Saint Joan

Robert

No eggs! No eggs!! Thousand thunders, man, what do you mean by no eggs?

Steward

Sir: it is not my fault. It is the act of God.

Robert

Blasphemy. You tell me there are no eggs; and you blame your Maker for it.

Steward

Sir: what can I do? I cannot lay eggs.

Robert

Sarcastic. Ha! You jest about it.

Steward

No, sir, God knows. We all have to go without eggs just as you have, sir. The hens will not lay.

Robert

Indeed! Rising. Now listen to me, you.

Steward

Humbly. Yes, sir.

Robert

What am I?

Steward

What are you, sir?

Robert

Coming at him. Yes: what am I? Am I Robert, squire of Baudricourt and captain of this castle of Vaucouleurs: or am I a cowboy?

Steward

Oh, sir, you know you are a greater man here than the king himself.

Robert

Precisely. And now, do you know what you are?

Steward

I am nobody, sir, except that I have the honor to be your steward.

Robert

Driving him to the wall, adjective by adjective. You have not only the honor of being my steward, but the privilege of being the worst, most incompetent, drivelling snivelling jibbering jabbering idiot of a steward in France. He strides back to the table.

Steward

Cowering on the chest. Yes, sir: to a great man like you I must seem like that.

Robert

Turning. My fault, I suppose. Eh?

Steward

Coming to him deprecatingly. Oh, sir: you always give my most innocent words such a turn!

Robert

I will give your neck a turn if you dare tell me, when I ask you how many eggs there are, that you cannot lay any.

Steward

Protesting. Oh sir, oh sir⁠—

Joan

Art afraid?

Charles

Yes: I am afraid. It’s no use preaching to me about it. It’s all very well for these big men with their armor that is too heavy for me, and their swords that I can hardly lift, and their muscle and their shouting and their bad tempers. They like fighting: most of them are making fools of themselves all the time they are not fighting; but I am quiet and sensible; and I dont want to kill people: I only want to be left alone to enjoy myself in my own way. I never asked to be a king: it was pushed on me. So if you are going to say “Son of St. Louis: gird on the sword of your ancestors, and lead us to victory,” you may spare your breath to cool your porridge; for I cannot do it. I am not built that way; and there is an end of it.

Joan

Trenchant and masterful. Blethers! We are all like that to begin with. I shall put courage into thee.

Charles

But I don’t want to have courage put into me. I want to sleep in a comfortable bed, and not live in continual terror of being killed or wounded. Put courage into the others, and let them have their bellyful of fighting; but let me alone.

Joan

If the devil wanted to damn a country girl, do you think so easy a task would cost him the winning of half a dozen battles? No, my lord: any trumpery imp could do that much if the girl could be damned at all. The Prince of Darkness does not condescend to such cheap drudgery. When he strikes, he strikes at the Catholic Church, whose realm is the whole spiritual world. When he damns, he damns the souls of the entire human race. Against that dreadful design The Church stands ever on guard. And it is as one of the instruments of that design that I see this girl. She is inspired, but diabolically inspired.

The Chaplain

I told you she was a witch.

Cauchon

Fiercely. She is not a witch. She is a heretic.

The Chaplain

What difference does that make?

Cauchon

Courcelles

When you were left unchained, did you not try to escape by jumping from a tower sixty feet high? If you cannot fly like a witch, how is it that you are still alive?

Joan

I suppose because the tower was not so high then. It has grown higher every day since you began asking me questions about it.

D’estivet

Why did you jump from the tower?

Joan

How do you know that I jumped?

D’estivet

You were found lying in the moat. Why did you leave the tower?

Joan

Why would anybody leave a prison if they could get out?

D’estivet

You tried to escape.

Joan

Of course I did; and not for the first time either. If you leave the door of the cage open the bird will fly out.

D’estivet

Rising. That is a confession of heresy. I call the attention of the court to it.

Joan

Heresy, he calls it! Am I a heretic because I try to escape from prison?

D’estivet

Assuredly, if you are in the hands of the Church, and you wilfully take yourself out of its hands, you are deserting the Church; and that is heresy.

Joan

It is great nonsense. Nobody could be such a fool as to think that.

D’estivet

You hear, my lord, how I am reviled in the execution of my duty by this woman. He sits down indignantly.