Act II (continued 2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By the air and by the earth,

That I would rise above the will of others.

And as for what my right is, listen all!

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

I enter here and claim the book and crown!

Out of my way, old man!

The King: I will not let you pass.

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

Out, for there cannot be two kings in the hive! One of the two must vanish.

The King: I will not let you pass.

Tête-d'or: You will not stand aside?

(The king shakes his head.

Then die!

(He draws his sword and kills him.

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

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

A Voice (at the back of the hall): Death to him!

Five or Six Voices (at the back): Kill him! Seize him!

(They surge forward.

Tête-d'or: Back!

Vile scum, who of you will venture to defy me and confront me face to face!

Here is your King!

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

I tear it to pieces and throw the bits in your face, as I throw you

This!

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

Listen to me, you that are gathered here!

(Murmur in the hall. Tremendous uproar below.

Listen to me, you that are under my feet!

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

O King!

You asked me what right I had to reign. Will you deny the right of blood?

Look, with this I emblazon the title upon my face, like a light!

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

And I glory in that purple.

(He goes up to the throne and kicks it over.

Thus I overthrow you, throne of a day!

For I shall stand and not be seated.

Cries (in the crowd): Kill him! Seize him!

Tête-d'or: Now the moment has come between you and me

When either you must kill me or I must become your master.

Look, I am alone and unarmed!

(Pause.

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

Because you are cowards, because you bear the brand of a threefold degradation.

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

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

And the third is the spirit of the word and of speech.

But I shall let loose upon you a speech that you do not know,

Insatiable, irresistible,

I shall establish over you the empire of the sword,

The sword that pierces and divides, the sword that penetrates and pursues!

O imbecility! O inertia! Enormous burden of ignorant men! Behold I have risen,

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

And the world is crushing me, but I shall prevail against it.

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

In the name of the infinite ocean!

By the tragic birth of this day!

By the tempest

With which the peaks and pyramids that loom over desolated cities

Arm the South, assaulting the bleeding sky!

By the echoing crash of the thunder, by the sulphurous lung of ruddy lightning!

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

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

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

By the tranquillity of the murky air!

By armed apparitions in the blackness of the pines!

By the dreadful force of conflagration and irresistible flood,

By the whirlwind! By silence!

And by all terrible things!

Will not you that are here recognise at last who I am?

(Silence; then a lamentable voice in the crowd.

Tête-d'or! Tête-d'or!

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

Tête-d'or: I have not come like the humble god of the soup,

Benevolent, blinking his eyes in the steam of meat and cabbage.

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

Here you are pinched for room, I propose to lead you forth

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

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

By force and by possession.

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

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

The Go-Between: He has us in his hand. In an hour the army will be here.

The Tribune of the People: I will show the daughter of the King to the people.

(The air is filled with the clamor of bells. Cannon in the distance.

The Go-Between: Do you hear?

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

He is going to fetch the King's daughter and show her to the people.

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

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

The Brother of the King: Her?

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

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

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

And no women!

Someone (aside): His wife hates the Princess.

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

(The tribune of the people brings him the sword.

Tête-d'or: Take it!

(He hands him the sword in its sheath.

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

(The tribune of the people shakes his head and gives him back the sword.

I said, "Do what you please." Can you not keep it yourself?

The Tribune of the People: I ... I am the ... the....

The clamor of the yelling crowd.

Tête-d'or: Who would like my sword?

(He holds the sword in his hands. No one answers.

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

Sword! Sword!

Gage, unfailing hope, you

That have already conquered once!

I will lift you up like a torch, sign of immortal victory that I hold!

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

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

Man lives in illusion and piles up books around himself like straw.

But now I will devour all! I hold you, uplifted sword!

I stand in the midst of animals and I will not be seated.

And anger rises in me!

(He throws away the scabbard.

I defy you, arid country! You that refuse me any joy,

I will make you my domain!

Shine bare, bright blade, till this enterprise is ended!

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

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

If you fancy that you are men, and if your blood

Boils at the badges of your servitude,

Vent your pent rage! Oh cry,

And end your infamy!

Come! Let us set out!

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

Someone: Tête-d'or, what can we do?

Tête-d'or: And I, I say to you, "Who will dare to dare,

And, stamping the earth, cry 'I can' in the silence of Nothingness?"

The Same: Will you dare, yourself?

(Silence.

Tête-d'or: Time that moves and disposes all things

Withdraws from us like the sea,

And now on the solid earth there stands

For the first time a king.

(He picks up the crown from the floor.

Vanish, like wreaths of smoke, dreams, prestige, past, and you

Who look at me, I bid you dare

To contemplate with new eyes a new day!

In the name of everything, and not

Of the appearances that the dream of custom brings,

But of everything as it actually is, and in the name of truth and reason,

I place this crown on my head.

(He puts the crown on his head.

To-day for the first time the king of men uplifts a head encircled with gold!

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

For what can chaos itself and the night of creation avail

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

And fears neither pain nor death?

Murmur (in the crowd): He has put the crown on his head.

(Silence.

Tête-d'or (shouting): Search my heart and if you find there

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

I do not come here with an unworthy thought.

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

Shall he be the only one to speak of this? Will you be silent forever?

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

I have listened to you and I have understood, and also

I fought at your side when you gained the victory,

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

Like a runner carrying in his mouth a draught of water to one that thirsts!

Now that this air has fanned my martial cheek

And my eyes have been dazzled an instant by this miracle of suns,

I will fight, I will march in the place from whence it blows and shines.

And now I see another thing, O King!

You, who like a beggar before a prince,

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

And I kneel before you! Remember that I was the first to kneel.

Sigh, then Cry (among the onlookers): We kneel before you, O King!

(All except the leaders, kneel.

Tête-d'or: Rise! Rise!

Voice: We kneel before you.

Tête-d'or: Rise! Do not humble yourselves before me.

(They rise.

Voice: Then we will rise and now we stand at our full stature. Hail, O King!

Tête-d'or: I, the King! Ah!

What did you say?

Who am I? What have I said? What have I done?

Voice: Did you not stand before us and did you not....

Tête-d'or: Alas!

Who am I?

Alas! I myself am weak!

Voice: ... say

That you would make all force recoil before your face?

Tête-d'or: I am only a beggar! I cannot do it! Come!

If anyone knows another course to follow

Let him announce it and I will live in the grass of the field like an ox.

Voice: We do not know of one.

Tête-d'or: "I wish. I know. It shall be."

That word

Is sure. If the earth

Were only a quicksand, I would not be deceived.

Voice: Do you hesitate, now?

Tête-d'or (he shakes and spreads out his hair)

—By this hair,

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

Golden veil that I raise with my hands!

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

Imparts its counsel of peace.

Oh!

Is it not sure and visible, this thing?

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

See where I stand in your midst like a candelabrum.

—Bind up my hair, Cassius, and braid it like the tail of a horse.

(While Cassius binds up his hair.

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

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

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

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

I salute you, O King.

(He takes his bloody hand.

Tête-d'or: Thank you, sir!

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

O King!

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

The Tribune of the People (from where he stands):

I also salute you.

(tête-d'or makes no answer.

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

Tête-d'or: Salute also, voice of the streets, clamor of the markets.

Do your duty and cry! Cry and I will try to understand.

The Man Out of Office (hastily following this example): I salute you, O King!

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

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

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

(Silence.

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

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

As the sunlight gains an added sweetness

When it inundates old roofs after centuries of soot!

Suffer this hand to touch you! O effulgent Autumn, guide us!

(He rises.

And now I stand again.

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

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

Space is free! The earth is flat like a field of beets in October,

The world shall behold! And it shall be astonished!

And like a perjured judge

Passing sentence against itself, shall fall from its rotten judgment seat,

While our trumpets through the fields shall blare so loudly

That never from that day forth shall the clang of copper and bronze

Be thought sonorous.

Tête-d'or: In the midst of the Earth there is a field

And he who, from spurs to crest

Wreathes himself with the fumiter and bluets that flower there,

—By the plains and the amphitheatre of mountains,

By the seas, by the swollen rivers and by the murmuring forests,

Shall be hailed as King, Father,

Stem of Justice, Throne of Thrift!

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

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

I shall not fear! But I shall fare forth like the famine and the cyclone!

Hate and Anger

And Vengeance and the frenzied Image of Pain

March before me, and Hope unveils its solemn face!

Come! the time commands and the road will no longer be denied.

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

(Enter the princess veiled in black.

What woman's shape is this that stands before me! Unveil!

The Princess: O Father, are you here?

Tête-d'or: He is here.

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

And if you ask why I wear this mourning veil that prevents my seeing you

It is to honor you, like my native land

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

And I have learned that Cébès is no more.

I salute you, victorious head!

(She removes her veil and looks at him.

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

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

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

(Silence.

The Schoolmaster (weeping, to tête-d'or): Behold her, O King, and have pity!

I was her tutor and when she was but a child I held her on my knee,

When in her picture book I showed her the images of the creation.

And on her fête-day, according to ancient custom,

When the women came to cure their baby's spasms,

At mid-day when in her cymar of flowered silk she appeared on the topmost step

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

All the people were like a man on whom there suddenly falls

The healing shadow of whispering branches,

So much upon the air, like a sweet and gracious breeze,

Poured forth the fragrant smell of the ancient, royal vine!

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

Behold her, O King! Like a purchased ewe she is here beneath your hand.

(Silence.

The Princess: Will you not kill me also?

(She slowly raises her head and looks about her.

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

Not a friend is left me and everyone turns towards me a hostile face.

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

And you, my father's brother, stand at his murderer's right hand!

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

The Princess: O Father! O Father!

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

It is thus that they have wearied of allegiance and thrown you to the earth,

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

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

Are stains like those on the walls of a slaughter-house!

(She tears her mantle in two.

Treason! Treason!

Sun, behold this impious act!

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

You have had enough of me,

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

I will go out from the midst of you, O iniquitous and fraudulent hearts!

I strip you from me like these vain adornments!

(She tears off her ornaments and throws them down.

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

And now permit me to depart if I am free to go,

For I cannot endure the glance of yonder basilisk!

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

Behold this hand, behold me, young girl, it is I who killed your father!

I offered him as a fitting sacrifice

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

For I saved this land with my sword, and turning upon its incapable master,

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

The Princess: Father! Father!

Tête-d'or: Cry! Call him!

"Father! Father!" See, doubtless he hears. Call louder!

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

And you, where were you before you were born, work of the womb?

So, having lived, we return to the same nameless nothingness

A human soul inflated with love and malediction!

That is why I shall do my part here and shall rise like a lofty tree.

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

And your own shall flow like a spring.

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

Let it flow, let it submerge the world!

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

—And now,

And now, depart! There is no place for you here.

The Princess: Let me carry my father with me.

Tête-d'or: Take him! Carry away the fallen.

The Princess (kneeling before the body): Sire!

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

And as you carried me here and there in your arms when I was already grown,

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

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

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

I killed him scarcely seeing him, like a partridge shot in a dream,

Or as the hurrying traveller pulls up an importunate fern.

—I have said what I had to say and soon

I shall announce to you what we shall undertake.

My time is at hand.

Like the arch of the rainbow my glory shall rise above the world,

Announcing to those who see it the birth of a new day!

I breathe you again! I worship you, sweet perfume of victory!

Rose, give me your scent! Sun, cover your face in your bed of celestial down!

And bury this child.

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

This dead child! The dawn of my future glory!

(He goes out with a convulsive sob.

(Pause.

(Enter the group of Mourners who take their places around the body of cébès.

(Drum-beats. They raise the body on their shoulders and sombrely go out.

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

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

Cassius (to an officer): What is the matter?

The Officer: They say that he has been assassinated.

(cassius mounts upon the throne and draws his sword.

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

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

Clamor: Tête-d'or!

(The soldiers form in ranks, around the flags, and march about the hall.

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