RADA (_sinking on her knees by the couch and sobbing_). God! God! TARRASCH. They were beginning to find out the provincialism of their creeds in England. The pessimism of Schopenhauer had taught them much; and if it had not been for this last treachery, this last ridiculous outburst of the middle-class mind on behalf of what they call honour, we should have continued to tolerate (if not to enjoy), in Berlin, those plays by Irishmen which expose so wittily the inferior _Kultur_, the shrinking from reality, of their (for the most part) not intellectual people. I have the honour, madam, to request that you should no longer make this unpleasant sound of weeping. You irritate my nerves. Have you not two men quartered upon you instead of one? And are they not university students? If your husband and the rest of the villagers had not resisted our advance, they might have been alive, too. In any case, your change is for the better. Isn't it? (_He lights a cigar._) NANKO. Exactly! Exactly! You remember, Rada, I used to be a schoolmaster myself in the old days; and if _you_ knew what _I_ know, you wouldn't cry, my dear. You'd understand that it's entirely a question of the survival of the fittest. A biological necessity, that's what it is. And Haeckel himself has told us that, though we may resign our hopes of immortality, and the grave is the only future for our beloved ones, yet there is infinite consolation to be found in examining a piece of moss or looking at a beetle. That's what the Germans call the male intellect. TARRASCH. Is this man attempting to be insolent? (_He rises as if to strike_ NANKO.) BRANDER (_tapping his forehead_). Take no notice of him. He's only a resident patient. He was not calling you a beetle. He has delusions. He thinks it is always Christmas Eve. That's his little tree in the corner. As Goethe should have said-- There was a little Christian. He had a little tree. Up came a Superman And cracked him, like a flea. TARRASCH (_laughing_). Very good! You should send that to the _Tageblatt_, Brander. Well, Rada, or whatever your name is, you'd better find something for us to eat. I'm sick of this whimpering. Wouldn't your Belgian swine have massacred us all, if we'd given them the chance? We've thousands of women and children at home snivelling and saying, "Oh! my God! Oh! my God!" just like you. RADA (_rising to her feet in a fury of contempt_). Then why are you in Belgium, gentlemen? Is it the husks and chaff that the swine eat, Or is it simply butchery? (_They stare at her in silence, over-mastered for a moment by her passion. Then, her grief welling up again, she casts herself down on the couch, and buries her face in her hands, sobbing._) God! God! God! [Illustration: THE OLD DANCE OF CHARLATANS AND BEASTS] BRANDER. Don't you trouble about God. What can _He_ do when both sides go down on their marrow-bones? He can't make both sides win, can He? NANKO.