Exactly. In times of peace we forget those eternal silences. We value life too highly. We become domesticated. Why, I suppose in this magnificent war there have been so many women and children killed that they would fill the great Cloth Hall at Ypres; and, as for the young men, there have been so many slaughtered that their dead bodies would fill St. Peter's at Rome. Why, I suppose they would fill the three hundred abbeys of Flanders and all the cathedrals in the world chock-full from floor to belfry, wouldn't they? How Goya would have loved to paint them! Can't you see it? ((He grows ecstatic over the idea.)) Tournai with its five clock-towers, Ghent, and Bruges, Louvain and Antwerp, Rheims and Westminster, Under the round white moon, on Christmas Eve, With towers of frozen needlework, and spires That point to God; but all their painted panes Bursting with dreadful arms and gaping faces, Gargoyles of flesh; and round them, in the snow, The little cardinals, like gouts of blood, The little bishops, running like white mice, Hooded with violet spots, quite, quite dismayed To find there was no room for them within Upon that holy night when Christ was born. But perhaps if Goya were living to-day he would prefer to pack them into Chicago meat factories, with the intellectuals dancing outside like marionettes, and the unconscious Hand of God pulling the strings. You know one of their very latest theories is that He is a somnambulist. TARRASCH (to RADA). You should read Schopenhauer, my dear, and learn to estimate these emotions at their true value. You would then be able to laugh at these feelings which seem to you now so important. It is the mark of Kultur to be able to laugh at all sentiments. Isn't it?

Nanko Monologue from Rada: A Belgian Christmas Eve

Rehearse Nanko's monologue