(This with more calm and pathos.) I have ridden into the crimson heart of war, and borne back an eagle which those wild islanders had taken from us. Men said I was brave then. My father gave me the Iron Cross of valour. Oh, could he see me now with this coward’s livery ever in my cheek! (Sinks into his chair.) I never knew any love when I was a boy. I was ruled by terror myself, how else should I rule now? (Starts up.) But I will have revenge; I will have revenge. For every hour I have lain awake at night, waiting for the noose or the dagger, they shall pass years in Siberia, centuries in the mines! Ay! I shall have revenge.
Czare. Father! have mercy on the people. Give them what they ask.
Prince Paul. And begin, Sire, with your own head; they have a particular liking for that.
Czar. The people! the people! A tiger which I have let loose upon myself; but I will fight with it to the death. I am done with half measures. I shall crush these Nihilists at a blow. There shall not be a man of them, ay, or a woman either, left alive in Russia. Am I Emperor for nothing, that a woman should hold me at bay? Vera Sabouroff shall be in my power, I swear it, before a week is ended, though I burn my whole city to find her. She shall be flogged by the knout, stifled in the fortress, strangled in the square!
Czare. O God!
Czar. For two years her hands have been clutching at my throat; for two years she has made my life a hell; but I shall have revenge. Martial law, Prince, martial law over the whole Empire; that will give me revenge. A good measure, Prince, eh? a good measure.
Prince Paul. And an economical one too, Sire. It would carry off your surplus population in six months, and save you many expenses in courts of justice; they will not be needed now.
Czar. Quite right. There are too many people in Russia, too much money spent on them, too much money in courts of justice. I’ll shut them up.
Czare. Sire, reflect before —
Czar. When can you have the proclamations ready, Prince Paul?
Prince Paul. They have been printed for the last six months, Sire. I knew you would need them.
Czar. That’s good! That’s very good! Let us begin at once. Ah, Prince, if every king in Europe had a minister like you —
Czare. There would be less kings in Europe than there are.
Czar (in frightened whisper, to Prince Paul). What does he mean? Do you trust him? His prison hasn’t cured him yet. Shall I banish him? Shall I (whispers)…? The Emperor Paul did it. The Empress Catherine there (points to picture on the wall) did it. Why shouldn’t I?
Prince Paul. Your Majesty, there is no need for alarm. The Prince is a very ingenuous young man. He pretends to be devoted to the people, and lives in a palace; preaches socialism, and draws a salary that would support a province. He’ll find out one day that the best cure for Republicanism is the Imperial crown, and will cut up the “bonnet rogue” of Democracy to make decorations for his Prime Minister.
Czar. You are right. If he really loved the people, he could not be my son.
Prince Paul. If he lived with the people for a fortnight, their bad dinners would soon cure him of his democracy. Shall we begin, Sire?
Czar. At once. Read the proclamation. Gentlemen, be seated. Alexis, Alexis, I say, come and hear it! It will be good practice for you; you will be doing it yourself some day.
Czare. I have heard too much of it already. (Takes his seat at the table. Count Rouvaloff whispers to him.)
Czar. What are you whispering about there, Count Rouvaloff?
Count R. I was giving his Royal Highness some good advice, your Majesty.
Prince Paul. Count Rouvaloff is the typical spendthrift, Sire; he is always giving away what he needs most. (Lays papers before the Czar.) I think, Sire, you will approve of this: — “Love of the people,” “Father of his people,” “Martial law,” and the usual allusions to Providence in the last line. All it requires now is your Imperial Majesty’s signature.
Czare. Sire!
Prince Paul (hurriedly). I promise your Majesty to crush every Nihilist in Russia in six months if you sign this proclamation; every Nihilist in Russia.
Czar. Say that again! To crush every Nihilist in Russia; to crush this woman, their leader, who makes war upon me in my own city. Prince Paul Maraloffski, I create you Marechale of the whole Russian Empire to help you to carry out martial law.
Czar. Give me the proclamation. I will sign it at once.
Prince Paul (points on paper). Here, 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