Oscar Wilde - Vera - or, The Nihilists

Pres. Since he came back from abroad a year ago his father has kept him in close prison in his palace.

Mich. An excellent training to make him a tyrant in his turn; but is there any news, I say?

Pres. A council is to be held to-morrow, at four o'clock, on some secret business the spies cannot find out.

Mich. A council in a king's palace is sure to be about some bloody work or other. But in what room is this council to be held?

Pres. ( reading from letter ). In the yellow tapestry room called after the Empress Catherine.

Mich. I care not for such long-sounding names. I would know where it is.

Pres. I cannot tell, Michael. I know more about the insides of prisons than of palaces.

Mich. ( speaking suddenly to Alexis ). Where is this room, Alexis?

Alexis. It is on the first floor, looking out on to the inner courtyard. But why do you ask, Michael?

Mich. Nothing, nothing, boy! I merely take a great interest in the Czar's life and movements, and I knew you could tell me all about the palace. Every poor student of medicine in Moscow knows all about king's houses. It is their duty, is it not?

Alexis ( aside ). Can Michael suspect me? There is something strange in his manner to-night. Why doesn't she come? The whole fire of revolution seems fallen into dull ashes when she is not here.

Mich. Have you cured many patients lately, at your hospital, boy?

Alex. There is one who lies sick to death I would fain cure, but cannot.

Mich. Ay, and who is that?

Alex. Russia, our mother.

Mich. The curing of Russia is surgeon's business, and must be done by the knife. I like not your method of medicine.

Pres. Professor, we have read the proofs of your last article; it is very good indeed.

Mich. What is it about, Professor?

Professor. The subject, my good brother, is assassination considered as a method of political reform.

Mich. I think little of pen and ink in revolutions. One dagger will do more than a hundred epigrams. Still, let us read this scholar's last production. Give it to me. I will read it myself.

Prof. Brother, you never mind your stops; let Alexis read it.

Mich. Ay! he is as tripping of speech as if he were some young aristocrat; but for my own part I care not for the stops so that the sense be plain.

Alex. ( reading ). "The past has belonged to the tyrant, and he has defiled it; ours is the future, and we shall make it holy." Ay! let us make the future holy; let there be one revolution at least which is not bred in crime, nurtured in murder!

Mich. They have spoken to us by the sword, and by the sword we shall answer! You are too delicate for us, Alexis. There should be none here but men whose hands are rough with labour or red with blood.

Pres. Peace, Michael, peace! He is the bravest heart among us.

Mich. ( aside ). He will need to be brave to-night.

Voice ( outside ). Per crucem ad lucem.

Answer of man on guard. Per sanguinem ad libertatem.

Mich. Who is that?

Vera. God save the people!

Pres. Welcome, Vera, welcome! We have been sick at heart till we saw you; but now methinks the star of freedom has come to wake us from the night.

Vera.It is night, indeed, brother! Night without moon or star! Russia is smitten to the heart! The man Ivan whom men call the Czar strikes now at our mother with a dagger deadlier than ever forged by tyranny against a people's life!

Mich. What has the tyrant done now?

Vera. To-morrow martial law is to be proclaimed in Russia.

Omnes. Martial law! We are lost! We are lost!

Alex. Martial law! Impossible!

Mich. Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.

Vera. Ay, martial law. The last right to which the people clung has been taken from them. Without trial, without appeal, without accuser even, our brothers will be taken from their houses, shot in the streets like dogs, sent away to die in the snow, to starve in the dungeon, to rot in the mine. Do you know what martial law means? It means the strangling of a whole nation. The streets will be filled with soldiers night and day; there will be sentinels at every door. No man dare walk abroad now but the spy or the traitor. Cooped up in the dens we hide in, meeting by stealth, speaking with bated breath; what good can we do now for Russia?

Pres. We can suffer at least.

Vera. We have done that too much already. The hour is now come to annihilate and to revenge.

Pres. Up to this the people have borne everything.

Vera. Because they have understood nothing. But now we, the Nihilists, have given them the tree of knowledge to eat of and the day of silent suffering is over for Russia.

Mich. Martial law, Vera! This is fearful tidings you bring.

Pres. It is the death warrant of liberty in Russia.

Vera. Or the tocsin of revolution.

Mich. Are you sure it is true?

Vera. Here is the proclamation. I stole it myself at the ball to-night from a young fool, one of Prince Paul's secretaries, who had been given it to copy. It was that which made me so late.

Mich. "To ensure the public safety – martial law. By order of the Czar, father of his people." The father of his people!

Vera. Ay! a father whose name shall not be hallowed, whose kingdom shall change to a republic, whose trespasses shall not be forgiven him, because he has robbed us of our daily bread; with whom is neither might, nor right, nor glory, now or for ever.

Pres. It must be about this that the council meet to-morrow. It has not yet been signed.

Alex. It shall not be while I have a tongue to plead with.

Mich. Or while I have hands to smite with.

Vera. Martial law! O God, how easy it is for a king to kill his people by thousands, but we cannot rid ourselves of one crowned man in Europe! What is there of awful majesty in these men which makes the hand unsteady, the dagger treacherous, the pistol-shot harmless? Are they not men of like passions with ourselves, vulnerable to the same diseases, of flesh and blood not different from our own? What made Olgiati tremble at the supreme crisis of that Roman life, and Guido's nerve fail him when he should have been of iron and of steel? A plague, I say, on these fools of Naples, Berlin, and Spain! Methinks that if I stood face to face with one of the crowned men my eye would see more clearly, my aim be more sure, my whole body gain a strength and power that was not my own! Oh, to think what stands between us and freedom in Europe! a few old men, wrinkled, feeble, tottering dotards whom a boy could strangle for a ducat, or a woman stab in a night-time. And these are the things that keep us from democracy, that keep us from liberty. But now methinks the brood of men is dead and the dull earth grown sick of child-bearing, else would no crowned dog pollute God's air by living.

Omnes. Try us! Try us! Try us!

Mich. We shall try thee, too, some day, Vera.

Vera. I pray God thou mayest! Have I not strangled whatever nature is in me, and shall I not keep my oath?

Mich. ( to President ). Martial law, President! Come, there is no time to be lost. We have twelve hours yet before us till the council meet. Twelve hours! One can overthrow a dynasty in less time than that.

Pres.Ay! or lose one's own head.

( Michael and the President retire to one corner of the stage and sit whispering. Vera takes up the proclamation, and reads it to herself; Alexis watches and suddenly rushes up to her. )

Alex. Vera!

Vera. Alexis, you here! Foolish boy, have I not prayed you to stay away? All of us here are doomed to die before our time, fated to expiate by suffering whatever good we do; but you, with your bright boyish face, you are too young to die yet.