A to Z Classics - Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde (Best Navigation) (A to Z Classics)

president

Else we shall know that you have been seized, and we will burst our way in, drag you from his guards.

michael

And kill him in the midst of them.

president

Michael, will you head us?

michael

Ay, I shall head you. See that your hand fails not, Vera Sabouroff.

vera

Fool, is it so hard a thing to kill one’s enemy?

prince pauls [ E: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.

·112· michael

It is your last conspiracy, Prince.

president

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 .] 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 laugh in his dreams, I shall not falter. Though he sleep peacefully, I shall not miss my blow. 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! 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! [ With more passion .] O Liberty, O mighty mother of eternal time, ·113· 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 callest 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. Here, on thy altar, O Liberty, do I dedicate myself to thy service; do with me as thou wilt! [ Brandishing dagger .] The end has come now, and by thy sacred wounds, O crucified mother, O Liberty, I swear that Russia shall be saved!

Act-Drop.



SCENE—Antechamber of the Czar’s private room. Large window at the back, with drawn curtains over it.

Present —Prince Petrovitch, Baron Raff, Marquis de Poivrard, Count Rouvaloff.

prince petrovitch

He is beginning well, this young Czar.

baron raff

[ Shrugs his shoulders .] All young Czars do begin well.

count r.

And end badly.

marq. de poiv.

Well, I have no right to complain. He has done me one good service, at any rate.

prince petrovitch

Cancelled your appointment to Archangel, I suppose?

·116· marq. de poiv.

Yes; my head wouldn’t have been safe there for an hour.

[ Enter General Kotemkin .]

baron raff

Ah! General, any more news of our romantic Emperor?

gen. kotemkin

You are quite right to call him romantic, Baron; a week ago I found him amusing himself in a garret with a company of strolling players; to-day his whim is all the convicts in Siberia are to be recalled, and political prisoners, as he calls them, amnestied.

prince petrovitch

Political prisoners! Why, half of them are no better than common murderers!

count r.

And the other half much worse?

baron raff

Oh, you wrong them, surely, Count. Wholesale trade has always been more respectable than retail.

·117· count r.

But he is really too romantic. He objected yesterday to my having the monopoly of the salt tax. He said the people had a right to have cheap salt.

marq. de poiv.

Oh, that’s nothing; but he actually disapproved of a State banquet every night because there is a famine in the Southern provinces. [ The young Czar enters unobserved, and overhears the rest .]

prince petrovitch

Quelle bétise! The more starvation there is among the people, the better. It teaches them self-denial, an excellent virtue, Baron, an excellent virtue.

baron raff

I have often heard so; I have often heard so.

gen. kotemkin

He talked of a Parliament, too, in Russia, and said the people should have deputies to represent them.

baron raff

As if there was not enough brawling in the streets already, but we must give the people a ·118· room to do it in. But, Messieurs, the worst is yet to come. He threatens a complete reform in the public service on the ground that the people are too heavily taxed.

marq. de poiv.

He can’t be serious there. What is the use of the people except to get money out of? But talking of taxes, my dear Baron, you must really let me have forty thousand roubles to-morrow? my wife says she must have a new diamond bracelet.

count r.

[ Aside to Baron Raff .] Ah, to match the one Prince Paul gave her last week, I suppose.

prince petrovitch

I must have sixty thousand roubles at once, Baron. My son is overwhelmed with debts of honour which he can’t pay.

baron raff

What an excellent son to imitate his father so carefully!

gen. kotemkin

You are always getting money. I never get a single kopeck I have not got a right to. It’s unbearable; it’s ridiculous! My nephew is ·119· going to be married. I must get his dowry for him.

prince petrovitch

My dear General, your nephew must be a perfect Turk. He seems to get married three times a week regularly.

gen. kotemkin

Well, he wants dowry to console him.

count r.

I am sick of the town. I want a house in the country.

marq. de poiv.

I am sick of the country. I want a house in town.

baron raff

Mes amis, I am extremely sorry for you. It is out of the question.

prince petrovitch

But my son, Baron?

gen. kotemkin

But my nephew?

·120· marquis de p.

But my house in town?

count r.

But my house in the country?

marquis de p.

But my wife’s diamond bracelet?

baron raff

Gentlemen, impossible! The old régime in Russia is dead; the funeral begins to-day.

count r.

Then I shall wait for the resurrection.

prince petrovitch

Yes, but, en attendant , what are we to do?

baron raff

What have we always done in Russia when a Czar suggests reform?—nothing. You forget we are diplomatists. Men of thought should have nothing to do with action. Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.

·121· count r.

I wish Prince Paul were here. By the bye, I think this boy is rather ungrateful to him. If that clever old Prince had not proclaimed him Emperor at once without giving him time to think about it, he would have given up his crown, I believe, to the first cobbler he met in the street.

prince petrovitch

But do you think, Baron, that Prince Paul is really going?

baron raff

He is exiled.

prince petrovitch

Yes; but is he going?

baron raff

I am sure of it; at least he told me he had sent two telegrams already to Paris about his dinner.

count r.

Ah! that settles the matter.

czar

[ Coming forward .] Prince Paul better send ·122· a third telegram and order [ counting them ] six extra places.

baron raff

The devil!

czar

No, Baron, the Czar. Traitors! There would be no bad kings in the world if there were no bad ministers like you. It is men such as you who wreck mighty empires on the rock of their own greatness. Our mother, Russia, hath no need of such unnatural sons. You can make no atonement now; it is too late for that. The grave cannot give back your dead, nor the gibbet your martyrs, but I shall be more merciful to you. I give you your lives! That is the curse I would lay on you. But if there is a man of you found in Moscow by to-morrow night your heads will be off your shoulders.