Sire.
Czare. (starts up and puts his hands on the paper). Stay! I tell you, stay! The priests have taken heaven from the people, and you would take the earth away too.
Prince Paul. We have no time, Prince, now. This boy will ruin everything. The pen, Sire.
Czare. What! is it so small a thing to strangle a nation, to murder a kingdom, to wreck an empire? Who are we who dare lay this ban of terror on a people? Have we less vices than they have, that we bring them to the bar of judgment before us?
Prince Paul. What a Communist the Prince is! He would have an equal distribution of sin as well as of property.
Czare. Warmed by the same sun, nurtured by the same air, fashioned of flesh and blood like to our own, wherein are they different to us, save that they starve while we surfeit, that they toil while we idle, that they sicken while we poison, that they die while we strangle?
Czar. How dare — ?
Czare. I dare all for the people; but you would rob them of common rights of common men.
Czar. The people have no rights.
Czare. Then they have great wrongs. Father, they have won your battles for you; from the pine forests of the Baltic to the palms of India they have ridden on victory’s mighty wings in search of your glory! Boy as I am in years, I have seen wave after wave of living men sweep up the heights of battle to their death; ay, and snatch perilous conquest from the scales of war when the bloody crescent seemed to shake above our eagles.
Czar (somewhat moved). Those men are dead. What have I to do with them?
Czare. Nothing! The dead are safe; you cannot harm them now. They sleep their last long sleep. Some in Turkish waters, others by the windswept heights of Norway and the Dane! But these, the living, our brothers, what have you done for them? They asked you for bread, you gave them a stone. They sought for freedom, you scourged them with scorpions. You have sown the seeds of this revolution yourself! —
Prince Paul. And are we not cutting down the harvest?
Czare. Oh, my brothers! better far that ye had died in the iron hail and screaming shell of battle than to come back to such a doom as this! The beasts of the forests have their lairs, and the wild beasts their caverns, but the people of Russia, conquerors of the world, have not where to lay their heads.
Prince Paul. They have the headsman’s block.
Czare. The headsman’s block! Ay! you have killed their souls at your pleasure, you would kill their bodies now.
Czar. Insolent boy! Have you forgotten who is Emperor of Russia?
Czare. No! The people reign now, by the grace of God. You should have been their shepherd; you have fled away like the hireling, and let the wolves in upon them.
Czar. Take him away! Take him away, Prince Paul!
Czare. God hath given this people tongues to speak with; you would cut them out that they may be dumb in their agony, silent in their torture! But God hath given them hands to smite with, and they shall smite! Ay! from the sick and labouring womb of this unhappy land some revolution, like a bloody child, shall rise up and slay you.
Czar (leaping up). Devil! Assassin! Why do you beard me thus to my face?
Czare. Because I am a Nihilist! (The ministers start to their feet; there is dead silence for a few minutes.)
Czar. A Nihilist! a Nihilist! Scorpion whom I have nurtured, traitor whom I have fondled, is this your bloody secret? Prince Paul Maraloffski, Marechale of the Russian Empire, arrest the Czarevitch!
Ministers. Arrest the Czarevitch!
Czar. A Nihilist! If you have sown with them, you shall reap with them! If you have talked with them, you shall rot with them! If you have lived with them, with them you shall die!
Prince Petro. Die!
Czar. A plague on all sons, I say! There should be no more marriages in Russia when one can breed such vipers as you are! Arrest the Czarevitch, I say!
Prince Paul. Czarevitch! by order of the Emperor, I demand your sword. (Czarevitch gives up sword; Prince Paul places it on the table.) Foolish boy! you are not made for a conspirator; you have not learned to hold your tongue. Heroics are out of place in a palace.
Czar (sinks into his chair with his eyes fixed on the Czarevitch). O God!
Czare. If I am to die for the people, I am ready; one Nihilist more or less in Russia, what does that matter?
Prince Paul (aside). A good deal I should say to the one Nihilist.
Czare. The mighty brotherhood to which I belong has a thousand such as I am, ten thousand better still! (The Czar starts in his seat.) The star of freedom is risen already, and far off I hear the mighty wave democracy break on these cursed shores.
Prince Paul (to Prince Petrovitch). In that case you and I had better learn how to swim.
Czare. Father, Emperor, Imperial Master, I plead not for my own life, but for the lives of my brothers, the people.
Prince Paul (bitterly). Your brothers, the people, Prince, are not content with their own lives, they always want to take their neighbour’s too.
Czar (standing up). I am sick of being afraid. I have done with terror now. From this day I proclaim war against the people — war to their annihilation. As they have dealt with me, so shall I deal with them. I shall grind them to powder, and strew their dust upon the air. There shall be a spy in every man’s house, a traitor on every hearth, a hangman in every village, a gibbet in every square. Plague, leprosy, or fever shall be less deadly than my wrath; I will make every frontier a graveyard, every province a lazar-house, and cure the sick by the sword. I shall have peace in Russia, though it be the peace of the dead. Who said I was a coward? Who said I was afraid? See, thus shall I crush this people beneath my feet! (Takes up sword of Czarevitch off table and tramples on it.)
Czare. Father, beware, the sword you tread on may turn and wound you. The people suffer long, but vengeance comes at last, vengeance with red hands and bloody purpose.
Prince Paul. Bah! the people are bad shots; they always miss one.
Czare. There are times when the people are instruments of God.
Czar. Ay! and when kings are God’s scourges for the people. Oh, my own son, in my own house! My own flesh and blood against me! Take him away! Take him away! Bring in my guards. (Enter the Imperial Guard. Czar points to Czarevitch, who stands alone at the side of the stage.) To the blackest prison in Moscow! Let me never see his face again. (Czarevitch is being led out.) No, no, leave him! I don’t trust guards. They are all Nihilists! They would let him escape and he would kill me, kill me! No, I’ll bring him to prison myself, you and I (to Prince Paul). I trust you, you have no mercy. I shall have no mercy. Oh, my own son against me! How hot it is! The air stifles me! I feel as if I were going to faint, as if something were at my throat. Open the windows, I say! Out of my sight! Out of my sight! I can’t bear his eyes. Wait, wait for me. (Throws window open and goes out on balcony.)
Prince Paul (looking at his watch). The dinner is sure to be spoiled. How annoying politics are and eldest sons!
Voice (outside, in the street). God save the people! (Czar is shot, and staggers back into the room.)
Czare. (breaking from the guards, and rushing over). Father!
Czar. Murderer! Murderer! You did it! Murderer! (Dies.)
TABLEAU.
End of Act II.
ACT III.
Same scene and business as Act I. Man in yellow dress, with drawn sword, at the door.
Password outside. Væ tyrannis.
Answer.