Three Dramas by Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
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Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson >> Three Dramas
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The Mayor. But I don't understand, your Majesty!
The King. Don't you? You are an upright man yourself, Mr. Mayor--a
most worthy man.
The Mayor. I do not know whether your Majesty is pleased to jest
again?
The King. In sober earnest, I say you are one of the most upright
of men.
The Mayor. I cannot tell your Majesty how flattered I am to hear
your Majesty say so!
The King. Have you any decorations?
The Mayor. Your Majesty's government has not, so far, deigned to
cast their eyes on me.
The King. That fault will be repaired. Be sure of that!
The General (to the Mayor). To have that from his Majesty's own
mouth is equivalent to seeing it gazetted. I am fortunate to be
able to be the first to congratulate you!
Bang. Allow me to congratulate you also!
The Priest. And me too! I have had the honour of working hand in
hand with you, Mr. Mayor, for many years; I know how well deserved
such a distinction is.
The Mayor. I feel quite overcome; but I must beg to be allowed to
lay my thanks at your Majesty's feet. I trust I shall not prove
unworthy of the distinction. One hesitates to make such
confessions--but I am a candid man, and I admit that one of the
chief aims of my ambition has been to be allowed some day to
participate in--
The King (interrupting him). --in this falsehood. That just points
my moral. As long as even upright men's thoughts run in that mould,
Christianity cannot pretend to have any real hold on the nation. As
for your decoration, you are quite sure to get one from my
successor.--In a word, Christianity must tackle monarchy! And if it
cannot tear the falsehood from it without destroying it, then let
it destroy it!
The General. Your Majesty!
The King (turning to him). The same thing applies to a standing
army, which is a creation of monarchy's. I do not believe that
such an institution--with all its temptations to power, all its
inevitable vices and habits--could be tolerated if Christianity
were a living thing. Away with it!
The Priest. Really, your Majesty--!
The King (turning to him). The same applies to an established
church--another of monarchy's creations! If we had in our country a
Christianity worth the name, that salvation trade would stink in
men's nostrils. Away with it!
The Mayor (reproachfully). Oh, your Majesty!
The King (turning on him). The same applies to the artificial
disparity of circumstances that you prate about with tears in
your eyes! I heard you once. Class distinctions are fostered by
monarchy.
Bang. But equality is an impossibility!
The King. If _you_ would only make it possible--which it can be
made--even the socialists would cease to clamour for anything
else. I tell you this: Christianity has destroyed ideals.
Christianity lives on dogmas and formulas, instead of on ideals.
The Priest. Its ideals lead us away from earth to heaven--
The King. Not in a balloon, even if it were stuffed full of all the
pages of the Bible! Christianity's ideals will lead to heaven only
when they are realised on earth--never before.
The Priest. May I venture to say that Christianity's ideal is a
pious life.
The King. Yes. But does not Christianity aim at more than that,
or is it going to be content with making some few believers?
The Priest. It is written: "Few are chosen."
The King. Then it has given up the job in advance?
The Mayor. I think our friend is right, that Christianity has never
occupied itself with such things as your Majesty demands of it.
The King. But what I mean is, could it not bring itself to do so?
The Priest. If it did, it would lose sight of its _inner_ aim. The
earliest communities are the model for a Christian people!
The King (turning away from him). Oh, have any model you like, so
long as it leads to something!
The General. I must say I am astonished at the penetration your
Majesty slows even into the deepest subjects.
Bang. Yes, I have never heard anything like it! I have not had the
advantage of a university education, so I don't really understand
it.
The King. And to think that I imagined that I should find my
allies, my followers, in Christian people! One is so reluctant to
give up _all_ hope! I thought that a Christian nation would storm
the strongholds of lies in our modern, so-called Christian
communities--storm them, capture them!--and begin with monarchy,
because that would need most courage, and because its falsehood
lies deepest and goes farthest. I thought that Christianity would
one day prove to be the salt of the earth. No, do _not_ greet
Christianity from me. I have said nothing, and do not mean it. I am
what men call a betrayed man--betrayed by all the most ideal powers
of life. There! Now I have done!
The General. But what does your Majesty mean? Betrayed? By whom?
Who are the traitors? Really--!
The King. Pooh! Think it over!--As a matter of fact I am the only
one that has been foolish.
Bang. Your Majesty, just now you were so full of vigour--!
The King. Don't let that astonish you, my friend! I am a mixture of
enthusiasm and world-weariness; the scion of a decrepit race is not
likely to be any better than that, you know! And as for being a
reformer--! Ha, ha! Well, I thank you all for having listened to me
so patiently. Whatever I said had no significance--except perhaps
that, like the oysters, I had to open my shell before I died.--
Good-bye!
The General. I really cannot find it in my heart to leave your
Majesty when your Majesty is in so despondent a humour.
The King. I am afraid you will have to try, my gallant friend!--
Don't look so dejected, Mr. Mayor!--Suppose some day serious-minded
men should feel just as humiliated at such falsehoods existing as
you do now because you have not been allowed to participate in
them. I might perhaps be able to endure being king then! But as
things are now, I am not strong enough for the job. I feel as if I
had been shouldered out of actual life on to this strip of carpet
that I am standing on! That is what my attempts at reform have
ended in!
The Mayor. May I be allowed to say that the impression made on my
mind by the somewhat painful scene we have just gone through is
that your Majesty is overwrought.
The King. Mad, you mean?
The Mayor. God forbid I should use such a word of my King!
The King. Always punctilious!--Well, judging by the fact that every
one else considers themselves sane, I must undoubtedly be the mad
one. It is as simple as a sum in arithmetic.--And, in all
conscience, isn't it madness, when all is said and done, to take
such trifles so much to heart?--to bother about a few miserable
superannuated forms that are not of the slightest importance?--a
few venerable, harmless prejudices?--a few foolish social customs
and other trumpery affairs of that sort?
The General. Quite so!
The Mayor. Your Majesty is absolutely right!
Bang. I quite agree!
The Priest. It is exactly what I have been thinking all the time.
The King. And probably we had better add to the list certain
extravagant ideas--perhaps even certain dangerous ideas, like mine
about Christianity?
The Priest (hastily and impressively). Your Majesty is mistaken
on the subject of Christianity.
The Mayor. Christianity is entirely a personal matter, your
Majesty.
The General. Your Majesty expects too much of it. Now, as a comfort
for the dying--!
The King. And a powerful instrument of discipline.
The General (smiling). Ah, your Majesty!
Bang (confidentially). Christianity is no longer such a serious
matter nowadays, except for certain persons--. (Glances at the
PRIEST.)
The King. All I have to say on the head of such unanimous approval
is this: that in such a shallow society, where there is no
particular distinction between lies and truth, because most things
are mere forms without any deeper meaning--where ideals are
considered to be extravagant, dangerous things--it is not so _very_
amusing to be alive.
The General. Oh, your Majesty! Really, you--! Ha, ha, ha!
The King. Don't you agree with me?--Ah, if only one could grapple
with it!--but we should need to be many to do that, and better
equipped than I am.
The General. Better equipped than your Majesty? Your Majesty is the
most gifted man in the whole country!
All. Yes!
The General. Yes--your Majesty must excuse me--I spoke
involuntarily!
The Mayor. There was a tone running through all your Majesty said
that seemed to suggest that your Majesty was contemplating--.
(Breaks off.)
The King. --going away? Yes.
All. Going away?
The General. And abdicating? For heaven's sake, your Majesty--!
Bang. That would mean handing us over to the crown prince--the
pietist!
The Priest (betraying his pleasure in spite of himself). And his
mother!
The King. You are pleased at the idea, parson! It will be a sight
to see her and her son prancing along, with all of you in your best
clothes following them! Hurrah!
The General. Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!
Bang. Ha-ha-ha! (Coughs.) I get such a cough when I laugh.
The King (seriously). I had no intention of provoking laughter in
the presence of death. I can hear the sounds of mourning through
the open door.
The Mayor. With all due respect to the church--the vast majority of
the nation have no desire for things to come to _that_--to the
accession of a pietist to the throne. If your Majesty threatens to
abdicate you will have us all at your feet.
The General (with decision). The accession of a new king just now
would be universally considered a national calamity. I will wager
my life on that!
Bang. And I too!
The King. My excellent friends--you must take the consequences of
your actions!
The Mayor (despairingly). But _this_! Who ever imagined such a
thing?
The General and Bang. No one--no one!
The King. So much the worse. What is it you are asking me to do? To
stay where I am, so as to keep another man down? Is that work for a
man? Shame!
The Mayor (in distress). We ask more than that! Your Majesty is
making a fatal mistake! The whole of your Majesty's dissatisfaction
springs from the fact that you believe yourself to be deserted by
your people because the elections are going contrary to what your
Majesty had hoped. Nothing is further from the truth! The people
fight shy of revolutionary ideas; but they love their King!
Bang. They love their King!
The King. And that white dove, who came confidently to my hand--she
had some experience of what their love was!
The Mayor. The King's associates may displease the people; ideas
may alter; but love for their King endures!
The Others. Endures!
The King. Cease! Cease!
The General (warmly). Your Majesty may command us to do anything
except refrain from giving utterance to a free people's freely
offered homage of devotion, loyalty, and love for its royal house!
The Mayor (emotionally). There is no one who would not give his
life for his King!
Bang, The General, and The Priest. No one!
The General. Try us! (They all press forward.)
The King. Done with you! (Takes a revolver from his pocket.) Since
yesterday I have carried this little thing in my pocket. (They all
look alarmed.)
The Priest. Merciful heavens!
The King (holding out the revolver to him). Will you die for me? If
so, I will continue to be King.
The Priest. I? What does your Majesty mean? It would be a great
sin!
The King. You love me, I suppose?
All (desperately). Yes, your Majesty!
The King. Those who love, believe. Therefore, believe me when I say
this: If there is a single one of you who, without thinking twice
about it, will die for his King now--here--at once--then I shall
consider that as a command laid upon me to go on living and
working.
The Mayor (in a terrified whisper). He is insane!
The General (whispers). Yes!
The King. I can hear you!--But I suppose you love your King, even
if he is insane?
All (in agitated tones). Yes, your Majesty!
The King. Majesty, majesty! There is only One who has any majesty
about Him--certainly not a madman! But if I have been driven mad by
the lies that surround me, it would be a holy deed to make me sound
again. You said you would die for me. Redeem your words! That will
make me well again!--You, General?
The General. My beloved King, it would be--as our reverend friend
so aptly put it--a most dreadful sin.
The King. You have let slip a splendid opportunity for showing your
heroism.--You ought to have seen that I was only putting you to the
test!--Good-bye! (Goes into the room on the left.)
The General. Absolutely insane!
The Others. Absolutely.
The Mayor. Such great abilities, too! What might not have been made
of him!
Bang. The pity of it!
The Priest. I got so alarmed.
Bang. So did I! (A loud pistol-shot is heard.)
The Priest. Another shot? (A pitiful woman's cry is heard from the
other room.)
The Mayor. What on earth was that?
Bang. I daren't think!
The Priest. Nor I! (An old woman rushes out of the room on the
left, calling out: "Help!--Help!--The King!" and hurries out at the
back, calling: "The King! Help, help!" The GENERAL and the MAYOR
rush into the other room. Voices are heard outside asking: "The
King?--Was it the King?" The confusion and uproar grows. In the
midst of it ANNA comes stumbling out of the other room, her hands
stretched out before her, as if she did not know where she was
going. The noise and confusion grows louder every minute, and
crowds of people come rushing into the room from outside as the
Curtain falls.)
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