SECOND SOLDIER. Well, hand the women over. TARRASCH. There are no women here. FIRST SOLDIER. You greedy wolf, I saw them. NANKO. Come! Come! Come! It's Christmas Eve! [Illustration: THE VAMPIRE] SECOND SOLDIER. Well, if there are no petticoats, where's the harm In letting us poor soldiers take a squint Through yonder door? By God, we'll do it, too! Come on, my boys. (_They make a rush towards the room._) NANKO. Be careful, or you'll smash The Christmas-tree! You'll smash the gramophone! (_A soldier tries the bedroom door. It is opened from within, and RADA appears on the threshold with the revolver in her hand._) FIRST SOLDIER. Liars! Liars! RADA. There is one woman here, One woman and a child.... And war, they tell me, is a noble thing. It is the mother of heroic deeds, The nurse of honour, manhood. SECOND SOLDIER. God, a speech! NANKO (_who is hugging his Christmas-tree near the fire again_). Certainly, Rada! You will not deny That life's a battle. RADA. You hear, drunk as you are, Up to your necks in blood, you hear this fool, This poor old fool, piping his dreary cry. And through his lips, and through his softening brain, The men that use you, cheat you, drive you out To slaughter and be slaughtered, teach the world That this black vampire, sucking at our breasts, Is good. Men! Men! The pestilence of your dead Is murdering you by legions. All the trains Of quicklime that your Emperor sends behind you Can never eat its way through all that flesh-- Three hundred miles of dead! Your dead! FIRST SOLDIER. Hoch! Hoch! A speech! (_They make a movement towards her, which she arrests by raising the revolver._) RADA. I do not hate! I pity you all. I tell you, you are doing it in a dream. You are drugged. You are not awake. NANKO. I have sometimes thought The very same. RADA. But you will wake one day. Listen! If you have children of your own, Listen to me ... the child is twelve years old. She has never had one hard word spoken to her In all her life. SECOND SOLDIER. Nor shall she now, by God! Where is she? Bring her out! FIRST SOLDIER. Twelve years of age? Add two, because her mother loves her so! That's ripe enough for marriage to a soldier. (_They laugh uproariously, and sing again mockingly_:) "Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutscher Rhein!" (_They move forward again._) RADA (_raising the revolver_).