OLD BIACH (heatedly) The diplomats of the Entente are like the sons of Noah, who covered the nakedness of their drunken father.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Well put. But since Romania—
OLD BIACH (in a frenzy) When they decided to declare war in Bucharest, the leaders of the Entente behaved as if they’d been inhaling Indian hemp.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR They’re crazy. But what do you expect from Bratianu these days?
OLD BIACH Bratianu will be having sleepless nights right now.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Why do you think that?
OLD BIACH If the dial is set for the offensive and has to be switched round to defensive, it can easily break.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR I think so, too. Surely in Vienna they’ll also be thinking again—!
OLD BIACH There’ll be many in the streets of Bucharest today with doubt in their hearts.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Excuse me! We can—
OLD BIACH We can imagine the effect it has on the Romanian people.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR But that’s surely all in the past — there are other things to worry about right now—!
OLD BIACH (despondently) It’s time to worry again.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Now listen here—
OLD BIACH Yes, in the streets of Bucharest they are already listening to the thunder of the cannon from Tutrakan and Silistria.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR But that’s all over and done with—!
OLD BIACH So endeth the first phase of a war wildly disproportionate in its origins and manifestations.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Let me tell you, those developments you envisage—
OLD BIACH (firmly) Those developments cannot fail to have an impact in England.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR That’s the editor’s opinion! But there really are other things to worry about right now other than Tutrakan! The Bulgarian victory was a sensation at the time—
OLD BIACH (vehemently) — because it was achieved so effortlessly, with a single sweep of the arm!
HONORARY COUNSELLOR What matters now — is how can we recapture Lutsk?
OLD BIACH (teasing) As she milks her cow, Anzengruber’s Vroni thinks how nice it would be—
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Oh, spare me that one!
OLD BIACH (sunk in thought) Alix of Hesse is the maiden name of the Empress Maria Feodorovna. Of all the saplings in the plantation of life, her bark had already been notched.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Biach, are you feeling all right?
OLD BIACH (wistfully) Whatever happened to poor little Alix, who could not even say the German prayers her late mother had taught her, after she had been confined to gloomy solitude beside the throne of a Tsar?
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Who cares! Why are you interested?
OLD BIACH The question arises because of the strange announcement that the Empress had gone right up to the firing line on the Russian Front, where the German positions were already visible.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR So what?
OLD BIACH (muses) Maybe there were men from Hesse in the trenches that Maria Feodorovna saw on her visit to the battlefield; young men, old men, friends from her youth perhaps, as fate decreed, the sons or husbands of her playmates, her neighbours’ children—
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Perhaps. But that would have been quite a coincidence!
OLD BIACH —but whatever else, compatriots, Germans.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Germans in any case, certainly. But, of all people, the sons and husbands of her playmates? You surely don’t imagine they would be the ones heading into the frontline trenches — and she probably didn’t even know any neighbours’ children, and even if there were any, and if by chance they really were in the frontline trenches, how’s she going to recognize them after so many years and at that distance, tell me that?! But — why does it affect you so deeply?
OLD BIACH (plaintively) Alix stood right up against the Russian barbed-wire entanglement and looked across at meadows and fields only yards away—
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Meadows and fields! Think they’d let her go that close?! And where are these meadows and fields at the front, what do you imagine it’s like there? Where—
OLD BIACH (dreamily) — where a puff of wind could waft across sounds, accents she must still remember well, in spite of all the changes in her circumstances.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Biach, you are living in a fantasy world!
OLD BIACH (persists) Alix lives on in the Empress Maria Feodorovna.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Come on, tell me — I know you’re a sensible chap — of what concern is Alix to you?
OLD BIACH (with compassion) She is an unhappy, broken woman, her mind constantly tortured by a gnawing grief.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR For the love of God, just tell me — why does that matter to you?!
OLD BIACH Wringing her hands, she implored Heaven.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Why, what happened to her?
OLD BIACH (distressed, but with restrained vehemence) The Russians could strip her of her name, like the clothes off her back. They could force their prayer book into her hands, but they could not divest her of her German spirit. There must still be a trace of the real Alix.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Well, think that if you like. But how do you know what Alix is thinking or feeling?
OLD BIACH (lost in thought) She looked across towards the Germans — precious blood flowed in their veins, too — and perhaps thought of her grandmother.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR Perhaps. But then why didn’t she say they should stop the war?
OLD BIACH (bitterly) Because, as Empress, Maria Feodorovna cannot be seen to give in to Alix too much. She looked across, and the word “peace” may well have played around her sealed lips.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR But do you really think they’ll have led her right into the battle. Perhaps—
OLD BIACH (pensively) Perhaps they staged part of a mock battle for her benefit. After all the frenzy of success, perhaps they haven’t yet realized in St. Petersburg that the crisis is slowly on the wane. The tsar listens to her, and Alix the convert means more to him than Maria Feodorovna.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR And why did she convert? All right, let’s suppose — if it makes you happy, imagine it did happen.
OLD BIACH (resolutely) Let us imagine the tsar’s headquarters when the news arrives.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR And where does that get you?! But as for Alix, let me point out one thing — Maria Feodorovna is not her name!
OLD BIACH (peeved) You’re needling me!
HONORARY COUNSELLOR As truth is my witness, her name is — let me see now, what is it? — her name is Alexandra Feodorovna!
OLD BIACH (morosely) A printer’s error.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR That reminds me, what do you say about Grand Duke Nicholas? He’s pretty miserable, too.
OLD BIACH (with malicious glee) First, stabbing liver pains, then bilious attacks, shows his gallbladder’s ruined.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR That’s needling him. But what good is all that to us — General Brusilov is healthy!
OLD BIACH (transfigured) The capture of Bucharest presents us with one of those rare moments when man is convinced he can hear the wings of talent whirring overhead.
HONORARY COUNSELLOR What do you mean, talent — it was a stroke of genius! But still — Brusilov is no paper tiger! What wouldn’t we give today for someone—! If the news—
OLD BIACH (ecstatic) When the news comes through that our victories in Romania have driven the enemy troops back to the palace gates of Bucharest, we shall bow down in awe before the human spirit.