The Wrack of the Storm

The reader taking up this volume will, for the first time in the work of one who hitherto had cursed no man, find words of hatred and malediction. I would gladly have avoided them, for I hold that he who takes upon himself to write pledges himself to say nothing that can derogate from the respect and love which we owe to all men. I have had to utter these words; and I am as much surprised as saddened at what I have been constrained to say by the force of events and of truth. I loved Germany and numbered friends there, who now, dead or living, are alike dead to me. I thought her great and upright and generous; and to me she was ever kindly and hospitable. But there are crimes that obliterate the past and close the future. In rejecting hatred I should have shown myself a traitor to love.

I tried to lift myself above the fray; but, the higher I rose, the more I saw of the madness and the horror of it, of the justice of one cause and the infamy of the other. It is possible that one day, when time has wearied remembrance and restored the ruins, wise men will tell us that we were mistaken and that our standpoint was not lofty enough; but they will say it because they will no longer know what we know, nor will they have seen what we have seen.

MAURICE MAETERLINCK.

NICE, 1916.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

The present volume contains, in the chronological order in which they were produced, all the essays published and all the speeches delivered by M. Maeterlinck since the beginning of the war, upon which, as will be perceived, each one of them has a direct bearing. They are printed as written; and they throw an interesting light upon the successive phases of the author's psychology during the Titanic and hideous struggle that has affected the mental attitude of us all.

In Italy forms the preface to M. Jules Destree's book, En Italie avant la guerre, 1914-15. Of the remaining essays, some have appeared in various English and American periodicals; others are now printed in translation for the first time.

I have also had M. Maeterlinck's leave to include in this volume his first published work, The Massacre of the Innocents. This powerful sketch in the Flemish manner saw the light originally in the Pleiade, in 1886, and may at the present time, to use the author's own words in a note to myself, be regarded as "a sort of vague symbolic prophecy." An English version by Mrs. Edith Wingate Rinder was printed in the Dome in 1899; another has since been issued by an English and by an American firm of publishers; but the only authorized translation to appear in book form is that now added as an epilogue to The Wrack of the Storm.

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS.

CHELSEA, 1916.

CONTENTS

PAGE

AUTHOR'S PREFACE 5

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 7

I AFTER THE VICTORY 11

II KING ALBERT 21

III THE HOSTAGE CITIES 31

IV TO SAVE FOUR CITIES 37

V PRO PATRIA: I 45

VI HEROISM 59

VII PRO PATRIA: II 75

VIII PRO PATRIA: III 89

IX BELGIUM'S FLAG DAY 109

X ON THE DEATH OF A LITTLE SOLDIER 117

XI THE HOUR OF DESTINY 131

XII IN ITALY 147

XIII ON REREADING THUCYDIDES 161

XIV THE DEAD DO NOT DIE 179

XV IN MEMORIAM 191

XVI SUPERNATURAL COMMUNICATIONS IN WAR-TIME 197

XVII EDITH CAVELL 217

XVIII THE LIFE OF THE DEAD 229

XIX THE WAR AND THE PROPHETS 241

XX THE WILL OF EARTH 257

XXI FOR POLAND 271

XXII THE MIGHT OF THE DEAD 279

XXIII WHEN THE WAR IS OVER 291

XXIV THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS 303

* * * * *

AFTER THE VICTORY

THE WRACK OF THE STORM

I

AFTER THE VICTORY[1]

1

At these moments of tragedy, none should be allowed to speak who cannot shoulder a rifle, for the written word seems so monstrously useless, so overwhelmingly trivial, in front of this mighty drama which shall for a long time, it may be for ever, free mankind from the scourge of war: the one scourge among all that cannot be excused, that cannot be explained, since alone among all it issues entire from the hands of man.