berlin, those plays by
+Irishmen which expose so wittily the inferior _Kultur_, the shrinking
+from reality, of their (for the most part) not intellectual people. I
+have the honour, madam, to request that you should no longer make this
+unpleasant sound of weeping. You irritate my nerves. Have you not two
+men quartered upon you instead of one? And are they not university
+students? If your husband and the rest of the villagers had not
+resisted our advance, they might have been alive, too. In any case,
+your change is for the better. Isn't it?
+
+ (_He lights a cigar._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+Exactly! Exactly! You remember, Rada, I used to be a schoolmaster
+myself in the old days; and if _you_ knew what _I_ know, you wouldn't
+cry, my dear. You'd understand that it's entirely a question of the
+survival of the fittest. A biological necessity, that's what it is. And
+Haeckel himself has told us that, though we may resign our hopes of
+immortality, and the grave is the only future for our beloved ones, yet
+there is infinite consolation to be found in examining a piece of moss
+or looking at a beetle. That's what the Germans call the male intellect.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+Is this man attempting to be insolent?
+
+ (_He rises as if to strike_ NANKO.)
+
+BRANDER (_tapping his forehead_).
+
+Take no notice of him. He's only a resident patient. He was not calling
+you a beetle. He has delusions. He thinks it is always Christmas Eve.
+That's his little tree in the corner. As Goethe should have said--
+
+    There was a little Christian.
+    He had a little tree.
+    Up came a Superman
+    And cracked him, like a flea.
+
+TARRASCH (_laughing_).
+
+Very good! You should send that to the _Tageblatt_, Brander.
+
+Well, Rada, or whatever your name is, you'd better find something for
+us to eat. I'm sick of this whimpering.
+
+Wouldn't your Belgian swine have massacred us all, if we'd given them
+the chance? We've thousands of women and children at home snivelling
+and saying, "Oh! my God! Oh! my God!" just like you.
+
+RADA (_rising to her feet in a fury of contempt_).
+
+    Then why are you in Belgium, gentlemen?
+    Is it the husks and chaff that the swine eat,
+    Or is it simply butchery?
+
+ (_They stare at her in silence, over-mastered for a moment by her
+   passion. Then, her grief welling up again, she casts herself down on
+   the couch, and buries her face in her hands, sobbing._)
+
+    God! God! God!
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD DANCE OF CHARLATANS AND BEASTS]
+
+BRANDER.
+
+Don't you trouble about God. What can _He_ do when both sides go down
+on their marrow-bones? He can't make both sides win, can He?
+
+NANKO.
+
+That's how the intellectuals prove He doesn't exist. Either He is not
+almighty, they say, or else He is unjust enough not to make both sides
+win. But all those anthropomorphic conceptions are out of date now,
+even in England, as this gentleman very truly said. You see, it was so
+degrading, Rada, to think that God had anything in common with mankind
+(though love was once quite fashionable), and as we didn't know of
+anything higher than ourselves we were simply compelled to say that
+He resembled something lower, such as earthquakes, and tigers, and
+puppet-shows, and ideas of that sort. Reality above all things! You
+may see God in sunsets; but there was nothing _real_ about the _best_
+qualities of mankind. It's curious. The more intellectual and original
+you are, the lower you have to go, and the more likely you are to end
+in the old dance of charlatans and beasts. I suppose that's an argument
+for tradition and growth. If we call it Evolution, nobody will mind
+very much.
+
+RADA (_wringing her hands in an agony of grief_).
+
+Oh, God, be pitiful, be pitiful!
+
+BRANDER (_standing in front of her_).
+
+Look here, we've had enough of this music. I've been watching you, and
+there's more upon your mind than sorrow for the dead. Why were you so
+anxious to wheedle us all out of the house? Tarrasch has warned you
+there'll be hell to pay when the others come back. What was the game,
+eh? You'd better tell me. You couldn't have thought you were going to
+escape through our lines to-night.
+
+ (_There is a sudden uproar outside, and a woman's scream, followed by
+   the terrified cry of a child._)
+
+Ah! Ah! Father!
+
+BRANDER.
+
+Hear that. The men are mad with brandy and blood and--other things.
+There's no holding them in, even from the children. You needn't wince.
+Even from the children, I say. What chance would there be for a
+fine-looking wench like yourself?
+
+No, you were not going to try that. You've something to hide, here, in
+the house, eh? Well, now you've got rid of the others, and we've had a
+drink, we're going to look for it. What is there?
+
+ (_He points to the bedroom door._)
+
+RADA (_rising to her feet slowly, steadying herself with one hand on
+the couch and fixing her eyes on his face_).
+
+My bedroom. No. I've nothing here to hide. This is war, isn't it? If I
+choose to revenge myself on those that have used me badly, people that
+I hate, by telling you where you can find what everybody wants, money,
+money--I suppose you want that--isn't that good enough?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+Better come with us, then, and show us this treasure-trove.
+
+RADA (_shrinking back_).
+
+No, no, I dare not. All those dead out there would terrify me, terrify
+me!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+A pack of lies! What were you up to, eh? Telephoning to the English?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+It has been too much for her nerves. Don't worry her, or she'll go
+mad. Then there'll be nobody left to get us our supper.
+
+ (_TARRASCH wanders round the room, opening drawers and examining
+   letters and other contents at the desk._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+That _would_ be selfish, Rada. You know it's Christmas Eve. Nobody
+ought to think of unpleasant things on Christmas Eve. What have you
+done with the Christmas-tree, Rada?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+And who's to blame? That's what I want to know. You don't blame _us_,
+do you? We didn't know where we were marching a month ago; and
+possibly we shall be fighting on your side against somebody else, a
+year hence.
+
+NANKO.
+
+Of course they didn't know! Poor soldiers don't.
+
+TARRASCH (_who has been trying the bedroom door_).
+
+In the meantime, what have you got behind that door? Give me the key.
+
+RADA (_hurriedly, and as if misunderstanding him, opens the cupboard.
+She speaks excitedly_).
+
+Food! Food! Food for hungry men. Food enough for a wolf pack. Come on.
+Help yourselves!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+Look, Brander! What a larder! Here's a dinner for forty men. Isn't it?
+
+RADA.
+
+Better take your pick before the others come.
+
+ (_She thrusts dishes into BRANDER'S hands and loads TARRASCH with
+   bottles. They lay the table with them, RADA seeming to share their
+   eagerness._)
+
+BRANDER (_looking at his hands_).
+
+Here! Bring me a basin of warm water. There are times when you can't
+touch food without washing your hands.
+
+ (_RADA hesitates, then goes into the kitchen. BRANDER holds out a
+   ring to TARRASCH._)
+
+    Her husband's ring. I got it off his finger
+    When he went down. He lay there, doubled up,
+    With one of those hideous belly wounds. He begged,
+    Horribly, for a bullet; so, poor devil,
+    I put him out of his misery. I can't eat
+    With hands like that. Ugh! Look!
+
+NANKO (_rising and peering at them_).
+
+                                    Ah, but they're red.
+    Red, aren't they? And there's red on your coat, too.
+
+ (_He fingers it curiously._)
+
+    I suppose that's blood, eh? People are such cowards.
+    Many of them never seem to understand
+    That man's a fighting animal. They're afraid,
+    Dreadfully afraid, of the sight of blood.
+    I think it's a beautiful colour, beautiful!
+    You know, in the Old Testament, they used
+    To splash it on the door-posts.
+
+BRANDER (_pushing him away_).
+
+                                  Go and sit down,
+    You crazy old devil!
+
+ (_RADA enters with a bowl of water, sets it on a chair, and returns to
+   the couch. BRANDER washes his hands._)
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+                        My hands want washing, too.
+    My God, you've turned the water into wine.
+    Get me some fresh.
+
+ (_RADA approaches, stares at the bowl, and moves back, swaying a
+   little._)
+
+BRANDER (_roughly_).
+
+    I'll empty it. Give it to me.
+
+ (_He goes out._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+    The Old Testament, you know, is full of it.
+    _Who is this_, it says, _that cometh from Edom,
+    In dyed garments from Bozrah?_ It was blood
+    That dyed their garments. And in _Revelation_
+    Blood came out of the wine-press, till it splashed
+    The bridles of the horses; and the seas
+    Were all turned into blood. Doesn't that show
+    That man's a fighting animal?
+
+TARRASCH (_again fumbling at the bedroom door_).
+
+    Give me the key.
+
+RADA (_thrusting herself between him and the door_).
+
+    That is my bedroom. You must not go in.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    Are they so modest, then, in Belgium, madam?
+    You're fooling us. What is it? Loot? More loot?
+    The family stocking, eh?
+
+ (_BRANDER enters. He goes to the table and begins eating._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+                            The stocking? No!
+    The stocking is in the chimney-corner, see.
+
+ (_He shakes an empty stocking that hangs in the fire-place._)
+
+    Bettine and I, we always hang it up
+    Ready for Santa Claus. It's a good custom.
+    They do it in Germany. The children there
+    Believe that Santa Claus comes down the chimney.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    If I know anything of women's eyes,
+    It's either money, or a daughter, Rada.
+    And so--the key! Or else I burst the door.
+
+RADA (_looks at him for a moment before speaking_).
+
+    I throw myself upon your mercy, then.
+    It _is_ my little girl. She is twelve years old.
+    Don't wake her. She has slept all through this night.
+    I thought I might have hidden her. It's too late.
+    It's of the other men that I'm afraid.
+    Not you. But they are drunk. If they come back....
+    Help me to save her! I'll do anything for you,
+    Anything! Only help me to get her away!
+    I'll pray for you every night of my life. I'll pray....
+
+ (_She stretches out her hands pitifully and begins to weep. The men
+   stand staring at her. The door opens behind her, and BETTINE, in
+   her night-dress, steals into the room._)
+
+BETTINE.
+
+Mother----Oh!
+
+ (_She stops at the sight of the strangers._)
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Don't be afraid. I'm Nanko's friend.
+    What? Don't you know me? I came down the chimney.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    I don't see any soot upon your face.
+
+ (_She goes nearer._)
+
+    Nor on your clothes. That's red paint, isn't it?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Can't help it. Santa Claus--that is my name.
+    What's yours?
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    Bettine.
+
+BRANDER.
+
+                        Ah! I've a little girl
+    At home--about your age, too--called Bettine.
+
+BETTINE (_who has been watching him curiously_).
+
+    I know. You are the British. Mother said
+    The British would be here before the Boches.
+    I dreamed that you were coming, and I thought
+    I heard the marching. Weren't you singing, too?
+    It made me feel so happy in my sleep.
+    What were you singing? "It's a long, long way
+    To----" what d'you call it? _Tipperary_? eh?
+    What does that mean?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    A place a long way off.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    As far as heaven?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Almost as far as--home.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    Well, I suppose it means the Boches must march
+    A long, long way before they reach it, eh?
+    There's Canada. They'll have to march through that.
+    Then India, and that's huge. Why, Nanko says
+    There are three hundred million people there,
+    And all their soldiers ride on elephants.
+    Poor Boches! I'm sorry for them. Nanko says
+    They're trying to ride across two thousand years
+    In motor-cars. It's easy enough to ride
+    Two thousand miles; but not two thousand years.
+
+ (_She runs to the stocking and examines it. TARRASCH and BRANDER
+   return to the table and eat and drink._)
+
+    There's nothing in the stocking. Never mind,
+    Nanko, when Christmas really comes, you'll see.
+
+ (_With a sudden note of fear in her voice._)
+
+    Mother, where's father?
+
+RADA (_putting an arm round her_).
+
+                          He will soon be with us.
+    It's all right, darling.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+                            Mother, mayn't we try
+    The new tunes on the gramophone?
+
+NANKO.
+
+                                    Now, wait!
+    I've an idea. It's Christmas Eve, you know.
+    We'll celebrate it. Where's the Christmas-tree?
+    We'll get that ready first.
+
+ (_BETTINE pulls the little Christmas-tree out from the corner. RADA
+   glances from the child to the men, as if hoping that her play will
+   win them to help her._)
+
+BETTINE.
+
+                              It's nearly a week,
+    Isn't it, Nanko, since you had your tree?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Here, put it on the table.
+
+NANKO (_clapping his hands_).
+
+                              Yes, that's best.
+    I fear that we shall want a new tree, soon.
+    This one is withered. See how the needles drop.
+    There's no green left. It's growing old, Bettine.
+    What shall we hang on it?
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+                            What d' you think
+    Of that now? (_He hangs his revolver on the tree._)
+
+BETTINE (_laughing merrily_).
+
+                Oh! Oh! What a great big pistol!
+    That'll be father's present! And now what else?
+
+NANKO (_eagerly_).
+
+    What else?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Well, what do you say to a ring, Bettine?
+    How prettily it hangs upon the bough!
+    Isn't that fine? (_He hangs the ring upon the tree._)
+
+BETTINE (_staring at it_).
+
+    It's just like father's ring!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    Now light the candles. Isn't it?
+
+NANKO (_clapping his hands and capering_).
+
+                                    Yes, that's right!
+    Light all the little candles on the tree!
+    Oh, doesn't the pistol shine, doesn't the ring
+    Glitter!
+
+BETTINE.
+
+            But oh, it _is_ like father's ring.
+    He had a little piece of mother's hair
+    Plaited inside it, just like that. It _is_
+    My father's ring.
+
+RADA.
+
+                    No; there are many others,
+    Bettine, just like it, hundreds, hundreds of others.
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    And now--what's in that package over there?
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    Oh, that's the new tunes for the gramophone.
+    That's father's Christmas present to us all.
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Now, what a wonderful man the doctor was!
+    Nobody else, in these parts, would have thought
+    Of buying a gramophone. Let's open it.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    Yes! Yes! And we'll give father a surprise!
+    It shall be playing a tune when he comes in!
+    He won't be angry, will he, mumsy dear?
+
+ (_BRANDER opens the package. NANKO rubs his hands in delight. They get
+   the gramophone ready._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Oh, this will be a merry Christmas Eve.
+    There now--just see how this kind gentleman
+    Has opened the package for us. Now you see
+    The good of war. It benefits the health.
+    Sets a man up. Look at old Peter's legs,
+    He's a disgrace to the village, a disgrace!
+    Nobody shoots him either, so he spoils
+    Everything; for you know, you must admit,
+    Bettine, that war means natural selection--
+    Survival of the fittest, don't you see?
+    For instance, _I_ survive, and _you_ survive:
+    Don't we? So Peter shouldn't spoil it all.
+    They say that all the tall young men in France
+    Were killed in the Napoleonic wars,
+    So that most Frenchmen at the present day
+    Are short and fat. Isn't that funny, Bettine?
+
+ (_She laughs._)
+
+    Which shows us that tall men are not required
+    To-day. So nobody knows. Perhaps thin legs
+    Like Peter's _may_ be useful, after all,
+    In aeroplanes, or something. Every ounce
+    Makes a great difference there. Nobody knows.
+    It's natural selection. See, Bettine?
+    Ah, now the gramophone's ready. Make it play
+    A Christmas tune. That's what the churches do
+    On Christmas Eve: for all the churches now,
+    And all the tall cathedrals with their choirs,
+    What do you think they are, Bettine? I'll tell you.
+    I'll whisper it. _They're great big gramophones!_
+
+ (_She laughs._)
+
+    Now for a Christmas tune!
+
+TARRASCH (_adjusting a record_).
+
+                            There's irony
+    In your idea, my friend, that would delight
+    The ghost of Nietzsche! Certainly, it shall play
+    A Christmas tune. Here is the very thing.
+
+ (_There is an uproar of drunken shouts in the distance._ BRANDER
+   _locks the outer door._)
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    The inn is full of drunken men to-night,
+    Mother. D' you hear them? Mother, was it an inn
+    Like that--the one that's in my Christmas piece?
+
+BRANDER (_to TARRASCH_).
+
+    Don't do it, we've had irony enough.
+    Don't start it playing, if you want to keep
+    This Christmas party to ourselves, my boy.
+    The men are mad with drink, and--other things.
+    Look here, Tarrasch, what are we going to do
+    About this youngster, eh?
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+                            Better keep quiet
+    Till morning. When the men have slept it off
+    They'll stand a better chance of slipping away.
+    They're all drunk, officers and men as well.
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    That's the most merciful thing that one can say.
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Oh, what a pity! I did think, Bettine,
+    That we should have some music. Well--I know!
+    Tell us the Christmas piece you learned in school.
+    That's right. Stand there! No, stand up on this bench.
+    Your mother tells me that you won the prize
+    For learning it so beautifully, Bettine.
+    That's right. Now, while you say it, I will stand
+    Here, with a candle. See, that illustrates
+    The scene.
+
+ (_He lifts one of the candles to illuminate the picture of the
+   Madonna and child. For a moment he speaks with a curious dignity._)
+
+              You know it is not all delusion
+    About this Christmas Eve. The wise men say
+    That Time is a delusion. Now then, speak
+    Your Christmas piece.
+
+BETTINE (_with her hands behind her, as if in school, she obeys him_).
+
+She laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
+
+And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,
+keeping watch over their flock by night,
+
+And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord
+shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.
+
+And the angel said unto them, "Fear not: for behold I bring you good
+tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
+
+"For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is
+Christ the Lord.
+
+"And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in
+swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."
+
+And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,
+praising God, and saying:--
+
+"_Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace...._"
+
+ (_There is silence for a moment, then a pistol-shot, a scream, and a
+   roar of drunken laughter without, followed by a furious pounding on
+   the door. BETTINE runs to her mother._)
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Here, Tarrasch, what the devil are we to do
+    About this child?
+
+ (_He calls through the door._)
+
+                    Clear out of this! The house
+    Is full. We want to sleep.
+
+ (_The uproar grows outside, and the pounding is resumed. There is a
+   crash of broken glass at the window._)
+
+BETTINE.
+
+                              Mother, I'm frightened!
+    It is the Boches! Mother, it is the Boches!
+    Where are the British, mother? You said the British
+    Were sure to be here first!
+
+BRANDER.
+
+                              Bundle the child
+    Into that room, woman, at once!
+
+ (_RADA snatches the revolver from the Christmas-tree and hurries
+   BETTINE into the bedroom just as the other door is burst open and a
+   troop of soldiers appear on the threshold, shouting and furious with
+   drink. They sing, with drunken gestures, in the doorway:_)
+
+    "Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutscher Rhein...."
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                                              Come on!
+    They're in that room. I saw them! The only skirts
+    Left in the village. Comrades, you've had your fun--
+    It's time for ours.
+
+BRANDER.
+
+                      Clear out of this. You're drunk.
+    We want to sleep.
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+    Well, hand the women over.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    There are no women here.
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                            You greedy wolf,
+    I saw them.
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Come! Come! Come! It's Christmas Eve!
+
+[Illustration: THE VAMPIRE]
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+    Well, if there are no petticoats, where's the harm
+    In letting us poor soldiers take a squint
+    Through yonder door? By God, we'll do it, too!
+    Come on, my boys.
+
+ (_They make a rush towards the room._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+                    Be careful, or you'll smash
+    The Christmas-tree! You'll smash the gramophone!
+
+ (_A soldier tries the bedroom door. It is opened from within, and RADA
+   appears on the threshold with the revolver in her hand._)
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+    Liars! Liars!
+
+RADA.
+
+                There is one woman here,
+    One woman and a child....
+    And war, they tell me, is a noble thing.
+    It is the mother of heroic deeds,
+    The nurse of honour, manhood.
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+    God, a speech!
+
+NANKO (_who is hugging his Christmas-tree near the fire again_).
+
+    Certainly, Rada! You will not deny
+    That life's a battle.
+
+RADA.
+
+                        You hear, drunk as you are,
+    Up to your necks in blood, you hear this fool,
+    This poor old fool, piping his dreary cry.
+    And through his lips, and through his softening brain,
+    The men that use you, cheat you, drive you out
+    To slaughter and be slaughtered, teach the world
+    That this black vampire, sucking at our breasts,
+    Is good. Men! Men! The pestilence of your dead
+    Is murdering you by legions. All the trains
+    Of quicklime that your Emperor sends behind you
+    Can never eat its way through all that flesh--
+    Three hundred miles of dead! Your dead!
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                                          Hoch! Hoch!
+    A speech!
+
+ (_They make a movement towards her, which she arrests by raising the
+   revolver._)
+
+RADA.
+
+            I do not hate! I pity you all.
+    I tell you, you are doing it in a dream.
+    You are drugged. You are not awake.
+
+NANKO.
+
+                I have sometimes thought
+    The very same.
+
+RADA.
+
+                  But you will wake one day.
+    Listen! If you have children of your own,
+    Listen to me ... the child is twelve years old.
+    She has never had one hard word spoken to her
+    In all her life.
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+                    Nor shall she now, by God!
+    Where is she? Bring her out!
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                                Twelve years of age?
+    Add two, because her mother loves her so!
+    That's ripe enough for marriage to a soldier.
+
+ (_They laugh uproariously, and sing again mockingly_:)
+
+    "Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutscher Rhein!"
+
+ (_They move forward again._)
+
+RADA (_raising the revolver_).
+
+    One word. If you are deaf to honour, blind
+    To truth, and if compassion cannot reach you,
+    Then I appeal to fear! Yes, you shall fear me.
+    Listen! I heard, when I was in that room,
+    A sound like gun-fire, coming from the south:
+    What if it were the British?
+
+SOLDIERS.
+
+                                Ah! The swine!
+    The dogs!
+
+RADA.
+
+    Bull-dogs; and slow. But they are coming,
+    And, where they hold, they never will let go.
+    Though they may come too late for me and mine,
+    You are on your trial now before the world.
+    You never can escape it. They are coming,
+    With justice and the unconquerable law!
+    I warn you, though their speech is not my own,
+    And I shall be but one of all the dead,
+    Dead, with that child, in a forgotten grave--
+    I speak for them, and they will keep my word.
+    Yes, if you harm that child ... the British.... Ah!
+
+ (_They advance towards her._)
+
+    I have one bullet for the child and five
+    To share between you and myself.
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                                    Come on!
+    She can't shoot! Look at the way she's holding it!
+    Duck down, and make a rush for it.
+
+SOLDIERS.
+
+    Come on!
+
+ (_They make a rush. RADA steps back into the bedroom and shuts the
+   door in their faces._)
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+    Locked out in the cold. Come, break the damned thing down!
+
+BETTINE (_crying within_).
+
+    O British! British! Come! Come quickly, British!
+
+BRANDER (_trying to interpose_).
+
+    She'll keep her word. You'll never get 'em alive.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    Never. I know that kind. You'd better clear out.
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+    Down with the door!
+
+ (_They put their shoulders to it. BRANDER makes a sign to TARRASCH.
+   They try to pull the men back. There is a scuffle and BRANDER is
+   knocked over. He rises with the blood running down his face, while
+   TARRASCH still struggles. The door begins to give. A shot is heard
+   within. The men pause and there is another shot._)
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    By God, she's done it!
+
+ (_There is a booming of distant artillery._)
+
+                          Hear!
+    She was not lying. That came from the south-west.
+    It is the British!
+
+ (_A bugle-call sounds in the village street._)
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    The British! A night-attack!
+
+ (_They all rush out except NANKO, who peers after them from the door.
+   Leaving it open to the night, he takes a _marron glacé_ from the
+   table, crosses the room, and begins to examine the gramophone._
+
+ _Confused sounds of men rushing to arms, thin bugle-calls in the
+   distance, and the occasional clatter of a galloping horse blow in
+   from the blackness framed in the open door. The deep pulsation of
+   the British artillery is heard throughout, in a steady undertone._)
+
+NANKO (_calling aloud as he munches_).
+
+    Come, Rada, you're pretending. They're all gone.
+    Rada, these _marrons glacés_ are delicious.
+    It's over now! Come, I don't think it's right
+    To spoil a person's pleasure on Christmas Eve.
+
+ (_He tiptoes to the door and peers into the night._)
+
+    Come quick, Bettine, rockets are going up!
+    They are breaking into clusters of green stars!
+    Oh, there's a red one! You could see for miles
+    When that one broke. The willow-trees jumped out
+    Like witches; and, between them, the canal
+    Dwindled away to a little thread of blood.
+    And there were lines of men running and falling,
+    And guns and horses floundering in a ditch.
+    Oh, Rada! there's a bonfire by the mill.
+    They've burned the little cottage.
+        There's a man
+    Hanging above the bonfire by his hands,
+    And heaps of dead all round him.
+        Come and see!
+    It's terrible, but it's magnificent,
+    Like one of Goya's pictures. That's the way
+    _He_ painted war. Well, everybody's gone....
+    To think _I_ was the fittest, after all!
+
+ (_He returns to the gramophone._)
+
+    I wonder how this gramophone does work.
+    He said the tune that he was putting in
+    Was just the thing for Christmas Eve.
+        I wonder,
+    I wonder what it was. Listen to this!
+
+ (_He reads the title._)
+
+    It's a good omen, Rada--_A Christmas carol
+    Sung by the Grand Imperial Choir_--d' you hear?--
+    _At midnight in St. Petersburg_--_Adeste
+    Fideles!_ Fancy that! A Christmas carol
+    Upon the gramophone!
+    So all the future ages will be sure
+    To know exactly what religion was.
+    To think we must not hear it! Rada, they say
+    The Angel Gabriel composed that tune
+    On the first Christmas Eve. So don't you think
+    That we might hear it?
+    Everybody is gone, except the dead.
+    It will not wake them....
+    Come, Rada, you're pretending! Do not make
+    The war more dreadful than it really is.
+
+ (_He accidentally sets the gramophone working and jumps back, a little
+   alarmed. He runs to the bedroom door._)
+
+    Rada! I've started it! Bettine, d' you hear?
+    The gramophone's working.
+
+ (_The artillery booms like a thunder-peal in the distance. Then the
+   gramophone drowns it with the massed voices of the Imperial Choir
+   singing_:)
+
+    ADESTE FIDELES,
+    LĆTI TRIUMPHANTES,
+        ADESTE, ADESTE IN BETHLEHEM!
+        NATUM VIDETE
+        REGEM ANGELORUM:
+        VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+        VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+        VENITE, ADOREMUS DOMINUM.
+
+ (NANKO _touches the floor under the door of the bedroom and stares at
+   his hand._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Something red again? Trickling under the door?
+    Blood, I suppose....
+
+ (_A look of horror comes into his face as he stands listening to the
+   music. Then, as if slowly waking from a dream and almost as if
+   sanity had returned for a moment, he cries_:)
+
+    It's true! It's true! Rada, I am awake!
+    I am awake! And, in the name of Christ,
+    I accuse, I accuse ... O God, forgive us all!
+
+ (_He falls on his knees by the bedroom door and calls, as if to the
+   dead within_:)
+
+    Awake, and after nineteen hundred years....
+    Bettine, Bettine! the British, they are coming!
+    Rada, you said it--they are coming quickly!
+    They are coming, with the reign of right and law.
+    But, O Bettine! Bettine! will they remember?
+    Are they awake? I only hear their guns.
+    What if they should grow used to it, Bettine,
+    And fail to wipe this horror from the world?
+    God, is there any hope for poor mankind?
+    God, are Thy little nations and Thy weak,
+    Thine innocent, condemned to hell for ever?
+    God, will the strong deliverers break the sword
+    And bring this world at last to Christmas Eve?
+
+THE IMPERIAL CHOIR.
+
+        ĆTERNI PARENTIS
+        SPLENDOREM ĆTERNUM,
+    VELATUM SUB CARNE VIDEBIMUS,
+        DEUM INFANTEM,
+        PANNIS INVOLUTUM,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS DOMINUM.
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Will Christ be born, oh, not in Bethlehem,
+    But in the soul of man, the abode of God?
+    There, in that deep, undying soul of man
+    (I still believe it), that immortal soul,
+    Will they lift up the cross with Christ upon it,
+    The Fool of God, whom intellectual fools,
+    The little fools of dust, in every land,
+    Grinning their _What is Truth?_ still crucify.
+    Could they not thrust their hands into His wounds?
+    His wounds are these--these dead are all His wounds.
+    Bettine! Bettine! the British, they are coming!
+    But you are silent now, so silent now!
+    Will they lift up God's poor old broken Fool,
+    And sleep no more until His kingdom come,
+    His infinite kingdom come?
+                      Will they remember?
+
+ (_He bows his head against the closed door, while the gramophone lifts
+   the chorus of the Imperial Choir over the deepening thunder of the
+   guns_:)
+
+    NUNC CANTET, EXULTANS,
+    CHORUS ANGELORUM,
+    CANTET NUNC AULA CELESTIUM
+    GLORIA, GLORIA,
+    IN EXCELSIS DEO!
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS DOMINUM.
+
+
+
+
+INTERCESSION
+
+
+    Now the muttering gun-fire dies,
+      Now the night has cloaked the slain,
+    Now the stars patrol the skies,
+      Hear our sleepless prayer again!
+    They who work their country's will,
+    Fight and die for Britain still,
+    Soldiers, but not haters, know
+    _Thou_ must pity friend and foe.
+            Therefore hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Thou whose wounded Hands do reach
+      Over every land and sea,
+    Thoughts too deep for human speech
+      Rise from all our souls to Thee;
+    Deeper than the wrath that burns
+    Round our hosts when day returns;
+    Deeper than the peace that fills
+    All these trenched and waiting hills.
+            Hear, O hear!
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Pity deeper than the grave
+      Sees, beyond the death we wield,
+    Faces of the young and brave
+      Hurled against us in the field.
+    Cannon-fodder! They _must_ come,
+    We must slay them, and be dumb,
+    Slaughter, while we pity, these
+    Most implacable enemies.
+            Master, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    They are blind, as we are blind,
+      Urged by duties past reply.
+    Ours is but the task assigned;
+      Theirs to strike us ere they die.
+    Who can see his country fall?
+    Who but answers at her call?
+    Who has power to pause and think
+    When she reels upon the brink?
+            Hear, O hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Shield them from that bitterest lie
+      Laughed by fools who quote their mirth,
+    When the wings of death go by
+      And their brother shrieks on earth.
+    Though they clamp their hearts with steel,
+    Conquering _every_ fear they feel.
+    There are dreams they dare not tell.
+    Shield, O shield, their eyes from hell.
+            Father, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Where the naked bodies burn,
+      Where the wounded toss at home,
+    Weep and bleed and laugh in turn,
+      Yes, the masking jest may come.
+    Let him jest who daily dies.
+    But O hide his haunted eyes.
+    Pain alone he might control.
+    Shield, O shield his wounded soul.
+            Master, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Peace? We steel us to the end.
+      Hope betrayed us, long ago.
+    Duty binds both foe and friend.
+      It is ours to break the foe.
+    Then, O God! that we might break
+    This red Moloch for Thy sake;
+    Know that Truth indeed prevails,
+    And that Justice holds the scales.
+            Father, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    England, could this awful hour,
+      Dawning on thy long renown,
+    Mark the purpose of thy power,
+      Crown thee with that mightier crown!
+    Broadening to that purpose climb
+    All the blood-red wars of Time....
+    Set the struggling peoples free,
+    Crown with Law their Liberty!
+            England, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer!
+
+    Speed, O speed what every age
+      Writes with a prophetic hand.
+    Read the midnight's moving page,
+      Read the stars and understand:
+    _Out of Chaos ye shall draw
+    Deepening harmonies of Law,
+    Till around the Eternal Sun
+    All your peoples move in one._
+            Christ-God, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+
+
+
+                           The Gresham Press
+                        UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED
+                           WOKING AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rada, by Alfred Noyes
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADA ***
+
+***** This file should be named 44829-8.txt or 44829-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/8/2/44829/
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Paul Clark and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/44829-8.zip b/44829-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87e832e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829-8.zip
diff --git a/44829-h.zip b/44829-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..02675a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829-h.zip
diff --git a/44829-h/44829-h.htm b/44829-h/44829-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd86398
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829-h/44829-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,2545 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rada, by Alfred Noyes.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+    h1,h2 {
+    text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+p,li {
+    margin-top: .75em;
+    text-align: justify;
+    margin-bottom: .75em;
+}
+
+.p2       {margin-top: 2em;}
+
+.hanging {
+    padding-left: 2em;
+    text-indent: -2em;
+}
+
+.direction {
+    padding-left: 4em;
+    text-indent: -2em;
+}
+
+hr {
+    width: 33%;
+    margin-top: 2em;
+    margin-bottom: 2em;
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+hr.chap {width: 65%}
+
+ul { list-style-type: none; }
+
+.ilb { display: inline-block; }
+
+.vam { vertical-align: middle; }
+
+table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+}
+
+.tdr      {text-align: right;}
+.padl {padding-left: 2em;}
+
+.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+    /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+    position: absolute;
+    left: 92%;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-align: right;
+    font-style: normal;
+    padding-left: 0em;
+    text-indent: 0em;
+} /* page numbers */
+
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+
+.smcap {
+    font-variant: small-caps;
+    font-style: normal;
+}
+
+.caption {
+    font-weight: bold;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+/* Poetry */
+.poem {
+    margin-left:10%;
+    margin-right:10%;
+    text-align: left;
+}
+
+.poem br {display: none;}
+
+.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+
+/* Transcriber's notes */
+.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA;
+    color: black;
+     font-size:smaller;
+     padding:0.5em;
+     margin-bottom:5em;
+     font-family:sans-serif, serif; }
+    .poem span.i0     {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i10     {display: block; margin-left: 5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i12     {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i14     {display: block; margin-left: 7em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i16     {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i18     {display: block; margin-left: 9em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i2     {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i20     {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i22     {display: block; margin-left: 11em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i24     {display: block; margin-left: 12em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i26     {display: block; margin-left: 13em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i28     {display: block; margin-left: 14em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i30     {display: block; margin-left: 15em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i32     {display: block; margin-left: 16em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i38     {display: block; margin-left: 19em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i4     {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i42     {display: block; margin-left: 21em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i8     {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+
+.large { font-size: large; }
+.xlarge { font-size: x-large; }
+.small { font-size: small; }
+.smaller { font-size: smaller; }
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rada, by Alfred Noyes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rada
+       A Belgian Christmas Eve
+
+Author: Alfred Noyes
+
+Release Date: February 4, 2014 [EBook #44829]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Paul Clark and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<p>Transcriber's Note:</p>
+
+<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="center">
+<img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" width="391" height="600" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>RADA</h1>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR" id="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</a></h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<ul class="ilb"><li>TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN</li>
+<li>DRAKE</li>
+<li>THE FOREST OF WILD THYME</li>
+<li>FORTY SINGING SEAMEN</li>
+<li>THE ENCHANTED ISLAND</li>
+<li>THE WINE PRESS</li>
+</ul></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="center">
+<a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a><img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="600" height="393" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">THE BAYONETS</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center xlarge">RADA<br />
+<span class="large">A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">BY<br />
+<span class="large">ALFRED NOYES</span></p>
+
+<p class="p2 center">WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS AFTER GOYA</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center large">METHUEN &amp; CO. LTD.<br />
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br />
+LONDON
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>First Published in 1915</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="DEDICATION" id="DEDICATION">DEDICATION</a></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou whose deep ways are in the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose footsteps are not known,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To-night a world that turned from Thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is waiting&mdash;at Thy Throne.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The towering Babels that we raised<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where scoffing sophists brawl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The little Antichrists we praised&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The night is on them all.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The fool hath said ... The fool hath said ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And we, who deemed him wise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We, who believed that Thou wast dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How should we seek Thine eyes?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How should we seek to Thee for power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who scorned Thee yesterday?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How should we kneel in this dread hour?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lord, teach us how to pray.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Grant us the single heart once more<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That mocks no sacred thing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Sword of Truth our fathers wore<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When Thou wast Lord and King.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let darkness unto darkness tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our deep unspoken prayer;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For, while our souls in darkness dwell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We know that Thou art there.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</a></h2>
+
+<table summary="Illustrations">
+<tr><td>THE BAYONETS</td>
+<td class="tdr padl"><a href="#frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td class="tdr small">FACING PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>OVER THE JAWS OF THE CROWD</td>
+<td class="tdr padl"><a href="#facing016">16</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>THE OLD DANCE OF CHARLATANS AND BEASTS</td>
+<td class="tdr padl"><a href="#facing022">22</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>THE VAMPIRE</td>
+<td class="tdr padl"><a href="#facing056">56</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Reproduced from etchings by Goya</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a><br /><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="PRELUDE" id="PRELUDE">PRELUDE</a></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Under which banner? It was night<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beyond all nights that ever were.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Cross was broken. Blood-stained Might<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Moved like a tiger from its lair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all that heaven had died to quell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Awoke, and mingled earth with hell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For Europe, if it held a creed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Held it thro&rsquo; custom, not thro&rsquo; faith.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chaos returned in dream and deed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Right was a legend&mdash;Love, a wraith;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And That from which the world began<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was less than even the best in man.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">God in the image of a snake<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dethroned that dream, too fond, too blind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The man-shaped God whose heart could break,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Live, die and triumph with mankind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Super-snake, a Juggernaut,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dethroned the Highest of human thought.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Choose, England! For the eternal foe<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Within thee, as without, grew strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By many a super-subtle blow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blurring the lines of right and wrong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Art and Thought, till nought seemed true<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But that soul-slaughtering cry of <i>New!</i><br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">New wreckage of the shrines we made<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thro&rsquo; centuries of forgotten tears....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We knew not where their hands had laid<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our Master. Twice a thousand years<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had dulled the uncapricious sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Manifold worlds obscured the One;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Obscured the reign of Law, our stay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our compass thro&rsquo; the uncharted sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The one sure light, the one sure way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The one firm base of Liberty;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The one firm road that men have trod<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thro&rsquo; Chaos to the Throne of God.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Choose ye!</i> A hundred legions cried<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dishonour, or the instant sword!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye chose. Ye met that blood-stained tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A little kingdom kept its word;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, dying, cried across the night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Hear us, O earth, we chose the Right.</i><br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whose is the victory? Though ye stood<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alone against the unmeasured foe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By all the tears, by all the blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That flowed, and have not ceased to flow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By all the legions that ye hurled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back thro&rsquo; the thunder-shaken world;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">By the old that have not where to rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By lands laid waste and hearths defiled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By every lacerated breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And every mutilated child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose is the victory? Answer, ye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who, dying, smiled at tyranny:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<i><span class="i0">Under the sky&rsquo;s triumphal arch<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The glories of the dawn begin.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Our dead, our shadowy armies, march<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">E&rsquo;en now, in silence, thro&rsquo; Berlin&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dumb shadows, tattered blood-stained ghosts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But cast by what swift following hosts!<br /></span></i>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And answer, England! <i>At thy side,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Thro&rsquo; seas of blood, thro&rsquo; mists of tears,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Thou that for Liberty hast died</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>And livest, to the end of years.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And answer, earth! Far off, I hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pćans of a happier sphere:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<i><span class="i0">The trumpet blown at Marathon<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Exulted over earth and sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But burning angel lips have blown<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The trumpets of thy Liberty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For who, beside thy dead, could deem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The faith, for which they died, a dream?<br /></span></i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<i><span class="i0">Earth has not been the same, since then.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Europe from thee received a soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence nations moved in law, like men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As members of a mightier whole,<br /></span></i>
+<span class="i0"><i>Till wars were ended....</i> In that day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So shall our children&rsquo;s children say.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHARACTERS" id="CHARACTERS">CHARACTERS</a></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rada</span>, wife of the village doctor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bettine</span>, her daughter, aged twelve.</p>
+
+<div>
+<div class="ilb vam smcap">Brander<br />Tarrasch</div>
+<div class="ilb vam">&#9127;<br />&#9128;<br />&#9129;</div>
+<div class="ilb vam"><p class="hanging">German soldiers quartered in her<br />
+house during the occupation<br />
+of the village.</p></div></div>
+
+<p class="hanging"><span class="smcap">Nanko</span>, an old, half-witted schoolmaster,
+living in the care of the doctor. He
+has a delusion that it is always Christmas
+Eve.</p>
+
+<p>German soldiers.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a><br /><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="RADA" id="RADA">RADA</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE</span></h2>
+
+<p class="direction"><i>The action takes place in a Belgian
+village, during the War of 1914.
+The scene is a room in the doctor&rsquo;s
+house. On the right there is a
+door opening to the street, a window
+with red curtains, and a desk
+under the window. On the left
+there is a large cupboard with a
+door on either side of it, one
+leading to a bedroom and the
+other to the kitchen. At the back
+an open fire is burning brightly.
+Over the fireplace there is a reproduction
+in colours of the Dresden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+Madonna. The room is lit only
+by the firelight and two candles in
+brass candlesticks, on a black oak
+table, at which the two soldiers are
+seated, playing cards and drinking
+beer.</i></p>
+
+<p class="direction"><i><span class="smcap">Rada</span>, a dark handsome woman, sits
+on a couch to the left of the fire,
+with her head bowed in her hands,
+weeping.</i></p>
+
+<p class="direction"><i><span class="smcap">Nanko</span> sits cross-legged on a rug before
+the fire, rubbing his hands, snapping
+his fingers, and chuckling to himself.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> (<i>throwing down the cards</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Pish! You have all the luck. (<i>He
+turns to <span class="smcap">Rada</span></i>) Look here, my girl,
+where is the use of snivelling? We&rsquo;ve
+been killing pigs all day and now we
+want to unbuckle a bit. You ought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+to think yourself infernally lucky to
+be alive at all, and I&rsquo;m not sure that
+you will be so fortunate when the
+other boys come back. Wheedled them
+out of the house finely, didn&rsquo;t you?
+On a fine wildgoose chase, too. Hidden
+money! Refugees don&rsquo;t bury their
+money and leave the secret behind
+them. You&rsquo;ve been whimpering ever
+since we two refused to believe you.
+What&rsquo;s your game, eh? I warn you
+there&rsquo;ll be hell to pay when they come
+back.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>sobbing and burying her face</i>).</p>
+
+<p>God, be pitiful!</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<p>This is war, this is! And you can&rsquo;t
+expect war to be all swans and shining
+armour. No&mdash;nor smart uniforms either.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+Look at the mud my friend and I
+have already annexed from Belgium.
+Brander, you know it&rsquo;s a most astonishing
+fact; but I have remarked it
+several times. Those women whose
+eyes glitter at the sight of a spiked
+helmet are the first to be astonished
+by the realities of war. They expect
+the dead to jump up and kiss them
+and tell them it is all a game, as
+soon as the battle is ended. No, no,
+my dear; it&rsquo;s only in war that one
+sees how small is one&rsquo;s personal happiness
+in comparison with greater things.
+Isn&rsquo;t it?</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He fills a glass and drinks.
+<span class="smcap">Brander</span> lights a cigar.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<p>Exactly. In times of peace we forget
+those eternal silences. We value<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+life too highly. We become domesticated.
+Why, I suppose in this magnificent
+war there have been so many
+women and children killed that they
+would fill the great Cloth Hall at
+Ypres; and, as for the young men,
+there have been so many slaughtered
+that their dead bodies would fill St.
+Peter&rsquo;s at Rome. Why, I suppose they
+would fill the three hundred abbeys of
+Flanders and all the cathedrals in the
+world chock-full from floor to belfry,
+wouldn&rsquo;t they? How Goya would have
+loved to paint them! Can&rsquo;t you see it?</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He grows ecstatic over the idea.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tournai with its five clock-towers, Ghent, and Bruges,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Louvain and Antwerp, Rheims and Westminster,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Under the round white moon, on Christmas Eve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With towers of frozen needlework, and spires<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That point to God; but all their painted panes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bursting with dreadful arms and gaping faces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gargoyles of flesh; and round them, in the snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The little cardinals, like gouts of blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The little bishops, running like white mice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hooded with violet spots, quite, quite dismayed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find there was no room for them within<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon that holy night when Christ was born.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But perhaps if Goya were living to-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>day
+he would prefer to pack them into
+Chicago meat factories, with the intellectuals
+dancing outside like marionettes,
+and the unconscious Hand of God
+pulling the strings. You know one of
+their very latest theories is that He is
+a somnambulist.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> (<i>to <span class="smcap">Rada</span></i>).</p>
+
+<p>You should read Schopenhauer, my
+dear, and learn to estimate these
+emotions at their true value. You
+would then be able to laugh at these
+feelings which seem to you now so
+important. It is the mark of <i>Kultur</i>
+to be able to laugh at all sentiments.
+Isn&rsquo;t it?</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<p>The priests, I suppose, are still balancing
+themselves on the tight-rope, over the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+jaws of the crowd. The poor old Pope
+did his best for his Master, when the
+Emperor asked him for a blessing on the
+war. &ldquo;<i>I</i> bless Peace,&rdquo; said the Pope;
+but nobody listened. I composed a little
+poem about that. I called it St. Peter&rsquo;s
+Christmas. It went like this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And does the Cross of Christ still stand?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yes, though His friends may watch from far&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And who is this at His right hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This Rock in the red surf of war?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This, this is he who once denied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And turned and wept and turned again.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Last night before an Emperor&rsquo;s pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He stood and blotted out that stain.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Last night an Emperor bared the sword<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And bade him bless. He stood alone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alone in all the world, <i>his</i> word<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Confessed&mdash;and blessed&mdash;a loftier throne.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I hear, still travelling towards the Light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In widening waves till Time shall cease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Power that breathed from Rome last night<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His infinite whisper&mdash;<i>I bless Peace.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i><span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> and <span class="smcap">Brander</span> applaud
+ironically.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<a name="facing016" id="facing016"></a><img src="images/facing016.jpg" width="600" height="434" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">OVER THE JAWS OF THE CROWD</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<p>Excellent! Excellent! (<i>To <span class="smcap">Rada</span></i>)
+You should have seen our brave
+soldiers laughing&mdash;do you remember,
+Brander&mdash;at a little village near Termonde.
+They made the old vicar and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+his cook dance naked round the dead
+body of his wife, who had connived
+at the escape of her daughter from a
+Prussian officer.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<p>Ah, that was reality, wasn&rsquo;t it? None
+of your provincial respectability about
+that, none of your shallow conventionality!
+That&rsquo;s what the age wants&mdash;realism!</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<p>It was brutal, I confess; but better
+than British hypocrisy, eh? There was
+something great about it, like the
+neighing of the satyrs in the Venusberg
+music.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>sinking on her knees by the
+couch and sobbing</i>).</p>
+
+<p>God! God!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<p>They were beginning to find out the
+provincialism of their creeds in England.
+The pessimism of Schopenhauer had
+taught them much; and if it had not
+been for this last treachery, this last
+ridiculous outburst of the middle-class
+mind on behalf of what they call honour,
+we should have continued to tolerate (if
+not to enjoy), in Berlin, those plays by
+Irishmen which expose so wittily the
+inferior <i>Kultur</i>, the shrinking from
+reality, of their (for the most part)
+not intellectual people. I have the
+honour, madam, to request that you
+should no longer make this unpleasant
+sound of weeping. You irritate my
+nerves. Have you not two men quartered
+upon you instead of one? And
+are they not university students? If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+your husband and the rest of the
+villagers had not resisted our advance,
+they might have been alive, too. In
+any case, your change is for the
+better. Isn&rsquo;t it?</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He lights a cigar.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<p>Exactly! Exactly! You remember,
+Rada, I used to be a schoolmaster myself
+in the old days; and if <i>you</i> knew
+what <i>I</i> know, you wouldn&rsquo;t cry, my
+dear. You&rsquo;d understand that it&rsquo;s entirely
+a question of the survival of the fittest.
+A biological necessity, that&rsquo;s what it
+is. And Haeckel himself has told us
+that, though we may resign our hopes
+of immortality, and the grave is the
+only future for our beloved ones, yet
+there is infinite consolation to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+found in examining a piece of moss or
+looking at a beetle. That&rsquo;s what the
+Germans call the male intellect.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<p>Is this man attempting to be insolent?</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He rises as if to strike</i> <span class="smcap">Nanko</span>.)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander</span> (<i>tapping his forehead</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Take no notice of him. He&rsquo;s only
+a resident patient. He was not calling
+you a beetle. He has delusions. He
+thinks it is always Christmas Eve.
+That&rsquo;s his little tree in the corner. As
+Goethe should have said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There was a little Christian.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had a little tree.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up came a Superman<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cracked him, like a flea.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> (<i>laughing</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Very good! You should send that to
+the <i>Tageblatt</i>, Brander.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Rada, or whatever your name
+is, you&rsquo;d better find something for us
+to eat. I&rsquo;m sick of this whimpering.</p>
+
+<p>Wouldn&rsquo;t your Belgian swine have
+massacred us all, if we&rsquo;d given them
+the chance? We&rsquo;ve thousands of women
+and children at home snivelling and
+saying, &ldquo;Oh! my God! Oh! my God!&rdquo;
+just like you.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>rising to her feet in a fury of
+contempt</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then why are you in Belgium, gentlemen?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is it the husks and chaff that the swine eat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or is it simply butchery?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p class="direction">(<i>They stare at her in silence, over-mastered
+for a moment by her
+passion. Then, her grief welling
+up again, she casts herself down
+on the couch, and buries her face
+in her hands, sobbing.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i20">God! God! God!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="center">
+<a name="facing022" id="facing022"></a><img src="images/facing022.jpg" width="600" height="444" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">THE OLD DANCE OF CHARLATANS AND BEASTS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<p>Don&rsquo;t you trouble about God. What
+can <i>He</i> do when both sides go down
+on their marrow-bones? He can&rsquo;t make
+both sides win, can He?</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<p>That&rsquo;s how the intellectuals prove He
+doesn&rsquo;t exist. Either He is not almighty,
+they say, or else He is unjust enough not
+to make both sides win. But all those
+anthropomorphic conceptions are out of
+date now, even in England, as this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+gentleman very truly said. You see, it
+was so degrading, Rada, to think that
+God had anything in common with
+mankind (though love was once quite
+fashionable), and as we didn&rsquo;t know of
+anything higher than ourselves we were
+simply compelled to say that He resembled
+something lower, such as earthquakes,
+and tigers, and puppet-shows,
+and ideas of that sort. Reality above
+all things! You may see God in
+sunsets; but there was nothing <i>real</i>
+about the <i>best</i> qualities of mankind.
+It&rsquo;s curious. The more intellectual and
+original you are, the lower you have to
+go, and the more likely you are to
+end in the old dance of charlatans and
+beasts. I suppose that&rsquo;s an argument
+for tradition and growth. If we call it
+Evolution, nobody will mind very much.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>wringing her hands in an
+agony of grief</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Oh, God, be pitiful, be pitiful!</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander</span> (<i>standing in front of her</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Look here, we&rsquo;ve had enough of this
+music. I&rsquo;ve been watching you, and
+there&rsquo;s more upon your mind than
+sorrow for the dead. Why were you
+so anxious to wheedle us all out of the
+house? Tarrasch has warned you
+there&rsquo;ll be hell to pay when the others
+come back. What was the game, eh?
+You&rsquo;d better tell me. You couldn&rsquo;t have
+thought you were going to escape
+through our lines to-night.</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>There is a sudden uproar outside,
+and a woman&rsquo;s scream, followed by
+the terrified cry of a child.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>Ah! Ah! Father!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<p>Hear that. The men are mad with
+brandy and blood and&mdash;other things.
+There&rsquo;s no holding them in, even from
+the children. You needn&rsquo;t wince. Even
+from the children, I say. What chance
+would there be for a fine-looking wench
+like yourself?</p>
+
+<p>No, you were not going to try that.
+You&rsquo;ve something to hide, here, in the
+house, eh? Well, now you&rsquo;ve got rid of
+the others, and we&rsquo;ve had a drink,
+we&rsquo;re going to look for it. What is
+there?</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He points to the bedroom door.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>rising to her feet slowly, steadying
+herself with one hand on the couch
+and fixing her eyes on his face</i>).</p>
+
+<p>My bedroom. No. I&rsquo;ve nothing here<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+to hide. This is war, isn&rsquo;t it? If I
+choose to revenge myself on those
+that have used me badly, people
+that I hate, by telling you where you
+can find what everybody wants, money,
+money&mdash;I suppose you want that&mdash;isn&rsquo;t
+that good enough?</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<p>Better come with us, then, and show
+us this treasure-trove.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>shrinking back</i>).</p>
+
+<p>No, no, I dare not. All those dead
+out there would terrify me, terrify me!</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<p>A pack of lies! What were you up to,
+eh? Telephoning to the English?</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<p>It has been too much for her nerves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+Don&rsquo;t worry her, or she&rsquo;ll go mad.
+Then there&rsquo;ll be nobody left to get us
+our supper.</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i><span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> wanders round the room,
+opening drawers and examining
+letters and other contents at the
+desk.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<p>That <i>would</i> be selfish, Rada. You
+know it&rsquo;s Christmas Eve. Nobody
+ought to think of unpleasant things on
+Christmas Eve. What have you done
+with the Christmas-tree, Rada?</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<p>And who&rsquo;s to blame? That&rsquo;s what I
+want to know. You don&rsquo;t blame <i>us</i>,
+do you? We didn&rsquo;t know where we
+were marching a month ago; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+possibly we shall be fighting on your
+side against somebody else, a year
+hence.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<p>Of course they didn&rsquo;t know! Poor
+soldiers don&rsquo;t.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> (<i>who has been trying the
+bedroom door</i>).</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, what have you got
+behind that door? Give me the key.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>hurriedly, and as if misunderstanding
+him, opens the cupboard. She
+speaks excitedly</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Food! Food! Food for hungry men.
+Food enough for a wolf pack. Come on.
+Help yourselves!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<p>Look, Brander! What a larder!
+Here&rsquo;s a dinner for forty men. Isn&rsquo;t it?</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada.</span></p>
+
+<p>Better take your pick before the
+others come.</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>She thrusts dishes into <span class="smcap">Brander&rsquo;s</span>
+hands and loads <span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> with
+bottles. They lay the table with
+them, <span class="smcap">Rada</span> seeming to share their
+eagerness.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander</span> (<i>looking at his hands</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Here! Bring me a basin of warm
+water. There are times when you
+can&rsquo;t touch food without washing your
+hands.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p><p class="direction">(<i><span class="smcap">Rada</span> hesitates, then goes into the
+kitchen. <span class="smcap">Brander</span> holds out a
+ring to <span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span>.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her husband&rsquo;s ring. I got it off his finger<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he went down. He lay there, doubled up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With one of those hideous belly wounds. He begged,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Horribly, for a bullet; so, poor devil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I put him out of his misery. I can&rsquo;t eat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With hands like that. Ugh! Look!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko</span> (<i>rising and peering at them</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i32">Ah, but they&rsquo;re red.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Red, aren&rsquo;t they? And there&rsquo;s red on your coat, too.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He fingers it curiously.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I suppose that&rsquo;s blood, eh? People are such cowards.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Many of them never seem to understand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That man&rsquo;s a fighting animal. They&rsquo;re afraid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dreadfully afraid, of the sight of blood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I think it&rsquo;s a beautiful colour, beautiful!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You know, in the Old Testament, they used<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To splash it on the door-posts.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander</span> (<i>pushing him away</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i30">Go and sit down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You crazy old devil!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i><span class="smcap">Rada</span> enters with a bowl of water,
+sets it on a chair, and returns to
+the couch. <span class="smcap">Brander</span> washes his
+hands.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i20">My hands want washing, too.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">My God, you&rsquo;ve turned the water into wine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Get me some fresh.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i><span class="smcap">Rada</span> approaches, stares at the bowl,
+and moves back, swaying a little.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander</span> (<i>roughly</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">I&rsquo;ll empty it. Give it to me.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He goes out.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Old Testament, you know, is full of it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Who is this</i>, it says, <i>that cometh from Edom,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>In dyed garments from Bozrah?</i> It was blood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That dyed their garments. And in <i>Revelation</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blood came out of the wine-press, till it splashed<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The bridles of the horses; and the seas<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were all turned into blood. Doesn&rsquo;t that show<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That man&rsquo;s a fighting animal?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> (<i>again fumbling at the bedroom
+door</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i24">Give me the key.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>thrusting herself between him and
+the door</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That is my bedroom. You must not go in.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Are they so modest, then, in Belgium, madam?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You&rsquo;re fooling us. What is it? Loot? More loot?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The family stocking, eh?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i><span class="smcap">Brander</span> enters. He goes to the
+table and begins eating.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i24">The stocking? No!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stocking is in the chimney-corner, see.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He shakes an empty stocking that
+hangs in the fire-place.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bettine and I, we always hang it up<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ready for Santa Claus. It&rsquo;s a good custom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They do it in Germany. The children there<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Believe that Santa Claus comes down the chimney.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If I know anything of women&rsquo;s eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s either money, or a daughter, Rada.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so&mdash;the key! Or else I burst the door.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>looks at him for a moment before
+speaking</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I throw myself upon your mercy, then.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It <i>is</i> my little girl. She is twelve years old.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Don&rsquo;t wake her. She has slept all through this night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I thought I might have hidden her. It&rsquo;s too late.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s of the other men that I&rsquo;m afraid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not you. But they are drunk. If they come back....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Help me to save her! I&rsquo;ll do anything for you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Anything! Only help me to get her away!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I&rsquo;ll pray for you every night of my life. I&rsquo;ll pray....<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>She stretches out her hands pitifully
+and begins to weep. The men stand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+staring at her. The door opens
+behind her, and <span class="smcap">Bettine</span>, in her
+night-dress, steals into the room.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<p>Mother&mdash;&mdash;Oh!</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>She stops at the sight of the strangers.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Don&rsquo;t be afraid. I&rsquo;m Nanko&rsquo;s friend.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What? Don&rsquo;t you know me? I came down the chimney.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I don&rsquo;t see any soot upon your face.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>She goes nearer.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nor on your clothes. That&rsquo;s red paint, isn&rsquo;t it?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Can&rsquo;t help it. Santa Claus&mdash;that is my name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What&rsquo;s yours?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">Bettine.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i20">Ah! I&rsquo;ve a little girl<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At home&mdash;about your age, too&mdash;called Bettine.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine</span> (<i>who has been watching him
+curiously</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I know. You are the British. Mother said<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The British would be here before the Boches.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I dreamed that you were coming, and I thought<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">I heard the marching. Weren&rsquo;t you singing, too?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It made me feel so happy in my sleep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What were you singing? &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long, long way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; what d&rsquo;you call it? <i>Tipperary</i>? eh?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What does that mean?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16">A place a long way off.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As far as heaven?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Almost as far as&mdash;home.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Well, I suppose it means the Boches must march<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A long, long way before they reach it, eh?<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">There&rsquo;s Canada. They&rsquo;ll have to march through that.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then India, and that&rsquo;s huge. Why, Nanko says<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There are three hundred million people there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all their soldiers ride on elephants.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor Boches! I&rsquo;m sorry for them. Nanko says<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They&rsquo;re trying to ride across two thousand years<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In motor-cars. It&rsquo;s easy enough to ride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two thousand miles; but not two thousand years.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>She runs to the stocking and examines
+it. <span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> and <span class="smcap">Brander</span>
+return to the table and eat and
+drink.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There&rsquo;s nothing in the stocking. Never mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nanko, when Christmas really comes, you&rsquo;ll see.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>With a sudden note of fear in her
+voice.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mother, where&rsquo;s father?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>putting an arm round her</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i22">He will soon be with us.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s all right, darling.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i24">Mother, mayn&rsquo;t we try<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The new tunes on the gramophone?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i32">Now, wait!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I&rsquo;ve an idea. It&rsquo;s Christmas Eve, you know.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We&rsquo;ll celebrate it. Where&rsquo;s the Christmas-tree?<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">We&rsquo;ll get that ready first.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i><span class="smcap">Bettine</span> pulls the little Christmas-tree
+out from the corner. <span class="smcap">Rada</span>
+glances from the child to the men,
+as if hoping that her play will win
+them to help her.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i26">It&rsquo;s nearly a week,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Isn&rsquo;t it, Nanko, since you had your tree?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here, put it on the table.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko</span> (<i>clapping his hands</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i26">Yes, that&rsquo;s best.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I fear that we shall want a new tree, soon.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This one is withered. See how the needles drop.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">There&rsquo;s no green left. It&rsquo;s growing old, Bettine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What shall we hang on it?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i24">What d&rsquo; you think<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that now? (<i>He hangs his revolver on the tree.</i>)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine</span> (<i>laughing merrily</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Oh! Oh! What a great big pistol!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That&rsquo;ll be father&rsquo;s present! And now what else?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko</span> (<i>eagerly</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What else?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Well, what do you say to a ring, Bettine?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How prettily it hangs upon the bough!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Isn&rsquo;t that fine? (<i>He hangs the ring upon the tree.</i>)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine</span> (<i>staring at it</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s just like father&rsquo;s ring!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now light the candles. Isn&rsquo;t it?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko</span> (<i>clapping his hands and capering</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i32">Yes, that&rsquo;s right!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light all the little candles on the tree!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, doesn&rsquo;t the pistol shine, doesn&rsquo;t the ring<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glitter!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">But oh, it <i>is</i> like father&rsquo;s ring.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had a little piece of mother&rsquo;s hair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Plaited inside it, just like that. It <i>is</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My father&rsquo;s ring.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16">No; there are many others,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bettine, just like it, hundreds, hundreds of others.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And now&mdash;what&rsquo;s in that package over there?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, that&rsquo;s the new tunes for the gramophone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That&rsquo;s father&rsquo;s Christmas present to us all.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now, what a wonderful man the doctor was!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nobody else, in these parts, would have thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of buying a gramophone. Let&rsquo;s open it.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yes! Yes! And we&rsquo;ll give father a surprise!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It shall be playing a tune when he comes in!<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">He won&rsquo;t be angry, will he, mumsy dear?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i><span class="smcap">Brander</span> opens the package. <span class="smcap">Nanko</span>
+rubs his hands in delight. They
+get the gramophone ready.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, this will be a merry Christmas Eve.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There now&mdash;just see how this kind gentleman<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has opened the package for us. Now you see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The good of war. It benefits the health.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sets a man up. Look at old Peter&rsquo;s legs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He&rsquo;s a disgrace to the village, a disgrace!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nobody shoots him either, so he spoils<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Everything; for you know, you must admit,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Bettine, that war means natural selection&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Survival of the fittest, don&rsquo;t you see?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For instance, <i>I</i> survive, and <i>you</i> survive:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Don&rsquo;t we? So Peter shouldn&rsquo;t spoil it all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They say that all the tall young men in France<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were killed in the Napoleonic wars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that most Frenchmen at the present day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are short and fat. Isn&rsquo;t that funny, Bettine?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>She laughs.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Which shows us that tall men are not required<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To-day. So nobody knows. Perhaps thin legs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like Peter&rsquo;s <i>may</i> be useful, after all,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">In aeroplanes, or something. Every ounce<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Makes a great difference there. Nobody knows.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s natural selection. See, Bettine?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, now the gramophone&rsquo;s ready. Make it play<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Christmas tune. That&rsquo;s what the churches do<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Christmas Eve: for all the churches now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the tall cathedrals with their choirs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What do you think they are, Bettine? I&rsquo;ll tell you.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I&rsquo;ll whisper it. <i>They&rsquo;re great big gramophones!</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>She laughs.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now for a Christmas tune!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> (<i>adjusting a record</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i24">There&rsquo;s irony<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In your idea, my friend, that would delight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ghost of Nietzsche! Certainly, it shall play<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Christmas tune. Here is the very thing.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>There is an uproar of drunken shouts
+in the distance.</i> <span class="smcap">Brander</span> <i>locks the
+outer door.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The inn is full of drunken men to-night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mother. D&rsquo; you hear them? Mother, was it an inn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like that&mdash;the one that&rsquo;s in my Christmas piece?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander</span> (<i>to <span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span></i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Don&rsquo;t do it, we&rsquo;ve had irony enough.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Don&rsquo;t start it playing, if you want to keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This Christmas party to ourselves, my boy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The men are mad with drink, and&mdash;other things.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Look here, Tarrasch, what are we going to do<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About this youngster, eh?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i24">Better keep quiet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till morning. When the men have slept it off<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They&rsquo;ll stand a better chance of slipping away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They&rsquo;re all drunk, officers and men as well.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That&rsquo;s the most merciful thing that one can say.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, what a pity! I did think, Bettine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That we should have some music. Well&mdash;I know!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell us the Christmas piece you learned in school.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That&rsquo;s right. Stand there! No, stand up on this bench.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your mother tells me that you won the prize<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For learning it so beautifully, Bettine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That&rsquo;s right. Now, while you say it, I will stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here, with a candle. See, that illustrates<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scene.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He lifts one of the candles to illuminate
+the picture of the Madonna<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+and child. For a moment he
+speaks with a curious dignity.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">You know it is not all delusion<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About this Christmas Eve. The wise men say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Time is a delusion. Now then, speak<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your Christmas piece.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine</span> (<i>with her hands behind her, as
+if in school, she obeys him</i>).</p>
+
+<p>She laid Him in a manger, because
+there was no room for them in the inn.</p>
+
+<p>And there were in the same country
+shepherds abiding in the field, keeping
+watch over their flock by night,</p>
+
+<p>And lo, the angel of the Lord came
+upon them, and the glory of the Lord
+shone round about them, and they were
+sore afraid.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And the angel said unto them, &ldquo;Fear
+not: for behold I bring you good tidings
+of great joy, which shall be to all
+people.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For unto you is born this day in the
+City of David a Saviour, which is Christ
+the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And this shall be a sign unto you; ye
+shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling
+clothes, lying in a manger.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And suddenly there was with the angel
+a multitude of the heavenly host, praising
+God, and saying:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Glory to God in the Highest, and on
+earth peace....</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>There is silence for a moment, then a
+pistol-shot, a scream, and a roar of
+drunken laughter without, followed
+by a furious pounding on the door.
+<span class="smcap">Bettine</span> runs to her mother.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here, Tarrasch, what the devil are we to do<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About this child?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He calls through the door.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16">Clear out of this! The house<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is full. We want to sleep.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>The uproar grows outside, and the
+pounding is resumed. There is a
+crash of broken glass at the
+window.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i26">Mother, I&rsquo;m frightened!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is the Boches! Mother, it is the Boches!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where are the British, mother? You said the British<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were sure to be here first!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i26">Bundle the child<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into that room, woman, at once!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i><span class="smcap">Rada</span> snatches the revolver from the
+Christmas-tree and hurries <span class="smcap">Bettine</span>
+into the bedroom just as the other
+door is burst open and a troop of
+soldiers appear on the threshold,
+shouting and furious with drink.
+They sing, with drunken gestures,
+in the doorway:</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutscher Rhein....&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">First Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i42">Come on!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They&rsquo;re in that room. I saw them! The only skirts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Left in the village. Comrades, you&rsquo;ve had your fun&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s time for ours.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i18">Clear out of this. You&rsquo;re drunk.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We want to sleep.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Second Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Well, hand the women over.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There are no women here.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">First Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i24">You greedy wolf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I saw them.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Come! Come! Come! It&rsquo;s Christmas Eve!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="center">
+<a name="facing056" id="facing056"></a><img src="images/facing056.jpg" width="600" height="457" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">THE VAMPIRE</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Second Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Well, if there are no petticoats, where&rsquo;s the harm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In letting us poor soldiers take a squint<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Through yonder door? By God, we&rsquo;ll do it, too!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come on, my boys.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>They make a rush towards the
+room.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16">Be careful, or you&rsquo;ll smash<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Christmas-tree! You&rsquo;ll smash the gramophone!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>A soldier tries the bedroom door.
+It is opened from within, and
+<span class="smcap">Rada</span> appears on the threshold
+with the revolver in her hand.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">First Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Liars! Liars!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">There is one woman here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One woman and a child....<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And war, they tell me, is a noble thing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is the mother of heroic deeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The nurse of honour, manhood.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Second Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i24">God, a speech!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko</span> (<i>who is hugging his Christmas-tree
+near the fire again</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Certainly, Rada! You will not deny<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That life&rsquo;s a battle.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i20">You hear, drunk as you are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up to your necks in blood, you hear this fool,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This poor old fool, piping his dreary cry.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And through his lips, and through his softening brain,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The men that use you, cheat you, drive you out<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To slaughter and be slaughtered, teach the world<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That this black vampire, sucking at our breasts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is good. Men! Men! The pestilence of your dead<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is murdering you by legions. All the trains<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of quicklime that your Emperor sends behind you<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can never eat its way through all that flesh&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three hundred miles of dead! Your dead!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">First Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i38">Hoch! Hoch!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A speech!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+<p class="direction">(<i>They make a movement towards her,
+which she arrests by raising the
+revolver.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">I do not hate! I pity you all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I tell you, you are doing it in a dream.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You are drugged. You are not awake.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">I have sometimes thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very same.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">But you will wake one day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Listen! If you have children of your own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Listen to me ... the child is twelve years old.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She has never had one hard word spoken to her<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In all her life.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Second Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16">Nor shall she now, by God!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where is she? Bring her out!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">First Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i28">Twelve years of age?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Add two, because her mother loves her so!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That&rsquo;s ripe enough for marriage to a soldier.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>They laugh uproariously, and sing again
+mockingly</i>:)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutscher Rhein!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>They move forward again.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada</span> (<i>raising the revolver</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">One word. If you are deaf to honour, blind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To truth, and if compassion cannot reach you,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Then I appeal to fear! Yes, you shall fear me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Listen! I heard, when I was in that room,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sound like gun-fire, coming from the south:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What if it were the British?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Soldiers.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i28">Ah! The swine!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dogs!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Rada.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bull-dogs; and slow. But they are coming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, where they hold, they never will let go.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though they may come too late for me and mine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You are on your trial now before the world.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">You never can escape it. They are coming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With justice and the unconquerable law!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I warn you, though their speech is not my own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I shall be but one of all the dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dead, with that child, in a forgotten grave&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I speak for them, and they will keep my word.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yes, if you harm that child ... the British.... Ah!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>They advance towards her.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have one bullet for the child and five<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To share between you and myself.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">First Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i32">Come on!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She can&rsquo;t shoot! Look at the way she&rsquo;s holding it!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Duck down, and make a rush for it.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Soldiers.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i30">Come on!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>They make a rush. <span class="smcap">Rada</span> steps
+back into the bedroom and shuts
+the door in their faces.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Second Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Locked out in the cold. Come, break the damned thing down!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Bettine</span> (<i>crying within</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O British! British! Come! Come quickly, British!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander</span> (<i>trying to interpose</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She&rsquo;ll keep her word. You&rsquo;ll never get &rsquo;em alive.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Never. I know that kind. You&rsquo;d better clear out.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">First Soldier.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Down with the door!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>They put their shoulders to it.
+<span class="smcap">Brander</span> makes a sign to <span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span>.
+They try to pull the men back.
+There is a scuffle and <span class="smcap">Brander</span> is
+knocked over. He rises with the
+blood running down his face, while
+<span class="smcap">Tarrasch</span> still struggles. The door
+begins to give. A shot is heard
+within. The men pause and there
+is another shot.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Brander.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">By God, she&rsquo;s done it!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>There is a booming of distant
+artillery.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i22">Hear!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was not lying. That came from the south-west.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">It is the British!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>A bugle-call sounds in the village
+street.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Tarrasch.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">The British! A night-attack!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>They all rush out except <span class="smcap">Nanko</span>,
+who peers after them from the door.
+Leaving it open to the night, he
+takes a </i>marron glacé<i> from the table,
+crosses the room, and begins to
+examine the gramophone.</i></p>
+
+<p class="direction"><i>Confused sounds of men rushing
+to arms, thin bugle-calls in the
+distance, and the occasional clatter
+of a galloping horse blow in from the
+blackness framed in the open door.
+The deep pulsation of the British
+artillery is heard throughout, in
+a steady undertone.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko</span> (<i>calling aloud as he munches</i>).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Come, Rada, you&rsquo;re pretending. They&rsquo;re all gone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rada, these <i>marrons glacés</i> are delicious.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s over now! Come, I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s right<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To spoil a person&rsquo;s pleasure on Christmas Eve.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He tiptoes to the door and peers into
+the night.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Come quick, Bettine, rockets are going up!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are breaking into clusters of green stars!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, there&rsquo;s a red one! You could see for miles<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When that one broke. The willow-trees jumped out<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Like witches; and, between them, the canal<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dwindled away to a little thread of blood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there were lines of men running and falling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And guns and horses floundering in a ditch.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, Rada! there&rsquo;s a bonfire by the mill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They&rsquo;ve burned the little cottage.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">There&rsquo;s a man<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hanging above the bonfire by his hands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heaps of dead all round him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Come and see!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s terrible, but it&rsquo;s magnificent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like one of Goya&rsquo;s pictures. That&rsquo;s the way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>He</i> painted war. Well, everybody&rsquo;s gone....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To think <i>I</i> was the fittest, after all!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+<p class="direction">(<i>He returns to the gramophone.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wonder how this gramophone does work.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said the tune that he was putting in<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was just the thing for Christmas Eve.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I wonder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wonder what it was. Listen to this!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He reads the title.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s a good omen, Rada&mdash;<i>A Christmas carol</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Sung by the Grand Imperial Choir</i>&mdash;d&rsquo; you hear?&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>At midnight in St. Petersburg</i>&mdash;<i>Adeste</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Fideles!</i> Fancy that! A Christmas carol<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the gramophone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So all the future ages will be sure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To know exactly what religion was.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">To think we must not hear it! Rada, they say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Angel Gabriel composed that tune<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the first Christmas Eve. So don&rsquo;t you think<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That we might hear it?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Everybody is gone, except the dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It will not wake them....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come, Rada, you&rsquo;re pretending! Do not make<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The war more dreadful than it really is.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He accidentally sets the gramophone
+working and jumps back, a little
+alarmed. He runs to the bedroom
+door.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rada! I&rsquo;ve started it! Bettine, d&rsquo; you hear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gramophone&rsquo;s working.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p><p class="direction">(<i>The artillery booms like a thunder-peal
+in the distance. Then the
+gramophone drowns it with the
+massed voices of the Imperial Choir
+singing</i>:)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap"><span class="i0">Adeste Fideles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lćti triumphantes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Adeste, adeste in Bethlehem!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Natum videte<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Regem angelorum:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Venite, adoremus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Venite, adoremus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Venite, adoremus Dominum.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<span class="smcap">Nanko</span> <i>touches the floor under the
+door of the bedroom and stares at
+his hand.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Something red again? Trickling under the door?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blood, I suppose....<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+<p class="direction">(<i>A look of horror comes into his face
+as he stands listening to the music.
+Then, as if slowly waking from a
+dream and almost as if sanity
+had returned for a moment, he
+cries</i>:)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It&rsquo;s true! It&rsquo;s true! Rada, I am awake!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am awake! And, in the name of Christ,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I accuse, I accuse ... O God, forgive us all!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="direction">(<i>He falls on his knees by the bedroom
+door and calls, as if to the
+dead within</i>:)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Awake, and after nineteen hundred years....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bettine, Bettine! the British, they are coming!<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Rada, you said it&mdash;they are coming quickly!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are coming, with the reign of right and law.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, O Bettine! Bettine! will they remember?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are they awake? I only hear their guns.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What if they should grow used to it, Bettine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fail to wipe this horror from the world?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God, is there any hope for poor mankind?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God, are Thy little nations and Thy weak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thine innocent, condemned to hell for ever?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God, will the strong deliverers break the sword<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And bring this world at last to Christmas Eve?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">The Imperial Choir.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap"><span class="i4">Ćterni Parentis<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Splendorem Ćternum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Velatum sub carne videbimus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Deum infantem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Pannis involutum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Venite, adoremus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Venite, adoremus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Venite, adoremus Dominum.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap">Nanko.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Will Christ be born, oh, not in Bethlehem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in the soul of man, the abode of God?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There, in that deep, undying soul of man<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(I still believe it), that immortal soul,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Will they lift up the cross with Christ upon it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Fool of God, whom intellectual fools,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The little fools of dust, in every land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grinning their <i>What is Truth?</i> still crucify.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could they not thrust their hands into His wounds?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His wounds are these&mdash;these dead are all His wounds.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bettine! Bettine! the British, they are coming!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But you are silent now, so silent now!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will they lift up God&rsquo;s poor old broken Fool,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sleep no more until His kingdom come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His infinite kingdom come?<br /></span>
+<span class="i18">Will they remember?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+<p class="direction">(<i>He bows his head against the closed
+door, while the gramophone lifts
+the chorus of the Imperial Choir
+over the deepening thunder of the
+guns</i>:)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap"><span class="i0">Nunc cantet, exultans,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chorus angelorum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cantet nunc aula celestium<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gloria, Gloria,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In excelsis Deo!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Venite, adoremus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Venite, adoremus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Venite, adoremus Dominum.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="INTERCESSION" id="INTERCESSION">INTERCESSION</a></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now the muttering gun-fire dies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now the night has cloaked the slain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now the stars patrol the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hear our sleepless prayer again!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They who work their country&rsquo;s will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fight and die for Britain still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soldiers, but not haters, know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Thou</i> must pity friend and foe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Therefore hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both for foe and friend, our prayer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou whose wounded Hands do reach<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Over every land and sea,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Thoughts too deep for human speech<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rise from all our souls to Thee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deeper than the wrath that burns<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round our hosts when day returns;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deeper than the peace that fills<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All these trenched and waiting hills.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Hear, O hear!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both for foe and friend, our prayer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Pity deeper than the grave<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sees, beyond the death we wield,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faces of the young and brave<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hurled against us in the field.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cannon-fodder! They <i>must</i> come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We must slay them, and be dumb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slaughter, while we pity, these<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Most implacable enemies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Master, hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both for foe and friend, our prayer.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They are blind, as we are blind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Urged by duties past reply.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ours is but the task assigned;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Theirs to strike us ere they die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who can see his country fall?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who but answers at her call?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who has power to pause and think<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When she reels upon the brink?<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Hear, O hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both for foe and friend, our prayer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Shield them from that bitterest lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Laughed by fools who quote their mirth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the wings of death go by<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And their brother shrieks on earth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though they clamp their hearts with steel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conquering <i>every</i> fear they feel.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There are dreams they dare not tell.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Shield, O shield, their eyes from hell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Father, hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both for foe and friend, our prayer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where the naked bodies burn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where the wounded toss at home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weep and bleed and laugh in turn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yes, the masking jest may come.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let him jest who daily dies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But O hide his haunted eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pain alone he might control.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shield, O shield his wounded soul.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Master, hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both for foe and friend, our prayer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Peace? We steel us to the end.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hope betrayed us, long ago.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Duty binds both foe and friend.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It is ours to break the foe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, O God! that we might break<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This red Moloch for Thy sake;<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Know that Truth indeed prevails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that Justice holds the scales.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Father, hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both for foe and friend, our prayer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">England, could this awful hour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dawning on thy long renown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mark the purpose of thy power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Crown thee with that mightier crown!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Broadening to that purpose climb<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All the blood-red wars of Time....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Set the struggling peoples free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crown with Law their Liberty!<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">England, hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both for foe and friend, our prayer!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Speed, O speed what every age<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Writes with a prophetic hand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Read the midnight&rsquo;s moving page,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+<span class="i2">Read the stars and understand:<br /></span>
+<i><span class="i0">Out of Chaos ye shall draw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deepening harmonies of Law,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till around the Eternal Sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All your peoples move in one.<br /></span></i>
+<span class="i8">Christ-God, hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both for foe and friend, our prayer.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="center">The Gresham Press<br />
+UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED<br />
+WOKING AND LONDON
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rada, by Alfred Noyes
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADA ***
+
+***** This file should be named 44829-h.htm or 44829-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/8/2/44829/
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Paul Clark and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/44829-h/images/cover.jpg b/44829-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..69c86a0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/44829-h/images/facing016.jpg b/44829-h/images/facing016.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b1ae94b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829-h/images/facing016.jpg
diff --git a/44829-h/images/facing022.jpg b/44829-h/images/facing022.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1d8993f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829-h/images/facing022.jpg
diff --git a/44829-h/images/facing056.jpg b/44829-h/images/facing056.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc151ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829-h/images/facing056.jpg
diff --git a/44829-h/images/frontis.jpg b/44829-h/images/frontis.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..02afcf6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829-h/images/frontis.jpg
diff --git a/44829.txt b/44829.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8622f86
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1902 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rada, by Alfred Noyes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rada
+       A Belgian Christmas Eve
+
+Author: Alfred Noyes
+
+Release Date: February 4, 2014 [EBook #44829]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Paul Clark and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+    possible.
+
+    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+RADA
+
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+ TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN
+ DRAKE
+ THE FOREST OF WILD THYME
+ FORTY SINGING SEAMEN
+ THE ENCHANTED ISLAND
+ THE WINE PRESS
+
+
+[Illustration: THE BAYONETS]
+
+
+
+
+                                 RADA
+
+                        A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE
+
+                                  BY
+
+                             ALFRED NOYES
+
+                  WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS AFTER GOYA
+
+                          METHUEN & CO. LTD.
+                         36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+                                LONDON
+
+
+_First Published in 1915_
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+    Thou whose deep ways are in the sea,
+      Whose footsteps are not known,
+    To-night a world that turned from Thee
+      Is waiting--at Thy Throne.
+
+    The towering Babels that we raised
+      Where scoffing sophists brawl,
+    The little Antichrists we praised--
+      The night is on them all.
+
+    The fool hath said ... The fool hath said ...
+      And we, who deemed him wise,
+    We, who believed that Thou wast dead,
+      How should we seek Thine eyes?
+
+    How should we seek to Thee for power,
+      Who scorned Thee yesterday?
+    How should we kneel in this dread hour?
+      Lord, teach us how to pray.
+
+    Grant us the single heart once more
+      That mocks no sacred thing,
+    The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
+      When Thou wast Lord and King.
+
+    Let darkness unto darkness tell
+      Our deep unspoken prayer;
+    For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
+      We know that Thou art there.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ THE BAYONETS                    _Frontispiece_
+
+                                    FACING PAGE
+
+ OVER THE JAWS OF THE CROWD                  16
+
+ THE OLD DANCE OF CHARLATANS AND BEASTS      22
+
+ THE VAMPIRE                                 56
+
+_Reproduced from etchings by Goya_
+
+
+
+
+PRELUDE
+
+
+    Under which banner? It was night
+      Beyond all nights that ever were.
+    The Cross was broken. Blood-stained Might
+      Moved like a tiger from its lair,
+    And all that heaven had died to quell
+    Awoke, and mingled earth with hell.
+
+    For Europe, if it held a creed,
+      Held it thro' custom, not thro' faith.
+    Chaos returned in dream and deed,
+      Right was a legend--Love, a wraith;
+    And That from which the world began
+    Was less than even the best in man.
+
+    God in the image of a snake
+      Dethroned that dream, too fond, too blind,
+    The man-shaped God whose heart could break,
+      Live, die and triumph with mankind;
+    A Super-snake, a Juggernaut,
+    Dethroned the Highest of human thought.
+
+    Choose, England! For the eternal foe
+      Within thee, as without, grew strong,
+    By many a super-subtle blow
+      Blurring the lines of right and wrong
+    In Art and Thought, till nought seemed true
+    But that soul-slaughtering cry of _New!_
+
+    New wreckage of the shrines we made
+      Thro' centuries of forgotten tears....
+    We knew not where their hands had laid
+      Our Master. Twice a thousand years
+    Had dulled the uncapricious sun.
+    Manifold worlds obscured the One;
+
+    Obscured the reign of Law, our stay,
+      Our compass thro' the uncharted sea,
+    The one sure light, the one sure way,
+      The one firm base of Liberty;
+    The one firm road that men have trod
+    Thro' Chaos to the Throne of God.
+
+    _Choose ye!_ A hundred legions cried
+      Dishonour, or the instant sword!
+    Ye chose. Ye met that blood-stained tide,
+      A little kingdom kept its word;
+    And, dying, cried across the night,
+    _Hear us, O earth, we chose the Right._
+
+    Whose is the victory? Though ye stood
+      Alone against the unmeasured foe,
+    By all the tears, by all the blood,
+      That flowed, and have not ceased to flow,
+    By all the legions that ye hurled
+    Back thro' the thunder-shaken world;
+
+    By the old that have not where to rest,
+      By lands laid waste and hearths defiled,
+    By every lacerated breast,
+      And every mutilated child,
+    Whose is the victory? Answer, ye
+    Who, dying, smiled at tyranny:--
+
+    _Under the sky's triumphal arch
+      The glories of the dawn begin.
+    Our dead, our shadowy armies, march
+      E'en now, in silence, thro' Berlin--
+    Dumb shadows, tattered blood-stained ghosts,
+    But cast by what swift following hosts!_
+
+    And answer, England! _At thy side,
+      Thro' seas of blood, thro' mists of tears,
+    Thou that for Liberty hast died
+      And livest, to the end of years._
+    And answer, earth! Far off, I hear
+    The paeans of a happier sphere:--
+
+    _The trumpet blown at Marathon
+      Exulted over earth and sea;
+    But burning angel lips have blown
+      The trumpets of thy Liberty,
+    For who, beside thy dead, could deem
+    The faith, for which they died, a dream?_
+
+    _Earth has not been the same, since then.
+      Europe from thee received a soul,
+    Whence nations moved in law, like men,
+      As members of a mightier whole,
+    Till wars were ended...._ In that day,
+    So shall our children's children say.
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTERS
+
+
+ RADA, wife of the village doctor.
+
+ BETTINE, her daughter, aged twelve.
+
+ BRANDER  { German soldiers quartered in her house
+ TARRASCH { during the occupation of the village.
+
+ NANKO, an old, half-witted schoolmaster, living in the care of the
+   doctor. He has a delusion that it is always Christmas Eve.
+
+ German soldiers.
+
+
+
+
+RADA
+
+A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE
+
+
+ _The action takes place in a Belgian village, during the War of 1914.
+   The scene is a room in the doctor's house. On the right there is
+   a door opening to the street, a window with red curtains, and a
+   desk under the window. On the left there is a large cupboard with a
+   door on either side of it, one leading to a bedroom and the other
+   to the kitchen. At the back an open fire is burning brightly. Over
+   the fireplace there is a reproduction in colours of the Dresden
+   Madonna. The room is lit only by the firelight and two candles in
+   brass candlesticks, on a black oak table, at which the two soldiers
+   are seated, playing cards and drinking beer._
+
+ _RADA, a dark handsome woman, sits on a couch to the left of the fire,
+   with her head bowed in her hands, weeping._
+
+ _NANKO sits cross-legged on a rug before the fire, rubbing his hands,
+   snapping his fingers, and chuckling to himself._
+
+TARRASCH (_throwing down the cards_).
+
+Pish! You have all the luck. (_He turns to RADA_) Look here, my
+girl, where is the use of snivelling? We've been killing pigs all
+day and now we want to unbuckle a bit. You ought to think yourself
+infernally lucky to be alive at all, and I'm not sure that you will be
+so fortunate when the other boys come back. Wheedled them out of the
+house finely, didn't you? On a fine wildgoose chase, too. Hidden money!
+Refugees don't bury their money and leave the secret behind them.
+You've been whimpering ever since we two refused to believe you. What's
+your game, eh? I warn you there'll be hell to pay when they come back.
+
+RADA (_sobbing and burying her face_).
+
+God, be pitiful!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+This is war, this is! And you can't expect war to be all swans and
+shining armour. No--nor smart uniforms either. Look at the mud my
+friend and I have already annexed from Belgium. Brander, you know it's
+a most astonishing fact; but I have remarked it several times. Those
+women whose eyes glitter at the sight of a spiked helmet are the first
+to be astonished by the realities of war. They expect the dead to jump
+up and kiss them and tell them it is all a game, as soon as the battle
+is ended. No, no, my dear; it's only in war that one sees how small is
+one's personal happiness in comparison with greater things. Isn't it?
+
+ (_He fills a glass and drinks. BRANDER lights a cigar._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+Exactly. In times of peace we forget those eternal silences. We value
+life too highly. We become domesticated. Why, I suppose in this
+magnificent war there have been so many women and children killed
+that they would fill the great Cloth Hall at Ypres; and, as for the
+young men, there have been so many slaughtered that their dead bodies
+would fill St. Peter's at Rome. Why, I suppose they would fill the
+three hundred abbeys of Flanders and all the cathedrals in the world
+chock-full from floor to belfry, wouldn't they? How Goya would have
+loved to paint them! Can't you see it?
+
+ (_He grows ecstatic over the idea._)
+
+    Tournai with its five clock-towers, Ghent, and Bruges,
+    Louvain and Antwerp, Rheims and Westminster,
+    Under the round white moon, on Christmas Eve,
+    With towers of frozen needlework, and spires
+    That point to God; but all their painted panes
+    Bursting with dreadful arms and gaping faces,
+    Gargoyles of flesh; and round them, in the snow,
+    The little cardinals, like gouts of blood,
+    The little bishops, running like white mice,
+    Hooded with violet spots, quite, quite dismayed
+    To find there was no room for them within
+    Upon that holy night when Christ was born.
+
+But perhaps if Goya were living to-day he would prefer to pack them
+into Chicago meat factories, with the intellectuals dancing outside
+like marionettes, and the unconscious Hand of God pulling the strings.
+You know one of their very latest theories is that He is a somnambulist.
+
+TARRASCH (_to RADA_).
+
+You should read Schopenhauer, my dear, and learn to estimate these
+emotions at their true value. You would then be able to laugh at these
+feelings which seem to you now so important. It is the mark of _Kultur_
+to be able to laugh at all sentiments. Isn't it?
+
+NANKO.
+
+The priests, I suppose, are still balancing themselves on the
+tight-rope, over the jaws of the crowd. The poor old Pope did his best
+for his Master, when the Emperor asked him for a blessing on the war.
+"_I_ bless Peace," said the Pope; but nobody listened. I composed a
+little poem about that. I called it St. Peter's Christmas. It went like
+this:--
+
+    And does the Cross of Christ still stand?
+      Yes, though His friends may watch from far--
+    And who is this at His right hand,
+      This Rock in the red surf of war?
+
+    This, this is he who once denied,
+      And turned and wept and turned again.
+    Last night before an Emperor's pride
+      He stood and blotted out that stain.
+
+    Last night an Emperor bared the sword
+      And bade him bless. He stood alone.
+    Alone in all the world, _his_ word
+      Confessed--and blessed--a loftier throne.
+
+    I hear, still travelling towards the Light,
+      In widening waves till Time shall cease,
+    The Power that breathed from Rome last night
+      His infinite whisper--_I bless Peace._
+
+ (_TARRASCH and BRANDER applaud ironically._)
+
+[Illustration: OVER THE JAWS OF THE CROWD]
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+Excellent! Excellent! (_To RADA_) You should have seen our brave
+soldiers laughing--do you remember, Brander--at a little village near
+Termonde. They made the old vicar and his cook dance naked round the
+dead body of his wife, who had connived at the escape of her daughter
+from a Prussian officer.
+
+NANKO.
+
+Ah, that was reality, wasn't it? None of your provincial respectability
+about that, none of your shallow conventionality! That's what the age
+wants--realism!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+It was brutal, I confess; but better than British hypocrisy, eh? There
+was something great about it, like the neighing of the satyrs in the
+Venusberg music.
+
+RADA (_sinking on her knees by the couch and sobbing_).
+
+God! God!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+They were beginning to find out the provincialism of their creeds in
+England. The pessimism of Schopenhauer had taught them much; and if it
+had not been for this last treachery, this last ridiculous outburst of
+the middle-class mind on behalf of what they call honour, we should
+have continued to tolerate (if not to enjoy), in Berlin, those plays by
+Irishmen which expose so wittily the inferior _Kultur_, the shrinking
+from reality, of their (for the most part) not intellectual people. I
+have the honour, madam, to request that you should no longer make this
+unpleasant sound of weeping. You irritate my nerves. Have you not two
+men quartered upon you instead of one? And are they not university
+students? If your husband and the rest of the villagers had not
+resisted our advance, they might have been alive, too. In any case,
+your change is for the better. Isn't it?
+
+ (_He lights a cigar._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+Exactly! Exactly! You remember, Rada, I used to be a schoolmaster
+myself in the old days; and if _you_ knew what _I_ know, you wouldn't
+cry, my dear. You'd understand that it's entirely a question of the
+survival of the fittest. A biological necessity, that's what it is. And
+Haeckel himself has told us that, though we may resign our hopes of
+immortality, and the grave is the only future for our beloved ones, yet
+there is infinite consolation to be found in examining a piece of moss
+or looking at a beetle. That's what the Germans call the male intellect.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+Is this man attempting to be insolent?
+
+ (_He rises as if to strike_ NANKO.)
+
+BRANDER (_tapping his forehead_).
+
+Take no notice of him. He's only a resident patient. He was not calling
+you a beetle. He has delusions. He thinks it is always Christmas Eve.
+That's his little tree in the corner. As Goethe should have said--
+
+    There was a little Christian.
+    He had a little tree.
+    Up came a Superman
+    And cracked him, like a flea.
+
+TARRASCH (_laughing_).
+
+Very good! You should send that to the _Tageblatt_, Brander.
+
+Well, Rada, or whatever your name is, you'd better find something for
+us to eat. I'm sick of this whimpering.
+
+Wouldn't your Belgian swine have massacred us all, if we'd given them
+the chance? We've thousands of women and children at home snivelling
+and saying, "Oh! my God! Oh! my God!" just like you.
+
+RADA (_rising to her feet in a fury of contempt_).
+
+    Then why are you in Belgium, gentlemen?
+    Is it the husks and chaff that the swine eat,
+    Or is it simply butchery?
+
+ (_They stare at her in silence, over-mastered for a moment by her
+   passion. Then, her grief welling up again, she casts herself down on
+   the couch, and buries her face in her hands, sobbing._)
+
+    God! God! God!
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD DANCE OF CHARLATANS AND BEASTS]
+
+BRANDER.
+
+Don't you trouble about God. What can _He_ do when both sides go down
+on their marrow-bones? He can't make both sides win, can He?
+
+NANKO.
+
+That's how the intellectuals prove He doesn't exist. Either He is not
+almighty, they say, or else He is unjust enough not to make both sides
+win. But all those anthropomorphic conceptions are out of date now,
+even in England, as this gentleman very truly said. You see, it was so
+degrading, Rada, to think that God had anything in common with mankind
+(though love was once quite fashionable), and as we didn't know of
+anything higher than ourselves we were simply compelled to say that
+He resembled something lower, such as earthquakes, and tigers, and
+puppet-shows, and ideas of that sort. Reality above all things! You
+may see God in sunsets; but there was nothing _real_ about the _best_
+qualities of mankind. It's curious. The more intellectual and original
+you are, the lower you have to go, and the more likely you are to end
+in the old dance of charlatans and beasts. I suppose that's an argument
+for tradition and growth. If we call it Evolution, nobody will mind
+very much.
+
+RADA (_wringing her hands in an agony of grief_).
+
+Oh, God, be pitiful, be pitiful!
+
+BRANDER (_standing in front of her_).
+
+Look here, we've had enough of this music. I've been watching you, and
+there's more upon your mind than sorrow for the dead. Why were you so
+anxious to wheedle us all out of the house? Tarrasch has warned you
+there'll be hell to pay when the others come back. What was the game,
+eh? You'd better tell me. You couldn't have thought you were going to
+escape through our lines to-night.
+
+ (_There is a sudden uproar outside, and a woman's scream, followed by
+   the terrified cry of a child._)
+
+Ah! Ah! Father!
+
+BRANDER.
+
+Hear that. The men are mad with brandy and blood and--other things.
+There's no holding them in, even from the children. You needn't wince.
+Even from the children, I say. What chance would there be for a
+fine-looking wench like yourself?
+
+No, you were not going to try that. You've something to hide, here, in
+the house, eh? Well, now you've got rid of the others, and we've had a
+drink, we're going to look for it. What is there?
+
+ (_He points to the bedroom door._)
+
+RADA (_rising to her feet slowly, steadying herself with one hand on
+the couch and fixing her eyes on his face_).
+
+My bedroom. No. I've nothing here to hide. This is war, isn't it? If I
+choose to revenge myself on those that have used me badly, people that
+I hate, by telling you where you can find what everybody wants, money,
+money--I suppose you want that--isn't that good enough?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+Better come with us, then, and show us this treasure-trove.
+
+RADA (_shrinking back_).
+
+No, no, I dare not. All those dead out there would terrify me, terrify
+me!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+A pack of lies! What were you up to, eh? Telephoning to the English?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+It has been too much for her nerves. Don't worry her, or she'll go
+mad. Then there'll be nobody left to get us our supper.
+
+ (_TARRASCH wanders round the room, opening drawers and examining
+   letters and other contents at the desk._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+That _would_ be selfish, Rada. You know it's Christmas Eve. Nobody
+ought to think of unpleasant things on Christmas Eve. What have you
+done with the Christmas-tree, Rada?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+And who's to blame? That's what I want to know. You don't blame _us_,
+do you? We didn't know where we were marching a month ago; and
+possibly we shall be fighting on your side against somebody else, a
+year hence.
+
+NANKO.
+
+Of course they didn't know! Poor soldiers don't.
+
+TARRASCH (_who has been trying the bedroom door_).
+
+In the meantime, what have you got behind that door? Give me the key.
+
+RADA (_hurriedly, and as if misunderstanding him, opens the cupboard.
+She speaks excitedly_).
+
+Food! Food! Food for hungry men. Food enough for a wolf pack. Come on.
+Help yourselves!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+Look, Brander! What a larder! Here's a dinner for forty men. Isn't it?
+
+RADA.
+
+Better take your pick before the others come.
+
+ (_She thrusts dishes into BRANDER'S hands and loads TARRASCH with
+   bottles. They lay the table with them, RADA seeming to share their
+   eagerness._)
+
+BRANDER (_looking at his hands_).
+
+Here! Bring me a basin of warm water. There are times when you can't
+touch food without washing your hands.
+
+ (_RADA hesitates, then goes into the kitchen. BRANDER holds out a
+   ring to TARRASCH._)
+
+    Her husband's ring. I got it off his finger
+    When he went down. He lay there, doubled up,
+    With one of those hideous belly wounds. He begged,
+    Horribly, for a bullet; so, poor devil,
+    I put him out of his misery. I can't eat
+    With hands like that. Ugh! Look!
+
+NANKO (_rising and peering at them_).
+
+                                    Ah, but they're red.
+    Red, aren't they? And there's red on your coat, too.
+
+ (_He fingers it curiously._)
+
+    I suppose that's blood, eh? People are such cowards.
+    Many of them never seem to understand
+    That man's a fighting animal. They're afraid,
+    Dreadfully afraid, of the sight of blood.
+    I think it's a beautiful colour, beautiful!
+    You know, in the Old Testament, they used
+    To splash it on the door-posts.
+
+BRANDER (_pushing him away_).
+
+                                  Go and sit down,
+    You crazy old devil!
+
+ (_RADA enters with a bowl of water, sets it on a chair, and returns to
+   the couch. BRANDER washes his hands._)
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+                        My hands want washing, too.
+    My God, you've turned the water into wine.
+    Get me some fresh.
+
+ (_RADA approaches, stares at the bowl, and moves back, swaying a
+   little._)
+
+BRANDER (_roughly_).
+
+    I'll empty it. Give it to me.
+
+ (_He goes out._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+    The Old Testament, you know, is full of it.
+    _Who is this_, it says, _that cometh from Edom,
+    In dyed garments from Bozrah?_ It was blood
+    That dyed their garments. And in _Revelation_
+    Blood came out of the wine-press, till it splashed
+    The bridles of the horses; and the seas
+    Were all turned into blood. Doesn't that show
+    That man's a fighting animal?
+
+TARRASCH (_again fumbling at the bedroom door_).
+
+    Give me the key.
+
+RADA (_thrusting herself between him and the door_).
+
+    That is my bedroom. You must not go in.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    Are they so modest, then, in Belgium, madam?
+    You're fooling us. What is it? Loot? More loot?
+    The family stocking, eh?
+
+ (_BRANDER enters. He goes to the table and begins eating._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+                            The stocking? No!
+    The stocking is in the chimney-corner, see.
+
+ (_He shakes an empty stocking that hangs in the fire-place._)
+
+    Bettine and I, we always hang it up
+    Ready for Santa Claus. It's a good custom.
+    They do it in Germany. The children there
+    Believe that Santa Claus comes down the chimney.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    If I know anything of women's eyes,
+    It's either money, or a daughter, Rada.
+    And so--the key! Or else I burst the door.
+
+RADA (_looks at him for a moment before speaking_).
+
+    I throw myself upon your mercy, then.
+    It _is_ my little girl. She is twelve years old.
+    Don't wake her. She has slept all through this night.
+    I thought I might have hidden her. It's too late.
+    It's of the other men that I'm afraid.
+    Not you. But they are drunk. If they come back....
+    Help me to save her! I'll do anything for you,
+    Anything! Only help me to get her away!
+    I'll pray for you every night of my life. I'll pray....
+
+ (_She stretches out her hands pitifully and begins to weep. The men
+   stand staring at her. The door opens behind her, and BETTINE, in
+   her night-dress, steals into the room._)
+
+BETTINE.
+
+Mother----Oh!
+
+ (_She stops at the sight of the strangers._)
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Don't be afraid. I'm Nanko's friend.
+    What? Don't you know me? I came down the chimney.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    I don't see any soot upon your face.
+
+ (_She goes nearer._)
+
+    Nor on your clothes. That's red paint, isn't it?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Can't help it. Santa Claus--that is my name.
+    What's yours?
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    Bettine.
+
+BRANDER.
+
+                        Ah! I've a little girl
+    At home--about your age, too--called Bettine.
+
+BETTINE (_who has been watching him curiously_).
+
+    I know. You are the British. Mother said
+    The British would be here before the Boches.
+    I dreamed that you were coming, and I thought
+    I heard the marching. Weren't you singing, too?
+    It made me feel so happy in my sleep.
+    What were you singing? "It's a long, long way
+    To----" what d'you call it? _Tipperary_? eh?
+    What does that mean?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    A place a long way off.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    As far as heaven?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Almost as far as--home.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    Well, I suppose it means the Boches must march
+    A long, long way before they reach it, eh?
+    There's Canada. They'll have to march through that.
+    Then India, and that's huge. Why, Nanko says
+    There are three hundred million people there,
+    And all their soldiers ride on elephants.
+    Poor Boches! I'm sorry for them. Nanko says
+    They're trying to ride across two thousand years
+    In motor-cars. It's easy enough to ride
+    Two thousand miles; but not two thousand years.
+
+ (_She runs to the stocking and examines it. TARRASCH and BRANDER
+   return to the table and eat and drink._)
+
+    There's nothing in the stocking. Never mind,
+    Nanko, when Christmas really comes, you'll see.
+
+ (_With a sudden note of fear in her voice._)
+
+    Mother, where's father?
+
+RADA (_putting an arm round her_).
+
+                          He will soon be with us.
+    It's all right, darling.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+                            Mother, mayn't we try
+    The new tunes on the gramophone?
+
+NANKO.
+
+                                    Now, wait!
+    I've an idea. It's Christmas Eve, you know.
+    We'll celebrate it. Where's the Christmas-tree?
+    We'll get that ready first.
+
+ (_BETTINE pulls the little Christmas-tree out from the corner. RADA
+   glances from the child to the men, as if hoping that her play will
+   win them to help her._)
+
+BETTINE.
+
+                              It's nearly a week,
+    Isn't it, Nanko, since you had your tree?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Here, put it on the table.
+
+NANKO (_clapping his hands_).
+
+                              Yes, that's best.
+    I fear that we shall want a new tree, soon.
+    This one is withered. See how the needles drop.
+    There's no green left. It's growing old, Bettine.
+    What shall we hang on it?
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+                            What d' you think
+    Of that now? (_He hangs his revolver on the tree._)
+
+BETTINE (_laughing merrily_).
+
+                Oh! Oh! What a great big pistol!
+    That'll be father's present! And now what else?
+
+NANKO (_eagerly_).
+
+    What else?
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Well, what do you say to a ring, Bettine?
+    How prettily it hangs upon the bough!
+    Isn't that fine? (_He hangs the ring upon the tree._)
+
+BETTINE (_staring at it_).
+
+    It's just like father's ring!
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    Now light the candles. Isn't it?
+
+NANKO (_clapping his hands and capering_).
+
+                                    Yes, that's right!
+    Light all the little candles on the tree!
+    Oh, doesn't the pistol shine, doesn't the ring
+    Glitter!
+
+BETTINE.
+
+            But oh, it _is_ like father's ring.
+    He had a little piece of mother's hair
+    Plaited inside it, just like that. It _is_
+    My father's ring.
+
+RADA.
+
+                    No; there are many others,
+    Bettine, just like it, hundreds, hundreds of others.
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    And now--what's in that package over there?
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    Oh, that's the new tunes for the gramophone.
+    That's father's Christmas present to us all.
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Now, what a wonderful man the doctor was!
+    Nobody else, in these parts, would have thought
+    Of buying a gramophone. Let's open it.
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    Yes! Yes! And we'll give father a surprise!
+    It shall be playing a tune when he comes in!
+    He won't be angry, will he, mumsy dear?
+
+ (_BRANDER opens the package. NANKO rubs his hands in delight. They get
+   the gramophone ready._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Oh, this will be a merry Christmas Eve.
+    There now--just see how this kind gentleman
+    Has opened the package for us. Now you see
+    The good of war. It benefits the health.
+    Sets a man up. Look at old Peter's legs,
+    He's a disgrace to the village, a disgrace!
+    Nobody shoots him either, so he spoils
+    Everything; for you know, you must admit,
+    Bettine, that war means natural selection--
+    Survival of the fittest, don't you see?
+    For instance, _I_ survive, and _you_ survive:
+    Don't we? So Peter shouldn't spoil it all.
+    They say that all the tall young men in France
+    Were killed in the Napoleonic wars,
+    So that most Frenchmen at the present day
+    Are short and fat. Isn't that funny, Bettine?
+
+ (_She laughs._)
+
+    Which shows us that tall men are not required
+    To-day. So nobody knows. Perhaps thin legs
+    Like Peter's _may_ be useful, after all,
+    In aeroplanes, or something. Every ounce
+    Makes a great difference there. Nobody knows.
+    It's natural selection. See, Bettine?
+    Ah, now the gramophone's ready. Make it play
+    A Christmas tune. That's what the churches do
+    On Christmas Eve: for all the churches now,
+    And all the tall cathedrals with their choirs,
+    What do you think they are, Bettine? I'll tell you.
+    I'll whisper it. _They're great big gramophones!_
+
+ (_She laughs._)
+
+    Now for a Christmas tune!
+
+TARRASCH (_adjusting a record_).
+
+                            There's irony
+    In your idea, my friend, that would delight
+    The ghost of Nietzsche! Certainly, it shall play
+    A Christmas tune. Here is the very thing.
+
+ (_There is an uproar of drunken shouts in the distance._ BRANDER
+   _locks the outer door._)
+
+BETTINE.
+
+    The inn is full of drunken men to-night,
+    Mother. D' you hear them? Mother, was it an inn
+    Like that--the one that's in my Christmas piece?
+
+BRANDER (_to TARRASCH_).
+
+    Don't do it, we've had irony enough.
+    Don't start it playing, if you want to keep
+    This Christmas party to ourselves, my boy.
+    The men are mad with drink, and--other things.
+    Look here, Tarrasch, what are we going to do
+    About this youngster, eh?
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+                            Better keep quiet
+    Till morning. When the men have slept it off
+    They'll stand a better chance of slipping away.
+    They're all drunk, officers and men as well.
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    That's the most merciful thing that one can say.
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Oh, what a pity! I did think, Bettine,
+    That we should have some music. Well--I know!
+    Tell us the Christmas piece you learned in school.
+    That's right. Stand there! No, stand up on this bench.
+    Your mother tells me that you won the prize
+    For learning it so beautifully, Bettine.
+    That's right. Now, while you say it, I will stand
+    Here, with a candle. See, that illustrates
+    The scene.
+
+ (_He lifts one of the candles to illuminate the picture of the
+   Madonna and child. For a moment he speaks with a curious dignity._)
+
+              You know it is not all delusion
+    About this Christmas Eve. The wise men say
+    That Time is a delusion. Now then, speak
+    Your Christmas piece.
+
+BETTINE (_with her hands behind her, as if in school, she obeys him_).
+
+She laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
+
+And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,
+keeping watch over their flock by night,
+
+And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord
+shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.
+
+And the angel said unto them, "Fear not: for behold I bring you good
+tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
+
+"For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is
+Christ the Lord.
+
+"And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in
+swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."
+
+And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,
+praising God, and saying:--
+
+"_Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace...._"
+
+ (_There is silence for a moment, then a pistol-shot, a scream, and a
+   roar of drunken laughter without, followed by a furious pounding on
+   the door. BETTINE runs to her mother._)
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    Here, Tarrasch, what the devil are we to do
+    About this child?
+
+ (_He calls through the door._)
+
+                    Clear out of this! The house
+    Is full. We want to sleep.
+
+ (_The uproar grows outside, and the pounding is resumed. There is a
+   crash of broken glass at the window._)
+
+BETTINE.
+
+                              Mother, I'm frightened!
+    It is the Boches! Mother, it is the Boches!
+    Where are the British, mother? You said the British
+    Were sure to be here first!
+
+BRANDER.
+
+                              Bundle the child
+    Into that room, woman, at once!
+
+ (_RADA snatches the revolver from the Christmas-tree and hurries
+   BETTINE into the bedroom just as the other door is burst open and a
+   troop of soldiers appear on the threshold, shouting and furious with
+   drink. They sing, with drunken gestures, in the doorway:_)
+
+    "Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutscher Rhein...."
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                                              Come on!
+    They're in that room. I saw them! The only skirts
+    Left in the village. Comrades, you've had your fun--
+    It's time for ours.
+
+BRANDER.
+
+                      Clear out of this. You're drunk.
+    We want to sleep.
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+    Well, hand the women over.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    There are no women here.
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                            You greedy wolf,
+    I saw them.
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Come! Come! Come! It's Christmas Eve!
+
+[Illustration: THE VAMPIRE]
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+    Well, if there are no petticoats, where's the harm
+    In letting us poor soldiers take a squint
+    Through yonder door? By God, we'll do it, too!
+    Come on, my boys.
+
+ (_They make a rush towards the room._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+                    Be careful, or you'll smash
+    The Christmas-tree! You'll smash the gramophone!
+
+ (_A soldier tries the bedroom door. It is opened from within, and RADA
+   appears on the threshold with the revolver in her hand._)
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+    Liars! Liars!
+
+RADA.
+
+                There is one woman here,
+    One woman and a child....
+    And war, they tell me, is a noble thing.
+    It is the mother of heroic deeds,
+    The nurse of honour, manhood.
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+    God, a speech!
+
+NANKO (_who is hugging his Christmas-tree near the fire again_).
+
+    Certainly, Rada! You will not deny
+    That life's a battle.
+
+RADA.
+
+                        You hear, drunk as you are,
+    Up to your necks in blood, you hear this fool,
+    This poor old fool, piping his dreary cry.
+    And through his lips, and through his softening brain,
+    The men that use you, cheat you, drive you out
+    To slaughter and be slaughtered, teach the world
+    That this black vampire, sucking at our breasts,
+    Is good. Men! Men! The pestilence of your dead
+    Is murdering you by legions. All the trains
+    Of quicklime that your Emperor sends behind you
+    Can never eat its way through all that flesh--
+    Three hundred miles of dead! Your dead!
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                                          Hoch! Hoch!
+    A speech!
+
+ (_They make a movement towards her, which she arrests by raising the
+   revolver._)
+
+RADA.
+
+            I do not hate! I pity you all.
+    I tell you, you are doing it in a dream.
+    You are drugged. You are not awake.
+
+NANKO.
+
+                I have sometimes thought
+    The very same.
+
+RADA.
+
+                  But you will wake one day.
+    Listen! If you have children of your own,
+    Listen to me ... the child is twelve years old.
+    She has never had one hard word spoken to her
+    In all her life.
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+                    Nor shall she now, by God!
+    Where is she? Bring her out!
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                                Twelve years of age?
+    Add two, because her mother loves her so!
+    That's ripe enough for marriage to a soldier.
+
+ (_They laugh uproariously, and sing again mockingly_:)
+
+    "Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutscher Rhein!"
+
+ (_They move forward again._)
+
+RADA (_raising the revolver_).
+
+    One word. If you are deaf to honour, blind
+    To truth, and if compassion cannot reach you,
+    Then I appeal to fear! Yes, you shall fear me.
+    Listen! I heard, when I was in that room,
+    A sound like gun-fire, coming from the south:
+    What if it were the British?
+
+SOLDIERS.
+
+                                Ah! The swine!
+    The dogs!
+
+RADA.
+
+    Bull-dogs; and slow. But they are coming,
+    And, where they hold, they never will let go.
+    Though they may come too late for me and mine,
+    You are on your trial now before the world.
+    You never can escape it. They are coming,
+    With justice and the unconquerable law!
+    I warn you, though their speech is not my own,
+    And I shall be but one of all the dead,
+    Dead, with that child, in a forgotten grave--
+    I speak for them, and they will keep my word.
+    Yes, if you harm that child ... the British.... Ah!
+
+ (_They advance towards her._)
+
+    I have one bullet for the child and five
+    To share between you and myself.
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+                                    Come on!
+    She can't shoot! Look at the way she's holding it!
+    Duck down, and make a rush for it.
+
+SOLDIERS.
+
+    Come on!
+
+ (_They make a rush. RADA steps back into the bedroom and shuts the
+   door in their faces._)
+
+SECOND SOLDIER.
+
+    Locked out in the cold. Come, break the damned thing down!
+
+BETTINE (_crying within_).
+
+    O British! British! Come! Come quickly, British!
+
+BRANDER (_trying to interpose_).
+
+    She'll keep her word. You'll never get 'em alive.
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    Never. I know that kind. You'd better clear out.
+
+FIRST SOLDIER.
+
+    Down with the door!
+
+ (_They put their shoulders to it. BRANDER makes a sign to TARRASCH.
+   They try to pull the men back. There is a scuffle and BRANDER is
+   knocked over. He rises with the blood running down his face, while
+   TARRASCH still struggles. The door begins to give. A shot is heard
+   within. The men pause and there is another shot._)
+
+BRANDER.
+
+    By God, she's done it!
+
+ (_There is a booming of distant artillery._)
+
+                          Hear!
+    She was not lying. That came from the south-west.
+    It is the British!
+
+ (_A bugle-call sounds in the village street._)
+
+TARRASCH.
+
+    The British! A night-attack!
+
+ (_They all rush out except NANKO, who peers after them from the door.
+   Leaving it open to the night, he takes a _marron glace_ from the
+   table, crosses the room, and begins to examine the gramophone._
+
+ _Confused sounds of men rushing to arms, thin bugle-calls in the
+   distance, and the occasional clatter of a galloping horse blow in
+   from the blackness framed in the open door. The deep pulsation of
+   the British artillery is heard throughout, in a steady undertone._)
+
+NANKO (_calling aloud as he munches_).
+
+    Come, Rada, you're pretending. They're all gone.
+    Rada, these _marrons glaces_ are delicious.
+    It's over now! Come, I don't think it's right
+    To spoil a person's pleasure on Christmas Eve.
+
+ (_He tiptoes to the door and peers into the night._)
+
+    Come quick, Bettine, rockets are going up!
+    They are breaking into clusters of green stars!
+    Oh, there's a red one! You could see for miles
+    When that one broke. The willow-trees jumped out
+    Like witches; and, between them, the canal
+    Dwindled away to a little thread of blood.
+    And there were lines of men running and falling,
+    And guns and horses floundering in a ditch.
+    Oh, Rada! there's a bonfire by the mill.
+    They've burned the little cottage.
+        There's a man
+    Hanging above the bonfire by his hands,
+    And heaps of dead all round him.
+        Come and see!
+    It's terrible, but it's magnificent,
+    Like one of Goya's pictures. That's the way
+    _He_ painted war. Well, everybody's gone....
+    To think _I_ was the fittest, after all!
+
+ (_He returns to the gramophone._)
+
+    I wonder how this gramophone does work.
+    He said the tune that he was putting in
+    Was just the thing for Christmas Eve.
+        I wonder,
+    I wonder what it was. Listen to this!
+
+ (_He reads the title._)
+
+    It's a good omen, Rada--_A Christmas carol
+    Sung by the Grand Imperial Choir_--d' you hear?--
+    _At midnight in St. Petersburg_--_Adeste
+    Fideles!_ Fancy that! A Christmas carol
+    Upon the gramophone!
+    So all the future ages will be sure
+    To know exactly what religion was.
+    To think we must not hear it! Rada, they say
+    The Angel Gabriel composed that tune
+    On the first Christmas Eve. So don't you think
+    That we might hear it?
+    Everybody is gone, except the dead.
+    It will not wake them....
+    Come, Rada, you're pretending! Do not make
+    The war more dreadful than it really is.
+
+ (_He accidentally sets the gramophone working and jumps back, a little
+   alarmed. He runs to the bedroom door._)
+
+    Rada! I've started it! Bettine, d' you hear?
+    The gramophone's working.
+
+ (_The artillery booms like a thunder-peal in the distance. Then the
+   gramophone drowns it with the massed voices of the Imperial Choir
+   singing_:)
+
+    ADESTE FIDELES,
+    LAETI TRIUMPHANTES,
+        ADESTE, ADESTE IN BETHLEHEM!
+        NATUM VIDETE
+        REGEM ANGELORUM:
+        VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+        VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+        VENITE, ADOREMUS DOMINUM.
+
+ (NANKO _touches the floor under the door of the bedroom and stares at
+   his hand._)
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Something red again? Trickling under the door?
+    Blood, I suppose....
+
+ (_A look of horror comes into his face as he stands listening to the
+   music. Then, as if slowly waking from a dream and almost as if
+   sanity had returned for a moment, he cries_:)
+
+    It's true! It's true! Rada, I am awake!
+    I am awake! And, in the name of Christ,
+    I accuse, I accuse ... O God, forgive us all!
+
+ (_He falls on his knees by the bedroom door and calls, as if to the
+   dead within_:)
+
+    Awake, and after nineteen hundred years....
+    Bettine, Bettine! the British, they are coming!
+    Rada, you said it--they are coming quickly!
+    They are coming, with the reign of right and law.
+    But, O Bettine! Bettine! will they remember?
+    Are they awake? I only hear their guns.
+    What if they should grow used to it, Bettine,
+    And fail to wipe this horror from the world?
+    God, is there any hope for poor mankind?
+    God, are Thy little nations and Thy weak,
+    Thine innocent, condemned to hell for ever?
+    God, will the strong deliverers break the sword
+    And bring this world at last to Christmas Eve?
+
+THE IMPERIAL CHOIR.
+
+        AETERNI PARENTIS
+        SPLENDOREM AETERNUM,
+    VELATUM SUB CARNE VIDEBIMUS,
+        DEUM INFANTEM,
+        PANNIS INVOLUTUM,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS DOMINUM.
+
+NANKO.
+
+    Will Christ be born, oh, not in Bethlehem,
+    But in the soul of man, the abode of God?
+    There, in that deep, undying soul of man
+    (I still believe it), that immortal soul,
+    Will they lift up the cross with Christ upon it,
+    The Fool of God, whom intellectual fools,
+    The little fools of dust, in every land,
+    Grinning their _What is Truth?_ still crucify.
+    Could they not thrust their hands into His wounds?
+    His wounds are these--these dead are all His wounds.
+    Bettine! Bettine! the British, they are coming!
+    But you are silent now, so silent now!
+    Will they lift up God's poor old broken Fool,
+    And sleep no more until His kingdom come,
+    His infinite kingdom come?
+                      Will they remember?
+
+ (_He bows his head against the closed door, while the gramophone lifts
+   the chorus of the Imperial Choir over the deepening thunder of the
+   guns_:)
+
+    NUNC CANTET, EXULTANS,
+    CHORUS ANGELORUM,
+    CANTET NUNC AULA CELESTIUM
+    GLORIA, GLORIA,
+    IN EXCELSIS DEO!
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS,
+    VENITE, ADOREMUS DOMINUM.
+
+
+
+
+INTERCESSION
+
+
+    Now the muttering gun-fire dies,
+      Now the night has cloaked the slain,
+    Now the stars patrol the skies,
+      Hear our sleepless prayer again!
+    They who work their country's will,
+    Fight and die for Britain still,
+    Soldiers, but not haters, know
+    _Thou_ must pity friend and foe.
+            Therefore hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Thou whose wounded Hands do reach
+      Over every land and sea,
+    Thoughts too deep for human speech
+      Rise from all our souls to Thee;
+    Deeper than the wrath that burns
+    Round our hosts when day returns;
+    Deeper than the peace that fills
+    All these trenched and waiting hills.
+            Hear, O hear!
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Pity deeper than the grave
+      Sees, beyond the death we wield,
+    Faces of the young and brave
+      Hurled against us in the field.
+    Cannon-fodder! They _must_ come,
+    We must slay them, and be dumb,
+    Slaughter, while we pity, these
+    Most implacable enemies.
+            Master, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    They are blind, as we are blind,
+      Urged by duties past reply.
+    Ours is but the task assigned;
+      Theirs to strike us ere they die.
+    Who can see his country fall?
+    Who but answers at her call?
+    Who has power to pause and think
+    When she reels upon the brink?
+            Hear, O hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Shield them from that bitterest lie
+      Laughed by fools who quote their mirth,
+    When the wings of death go by
+      And their brother shrieks on earth.
+    Though they clamp their hearts with steel,
+    Conquering _every_ fear they feel.
+    There are dreams they dare not tell.
+    Shield, O shield, their eyes from hell.
+            Father, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Where the naked bodies burn,
+      Where the wounded toss at home,
+    Weep and bleed and laugh in turn,
+      Yes, the masking jest may come.
+    Let him jest who daily dies.
+    But O hide his haunted eyes.
+    Pain alone he might control.
+    Shield, O shield his wounded soul.
+            Master, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    Peace? We steel us to the end.
+      Hope betrayed us, long ago.
+    Duty binds both foe and friend.
+      It is ours to break the foe.
+    Then, O God! that we might break
+    This red Moloch for Thy sake;
+    Know that Truth indeed prevails,
+    And that Justice holds the scales.
+            Father, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+    England, could this awful hour,
+      Dawning on thy long renown,
+    Mark the purpose of thy power,
+      Crown thee with that mightier crown!
+    Broadening to that purpose climb
+    All the blood-red wars of Time....
+    Set the struggling peoples free,
+    Crown with Law their Liberty!
+            England, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer!
+
+    Speed, O speed what every age
+      Writes with a prophetic hand.
+    Read the midnight's moving page,
+      Read the stars and understand:
+    _Out of Chaos ye shall draw
+    Deepening harmonies of Law,
+    Till around the Eternal Sun
+    All your peoples move in one._
+            Christ-God, hear,
+    Both for foe and friend, our prayer.
+
+
+
+
+                           The Gresham Press
+                        UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED
+                           WOKING AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rada, by Alfred Noyes
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADA ***
+
+***** This file should be named 44829.txt or 44829.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/8/2/44829/
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Paul Clark and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/44829.zip b/44829.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..850eb99
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44829.zip