_Same scene and business as Act I. Man in yellow dress, with drawn
sword, at the door._
_Password outside._ Vae tyrannis.
_Answer._ Vae victis (_repeated three times_).
(_Enter CONSPIRATORS, who form a semicircle, masked and cloaked._)
PRESIDENT. What hour is it?
FIRST CONSP. The hour to strike.
PRES. What day?
SECOND CONSP. The day of Marat.[1]
PRES. In what month?
SECOND CONSP. The month of liberty.
PRES. What is our duty?
FOURTH CONSP. To obey.
PRES. Our creed?
FIFTH CONSP. Parbleu, Mons. le President, I never knew you had one.
CONSPS. A spy! A spy! Unmask! Unmask! A spy!
PRES. [2]Let the doors be shut. There are others but Nihilists
present.[2]
CONSPS. Unmask! Unmask! [3]Kill him! kill him![3] (_Masked CONSPIRATOR
unmasks._) Prince Paul!
VERA. Devil! Who lured you into the lion's den?
CONSPS. Kill him! kill him![4]
PRINCE PAUL. En verite, Messieurs, you are not over-hospitable in your
welcome.
VERA. Welcome! What welcome should we give you but the dagger or the
noose?
PRINCE PAUL. I had no idea, really, that the Nihilists were so
exclusive. Let me assure you that if I had not always had an _entree_
to the very best society, and the very worst conspiracies, I could never
have been Prime Minister in Russia.
VERA. The tiger cannot change its nature, nor the snake lose its venom;
but are you turned a lover of the people?
PRINCE PAUL. Mon Dieu, non, Mademoiselle! I would much sooner talk
scandal in a drawing-room than treason in a cellar. Besides, I hate the
common mob, who smell of garlic, smoke bad tobacco, get up early, and
dine off one dish.
PRES. What have you to gain, then, by a revolution?
PRINCE PAUL. Mon ami, I have nothing left to lose. That scatter-brained
boy, this new Czar, has banished me.
VERA. To Siberia?
PRINCE PAUL. No, to Paris. He has confiscated my estates, robbed me of
my office and my cook. I have nothing left but my decorations. I am here
for revenge.[5]
PRES. Then you have a right to be one of us. [5]We also meet daily for
revenge.[5]
PRINCE PAUL. You want money, of course. No one ever joins a conspiracy
who has any. Here. (_Throws money on table._) You have so many spies
that I should think you want information. Well, you will find me the
best informed man in Russia on the abuses of our Government. I made them
nearly all myself.
VERA. President, I don't trust this man. He has done us too much harm in
Russia to let him go in safety.
PRINCE PAUL. Believe me, Mademoiselle, you are wrong; I will be a most
valuable addition to your circle; as for you, gentlemen, if I had not
thought that you would be useful to me I shouldn't have risked my neck
among you, or dined an hour earlier than usual so as to be in time.
PRES. Ay, if he had wanted to spy on us, Vera, he wouldn't have come
himself.
PRINCE PAUL (_aside_). No; I should have sent my best friend.
PRES. Besides, Vera, he is just the man to give us the information we
want about some business we have in hand to-night.
VERA. Be it so if you wish it.
PRES. Brothers, is it your will that Prince Paul Maraloffski be
admitted, and take the oath of the Nihilist?
CONSPS. It is! it is!
PRES. (_holding out dagger and a paper_). Prince Paul, the dagger or the
oath?
PRINCE PAUL (_smiles sardonically_). I would sooner annihilate than be
annihilated. (_Takes paper._)
PRES. Remember: [6]Betray us, and as long as the earth holds poison or
steel, as long as men can strike or woman betray, you shall not escape
vengeance.[6] The Nihilists never forget their friends, or forgive their
enemies.
PRINCE PAUL. Really? I did not think you were so civilized.
VERA (_pacing up and down_). Why is he not here? He will not keep the
crown. I know him well.
PRES. Sign. (_PRINCE PAUL signs_.) You said you thought we had no creed.
You were wrong. Read it!
VERA. This is a dangerous thing, President. What can we do with this
man?
PRES. We can use him.
VERA. And afterwards?
PRES. (_shrugging his shoulders_). Strangle him.
PRINCE PAUL (_reading_). "The rights of humanity!" In the old times men
carried out their rights for themselves as they lived, but nowadays
every baby seems born with a social manifesto in its mouth much bigger
than itself.[7] "Nature is not a temple, but a workshop: we demand the
right to labour." Ah, I shall surrender my own rights in that respect.
VERA (_pacing up and down behind_). Oh, will he never come? will he
never come?
PRINCE PAUL. "The family as subversive of true socialistic and communal
unity is to be annihilated." Yes, President, I agree completely with
Article 5. A family is a terrible incumbrance, especially when one is
not married. (_Three knocks at the door._)
VERA. Alexis at last!
_Password._ Vae tyrannis!
_Answer._ Vae victis!
(_Enter MICHAEL STROGANOFF._)
PRES.[8] Michael, the regicide! Brothers, let us do honour to a man who
has killed a king.
[9]VERA (_aside_). Oh, he will come yet.[9]
PRES. Michael, you have saved Russia.
MICH. Ay, Russia was free for a moment [10]when the tyrant fell, but the
sun of liberty has set again like that false dawn which cheats our eyes
in autumn.
PRES. The dread night of tyranny is not yet past for Russia.
MICH. (_clutching his knife_).[10] One more blow, and the end is come
indeed.
VERA (_aside_). One more blow! What does he mean? Oh, impossible! but
why is he not with us? Alexis! Alexis! why are you not here?
PRES. But how did you escape, Michael? They said you had been seized.
MICH. I was dressed in the uniform of the Imperial Guard. The Colonel on
duty was a brother, and gave me the password. I drove through the troops
in safety with it, and, thanks to my good horse, reached the walls
before the gates were closed.
PRES. What a chance his coming out on the balcony was!
MICH. A chance? There is no such thing as chance. It was God's finger
led him there.
PRES. And where have you been these three days?
MICH. Hiding in the house of the priest Nicholas at the cross-roads.
PRES. Nicholas is an honest man.
MICH. Ay, honest enough for a priest. I am here now for vengeance on a
traitor!
VERA (_aside_). O God, will he never come? Alexis! why are you not here?
You cannot have turned traitor!
MICH. (_seeing PRINCE PAUL_). Prince Paul Maraloffski here! By St.
George, a lucky capture! This must have been Vera's doing. She is the
only one who could have lured that serpent into the trap.
PRES. Prince Paul has just taken the oath.
VERA. Alexis, the Czar, has banished him from Russia.
MICH. Bah! A blind to cheat us. We will keep Prince Paul here, [11]and
find some office for him in our reign of terror.[11] He is well
accustomed by this time to bloody work.
PRINCE PAUL (_approaching MICHAEL_). That was a long shot of yours, mon
camarade.
MICH. I have had a good deal of practice shooting, since I have been a
boy, off your Highness's wild boars.
PRINCE PAUL. Are my gamekeepers like moles, then, always asleep?
MICH. No, Prince. I am one of them; but, like you, I am fond of robbing
what I am put to watch.
PRES. This must be a new atmosphere for you, Prince Paul. We speak the
truth to one another here.
PRINCE PAUL. How misleading you must find it. You have an odd medley
here, President--a little rococo, I am afraid.
PRES. You recognise a good many friends, I dare say?
PRINCE PAUL. Yes, there is always more brass than brains in an
aristocracy.
PRES. But you are here yourself?
PRINCE PAUL. I? As I cannot be Prime Minister, I must be a Nihilist.
There is no alternative.
VERA. O God, will he never come? The hand is on the stroke of the hour.
Will he never come?
MICH. (_aside_). President, you know what we have to do? 'Tis but a
sorry hunter who leaves the wolf cub alive to avenge his father. How are
we to get at this boy? It must be to-night. To-morrow he will be
throwing some sop of reform to the people, and it will be too late for a
Republic.
PRINCE PAUL. You are quite right. Good kings are the enemies of
Democracy, and when he has begun by banishing me you may be sure he
intends to be a patriot.
MICH. I am sick of patriot kings; [12]what Russia needs is a
Republic.[12]
PRINCE PAUL. Messieurs, I have brought you two documents which I think
will interest you--the proclamation this young Czar intends publishing
to-morrow, and a plan of the Winter Palace, where he sleeps to-night.
(_Hands paper._)
VERA. [13]I dare not ask them what they are plotting about.[13] Oh, why
is Alexis not here?
PRES. Prince, this is most valuable information. Michael, you were
right. If it is not to-night it will be too late. Read that.
MICH. Ah! A loaf of bread flung to a starving nation. [14]A lie to cheat
the people.[14] (_Tears it up._) It must be to-night. I do not believe
in him. Would he have kept his crown had he loved the people? But how
are we to get at him?
PRINCE PAUL. The key of the private door in the street. (_Hands key._)
PRES. Prince, we are in your debt.
PRINCE PAUL (_smiling_). The normal condition of the Nihilists.
MICH. Ay, but we are paying our debts off with interest now. Two
Emperors in one week. That will make the balance straight. We would have
thrown in a Prime Minister if you had not come.
PRINCE PAUL. Ah, I am sorry you told me. It robs my visit of all its
picturesqueness and adventure. I thought I was perilling my head by
coming here, and you tell me I have saved it. One is sure to be
disappointed if one tries to get romance out of modern life.
MICH. It is not so romantic a thing to lose one's head, Prince Paul.
PRINCE PAUL. No, but it must often be very dull to keep it. Don't you
find that sometimes? (_Clock strikes six._)
VERA (_sinking into a seat_). Oh, it is past the hour! It is past the
hour!
MICH. (_to PRESIDENT_). Remember to-morrow will be too late.
PRES. Brothers, it is full time. Which of us is absent?
CONSPS. Alexis! Alexis!
PRES. Michael, read Rule 7.
MICH. "When any brother shall have disobeyed a summons to be present,
the President shall enquire if there is anything alleged against him."
PRES. Is there anything against our brother Alexis?
CONSPS. He wears a crown! He wears a crown!
PRES. Michael, read Article 7 of the Code of Revolution.
MICH. "Between the Nihilists and all men who wear crowns above their
fellows, there is war to the death."
PRES. Brothers, what say you? Is Alexis, the Czar, guilty or not?
OMNES. He is guilty!
PRES. What shall the penalty be?
OMNES. Death!
PRES. Let the lots be prepared; it shall be to-night.
PRINCE PAUL. Ah, this is really interesting! I was getting afraid
conspiracies were as dull as courts are.
PROF. MARFA. My forte is more in writing pamphlets than in taking shots.
Still a regicide has always a place in history.
MICH. If your pistol is as harmless as your pen, this young tyrant will
have a long life.
PRINCE PAUL. You ought to remember, too, Professor, that if you were
seized, as you probably would be, and hung, as you certainly would be,
there would be nobody left to read your own articles.
PRES. Brothers, are you ready?
VERA (_starting up_). Not yet! Not yet! I have a word to say.
MICH. (_aside_). [15]Plague take her! I knew it would come to this.[15]
VERA. This boy has been our brother. Night after night he has perilled
his own life to come here. [16]Night after night, when every street was
filled with spies, every house with traitors.[16] Delicately nurtured
like a king's son, he has dwelt among us.
PRES. Ay! under a false name. [17]He lied to us at the beginning. He
lies to us now at the end.[17]
VERA. I swear he is true. There is not a man here who does not owe him
his life a thousand times. When the bloodhounds were on us that night,
who saved us [18]from arrest, torture, flogging, death,[18] but he ye
seek to kill?--
MICH. To kill all tyrants is our mission!
VERA. He is no tyrant. I know him well! He loves the people.
PRES. We know him too; he is a traitor.
VERA. A traitor! Three days ago he could have betrayed every man of you
here, [19]and the gibbet would have been your doom.[19] He gave you all
your lives once. Give him a little time--a week, a month, a few days;
but not now!--O God,[20] not now!
CONSPS. (_brandishing daggers_). To-night! to-night! to-night!
VERA. Peace, you gorged adders; peace!
MICH. What, are we not here to annihilate? shall we not keep our oath?
VERA. Your oath! your oath! [21]Greedy that you are of gain, every man's
hand lusting for his neighbour's pelf, every heart set on pillage and
rapine;[21] who, of ye all, if the crown were set on his head, would
give an empire up for the mob to scramble for? The people are not yet
fit for a Republic in Russia.
PRES. Every nation is fit for a Republic.
MICH. The man is a tyrant.
VERA. A tyrant! Hath he not dismissed his evil counsellors. That
ill-omened raven of his father's life hath had his wings clipped and his
claws pared, and comes to us croaking for revenge. Oh, have mercy on
him![22] Give him a week to live!
PRES. Vera pleading for a king!
VERA (_proudly_). I plead not for a king, but for a brother.
MICH. For a traitor to his oath, for a coward who should have flung the
purple back to the fools that gave it to him. No, Vera, no. The brood of
men is not dead yet, nor the dull earth grown sick of child-bearing. No
crowned man in Russia shall pollute God's air by living.
PRES. You bade us try you once; we have tried you, and you are found
wanting.
MICH. Vera, I am not blind; I know your secret. You love this boy, this
young prince with his pretty face, his curled hair, his soft white
hands. Fool that you are, dupe of a lying tongue, do you know what he
would have done to you, this boy you think loved you? He would have made
you his mistress, used your body at his pleasure, thrown you away when
he was wearied of you; you, the priestess of liberty, the flame of
Revolution, the torch of democracy.
VERA. What he would have done to me matters little. To the people, at
least, he will be true. He loves the people--at least, he loves liberty.
PRES. So he would play the citizen-king, would he, while we starve?
[23]Would flatter us with sweet speeches, would cheat us with promises
like his father, would lie to us as his whole race have lied.[23]
MICH. And you whose very name made every despot tremble for his life,
you, Vera Sabouroff, you would betray liberty for a lover and the people
for a paramour!
CONSPS. [24]Traitress! Draw the lots; draw the lots![24]
VERA. In thy throat thou liest, Michael! I love him not. He loves me
not.
MICH. You love him not? Shall he not die then?
VERA (_with an effort, clenching her hands_). Ay, it is right that he
should die. He hath broken his oath. [25]There should be no crowned man
in Europe. Have I not sworn it? To be strong our new Republic should be
drunk with the blood of kings. He hath broken his oath. As the father
died so let the son die too.[25] Yet not to-night, not to-night. Russia,
that hath borne her centuries of wrong, can wait a week for liberty.
Give him a week.
PRES. We will have none of you! Begone from us to this boy you love.
MICH. Though I find him in your arms I shall kill him.
CONSPS. To-night! To-night! To-night!
MICH. (_holding up his hand_). A moment! I have something to say.
(_Approaches VERA; speaks very slowly._) Vera Sabouroff, have you
forgotten your brother? (_Pauses to see effect; VERA starts._) Have you
forgotten that young face, pale with famine; those young limbs twisted
with torture; the iron chains they made him walk in? What week of
liberty did they give him? What pity did they show him for a day? (_VERA
falls in a chair._) Oh! you could talk glibly enough then of vengeance,
glibly enough of liberty. When you said you would come to Moscow, your
old father caught you by the knees and begged you not to leave him
childless and alone.[26] I seem to hear his cries still ringing in my
ears, but you were as deaf to him as the rocks on the roadside; as chill
and cold as the snow on the hill. You left your father that night, and
three weeks after he died of a broken heart. You wrote to me to follow
you here. I did so; first because I loved you; but you soon cured me of
that; whatever gentle feeling, whatever pity, whatever humanity, was in
my heart you withered up and destroyed, as the canker worm eats the
corn, and the plague kills the child. You bade me cast out love from my
breast as a vile thing, you turned my hand to iron, and my heart to
stone; you told me to live for freedom and for revenge. I have done so;
but you, what have you done?
VERA. Let the lots be drawn! (_CONSPIRATORS applaud._)
PRINCE PAUL (_aside_). Ah, the Grand Duke will come to the throne sooner
than he expected. He is sure to make a good king under my guidance. He
is so cruel to animals, and never keeps his word.
MICH. Now you are yourself at last, Vera.
VERA (_standing motionless in the middle_). The lots, I say, the lots!
I am no woman now. My blood seems turned to gall; my heart is as cold as
steel is; my hand shall be more deadly. From the desert and the tomb the
voice of my prisoned brother cries aloud, and bids me strike one blow
for liberty. The lots, I say, the lots!
PRES. Are you ready. Michael, you have the right to draw first; you are
a Regicide.
VERA. O God, into my hands! Into my hands! (_They draw the lots from a
bowl surmounted by a skull._)
PRES. Open your lots.
VERA (_opening her lot_). The lot is mine! see the bloody sign upon it!
Dmitri, my brother, you shall have your revenge now.
PRES. Vera Sabouroff, you are chosen to be a regicide. God has been good
to you. The dagger or the poison? (_Offers her dagger and vial._)
VERA. I can trust my hand better with the dagger; it never fails. (_Take
dagger._) I shall stab him to the heart, as he has stabbed me. Traitor,
to leave us for a ribbon, a gaud, a bauble, to lie to me every day he
came here, to forget us in an hour. [27]Michael was right, he loved me
not, nor the people either.[27] Methinks that if I was a mother and bore
a man-child I would poison my breast to him, lest he might grow to a
traitor or to a king. (_PRINCE PAUL whispers to the PRESIDENT._)
PRES. Ay, Prince Paul, that is the best way. Vera, the Czar[28] sleeps
to-night in his own room in the north wing of the palace. Here is the
key of the private door in the street. The passwords of the guards will
be given to you. His own servants will be drugged. You will find him
alone.
VERA. It is well. I shall not fail.
PRES. We will wait outside in the Place St. Isaac, under the window. As
the clock strikes twelve from the tower of St. Nicholas you will give us
the sign that the dog is dead.
VERA. And what shall the sign be?
PRES. You are to throw us out the bloody dagger.
MICH. Dripping with the traitor's life.
PRES. Else we shall know that you have been seized, and we will burst
our way in, drag you from his guards.
MICH. And kill him in the midst of them.
PRES. Michael, you will head us?
MICH. Ay, I shall head you. See that your hand fails not, Vera
Sabouroff.
[29]VERA. Fool, is it so hard a thing to kill one's enemy.[29]
PRINCE PAUL (_aside_). This is the ninth conspiracy I have been in in
Russia. They always end in a "voyage en Siberie" for my friends and a
new decoration for myself.
MICH. It is your last conspiracy, Prince.
PRES. At twelve o'clock, the bloody dagger.
VERA. Ay, red with the blood of that false heart. I shall not forget it.
(_Standing in the middle of the stage._) [30]To strangle whatever nature
is in me, neither to love nor to be loved, neither to pity nor to be
pitied. Ay! it is an oath, an oath. Methinks the spirit of Charlotte
Corday has entered my soul now. I shall carve my name on the world, and
be ranked among the great heroines. Ay! the spirit of Charlotte Corday
beats in each petty vein, and nerves my woman's hand to strike, as I
have nerved my woman's heart to hate. Though he laughs in his dreams, I
shall not falter. Though he sleep peacefully I shall not miss my
blow.[30] Be glad, my brother, in your stifled cell; be glad and laugh
to-night. To-night this new-fledged Czar shall post with bloody feet to
Hell, and greet his father there! [31]This Czar! O traitor, liar, false
to his oath, false to me! To play the patriot amongst us, and now to
wear a crown; to sell us, like Judas, for thirty silver pieces, to
betray us with a kiss![31] (_With more passion._) O Liberty, O mighty
mother of eternal time, thy robe is purple with the blood of those who
have died for thee! Thy throne is the Calvary of the people, thy crown
the crown of thorns. O crucified mother, the despot has driven a nail
through thy right hand, and the tyrant through thy left! Thy feet are
pierced with their iron. When thou wert athirst thou calledst on the
priests for water, and they gave thee bitter drink. They thrust a sword
into thy side. They mocked thee in thine agony of age on age. [32]Here,
on thy altar, O Liberty, do I dedicate myself to thy service; do with me
as thou wilt![32] (_Brandishing dagger._) The end has come now, and by
thy sacred wounds, O crucified mother, O Liberty, I swear that Russia
shall be saved!
CURTAIN.
END OF ACT III.