IN THE PALACE OF NIGHT In his allegorical play, THE BLUE BIRD, Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian poet, describes the journey of Tyltyl and Mytyl in their quest for happiness. After visiting the Land of Memory they go to the Palace of Night—the night of the dark ages of superstition and ignorance. In their fruitless search they open the doors to the rooms where ghosts, diseases, and other things are kept. At length they stand before the door behind which the Wars are kept. The Queen warns the children that "they are more terrible than ever. Heaven knows what would happen if one of them escaped." The boy, however, opens the door on a little gap and as he does so one huge and awful War pokes its paw through and another its ugly head. “Quick! Quick!" shouts Tyltyl. Push with all your might. . . . They are coming! They are breaking down the door!" The boy and girl (Man and Woman) and all the other actors push until they slam the door in the faces of the brutal Wars. Then the children pass on in their search for the blue-bird that means happiness. But this is only drama and poetry and fiction. What really happened, of course, was very different. On June 30, 1914, Princeps (not Tyltyl) opened the door to the room where the Wars were kept. When he shot the Austrian Archduke at Serajevo the door was opened on a crack. Then Austria sent her demands to Serbia and the door was opened wider. A month later Russian forces were mobilised and Germany sent her ultimatum which flung the door wide open. The beasts rushed towards the door which everybody, when it was too late, tried to slam shut. The workers of the world and the women of the world put their shoulders to the door. Diplomacy, statesmanship, religion and everything that we denominate under the word civilisation hurried to put their shoulders to the door to prevent the Wars from coming out. But it was soon evident that the organised forces of barbarism were more powerful than the disorganised forces of civilisation. The Wars broke their chains and rushed across the threshold, tearing from its hinges the massive door, which fell upon the broken bodies of humanity. |