KALIAYEV: The only sort of love that you and your kind have ever allowed us.
THE GRAND DUCHESS: I, too, loved—the man you killed.
KALIAYEV: I know. That is why I forgive you for the wrongs that you and your kind have done me. [Pauses.] Now leave me, please.
[A long silence.]
THE GRAND DUCHESS [rising]: Yes, I will leave you. I came here to lead you back to God, but now I realize that you wish to be your own judge; to save yourself, unaided. That is beyond your power. But God can do it, if you live. I will ask that you be given a pardon.
KALIAYEV: Oh, I beg you, don’t do that! Let me die—or else I shall hate you, hate you!
THE GRAND DUCHESS [on the threshold]: I shall ask for your pardon—from man and from God.
KALIAYEV: No, no! I forbid you! [He runs to the door. SKURATOV confronts him. KALIAYEV shrinks away, closing his eyes. A short silence. Then he opens his eyes and looks at SKURATOV.] I am glad you have come.
SKURATOV: Delighted to hear it. May I know why?
KALIAYEV: Because I needed to despise again.
SKURATOV: A pity!… Well, I’ve come for your answer.
KALIAYEV: You have it.
SKURATOV [in a different tone]: No, you’re wrong there. Now, listen well. I authorized this meeting between you and the Grand Duchess so as to be able to publish an account of it in the papers. The report will be correct, except on one point. It will contain a statement that you repented of your crime. Your friends will think you have betrayed them.
KALIAYEV [quietly]: They will not believe it.
SKURATOV: I will stop publication of this report on one condition: that you make a full confession. You have the night in which to decide. [Goes back to the doorway.]
KALIAYEV [louder]: They will not believe it.
SKURATOV [turning round]: Why not? Have they never had their lapses?
KALIAYEV: You do not know their love.
SKURATOV: No. But I know that a man cannot believe in brotherhood a whole night through without faltering for a moment. So I shall wait for you to falter. [Shuts the door and plants himself with his back to it.] Take your time, my friend. I am patient [They remain face to face.]
CURTAIN
ACT V
A week later. The terrorists’ apartment: not the same as in the first act, but furnished in much the same style. The time is night, a little before daybreak. DORA is walking to and fro, her nerves on edge. For some moments no one speaks.
ANNENKOV: Do try to rest, Dora.
DORA: I’m cold.
ANNENKOV: Come here and lie down for a while. Put the rug over you.
DORA [still pacing to and fro]: The night is long. Oh, Boria, I’m so dreadfully cold. [A knocking at the door: one knock, then two. STEPAN enters, followed by VOINOV, who goes up to DORA and kisses her. She hugs him to her breast.] Oh, Alexis!
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
