SCENE OF THE PLAY
The Scene is laid at the end of August, 1914, at Stilemonde, a small town in Belgian Flanders.
The first Act begins at 10 A.M. and ends at 12 noon; the second begins at 2 P.M. and ends at 4 P.M.; the third begins at 5:30 P.M. and ends at 7 P.M. on the same day.
THE BURGOMASTER OF
STILEMONDE
ACT I
The Burgomaster’s study, a large and very comfortably furnished room on the first floor of the house, used partly as an office, and partly as a horticultural laboratory. Leather easy-chairs, a glass book-case. A large table laden with papers and with vases, dishes and baskets full of flowers and fruit: orchids, peaches, plums and magnificent bunches of grapes. In the various corners, a grandfather’s clock, garden-tools, pulverizers, retorts, test-tubes, bee-hives, etc. At the back, a French window opening on a balcony. On the right a heavy door.
As the Curtain rises, the Municipal Secretary is writing at a corner of the table. Enter, on the right, Jean Gilson. He is dressed in ill-fitting peasant’s clothes, and carries his arm in a sling.
Jean Gilson