KALIAYEV [gently]: Why are you being rude to me? Who told you I was bored?
STEPAN: There was no need to tell me. You change the signals, you enjoy dressing up as a peddler, you recite poems, you want to throw yourself under horses’ feet, and now you’re talking about suicide. [Looks him in the eyes.] No, I can’t say you inspire me with confidence.
KALIAYEV [mastering his anger]: You don’t know me, brother. I’m never bored, and I love life. I joined the revolution because I love life.
STEPAN: I do not love life; I love something higher—and that is justice.
KALIAYEV [with a visible effort to control himself]: Each of us serves the cause of justice in his own manner; you in yours and I in mine. Why not agree to differ? And let’s love each other if we can.
STEPAN: We cannot.
KALIAYEV [losing control] : What then are you doing among us?
STEPAN: I have come to kill a man, not to love him, or to agree to differ from him.
KALIAYEV [passionately]: You will not kill him single-handed, or on behalf of nothing. You will kill him with us, on behalf of the Russian people. That is what justifies your act.
STEPAN [fiercely]: Don’t prate of justification! I got all the justification I need three years ago, one night in the convict prison. And I refuse to tolerate …
ANNENKOV: That’s enough. Have you both gone off your heads? Have you forgotten what binds us together? That we all are brothers, working hand in hand, to punish the tyrants and set our people free? Together we shall kill, and nothing can divide us. [They are silent. He gazes at them for a moment.] Come along, Stepan, we’ll have to settle on the signal. [STEPAN leaves the room. To KALIAYEV.] Don’t take it to heart, Yanek. Stepan has suffered terribly. I’ll talk to him.
KALIAYEV [who is very pale]: He insulted me, Boria. [DORA enters.]
DORA [after a glance at KALIAYEV] : What’s wrong?
ANNENKOV: Nothing. [Goes out.]
DORA [to KALIAYEV]: What’s wrong?
KALIAYEV: We’ve come to words already. He doesn’t like me.
[DORA sits down. For some moments neither speaks.]
DORA: Stepan doesn’t like anybody; that’s how he is. But he will be happier when everything is over. Don’t be sad, Yanek.
KALIAYEV: I am sad. I want you all to love me. When I joined the group I cut adrift from everything, and if my brothers turn against me, how can I bear it? Time and again I feel they do not understand me. Perhaps it’s my fault. I know I’m often clumsy, I don’t say the right things, I …
DORA: They love you and they understand you. Only, Stepan’s different.
KALIAYEV: No. I can guess what he thinks; I heard Schweitzer say much the same thing: “Yanek’s too flighty, too eccentric for a revolutionary.” I’d have them know that I’m not the least bit flighty. I imagine I strike them as being impulsive, crackbrained very likely. Yet I believe in our ideal quite as firmly as they do. Like them, I’m ready to give my life up for it. I, too, can be cunning, silent, resourceful, when it’s called for. Only, I’m still convinced that life is a glorious thing, I’m in love with beauty, happiness. That’s why I hate despotism. The trouble is to make them understand this. Revolution, by all means. But revolution for the sake of life—to give life a chance, if you see what I mean.
DORA [impulsively]: Yes, I do! [After a short silence, in a lower voice.] Only—what we’re going to give isn’t life, but death.
KALIAYEV: We? Oh, I see what you mean. But that’s not the same thing at all. When we kill, we’re killing so as to build up a world in which there will be no more killing. We consent to being criminals so that at last the innocent, and only they, will inherit the earth.
DORA: And suppose it didn’t work out like that?
KALIAYEV: How can you say such a thing? It’s unthinkable. Then Stepan would be right—and we’d have to spit in the face of beauty.
DORA: I’ve had more experience than you in this work, and I know that nothing’s so simple as you imagine. But you have faith, and faith is what we need, all of us.
KALIAYEV: Faith? No. Only one man had faith in that sense.
DORA: Well, let’s say then that you have an indomitable soul, and you will see it through, no matter at what cost. Why did you ask to throw the first bomb?
KALIAYEV: When one’s a terrorist can one talk of direct action without taking part in it?
DORA: No.
KALIAYEV: And one must be in the forefront, of course.…
DORA [musingly]: Yes, there’s the forefront—and there’s also the last moment. We all should think of that. That’s where courage lies, and the selfless ardor we all need … you, too, need.
KALIAYEV: For a year now that has never left my thoughts; I’ve been living for that moment day by day, hour by hour. And I know now that I’d like to die on the spot, beside the Grand Duke. To shed my blood to the last drop, or blaze up like tinder in the flare of the explosion and leave not a shred of me behind. Do you understand why I asked to throw the bomb? To die for an ideal—that’s the only way of proving oneself worthy of it. It’s our only justification.
DORA: That’s the death I, too, desire.
KALIAYEV: Yes, the happiest end of all. Sometimes at night when I’m lying awake on the thin straw mattress that’s all a peddler can afford, I’m worried by the thought that they have forced us into being murderers. But then I remind myself that I’m going to die, too, and everything’s all right. I smile to myself like a child and go happily to sleep.
DORA: That’s how it should be, Yanek. To kill, and to die on the spot. But, to my mind, there’s a still greater happiness. [She falls silent. KALIAYEV gazes at her. She lowers her eyes.] The scaffold!
KALIAYEV [with feverish excitement]: Yes, I, too, have thought of that. There’s something incomplete in dying on the spot. While between the moment the bomb is thrown and the scaffold, there is an eternity, perhaps the only eternity a man can know.
DORA [clasping his hands; earnestly]: And that’s the thought which must help you through. We are paying more than we owe.
KALIAYEV: What do you mean?
DORA: We’re forced to kill, aren’t we? We deliberately immolate a life, a single life?
KALIAYEV: Yes.
DORA: But throwing the bomb and then climbing the scaffold—that’s giving one’s life twice. Thus we pay more than we owe.
KALIAYEV: Yes, it’s dying twice over. Thank you, Dora. There’s nothing with which anyone can reproach us. Now, I’m sure of myself. [A short silence.] What is it, Dora? Why are you silent?
DORA: I’d like to help you in another way as well. Only …
KALIAYEV: Only … what?
DORA: No, I’d better not.…
KALIAYEV: Don’t you trust me?
DORA: It’s not that I don’t trust you, darling; I don’t trust myself. Ever since Schweitzer’s death, I’ve been having … queer ideas. And anyhow it’s not for me to tell you what will be so difficult.
KALIAYEV: But I like things that are difficult. Unless you have a very low opinion of me, say what you have in mind.
DORA [gazing at him]: I know. You’re brave. That, in fact, is what makes me anxious. You laugh, you work yourself up, you go forward to the sacrifice in a sort of rapture. But in a few hours’ time you’ll have to come out of your dream and face reality, the dreadful thing you are to do. Perhaps it’s best to speak of this beforehand—so that you won’t be taken by surprise, and flinch.
KALIAYEV: That’s nonsense! I shall not flinch. But please explain …
DORA: Throwing the bomb, the scaffold, dying twice over—that’s the easier part. Your heart will see you through. But standing in the front line.… [She pauses, scans him again, and seems to hesitate.] You’ll be standing in front, you’ll see him.…
KALIAYEV: See whom?
DORA: The Grand Duke.
KALIAYEV: Oh, only for a moment at most.
DORA: A moment during which you’ll look at him. Oh, Yanek, it’s best for you to know, to be forewarned! A man is a man. Perhaps the Grand Duke has gentle eyes, perhaps you’ll see him smiling to himself, scratching his ear. Perhaps—who knows?—you’ll see a little scar on his cheek where he cut himself shaving. And, if he looks at you, at that moment.…
KALIAYEV: It’s not he I’m killing. I’m killing despotism.
DORA: That’s quite true. And despotism must be killed. I’ll get the bomb ready and when I’m screwing in the tube—that’s the moment when it’s touch and go, and one’s nerves are taut—I’ll feel a queer little thrill … of joy. But, then, I don’t know the Grand Duke; it wouldn’t be anything so easy if while I was screwing in the tube he were sitting in front of me, looking at me. But you’ll see him quite near, from only a yard or two away.
KALIAYEV [vehemently]: I shall not see him.
DORA: Why? Will you shut your eyes?
KALIAYEV: No. But, with God’s help, my hatred will surge up just in time, and blind me.
[A single ring at the bell. They keep very still. STEPAN and VOINOV enter. Voices in the hall. Then ANNENKOV, too, comes in.]
ANNENKOV: It’s the porter. The Grand Duke’s going to the theater tomorrow. [Looks at them.] Please see that everything is
