She does not know herself. Emil, her dress and her hands were in blood. EMIL GRELIEU She is wounded? JEANNE No, it is not her own blood, and by the color I could not tell whose blood it is. PIERRE Who is that, mother? JEANNE A girl. Just a girl. She's insane. I have combed her hair and put a clean dress on her. She has beautiful hair. Emil, I have heard something--I understand that you want to go--? EMIL GRELIEU Yes. JEANNE Together with your children, Emil? EMIL GRELIEU Yes. Pierre has examined me and finds that I am fit to enter the ranks. JEANNE You intend to go tomorrow? EMIL GRELIEU Yes. JEANNE You cannot manage it today. Pierre, you have only an hour and a half left. _Silence._ PIERRE Mamma! Tell him that he must not--Forgive me, father!--that he should not go. Isn't that true, mother? Tell him! He has given to the nation his two sons--what more should he give? He has no right to give more. JEANNE More, Pierre? PIERRE Yes,--his life. You love him; you, yourself, would die if he were killed--tell him that, mother! JEANNE Yes, I love him. I love you, too. PIERRE Oh, what are we, Maurice and I? But he! Just as they have no right to destroy temples in war or to bum libraries, just as they have no right to touch the eternal, so he--he--has no right to die. I am speaking not as your son, no; but to kill Emil Grelieu--that would be worse than to bum books. Listen to me! You have brought me into this world. Listen to me!--although I am young and should be silent--Listen to me! They have already robbed us. They have deprived us of our land and of the air; they have destroyed our treasures which have been created by the genius of our people, and now we would cast our best men into their jaws! What does that mean? What will remain of us? Let them kill us all, let our land be turned into a waste desert, let all living creatures be burned to death, but as long as he lives, Belgium is alive! What is Belgium without him? Oh, do not be silent, mother! Tell him! _Silence._ EMIL GRELIEU _Somewhat sternly._ Calm yourself, Pierre! JEANNE Yesterday I--no, Pierre, that isn't what I was going to say--I don't know anything about it. How could I know? But yesterday I--it is hard to get vegetables, and even bread, here--so I went to town, and for some reason we did not go in that direction, but nearer the field of battle--. How strange it is that we found ourselves there! And there I saw them coming-- EMIL GRELIEU Whom? JEANNE