WILLIAM BALFOUR KER (_Contemporary American illustrator_) _Copyright by J. A. Mitchell._] [Illustration: _Copyright by J. A. Mitchell_ KING CANUTE] King Hunger BY LEONID ANDREYEV (Russian novelist and dramatist of social protest; born 1871. In this grim symbolical drama is voiced the despair of Russia's intellectuals after the tragic failure of the Revolution. In the first scene King Hunger is shown inciting the starving factory-slaves to revolt; in the second, he presides over a gathering of the outcasts of society, who meet in a cellar to discuss projects of ferocious vengeance upon the idlers in the ball-room over their heads, but break up in a drunken brawl instead. In the present scene, King Hunger turns traitor to his victims, and presides as a judge passing sentence upon them. The leisure class attend as spectators in the court-room, the women in evening gowns and jewels, "the men in dress coats and surtouts, carefully shaven and dressed at the wig-makers") KING HUNGER:--Show in the first starveling. (_The first starveling, a ragged old man with lacerated feet, is conducted into the court-room. A wire muzzle encases his face._) KING HUNGER:--Take the muzzle off the starveling. What's your offense, Starveling? OLD MAN (_speaking in a broken voice_):--Theft. KING HUNGER:--How much did you steal? OLD MAN:--I stole a five-pound loaf, but it was wrested from me. I had only time to bite a small piece of it. Forgive me, I will never again---- KING HUNGER:--How? Have you acquired an inheritance? Or won't you eat hereafter? OLD MAN:--No. It was wrested from me. I only chewed off a small piece---- KING HUNGER:--But how won't you steal? Why haven't you been working? OLD MAN:--There's no work. KING HUNGER:--But where's your brood, Starveling? Why don't they support you? OLD MAN:--My children died of hunger. KING HUNGER:--Why did you not starve to death, as they? OLD MAN:--I don't know. I had a mind to live. KING HUNGER:--Of what use is life to you, Starveling? (_Voices of Spectators._) --Indeed, how do they live? I don't comprehend it. --To work. --To glorify God and be confirmed in the consciousness that life-- --Well, I don't suppose they exalt Him. --It were better if he were dead. --A rather wearisome old fellow. And what style of trousers! --Listen! Listen! KING HUNGER (_rising, speaks aloud_):--Now, ladies and gentlemen, we will feign to meditate. Honorable judges, I beg you to simulate a meditative air. (_The judges for a brief period appear in deep thought--they knit their brows, gaze up at the ceiling, prop up their noses, sigh and obviously endeavor to think. Venerable silence. Then with faces profoundly solemn and earnest, silent as before, the judges rise, and simultaneously they turn around facing Death. And all together they bow low and lingering, stretching themselves forward._) KING HUNGER (_with bent head_):--What is your pleasure?