SCENE VI.
_The_ EMPRESS, FAITHFUL PRINCE, TRANQUIL BEAUTY, _The_ CAPTAIN _of the_ SOLDIERS, _A_ WATCHMAN.
EMPRESS [_To_ FAITHFUL PRINCE]
Prince, I wish to bid you farewell. My last spoken word must be to you, with my everlasting gratitude.
[_She raises the poison-cup to her lips._]
FAITHFUL PRINCE [_With a gesture as though to stop her._]
No, my Divine Empress, no. The hour of rest, alas! has not come for you or for me. No, your hard task is not yet completed!----
EMPRESS
My task, you say, is not yet completed? But the palace is only a ruin. The gates are giving way, the walls are crumbling----This time we can withstand the attack only ten minutes----it is the end!----
FAITHFUL PRINCE
Alas, I know it all too well. There is no hope.
EMPRESS
Then let me go----the Tartars are returning. Listen, I too begin to hear their war-trumpets. You would not have that they should take your Empress alive, or even find her body to throw to the crows.
FAITHFUL PRINCE
Hear me, I entreat you!----[_He motions to_ VEILED-LIGHT, _who has just appeared at the back. The_ EMPRESS _has set down the cup on a stone._] We have deferred making known to you the last heroic service which we purpose to demand---- Permit your Councillor to convey to you our unanimous opinion.
VEILED-LIGHT [_Bending the knee_]
Oh, Majesty, 200,000 soldiers have died for you. The few hundred, also, who remain here within our walls, are about to sacrifice their lives at once. Do you wish them to die for a lost cause. [_He motions to the_ CHIEF _of the Soldiers to approach._] Deign to permit their chief to add his prayers to ours.
_The_ CAPTAIN _of the_ SOLDIERS, [_After bending the knee._]
Proudly and without regret we give up our lives for our Sovereign----May she too do what we have learned to expect of her marvellous courage, a thousand times greater than that of her humble defenders.
VEILED-LIGHT
Oh, Majesty, we must envy these men who are about to die so gloriously. Our duty is otherwise; it is longer, it is more terrible.
EMPRESS
Our duty longer and more terrible?----Then what do you expect of me? Speak, what would you say. Your Empress will obey you, but speak at once, I do not understand. [_She takes again the golden cup._]
FAITHFUL PRINCE
What we must do, my beloved Sovereign, is to flee and live.
EMPRESS [_Violently_]
Ah, no! All that you have demanded of me I have done, but I refuse to take flight like a coward.
VEILED-LIGHT
To flee, alas! yes. But to escape from the enemy, to deprive them of the prize of war----and thus their success will be but failure. Soon the blood of our heroes will inspire other heroes. A new army will rally to the cause of the Daughter of Heaven, and the war will begin again.
EMPRESS
And more blood will be spilt----and the ravaged country will people the realm of the shades----No, no, enough of death's----I fear to have my reign handed down as that of a fatal and murderous Sovereign. All this blood! All this blood spilled for me! It seems to me that my very hands are red with it!
FAITHFUL PRINCE
The blood of your subjects is inexhaustible, and their devotion is limitless.
EMPRESS [_Suddenly becoming very calm and as though beseeching_]
But my courage is exhausted. [_Pointing to the Soldiers, who are piling wood upon the fire._] I want to die with them.
FAITHFUL PRINCE
Live, that their death may not have been in vain. Live to bring back our young Emperor, whom the Army of the South is protecting for us. Live for us all and for him.
EMPRESS
My son! Oh, speak not that name. Do not, to influence me, do not try to touch upon that string, that alone I forbid you touch. At the very moment when you tore him from me, I had an intuition that I should never see him again, never again gaze upon his dear little face, his beautiful eyes----I have courage to listen to all except when you speak to me of him,----for then, do you not see, I become again a mother, nothing but a mother, like other women, and I have no longer, no longer the strength.-[_She turns her head and begins to sob._] Oh, not to belong to one's self, not even to be allowed to lay down on the roadside the burden of one's life!----To be the impersonal idol of a whole people, to be dealt with in accordance with their will! To be a wretched fetish, whom all watch as carefully as the tablets of their ancestors on the family altar!----
FAITHFUL PRINCE
You are the shining standard, the ever-radiant goddess, toward whom we turn in our supreme distress----and you will do what millions of your subjects demand of you, through the mouths of these few brave men who are about to die.
THE WATCHMAN [_from the height of the turret,_] He hurls himself against their vanguard, the man who was here just now, the Messenger of peace----with the three others who accompanied him. He hurls himself against their vanguard as though to make them halt. Yes, he wishes them to stop, that is it. And he seems to command like a master, and to inspire them with fear.
EMPRESS [_To the_ Watchman]
So! Let not that man's name be mentioned again to me. And you, poor Watchman, whose task is finished, you may come down and join your brothers in arms, to die with them. Of what concern to us now are the movements of the Tartars? We are no longer of this world. [_To_ Faithful Prince] But how, then, is what you asked of me possible?----Surrounded on all sides, how and whither can we flee. Where can we hide? Where?
[_The_ Soldiers, _having loosened the rock, are standing in front of the bronze door, still holding their crowbars and pickaxes. They have an air of expectancy._]
FAITHFUL PRINCE
There in the tomb. On the cement lying all ready now to seal the rocks we shall throw dust----as soon you shall have entered.----
The EMPRESS [_After a silence, speaking slowly, submissive and very melancholy_] In my grave entombed alive! Be it so! And after that?----
FAITHFUL PRINCE
There is a subterranean passage, which passes through the vaults where your father and your husband sleep. You know, as I do, that its end opens out upon brushwood in the country, at the foot of the Hill of Tortures.
EMPRESS
[_Quickly and breathlessly_] If it is not already obstructed by the soil, yes! And all about the Hill of Tortures the Tartars are encamped.
FAITHFUL PRINCE
We will wait until they are no longer there.
EMPRESS
And shall we have sufficient air in this vault, where sleep our dead?
FAITHFUL PRINCE
Yes, I believe so----but let us take this potion with us which you wished to drink a while ago.
EMPRESS [_Very excitedly_]
And if the Tartars take us there, if they track us like beasts of the night, hunted into their burrows? Remember how they violated the tomb of my ancestor.
FAITHFUL PRINCE
It was not secret, like yours.
EMPRESS [_Still in great excitement_]
And, clothes wherewith to escape through the country where the enemy roams at large? [_Pointing to her uniform._] Not these, for sure?
FAITHFUL PRINCE
Some taken from the enemy will serve admirably----The ground must be covered with them.
EMPRESS
Rags torn from some festering corpse, is it thus you would clothe your Empress!----So be it, even to that I consent----But how can we live in the depths of that tomb? Since we are not yet of the Shades, we must eat, you know that. I divided my last grains of rice this morning with you and my soldiers!----What then?
FAITHFUL PRINCE [_Pointing to the tomb._]
The consecrated cakes there on the table of the dead.
EMPRESS
Horror and sacrilege!
VEILED-LIGHT
There is no sacrilege, when the safety of the Bright Dynasty is at stake. The August Shades will come in person to invite us to eat. Our sacrifice will make them indulgent and favourable.
EMPRESS [_Slowly_]
And so I must be the one to live in the chill gloom with no certainty of ever coming forth. I must be the one to creep about like a ghost in the vaults peopled by phantoms, groping my hands over the pious offerings shrivelling on the altars of the dead----Aye, it is indeed more terrible than dying here. But I accept it. Lead me on, I am resigned.
THE WATCHMAN [_From the top of the wall_]
The Tartars have stopped their march, a small group is running toward us, unarmed, but carrying signs on long poles. In spite of the darkness, it looks like a message which grants pardon.
EMPRESS
Ha, a forced pardon----that would be more insulting still. Bury me in my tomb, Prince, before they come.
FAITHFUL PRINCE [_Pointing to_ VEILED-LIGHT]
Your Councillor and I will follow you into the tomb, and perhaps two of these young girls if they feel brave enough for the ordeal.