(_The German KAISER and a wounded Belgian Officer, a Prisoner._)
_The Kaiser._ So, then, you are still in arms against me, still persisting
in your insane desire for battle and bloodshed? Will nothing content you?
Must you compel us to continue in our enmity when by a word peace might be
established between us, and Belgium might take her place at the side of
Germany as a sister-nation striving with us to promote the cause of true
civilisation?
_The Belgian._ It is useless, Sir, to say such things to any Belgian.
_The Kaiser._ Why useless? Do you not wish that death and ruin and misery
should cease?
_The Belgian._ Certainly we do. No one more ardently than the Belgians, for
it was not we who desired war or began the contest. But when you talk of
stopping we must remind you that it was by your deliberate choice that war
was treacherously forced on us. What could we do except defend ourselves
against the dastardly blow that you aimed at our life? And after that it
was not by us that Louvain was destroyed, that old men and women and
children were ruthlessly massacred. Do you think such scenes can be wiped
out of the memory of a nation, so that her men shall turn round and kiss
the bloodstained hand that has tried to throttle them? Surely you expect
too much.
_The Kaiser._ You speak too freely. Remember in whose presence you are.
_The Belgian._ There is not much fear that I shall forget. I am in the
presence of one who has desired at all costs to concentrate on himself the
gaze of the world, caring nothing as to the means by which he accomplished
his object. This man, for he is, after all, only a poor human creature
prone to anger, suspicion and foolish jealousy--this man has always gone
about arrogating to himself the attributes of a god, calling upon his own
people to worship him, and on all other peoples to be humble before him.
Stung by his own restless vanity and the servile applause of those who are
ever ready to prostrate themselves before an Emperor, he has rushed hither
and thither seeking to make others the mere foils of his splendour and his
wisdom, making mischief wherever he went and striving to irritate and
depress his neighbours. This man in peace was a bad neighbour, and in war a
base and treacherous foe, sanctioning by his enthusiastic approval such
deeds as the meanest villain would have contemplated with shame.
_The Kaiser._ This is too much. I gave you leave to speak, but not to
revile me. You must not forget that you are in my power.
_The Belgian._ A noble threat! But it is right and proper that men like
you, who think they are infallible because their cringing flatterers tell
them so, should sometimes hear the truth. You dare, forsooth, to talk to a
Belgian of your magnanimity and your desire for peace. Cannot you realise
that our nation has been tempered by outrage and ruin; that exile and the
ruthless breaking of their homes only serve to make its men and women more
resolute; that even if others were to cease fighting against you, and if
her sword were broken, Belgium would dash its hilt in your face till breath
and life were driven out of her mangled body; that, in short, we hate you
for your cruelty and despise you for your baseness; and that for the
future, wherever there is a Belgian, there is one who is the enemy of the
thing called KAISER.
_The Kaiser._ Enough, enough. I did not come here to be insulted. If you
have suffered, you and your nation, it is because you have deserved to
suffer for having dared to set yourself against Germany, whom our good old
German god has appointed to lead the way in righteousness to the goal
marked out for her.
_The Belgian._ Sir, when you speak like that you are no doubt a marvel in
your own eyes, but to others you are a laughing-stock, a mere scare-crow
dressed up to resemble a man, a thing of shreds and patches to whom for a
time the inscrutable decrees of Providence have permitted a dreadful power.
But we are resolute to endure to the end, and your blandishments will avail
as little as your threats.
* * * * *