STEPAN: Orlov thinks it’s for tonight. All the junior officers who are not on duty have been told to report to the prison. That’s how he’ll be present.
ANNENKOV: Where are you to meet him?
STEPAN: At the restaurant in Sophiskaya Street. He’ll wait for us—Voinov and myself—there.
DORA [who has at last sat down, utterly exhausted]: So it’s for tonight, Boria.
ANNENKOV: There’s still a chance. It depends on the Czar’s decision.
STEPAN: It depends on the Czar, if Yanek has asked for clemency.
DORA: He hasn’t.
STEPAN: Why should he have seen the Grand Duchess if it wasn’t about a pardon? She’s been telling everybody that he repented. How is one to know the truth?
DORA: We know what Yanek said at the trial, and we have his letter. Didn’t he say that his one regret was that he had not another life, so as to hurl it, too, in the face of the autocrats? Could the man who said that plead for a pardon, or repent? No, he wanted, and he still wants, to die. There can be no going back on what he’s done.
STEPAN: All the same he should have refused to see the Grand Duchess.
DORA: He is the sole judge of that.
STEPAN: No. According to our principles it was his duty not to see her.
DORA: Our duty is to kill, and that’s the end of it. So now he is free; free at last.
STEPAN: Not yet.
DORA: He’s free, I tell you. Now that he is on the brink of death, he has the right to do exactly as he chooses. For he is going to die, my friends—you won’t be disappointed.
ANNENKOV: Really, Dora!
DORA: Why shirk the issue? If he were pardoned that would be another matter. It would prove that the Grand Duchess had told the truth, that he has repented and betrayed. But if he dies all will be well. You will believe in him and you’ll be able to love him still. [Gazes at them.] Ah, your love costs dear!
VOINOV [going toward her]: You’re wrong, Dora. We never doubted him.
DORA [pacing the room again]: Didn’t you? Well, perhaps not. I’m sorry. Still what does it matter after all? We shall know the truth tonight, in a few hours’ time.… But Alexis, my poor dear, why have you come back like this?
VOINOV: To replace him. When I read what he’d said at the trial I shed tears—how proud I was! You remember his words? “Death will be my supreme protest against a world of tears and blood.” When I read that my hands shook, I could hardly hold the paper.…
DORA: “A world of tears and blood.” Yes, he said that.
VOINOV: He said it. Oh, Dora, what glorious courage! And at the end of his speech, those words that rang out like a trumpet call: “If I have proved equal to the task assigned, of protesting with all the manhood in me against violence, may death consummate my task with the purity of the ideal that inspired it!” It was then I decided to return to you.
DORA [burying her face in her hands]: Yes, it was purity he longed for. But oh the cruelty of that consummation!
VOINOV: Don’t cry, Dora. Remember what he asked—that none of us was to weep for him. How well I understand him—now! All my doubts are swept away.… I was miserable because I’d played the coward. And then I threw the bomb at Tiflis. So now I am like Yanek. When I learned he had been sentenced to death, I had only one idea: to take his place, since I had been unable to take my stand beside him.
DORA: Who can take his place tonight? Tonight he stands alone, Alexis.
VOINOV: We must uphold him with our pride, as he upholds us with his example. Don’t cry, dear.
DORA: Look! My eyes are dry. But proud—ah, no, never again can I be proud.
STEPAN: Dora, don’t misjudge me. I want Yanek to live. We need men like him.
DORA: But Yanek does not want to live. So it’s our duty to wish that he may die.
ANNENKOV: You’re crazy, Dora.
DORA: I tell you, it’s our duty. I know his heart. Only in death will he find peace. So—let him die! [In a lower voice] But quickly … oh, let him die quickly!
STEPAN: Well, Boria, I’m off. Come, Alexis. Orlov’s expecting us.
ANNENKOV: Yes, you’d better be off now. But come back as soon as you can.
[STEPAN and VOINOV walk to the door. On the way STEPAN casts a glance at DORA.]
STEPAN: In a few minutes we shall know everything.… Look after her, Boria.
[DORA is standing at the window. ANNENKOV keeps his eyes fixed on her.]
DORA: Death! The gallows! Always, death! Oh, Boria …!
ANNENKOV: Yes, little sister. But there’s no other solution.
DORA: Don’t say that. If death is the only solution, then we have chosen the wrong path. The right path leads to life, to sunlight.… One can’t bear feeling cold all the time.
ANNENKOV: The path we have chosen, also, leads to life. To life for others. Russia will live, our children’s children will live. Do you remember what Yanek used to say? “Russia will become the land of our dream.”
DORA: Our children’s children, others—yes. But Yanek is in prison and the rope is cold. He is facing death. Perhaps he is already dead—so that others, after him, may live. And, Boria, suppose … suppose that, after all, the others did not live? Suppose he is dying for nothing?
ANNENKOV: Keep silent!
[A short silence.]
DORA: Oh, how cold it is! And yet spring has come. There are trees in the prison yard, aren’t there? I expect he’s looking at them.
ANNENKOV: Don’t give way to your imagination, Dora. And do please try to stop shivering.
DORA: I’m so cold that I’ve the impression of being dead already. [Pauses.] All this ages one so quickly; never, never again shall we feel young again. With the first murder youth ends forever. One throws a bomb and in the next second a whole lifetime flashes by, and all that remains is death.
ANNENKOV: Thus we die like brave men, fighting to the end.
DORA: You have gone about it too fast. You are no longer men.
ANNENKOV: Don’t forget that human misery and injustice go fast as well. In the world of today there’s no scope for patience and quiet progress. Russia is in a hurry.
DORA: I know. We have taken on our shoulders the sorrows of the world. He, too, took them on his shoulders, and went forth alone. That called for courage. Yet I sometimes can’t help thinking such pride will be punished.
ANNENKOV: It’s a pride we pay for with our lives. No one can go farther. It’s a pride to which we are justly entitled.
DORA: Are you so sure that no one can go farther? Sometimes when I hear what Stepan says, I fear for the future. Others, perhaps, will come who’ll quote our authority for killing; and will not pay with their lives.
ANNENKOV: That would be shameful.
DORA: Who knows? Perhaps that is what justice means—in the long run. And then nobody will want to look justice in the face again.
ANNENKOV: Dora! [She is silent.] Are you losing faith? I’ve never known you like this before.
DORA: I’m cold, oh, so cold! And I’m thinking of him—how he’s trying to keep himself from shivering, so as not to seem afraid.
ANNENKOV: Are you no longer with us, Dora?
DORA [flinging herself against him]: Oh, no, Boria, don’t imagine that! I am with you. With you to the end. I loathe tyranny and I know we can’t act otherwise than as we do. Only—it was with a happy heart that I embarked on our great adventure, and it’s with a sad heart that I keep to it. That’s where the difference lies; we are prisoners.
ANNENKOV: All Russia is in prison. But we shall shatter her prison walls.
DORA: Only give me the bomb to throw, and then you’ll see! I shall walk among the flames and I swear I shall not flinch. It’s easy, ever so much easier, to die of one’s inner conflicts than to live with them. Tell me, Boria, have you ever loved anyone—really loved?
ANNENKOV: Yes. But so long ago that I’ve forgotten all about it.
DORA: How long ago?
ANNENKOV: Four years.
DORA: And how long have you been head of the organization?
ANNENKOV: Four years. [Pauses.] Now it’s the organization that I love.
DORA [walking to the window]: Loving, that’s very well … but to be loved, that’s another matter.… No! We must go on and on and on. How good it would be to rest a bit! But that’s impossible. On and on! Sometimes one wants to let oneself relax and take things easy. But that foul thing injustice sticks to us like a leech. Onward! So, you see, we’re doomed to being greater than ourselves. Human beings, human faces—that’s what we’d like to love. To be in love with love, instead of justice. But no! There’s no respite for us. Forward, Dora! Forward, Yanek! [She bursts into tears.] But, for him, the end is near.
ANNENKOV [taking her in his arms]: He’ll be pardoned.
DORA: You know quite well he won’t be. You know quite well that’s … unthinkable. [ANNENKOV averts his eyes.] Perhaps at this very moment he is going out into the prison yard. And all the people there are falling silent as he approaches. Let’s only hope he isn’t feeling cold, like me.… Boria, do you know how men are hanged?
ANNENKOV: With a rope.… Dora, that’s enough.
DORA [wildly]: And the hangman leaps onto their shoulders, doesn’t he? The neck cracks, like a broken twig. Ghastly, isn’t it?
ANNENKOV: Yes … in one sense.
