Three Dramas, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson [best e reader for academics txt] 📗

to church, because of my cough. And in that unwholesome atmosphere--

The King.--you go to sleep. But you are a Christian?

Bang. Undoubtedly!

The King (to the Priest). And you are one, of course?

The Priest. By the grace of God I hope so!

The King (snapping his fingers). Yes, that is the regulation formula, my good fellow! You all answer by the card! Very well, then--you are a community of Christians; and it is not my fault if such a community refuses to take any serious interest in what really affects Christianity. Tell it from me that it ought to keep an eye on the monarchy.

The Priest. Christianity has nothing to do with such things. It concerns only the souls of men!

The King (aside). That voice. (Aloud.) I know--it does not concern itself with the air a patient breathes, but only with his lungs! Excellent!--All the same, Christianity ought to keep an eye on the monarchy. Ought to tear the falsehood away from it! Ought not to go in crowds to stare at a coronation in a church, like apes grinning at a peacock! I know what I felt at that moment. I had rehearsed it all once that morning already--ha, ha! Ask your Christianity if it may not be about time for it to interest itself a little in the monarchy? It seems to me that it scarcely ought any longer to allow monarchy, like a seductive harlot, to keep militarism before the people's eyes as an ideal--seeing that that is exactly contrary to the teachings of Christianity, or to encourage class divisions, luxury, hypocrisy and vanity. Monarchy has become so all-pervading a lie that it infects even the most upright of men.

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