DORA [in a low, toneless voice]: Yes. [She walks slowly out.]
KALIAYEV [after watching her receding form, turns to STEPAN and says with quiet assurance.] I shall kill him. With joy!
CURTAIN
ACT II
Scene as before. Night has fallen. BORIS is at the window, DORA beside the table.
ANNENKOV: They’re at their posts. Stepan has just lit his cigarette.
DORA: When is the Grand Duke expected to drive by?
ANNENKOV: Any moment now. Listen! Isn’t that a carriage?… No.
DORA: Don’t fidget like that! Do sit down.
ANNENKOV: What about the bombs?
DORA: Do sit down.… There’s nothing more we can do.
ANNENKOV: Yes, there is. We can envy them.
DORA: Your place is here. You are the leader.
ANNENKOV: I’m the leader, yes. But Yanek’s a better man than I, and perhaps he is the one who …
DORA: The risk’s the same for all. For the man who throws and for the man who doesn’t throw.
ANNENKOV: In the long run, yes, the risk’s the same. But at this moment Yanek and Alexis are in the firing line. Oh, I know I haven’t the right to be with them. Still, I can’t help fearing sometimes that I’m a little too ready to play my part; after all it … it makes things easier, not having to throw the bomb oneself.
DORA: What if it does? The only thing that matters is for you to do your duty, to the end.
ANNENKOV: How calm you are, Dora!
DORA: I am not calm; I’m frightened.… Let me tell you something. I’ve been with the group for three years, haven’t I? And for two years I’ve been making the bombs. I have done all I was told to do, and I don’t think I ever let you down. That’s so, isn’t it?
ANNENKOV: Of course it is, Dora.
DORA: Well, all those three years I have been afraid; I have been haunted by that creeping fear that leaves you only when you go to sleep, and are lucky enough not to dream; but when you wake up, there it is, waiting at your bedside.… So the only thing was to get used to it. I’ve trained myself to keep calm just when I’m most afraid. But it’s nothing to be proud of.
ANNENKOV: On the contrary, you should feel proud. Look at me! I’ve never mastered anything. Do you know, I often catch myself regretting the bad old days—a gay life, pretty women, and all the rest of it! Yes, I was fond of women, wine, dancing through the night.…
DORA: I’d guessed as much, Boria, and that’s why I am so fond of you. Your heart is not dried up. Even if it’s still hankering after pleasure, surely that’s better than the hideous silence that often settles in at the very place where voices used to rise—authentically human voices.
ANNENKOV: Dora! I can’t believe my ears! You, of all people, feel like that?
DORA: Ssh! Listen. [She puts a finger to her lips, listening intently. A distant rumble of wheels; then silence.] No. It’s not he, not yet. My heart’s thumping. You see! I’ve still a lot to learn.
ANNENKOV [going to the window]: Ah! Stepan’s made a sign. He’s coming. [Again there is a rumble of wheels; it comes nearer and nearer, passes below the windows, then gradually recedes. A long silence.] In a few seconds … [They listen.] How long it seems! [DORA makes a fretful gesture. A long silence. Suddenly, a peal of bells in the distance.] What can have happened? Yanek should have thrown his bomb by now. The carriage must have reached the theater. And what about Alexis? Look! Stepan’s turned, now he’s running toward the theater.
DORA [clinging to him]: Yanek’s been arrested. I’m sure it’s that. Oh, Boria, we must do something, we …
ANNENKOV: Wait. [Listens.] No, nothing. That settles it.
DORA: I don’t understand. How can Yanek have been arrested when he hasn’t done anything? Oh, I know he was quite ready for it. In fact, prison, the trial, were what he wanted. But after he’d killed the Grand Duke. Not like this, not like this!
ANNENKOV [looking out]: Here’s Voinov. Open, quick! [DORA opens the door. VOINOV enters; he is greatly agitated.] What’s happened, Alexis?
VOINOV: I’ve no idea. I was waiting for the first bomb. Then I saw the carriage rounding the corner, and nothing’d happened. I was completely baffled. I thought a bit, then I concluded you had called it off at the last minute. So I ran back here.
ANNENKOV: What about Yanek?
VOINOV: I haven’t seen him.
DORA: He’s been arrested.
ANNENKOV [who is still looking out of the window]: No. There he is. He’s coming back.
[Dora opens the door. KALIAYEV enters, his face streaming with tears.]
KALIAYEV: Brothers … forgive me … I couldn’t bring myself …
[DORA goes to him and clasps his hand.]
DORA [soothingly]: That’s all right. Don’t worry.…
ANNENKOV: What happened?
DORA [to KALIAYEV]: Don’t take it so hard, Yanek. Sometimes it’s like that, you know; at the last minute everything goes wrong.
ANNENKOV: No, I can’t believe my ears.
DORA: Let him be. You’re not the only one, Yanek. Schweitzer, too, couldn’t bring it off the first time.
ANNENKOV: Yanek, were you … afraid?
KALIAYEV [indignantly]: Afraid? Certainly not—and you haven’t the right …
[A knocking at the door in the agreed code. At a sign from ANNENKOV, VOINOV goes out. KALIAYEV seems completely prostrated. A short silence. STEPAN enters.]
ANNENKOV: Well?
STEPAN: There were children in the Grand Duke’s carriage.
ANNENKOV: Children?
STEPAN: Yes. The Grand Duke’s niece and nephew.
ANNENKOV: But Orlov told us the Grand Duke would be by himself.
STEPAN: There was the Grand Duchess as well. Too many people, I suppose, for our young poet. Luckily, the police spies didn’t notice anything.
[ANNENKOV speaks in a low tone to STEPAN. All are gazing at KALIAYEV, who now looks up and fixes his eyes on STEPAN.]
KALIAYEV [wildly]: I’d never dreamed of anything like that. Children, children especially. Have you ever noticed children’s eyes—that grave, intent look they often have? Somehow I never can face it. I have to look away.… And, to think, only a moment before I was so gloriously happy, standing at the corner of that little side street, in a patch of shadow. The moment I saw the carriage lamps twinkling in the distance, my heart began to race. With joy, I can assure you. And as the rumble of wheels came nearer, it beat faster and faster. Thumping inside me like a drum. I wanted to leap into the air. I’m almost sure that I was laughing, laughing for joy. And I kept on saying: “Yes … Yes …” Do you understand? [Averting his gaze from STEPAN, he relapses into his dejected attitude.] I ran forward. It was then I saw the children. They weren’t laughing, not they! Just staring into emptiness, and holding themselves very straight. How sad they looked! Dressed up in their best clothes, with their hands resting on their thighs, like two little statues framed in the windows on each side of the door. I didn’t see the Grand Duchess. I saw only them. If they had turned my way, I think I might have thrown the bomb—if only to extinguish that sad look of theirs. But they kept staring straight ahead. [Raising his head, he looks at the others. Silence. Then, in a still lower voice] I can’t explain what happened to me then. My arms went limp. My legs seemed to be giving way beneath me. And, a moment afterwards, it was too late. [Another silence; he is staring at the floor.] Dora, did I dream it, or was there a peal of bells just then?
DORA: No, Yanek, you did not dream it.
[She lays her hand on his arm. KALIAYEV looks up and sees their eyes intent on him. He rises to his feet.]
KALIAYEV: Yes, look at me, brothers, look at me.… But I’m no coward, Boria, I did not flinch. Only I wasn’t expecting them. And everything went with such a rush. Those two serious little faces, and in my hand that hideous weight. I’d have had to throw it at them. Like that! Straight at them. No, I just couldn’t bring myself … [He scans their faces.] In the old days when I used to go out driving on our estate in the Ukraine, I always drove hell-for-leather. I wasn’t afraid of anything, except of running down a child—that was my one fear. I pictured a sort of brittle thud as the small head hit the roadway, and the mere thought of it made me shudder. [He is silent for some moments.] Help me … [Another silence.] I meant to kill myself just now. I came back only because I thought I owed it to you; you were the only people who could judge me, could say if I was wrong or right, and I’d abide by your decision. But here I am—and you don’t say anything. [DORA comes beside him, her hand brushing his shoulder. He looks round, then continues in a toneless voice] This is what I propose. If you decide that those children must be killed, I will go to the theater and wait till they are coming out. Then I shall handle the situation by myself, unaided; I shall throw the bomb and I can promise not to miss. So make your decision; I’ll do whatever the group decides.
STEPAN: The group had given you orders to kill the Grand Duke.
KALIAYEV: That’s so. But I wasn’t asked to murder children.
ANNENKOV: Yanek’s right. That wasn’t on the program.
STEPAN: It was his duty to obey.
ANNENKOV: I was in charge of operations and I’m to blame. Every possibility should have been foreseen, so that no one could feel the least hesitation about what
