Judith, a play in three acts | Page 2

you. Thirst! Thirst has brought me out of my house. Every morning and every evening my great-grandchild serves me with pulse and water. For five days she has furnished less and less water, and this day--not a drop! Can one eat pulse without water to drink? Half an hour ago I went to her to reason with her, and she lay on her bed cracked, and raved that she herself had not drunk for three days and that there was no water left in all Bethulia. So I came at last out of my house into the streets of this city famous for its cool fountains which never fail. And lo! I meet the governor of this city, and he is Ozias! Ozias! Seven days do men mourn for him that is dead, but for an ungodly man all the days of his life! Why is there no water in Bethulia, sprig?
OZIAS. Old man, meditation is good and solitude is good, but think not because you sit staring all day at your own belly that the sun and stars have ceased to revolve round the earth and the kings of this world to make war. Is it possible that you do not know what has happened?
CHABRIS. I only know that I cannot eat pulse without water to drink.
OZIAS. Bethulia is besieged.
CHABRIS. Who is besieging Bethulia?
OZIAS. Holofernes.
CHABRIS. I have never heard his name. Who is he?
OZIAS. Never heard the name of the chief captain of Nebuchadnezzar? Have you heard the name of Nebuchadnezzar, by chance?
CHABRIS. I seem to remember it.
OZIAS. Come up here. (_They go up the steps to the vantage-point_.) Look! A hundred and twenty thousand foot-soldiers. Twelve thousand archers on horseback. Oxen and sheep for their provisions. Twenty thousand asses for their carriages. Camels without number. Infinite victuals; and very much gold and silver. The like was never seen before.
CHABRIS (stepping down.) Why has Nebuchadnezzar set about this thing? What harm has Bethulia done to him?
OZIAS. Much harm. Nebuchadnezzar has decided to be God. He has decreed that all nations and tribes shall call upon him as God. And he has conquered the whole earth, excepting only Judea; and Bethulia is the gate into Judea, and Bethulia has not listened to his decree, and I am the governor of Bethulia. So Nebuchadnezzar the great king is very angry and Holofernes is the tool of his wrath.
CHABRIS (going up the steps again and gazing.) How many did you say?
OZIAS. A hundred and twenty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse.
CHABRIS. At any rate this will be the last war.
OZIAS. Why?
CHABRIS. Why! Because plainly war cannot continue on such a scale. Or if it does, mankind is destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar has rendered war ridiculous.
OZIAS _(laughs; then half to himself, sarcastically)._ What is heavier than lead, and what is the name thereof, but an aged fool?
CHABRIS (_descending again, self-centred_). It remains that I cannot eat pulse without water to drink. (To Ozias.) And surely Bethulia has more wells than any other city of Judea.
OZIAS. The wells are at the foot of the hills, and Holofernes has seized them all.
CHABRIS. That is not fighting.
OZIAS. It is war.
CHABRIS. No, no! In my time soldiers fought fairly.
OZIAS. And killed each other. Why should Holofernes sacrifice thousands of lives to take the heights when he can reach the same result by letting his men sit still and watch?
CHABRIS. I say this is not war. Once I travelled many days to Nineveh. It is a city of extravagance, and when I beheld its mad, new-fangled ways, I knew that the last day was nigh. I was right. Three thousand and five hundred years since Jehovah created Adam, and Eve from his rib ... Too long! Too long! And what is pulse without water? I must have water.
OZIAS. It is thirty-four days since Holofernes took the wells. If you have received water up to yesterday your great-grandchild must indeed have thirsted that you might drink. I have distributed water by measure, but now the cisterns are empty, and women and young men fall down in the streets, and there is no water in Bethulia. We are all in like case, the high and the lowly.
CHABRIS. Then give me your bottle.
OZIAS. What bottle?
CHABRIS. I saw you put it from your lips as I came.
OZIAS. It behoves you to understand, old man, that my solemn duty as governor is to maintain my own strength, for if I fell the city would fall. Without me to inspire them the populace would yield in a moment. What is the populace? Poltroons, animals, sheep, rabbits, insects, lice!
CHABRIS. Give me the bottle.
OZIAS. It is as empty as the cisterns.
CHABRIS. Give it to me, or I will cry through the streets that you are concealing water. (Ozias gives him the bottle. Chabris drinks. Ozias snatches the bottle