KALIAYEV: That’s enough. Who are you?
SKURATOV: Skuratov, Chief of Police.
KALIAYEV: In other words, a flunky.
SKURATOV: Have it your own way. Still, if I were in your position, I wouldn’t throw my weight around. But perhaps you will find that out for yourself, by and by. One begins by wanting justice—and one ends by setting up a police force. Anyhow, I’m not afraid of the truth, and I shall talk to you quite frankly. You interest me. I’d like to help you to get off.
KALIAYEV: What do you mean?
SKURATOV: Surely it’s obvious. I can get you a free pardon. I am bringing you a chance for your life.
KALIAYEV: Who asked you for it?
SKURATOV: One doesn’t ask for life, my friend. One’s given it. Have you never let anybody off? [A short silence.] Think hard.
KALIAYEV: Well, I don’t want your pardon, and that’s an end of it.
SKURATOV: Anyhow, please hear what I have to say. Appearances notwithstanding, I am not your enemy. I won’t even say that your ideas are wrong. Except when they lead to murder.
KALIAYEV: I forbid you to use that word.
SKURATOV: Ah, your nerves are out of order, that’s the trouble? [Pauses.] Quite honestly, I want to help you.
KALIAYEV: To help me? I am ready to pay the price of what I’ve done. But I refuse to tolerate this familiarity on your part. Leave me in peace.
SKURATOV: The accusation you have to face.…
KALIAYEV: That’s incorrect.
SKURATOV: I beg your pardon?
KALIAYEV: Accusation is not the word. I am a prisoner of war, not an accused person.
SKURATOV: Put it that way, if you prefer. Still, there’s been damage done, you must admit. Let’s leave politics out of it and look at the human side. A man has been killed—and killed in a particularly horrible manner.
KALIAYEV: I threw the bomb at your tyranny, not at a man.
SKURATOV: Perhaps. But it was a living human being whom it blew to bits. It wasn’t a pretty sight, let me tell you, my young friend. When they had pieced the body together, the head was missing. Completely disappeared! And as for the rest, an arm and a bit of a leg were all that had escaped undamaged.
KALIAYEV: I carried out a verdict.
SKURATOV: That’s as it may be. Nobody blames you for the verdict. What’s a verdict? Just a word about which one might wrangle endlessly. What you’re accused of—sorry, I know you don’t like that word—is, let’s say, a sort of amateurishness, doing a messy job in fact. The results, anyhow, were plain enough to see; there’s no disputing them. Ask the Grand Duchess. There was blood, you know, a lot of blood.
KALIAYEV: Keep quiet, damn you!
SKURATOV: Very well. All I want to say is that if you persist in talking about a “verdict” and asserting that it was the party, and the party alone, that tried and executed the victim—that, in short, the Grand Duke was killed not by a bomb but by an idea—well, in that case, you don’t need a pardon. Suppose, however, we get down to brass tacks; suppose we say that it was you, Ivan Kaliayev, who blew the Grand Duke’s head to pieces—that puts a rather different complexion on the matter, doesn’t it? Then undoubtedly you stand in need of pardon. And that’s where I can be of aid, out of pure fellow feeling, I assure you. [Smiles.] That’s how I’m built; I am not interested in ideas, I’m interested in human beings.
KALIAYEV [furiously]: But, damn it, I don’t recognize your right or the right of your employers to sit in judgment on me. You can kill me if you think fit, and that is the only right you have over my person. Oh, I can see what you’re leading up to. You are trying to find a chink in my armor, you are hoping to make me feel ashamed of myself, burst into tears, repent of what you call my crime. Well, you won’t get anywhere; what I am is no concern of yours. What concerns me is our hatred, mine and my brothers’. And you are welcome to it.
SKURATOV: That, too, is an idea, or rather, an obsession. But murder isn’t just an idea; it is something that takes place. And, obviously, so do its consequences. Which are repentance for the crime, and punishment. There we get down to the heart of the matter, and that in fact is why I joined the police. I like being at the heart of things. But you don’t want to hear me talking about myself.… [Pauses. Then moves slowly toward KALIAYEV.] All I wish to say is that you should not forget, or profess to forget, the Grand Duke’s head. If you took it into account, you would find that mere ideas lead nowhere. For instance, instead of feeling pleased with yourself, you’d be ashamed of what you did. And, when once you felt ashamed, you would want to live, in order to atone. So the great thing is that you decide to live.
KALIAYEV: And suppose I decided to live, what then?
SKURATOV: A pardon for you and for your comrades.
KALIAYEV: Have you arrested them?
SKURATOV: No. As a matter of fact we haven’t. But if you decide to live, we shall arrest them.
KALIAYEV: I wonder if I’ve really understood.…
SKURATOV: Certainly you have. Don’t lose your temper—that would be premature. Think it over first. Obviously from the standpoint of the idea—the ideal, if you prefer the word—you cannot hand them over to us. But from a practical point of view you’d be doing them a service. You would be preventing them from getting into further trouble, and by the same token, you’d be saving them from the gallows. And, best of all, you would regain your peace of mind. So, from whatever angle you look at it, you’d be doing the best thing. [KALIAYEV is silent.] Well?
KALIAYEV: My friends will give you the answer before long.
SKURATOV: Another crime! Decidedly, it’s a vocation! Very well, I have had my say. And I confess I’m disappointed. It’s all too obvious that you cling to your ideas like a lamprey; there’s no detaching you.
KALIAYEV: You cannot detach me from my brothers.
SKURATOV: Au revoir. [He starts to go out, then turns back.] Why then did you spare the Grand Duchess and her nephews?
KALIAYEV: Who told you about that?
SKURATOV: Your informer. He was informing us as well—up to a point. But, I ask you, why did you spare them?
KALIAYEV: That’s no concern of yours.
SKURATOV [laughing]: Oh, come now! … Well, I’ll tell you why. An ideal can murder a Grand Duke, but it balks at murdering children. That was the discovery you made that day. But let’s carry it a stage further. If an ideal balks at murdering children, is one justified in murdering a Grand Duke on its behalf? [KALIAYEV makes a fretful gesture.] No, don’t answer me. It’s not I who am concerned in this. You will give your answer to the Grand Duchess.
KALIAYEV: The Grand Duchess?
SKURATOV: Yes, she wants to see you. And my chief reason for coming here was to make sure that this was feasible. It is. It may even make you change your mind. The Grand Duchess is a very Christian lady. Indeed one might say she makes a hobby of the soul. [Laughs.]
KALIAYEV: I refuse to see her.
SKURATOV: I’m sorry, but she will not take No for an answer. And, after all, you owe her some consideration. What’s more, it seems that since her husband’s death she has become—how shall I put it?—mentally unbalanced. So we thought it better not to oppose her wishes. [Standing in the doorway.] If you change your mind, don’t forget my proposal. I shall be seeing you again. [A short silence. He is listening.] Here she comes. You certainly can’t complain of being neglected! But it all hangs together. Imagine God without prisons! One would be lost without the other.
[He goes out. Voices and words of command in the corridor. The GRAND DUCHESS enters. She stands silent, unmoving, for some moments. The door remains open.]
KALIAYEV: What do you want?
THE GRAND DUCHESS [lifting her veil]: Look! [KALIAYEV says nothing.] Many things die with a man.
KALIAYEV: I knew it.
THE GRAND DUCHESS [in a faint, weary, but quite natural voice]: No, murderers do not know that. If they did, how could they bring themselves to kill? [A short silence.]
KALIAYEV: I have seen you. Now I wish to be alone.
THE GRAND DUCHESS: No. I, too, must look at you. [KALIAYEV shrinks away. The GRAND DUCHESS sits down; she seems exhausted.] I can’t remain alone any longer. In the old days when I was sad, he used to share my sorrow—and I did not mind suffering … then. But now … No, I cannot bear being alone and keeping silent any longer. But to whom am I to speak? The others do not know. They pretend to be distressed. And perhaps they really are, for an hour or two. Then they go off to eat—or to sleep. To sleep especially. Somehow, I felt you must be like me. You, too, don’t sleep, I am sure. And to whom could I speak of the crime, except to the murderer?
KALIAYEV: What crime? All I remember is an act of justice.
THE GRAND DUCHESS: The same voice! You have exactly the same voice as
