Page:Five Russian plays and one Ukrainian.pdf/193

Rh My arms still are mighty, my legs still are strong, my eyes still are clear, and my body is not hurt. Only my tongue, my tongue was for their vengeance. I wished to speak a word; I wished to lift up my voice. But my lips spake with blood and cried with silence. (A long pause. The harp falls from Eleazar s hands and the sigh of its strings dies away. The people’s cries cease abruptly. Silence. He speaks with respect, but firmly and distinctly.) Fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters! I wait for a stone or a word from you. (Silence.) What curse is more awful than silence?


 * We do not curse thee, Eleazar.


 * Forgive me my hard word, brother.


 * Ye do not curse me. I forgive all your words. But still I am cursed with the dreadful curse of blood. The blood of our fathers, shed in vain for our lost liberty, weighs upon my head and yours, and bows down our forehead to the earth, to the stone that the hand of my people hurled not against me. A man’s son fell and cut himself on a sharp stone; in despair he rent his garments of honour and strewed ashes of disgrace upon his head. O, as the temple I fell, as Jerusalem we fell all, and, as hard as it is to