Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/13



TAILOR: Hi! hist! hi, neighbour, a word with you!

CARPENTER: Go your way, and leave me in peace.

TAILOR: Only a word. Is there nothing new?

CARPENTER: Nothing except that it is forbidden to speak of anything new.

TAILOR: How is that?

CARPENTER: Step up to this house. Take care! Straightway upon his arrival the Duke of Alba had an order issued by which two or three who speak together in the street are declared guilty of high treason without a trial.

TAILOR: Alas, preserve us!

CARPENTER: Under pain of life-long imprisonment it is forbidden to speak of affairs of state.

TAILOR: Alas for our liberty!

CARPENTER: And under pain of death nobody shall say aught against the actions of the Government.

TAILOR: Alas for our lives!

CARPENTER: And fathers, mothers, children, relatives, friends and servants are invited with a promise of great things to divulge to a specially established court what goes on within the very household.

TAILOR: Let us get home.

CARPENTER: And the obedient are promised that they shall suffer no injury either to body, or honour, or possesions.

TAILOR: How merciful! Why I supposed—etc. etc. According to Goethe's "Egmont" this scene was enacted at Brussels in the year 1567, but it was enacted in reality on countless occasions in the lands of the Bohemian crown in the years 1915 to 1916.