Saint Joan Part 6

Joan curtsies and sits down on the stool between them. Robert outfaces his perplexity with his most peremptory air.

ROBERT. What is your name?

JOAN [chattily] They always call me Jenny in Lorraine. Here in France I am Joan. The soldiers call me The Maid.

ROBERT. What is your surname?

JOAN. Surname? What is that? My father sometimes calls himself d'Arc; but I know nothing about it. You met my father. He--

ROBERT. Yes, yes; I remember. You come from Domremy in Lorraine, I think.

JOAN. Yes; but what does it matter? we all speak French.

ROBERT. Dont ask questions: answer them. How old are you?

JOAN. Seventeen: so they tell me. It might be nineteen. I dont remember.

ROBERT. What did you mean when you said that St Catherine and St Margaret talked to you every day?

JOAN. They do.

ROBERT. What are they like?

JOAN [suddenly obstinate] I will tell you nothing about that: they have not given me leave.

ROBERT. But you actually see them; and they talk to you just as I am talking to you?

JOAN. No: it is quite different. I cannot tell you: you must not talk to me about my voices.

ROBERT. How do you mean? voices?

JOAN. I hear voices telling me what to do. They come from G.o.d.

ROBERT. They come from your imagination.

JOAN. Of course. That is how the messages of G.o.d come to us.

POULENGEY. Checkmate.

ROBERT. No fear! [To Joan] So G.o.d says you are to raise the siege of Orleans?

JOAN. And to crown the Dauphin in Rheims Cathedral.

ROBERT [gasping] Crown the D--! Gosh!

JOAN. And to make the English leave France.

ROBERT [sarcastic] Anything else?

JOAN [charming] Not just at present, thank you, squire.

ROBERT. I suppose you think raising a siege is as easy as chasing a cow out of a meadow. You think soldiering is anybody's job?

JOAN. I do not think it can be very difficult if G.o.d is on your side, and you are willing to put your life in His hand. But many soldiers are very simple.

ROBERT [grimly] Simple! Did you ever see English soldiers fighting?

JOAN. They are only men. G.o.d made them just like us; but He gave them their own country and their own language; and it is not His will that they should come into our country and try to speak our language.

ROBERT. Who has been putting such nonsense into your head? Dont you know that soldiers are subject to their feudal lord, and that it is nothing to them or to you whether he is the duke of Burgundy or the king of England or the king of France? What has their language to do with it?

JOAN. I do not understand that a bit. We are all subject to the King of Heaven; and He gave us our countries and our languages, and meant us to keep to them. If it were not so it would be murder to kill an Englishman in battle; and you, squire, would be in great danger of h.e.l.l fire. You must not think about your duty to your feudal lord, but about your duty to G.o.d.

POULENGEY. It's no use, Robert: she can choke you like that every time.

ROBERT. Can she, by Saint Denis! We shall see. [To Joan] We are not talking about G.o.d: we are talking about practical affairs. I ask you again, girl, have you ever seen English soldiers fighting?

Have you ever seen them plundering, burning, turning the countryside into a desert? Have you heard no tales of their Black Prince who was blacker than the devil himself, or of the English king's father?

JOAN. You must not be afraid, Robert--

ROBERT. d.a.m.n you, I am not afraid. And who gave you leave to call me Robert?

JOAN. You were called so in church in the name of our Lord. All the other names are your father's or your brother's or anybody's.

ROBERT. Tcha!

JOAN. Listen to me, squire. At Domremy we had to fly to the next village to escape from the English soldiers. Three of them were left behind, wounded. I came to know these three poor G.o.ddams quite well. They had not half my strength.

ROBERT. Do you know why they are called G.o.ddams?

JOAN. No. Everyone calls them G.o.ddams.

ROBERT. It is because they are always calling on their G.o.d to condemn their souls to perdition. That is what G.o.ddam means in their language. How do you like it?

JOAN. G.o.d will be merciful to them; and they will act like His good children when they go back to the country He made for them, and made them for. I have heard the tales of the Black Prince.

The moment he touched the soil of our country the devil entered into him, and made him a black fiend. But at home, in the place made for him by G.o.d, he was good. It is always so. If I went into England against the will of G.o.d to conquer England, and tried to live there and speak its language, the devil would enter into me; and when I was old I should shudder to remember the wickedness I did.

ROBERT. Perhaps. But the more devil you were the better you might fight. That is why the G.o.ddams will take Orleans. And you cannot stop them, nor ten thousand like you.

JOAN. One thousand like me can stop them. Ten like me can stop them with G.o.d on our side. [She rises impetuously, and goes at him, unable to sit quiet any longer]. You do not understand, squire. Our soldiers are always beaten because they are fighting only to save their skins; and the shortest way to save your skin is to run away. Our knights are thinking only of the money they will make in ransoms: it is not kill or be killed with them, but pay or be paid. But I will teach them all to fight that the will of G.o.d may be done in France; and then they will drive the poor G.o.ddams before them like sheep. You and Polly will live to see the day when there will not be an English soldier on the soil of France; and there will be but one king there: not the feudal English king, but G.o.d's French one.

ROBERT [to Poulengey] This may be all rot, Polly; but the troops might swallow it, though nothing that we can say seems able to put any fight into them. Even the Dauphin might swallow it. And if she can put fight into him, she can put it into anybody.

POULENGEY. I can see no harm in trying. Can you? And there is something about the girl--

ROBERT [turning to Joan] Now listen you to me; and [desperately]

dont cut in before I have time to think.

JOAN [plumping down on the stool again, like an obedient schoolgirl] Yes, squire.