soon be time for you to leave. I'll give you something to eat at once. Pierre, do you think it is true that they are killing women and children? I don't know.

PIERRE

It is true, mother.

EMIL GRELIEU

How can you say it, Jeanne? You don't know?

JEANNE

I say this on account of the children. Yes, there they write that they are killing children, so they write there. And all this was crowded upon that little slip of paper—and the children, as well as the fire—

Rises quickly and walks away, humming.

EMIL GRELIEU

Where are you going, Jeanne?

JEANNE

Nowhere in particular. François, do you hear? They are murdering our women and children. François! François!

Without turning around, François walks out, his shoulders bent. All look after him. Jeanne goes to the other door with a strange half-smile.

PIERRE

Mamma!

JEANNE

I will return directly.

EMIL GRELIEU

What shall I call them? What can I call them? My dear Pierre, my boy, what shall I call them?

PIERRE

You are greatly agitated, father.

EMIL GRELIEU

I have always thought, I have always been convinced that words were at my command, but here I stand before this monstrous, inexplicable—I don't know, I don't know what to call them. My heart is crying out, I hear its voice, but the word! Pierre, you are a student, you are young, your words are direct and pure—Pierre, find the word!

PIERRE

You want me to find it, father? Yes, I was a student, and I knew certain words: Peace, Right, Humanity. But now you see! My heart is crying too, but I do not know what to call these scoundrels. Scoundrels? That is not sufficient.

In despair.

Not sufficient.

EMIL GRELIEU

That is not strong enough. Pierre, I have decided—

PIERRE

Decided?

EMIL GRELIEU

Yes, I am going.

PIERRE

You, father?

EMIL GRELIEU

I decided to do it several days ago—even then, at the very beginning. And I really don't know why I—. Oh, yes, I had to overcome within me—my love for flowers.

Ironically.

Yes, Pierre, my love for flowers. Oh, my boy, it is so hard to change from flowers to iron and blood!

PIERRE

Father, I dare not contradict you.

EMIL GRELIEU

No, no, you dare not. It is not necessary. Listen, Pierre, you must examine me as a physician.

PIERRE

I am only a student, father.

EMIL GRELIEU

Yes, but you know enough to say—. You see, Pierre, I must not burden our little army with a single superfluous sick or weak man. Isn't that so? I must bring with me strength and power, not shattered health. Isn't that so? And I am asking you, Pierre, to examine me, simply as a physician, as a young physician. But I feel somewhat embarrassed with you—. Must I take this off, or can you do it without removing this?

PIERRE

It can be done this way.

EMIL GRELIEU

I think so, too. And—must I tell you everything, or—? At any rate, I will tell you that I have not had any serious ailments, and for my years I am a rather strong, healthy man. You know what a life I am leading.

PIERRE

That is unnecessary, father.

EMIL GRELIEU

It is necessary. You are a physician. I want to say that in my life there were none of those unwholesome—and bad excesses. Oh, the devil take it, how hard it is to speak of it.

PIERRE

Papa, I know all this.

Quickly kisses his father's hand. Silence.

EMIL GRELIEU

But it is necessary to take my pulse, Pierre, I beg of you.

PIERRE

Smiling faintly.

It isn't necessary to do even that. As a physician, I can tell you that you are healthy, but—you are unfit for war, you are unfit for war, father! I am listening to you and I feel like crying, father.

EMIL GRELIEU

Thoughtfully.

Yes, yes. But perhaps it is not necessary to cry. Do you think, Pierre, that I should not kill? Pierre, you think, that I, Emil Grelieu, must not kill under any circumstances and at any time?

PIERRE

Softly.

I dare not touch upon your conscience, father.

EMIL GRELIEU

Yes, that is a terrible question for a man. I must kill, Pierre. Of course, I could take your gun, but not to fire—no, that would have been disgusting, a sacrilegious deception! When my humble people are condemned to kill, who am I that I should keep my hands clean? That would be disgusting cleanliness, obnoxious saintliness. My humble nation did not desire to kill, but it was forced, and it has become a murderer. So I, too, must become a murderer, together with my nation. Upon whose shoulders will I place the sin—upon the shoulders of our youths and children? No, Pierre. And if ever the Higher Conscience of the world will call my dear people to the terrible accounting, if it will call you and Maurice, my children, and will say to you: "What have you done? You have murdered!" I will come forward and will say: "First you must judge me; I have also murdered—and you know that I am an honest man!"

Pierre sits motionless, his face covered with his hands. Enter Jeanne, unnoticed.

PIERRE

Uncovering his face.

But you must not die! You have no right!

EMIL GRELIEU

Loudly, and with contempt.

Oh, death!

They notice Jeanne, and grow silent. Jeanne sits down and speaks in the same tone of strange, almost cheerful calm.

JEANNE

Emil, she is here again.

EMIL GRELIEU

Yes? She is here again. Where has she been the last two nights?

JEANNE

She does not know herself. Emil, her dress and her hands were in blood.

EMIL GRELIEU

She is wounded?

JEANNE

No, it is not her own blood, and by the color I could not tell whose blood it is.

PIERRE

Who is that, mother?

JEANNE

A girl. Just a girl. She's insane. I have combed her hair and put a clean dress on her. She has beautiful hair. Emil, I have heard something—I understand that you want to go—?

EMIL GRELIEU

Yes.

JEANNE

Together with your children, Emil?

EMIL GRELIEU

Yes. Pierre has examined me and finds that I am fit to enter the ranks.

JEANNE

You intend to go tomorrow?

EMIL GRELIEU

Yes.

JEANNE

You cannot manage it today. Pierre, you have only an hour and a half left.

Silence.

PIERRE

Mamma! Tell him that he must not—Forgive me, father!—that he should not go. Isn't that true, mother? Tell him! He has given to the nation his two sons—what more should he give? He has no right to give more.

JEANNE

More, Pierre?

PIERRE

Yes,—his life. You love him; you, yourself, would die if he were killed—tell him that, mother!

JEANNE

Yes, I love him. I love you, too.

PIERRE

Oh, what are we, Maurice and I? But he! Just as they have no right to destroy temples in war or to bum libraries, just as they have no right to touch the eternal, so he—he—has no right to die. I am speaking not as your son, no; but to kill Emil Grelieu—that would be worse than to bum books. Listen to me! You have brought me into this world. Listen to me!—although I am young and should be silent—Listen to me! They have already