Plays Political

by Dan Laurence

  JEW. A Jew is a human being. Has he not a right of way and settlement everywhere upon the earth?

  BATTLER. Nowhere without a passport. That is the law of nations.

  JEW. I have been beaten and robbed. Is that the law of nations?

  BATTLER. I am sorry. I cannot be everywhere; and all my agents are not angels.

  THE JEW [triumphantly] Ah! Then you are NOT God Almighty, as you pretend to be. [To the Judge] Your honor: I am satisfied. He has admitted his guilt. [He flings himself back into his seat].

  BATTLER. Liar. No Jew is ever satisfied. Enough. You have your warning. Keep away; and you will be neither beaten nor robbed. Keep away, I tell you. The world is wide enough for both of us. My country is not.

  THE JEW. I leave myself in the hands of the court. For my race there are no frontiers. Let those who set them justify themselves.

  BBDE. Mr President: if you allow Ernest to expatiate on the Jewish question we shall get no further before bed-time. He should have waited for a lead from me before meddling with it, and forcing me to banish the Jews lest my people should be swamped by the multitudes he has driven out. I say he should have waited. I must add that I have no use for leaders who do not follow me.

  BATTLER. I am no follower of yours. When has a Nordic ever stooped to follow a Latin Southerner?

  BBDE. You forget that my country has a north as well as a south, a north beside whose mountains your little provincial Alps are molehills. The snows, the crags, the avalanches, the bitter winds of those mountains make men, Ernest, MEN! The trippers’ paradise from which you come breeds operatic tenors. You are too handsome, Ernest: you think yourself a blond beast. Ladies and gentlemen, look at him! Is he a blond beast? The blondest beast I know is the Calabrian bull. I have no desire to figure as a blond beast; but I think I could play the part more plausibly than Ernest if it were my cue to do so. I am everything that you mean by the word Nordic. He is a born Southerner; and the south is the south, whether it be the south of the Arctic circle or the south of the equator. Race is nothing: it is the number of metres above sealevel that puts steel into men. Our friend here was born at a very moderate elevation. He is an artist to his finger tips; but his favorite play as a boy was not defying avalanches. As to our races, they are so mixed that the whole human race must be descended from Abraham; for everybody who is alive now must be descended from everybody who was alive in Abraham’s day. Ernest has his share in Abraham.

  BATTLER. This is an intolerable insult. I demand satisfaction. I cannot punch your head because you are at least two stone heavier than I; but I will fight you with any weapon that will give me a fair chance against you.

  THE JUDGE. Gentlemen: you are at the Hague, and in a Court of Justice. Duels are out of date. And your lives are too valuable to be risked in that way.

  BBDE. True, your Excellency. I admit that Ernest’s ancestors are totally unknown. I apologize.

  BATTLER. I dont want an apology. I want satisfaction. You shall not rob me of it by apologizing. Are you a coward?

  BBDE. We are both cowards, Ernest. Remember 1918. All men are cowards now.

  BATTLER [rising] I shall go home.

  WIDOW [rising] You shall not. Here at least we have come to the real business of this court; and you want to run away from it. If a man of you stirs I shall shoot [Panic].

  BBDE. Hands up, Ernest [politely holding up his own].

  THE WIDOW. Listen to me. In my country men fight duels every day. If they refuse they become pariahs: no one will visit them or speak to them: their women folk are driven out of society as if they were criminals.

  BATTLER. It was so in my country. But I have stopped it.

  JUDGE. Yet you want to fight a duel yourself.

  BATTLER. Not for etiquette. For satisfaction.

  THE WIDOW. Yes: that is what men always want. Well, look at me. I am a murderess [general consternation]. My husband wanted satisfaction of another kind. He got it from my dearest friend; and etiquette obliged me to kill her. In my dreams night after night she comes to me and begs me to forgive her; and I have to kill her again. I long to go mad; but I cannot: each time I do this dreadful thing I wake up with my mind clearer and clearer, and the horror of it deeper and more agonizing.

  BATTLER [flinching] Stop this. I cannot bear it.

  BBDE. Who is this woman? What right has she to be here?

  WIDOW. My name is Revenge. My name is Jealousy. My name is the unwritten law that is no law. Until you have dealt with me you have done nothing.

  JUDGE. You have a specific case. State it.

  WIDOW. My husband has been murdered by his successor. My son must murder him if there is to be no redress but the blood feud; and I shall dream and dream and kill and kill. I call on you to condemn him.

  BBDE. And condemn you.

  WIDOW. I shall condemn myself. Pass your sentence on me; and I shall execute it myself, here in this court if you will.

  JUDGE. But do you not understand that the judgments of this court are followed by no executions? They are moral judgments only.

  WIDOW. I understand perfectly. You can point the finger of the whole world at the slayer of my husband and say “You are guilty of murder.” You can put the same brand on my forehead. That is all you need do, all you can do. Then my dreams will cease and I shall kill myself. As for him, let him bear the brand as best he can.

  JUDGE. That is the justice of this court. I thank you, señora, for your comprehension of it.

  BATTLER [distressed by the narrative] I cannot bear this. Order that woman not to kill herself.

  BBDE. No. If she has a Roman soul, who dares forbid her?

  JUDGE. My authority does not go so far, Mr Battler.

  BATTLER. Your authority goes as far as you dare push it and as far as it is obeyed. What authority have I? What authority has Bardo? What authority has any leader? We command and are obeyed: that is all.

  BBDE. That is true, signor judge. Authority is a sort of genius: either you have it or you have not. Either you are obeyed or torn to pieces. But in some souls and on some points there is an authority higher than any other. Of such is the Roman soul; and this is one of the points on which the Roman soul stands firm. The woman’s life is in her own hands.

  BATTLER. No: I tell you I cannot bear it. Forbid her to kill herself or I will leave the court.

  JUDGE. Señora : I forbid you to kill yourself. But I will sentence the slayer of your husband when his offence is proved; and by that act I will deliver you from your dreams.

  WIDOW. I thank your Honor [she sits down].

  JUDGE. Are you satisfied, Mr Battler?

  BATTLER. I also thank your Honor. I am satisfied [he resumes his seat; but his emotion has not yet quite subsided].

  BBDE. No duel then?

  BATTLER. Do not torment me. [Impatiently] Bardo: you are a damned fool.

  BBDE. [hugely amused] Ha ha! [To the Judge] The incident is closed.

  An attractive and very voluble middleaged English lady enters. She is dressed as a deaconess and carries a handbag full of tracts.

  DEACONESS. May I address the court? [She goes on without waiting for a reply]. I feel strongly that it is my duty to do so. There is a movement in the world which is also a movement in my heart. It is a movement before which all war, all unkindness, all un-charitableness, all sin and suffering will disappear and make Geneva superfluous. I speak from personal experience. I can remember many witnesses whose experience has been like my own. I——

  BBDE. [thundering at her] Madam: you have not yet received permission to address us.

  DEACONESS [without taking the slightest notice of the interruption] It is so simple! and the happiness it brings is so wonderful! All you have to do is to open your heart to the Master.

  BATTLER. What master? I am The Master.

  BBDE. There are others, Ernest.

  DEACONESS. If you knew what I was, and what I am, all that you are doing here would seem the idlest trifling.

  BATTLER [shouting] Who is t
he Master? Name him.

  DEACONESS. Not so loud, please. I am not deaf; but when one is listening to the inner voice it is not easy to catch external noises.

  BATTLER. I am not an external noise. I am the leader of my people. I may become leader of many peoples. Who is this Master of whom you speak?

  DEACONESS. His beloved name, sir, is Jesus. I am sure that when you were a child your mother taught you to say “All hail the power of Jesu’s name.”

  THE BETROTHED. “Let angels prostrate fall.”

  BEGONIA. Now shut up, Billikins. I wont have you laughing at religion.

  BBDE. In Ernest’s country, madam they say Heil Battler. He has abolished Jesus.

  DEACONESS. How can you say that? Jesus is stronger than ever. Jesus is irresistible. You can perhaps unify your countrymen in love of yourself. But Jesus can unite the whole world in love of Him. He will live when you are dust and ashes. Can you find the way to my heart as Jesus has found it? Can you make better men and women of them as Jesus can? Can——

  BATTLER. I have made better men and women of them. I live for nothing else. I found them defeated, humiliated, the doormats of Europe. They now hold up their heads with the proudest; and it is I, Battler, who have raised them to spit in the faces of their oppressors.

  DEACONESS. Jesus does not spit in people’s faces. If your people are really raised up, really saved, it is Jesus who has done it; and you, sir, are only the instrument.

  NEWCOMER [rising] A point of order, mister. Is this a court of justice or is it not? Are we to be interrupted by every dotty female who starts preaching at us? I protest.

  DEACONESS. It is no use protesting, my friend. When He calls you must follow.

  NEWCOMER. Rot. Where are the police?

  THE JUDGE. The peculiarity of this court, sir, is that there are no police. The lady is raising a point of general importance: one we must settle before we can come to any fruitful conclusions here. I rule that Jesus is a party in this case.

  NEWCOMER. You are as dotty as she is. I say no more. [He resumes his seat sulkily].

  THE JEW. A party in what capacity, may I ask? I speak as a Jew, if Mr Battler will permit me.

  THE JUDGE. In the capacity of a famous prophet who laid down the law in these words, “This commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.” Are you prepared to love one another?

  ALL EXCEPT SIR O. [vociferously] No.

  SIR O. Not indiscriminately.

  THE BRITISH CONTINGENT. Hear hear!

  SIR O. What about the Unlovables? Judas Iscariot, for instance?

  DEACONESS. If he had loved the Master he would not have betrayed Him. What a proof of the truth of my message!

  BBDE. Do you love Ernest here?

  DEACONESS. Why of course I do, most tenderly.

  BATTLER. Woman: do not presume.

  BBDE. Ha! ha! ha!

  DEACONESS. Why should I not love you? I am your sister in Christ. What is there to offend you in that? Is not this touchiness a great trouble to you? You can easily get rid of it. Bring it to Jesus. It will fall from you like a heavy burden; and your heart will be light, oh, so light! You have never been happy. I can see it in your face.

  BBDE. He practises that terrible expression for hours every day before the looking glass; but it is not a bit natural to him. Look at my face: there you have the real thing.

  DEACONESS. You have neither of you the light in your eyes of the love of the Master. There is no happiness in these expressions that you maintain so industriously. Do you not find it very tiresome to have to be making faces all day? [Much laughter in the British section].

  BATTLER. Is this to be allowed? The woman is making fun of us.

  DEACONESS. I cannot make fun. But God has ordained that when men are childish enough to fancy that they are gods they become what you call funny. We cannot help laughing at them.

  BBDE. Woman: if you had ever had God’s work to do you would know that He never does it Himself. We are here to do it for Him. If we neglect it the world falls into the chaos called Liberty and Democracy, in which nothing is done except talk while the people perish. Well, what you call God’s work, His hardest work, His political work, cannot be done by everybody: they have neither the time nor the brains nor the divine call for it. God has sent to certain persons this call. They are not chosen by the people: they must choose themselves: that is part of their inspiration. When they have dared to do this, what happens? Out of the Liberal democratic chaos comes form, purpose, order and rapid execution.

  NEWCOMER. Yes, the executions come along all right. We know what dictators are.

  BBDE. Yes: the triflers and twaddlers are swept away. This trifler and twaddler here can see nothing but his own danger, which raises his twaddle to a squeak of mortal terror. He does not matter. His selfchosen ruler takes him by the scruff of the neck and flings him into some island or camp where he and his like can trifle and twaddle without obstructing God’s effectives. Then comes this pious lady to bid me turn to God. There is no need: God has turned to me; and to the best of my ability I shall not fail Him, in spite of all the Democratic Liberal gabblers. I have spoken. Now it is your turn, Ernest, if you have anything left to say.

  BATTLER. You have said it all in your oldfashioned way, perhaps more clearly than I could have said it. But this woman’s old fairy tales do not explain me, Ernest Battler, born a nobody, and now in command above all kings and kaisers. For my support is no dead Jew, but a mighty movement in the history of the world. Impelled by it I have stretched out my hand and lifted my country from the gutter into which you and your allies were trampling it, and made it once more the terror of Europe, though the danger is in your own guilty souls and not in any malice of mine. And mark you, the vision does not stop at my frontiers, nor at any frontier. Do not mistake me: I am no soldier dreaming of military conquests: I am what I am, and have done what I have done, without winning a single battle. Why is this? Because I have snapped my fingers in the face of all your Jewish beliefs and Roman traditions, your futile treaties and halfhearted threats, and the vulgar abuse you have spat at me from your platforms and newspapers like the frightened geese you are. You must all come my way, because I march with the times, and march as pioneer, not as camp follower. As pioneer I know that the real obstacle to human progress is the sort of mind that has been formed in its infancy by the Jewish Scriptures. That obstacle I must smash through at all costs; and so must you, Bardo, if you mean to be yourself and not the tool of that accursed race.

  COMMISSAR. I must intervene. Are we here to discuss the Jewish problem? If so, I have no business here: my country has solved it. And we did not solve it by badinage.

  BBDE. Badinage! Are our proceedings to be described as badinage by a Bolshevist?

  SECRETARY. You see how hopeless it is for us to get any further. You have only to say the word Jew to Herr Battler or the word Bolshevist to Signor Bombardone, and they cease to be reasonable men. You have only to say Peckham to the representative of the Intellectual Committee of the League of Nations to reveal her as an irreconcilable belligerent. You have—

  BEGONIA. Whats that he called me? It sounded awful. What does it mean, Uncle O ?

  SIR O. I understood the secretary to imply that however large-minded your view of the brotherhood of mankind, you must make an exception in the case of Peckham.

  BEGONIA. Okay. No Peckham for me. And mind: on that point I am a representative woman. Sorry I interrupted. Carry on, old man.

  SECRETARY. I thank you, Dame Begonia. I must add, with great respect for the British Foreign Secretary, that you have only to say British Empire to discover that in his view the rest of the world exists only as a means of furthering the interests of that geographical expression.

  SIR O. Surely the British Empire is something more than a geographical expression. But of course with me the British Empire comes first.

  SECRETARY. Precisely. And as a common basis of agreement this lady has proposed the policy of the Sermon on the Mount.
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br />   DEACONESS. Love oneanother. It is so simple.

  SECRETARY. It turns out that we do not and cannot love oneanother—that the problem before us is how to establish peace among people who heartily dislike oneanother, and have very good reasons for doing so: in short, that the human race does not at present consist exclusively or even largely of likeable persons.