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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_).

