(He accidentally sets the gramophone working and jumps back, a little alarmed. He runs to the bedroom door.)
Rada! I’ve started it! Bettine, d’ you hear?
The gramophone’s working.
(The artillery booms like a thunder-peal in the distance. Then the gramophone drowns it with the massed voices of the Imperial Choir singing:)
Adeste Fideles,
Læti triumphantes,
Adeste, adeste in Bethlehem!
Natum videte
Regem angelorum:
Venite, adoremus,
Venite, adoremus,
Venite, adoremus Dominum.
(Nanko touches the floor under the door of the bedroom and stares at his hand.)
Nanko.
Something red again? Trickling under the door?
Blood, I suppose....
(A look of horror comes into his face as he stands listening to the music. Then, as if slowly waking from a dream and almost as if sanity had returned for a moment, he cries:)