Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

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——

·73· czarevitch

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, ·74· 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.

czarevitch

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 ·75· the last line. All it requires now is Your Imperial Majesty’s signature.

czarevitch

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. Give me the proclamation. I will sign it at once.

prince paul

[ Points on paper .] Here, Sire.

czarevitch

[ 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.

·76· prince paul

We have no time, Prince, now. This boy will ruin everything. The pen, Sire.

czarevitch

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.

czarevitch

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——?

czarevitch

I dare all for the people; but you would ·77· rob them of the common rights of common men.

czar

The people have no rights.

czarevitch

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; aye, 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?

czarevitch

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 ·78· 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?

czarevitch

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.

czarevitch

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?

czarevitch

No! The people reign now, by the grace of ·79· 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!

czarevitch

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?

czarevitch

Because I am a Nihilist! [ The ministers start to their feet; there is a dead silence for a few minutes .]

czar

A Nihilist! a Nihilist! Scorpion whom I have nurtured, traitor whom I have fondled, is this ·80· 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 petrovitch

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.

·81· czar

[ Sinks into his chair with his eyes fixed on the Czarevitch .] O God!

czarevitch

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.

czarevitch

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 has 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.

czarevitch

Father, Emperor, Imperial Master, I plead not for my own life, but for the lives of my brothers, the people.