STAVROGIN: I frightened you. Forgive me. MARIA: Never mind. No, I was wrong. (STAVROGIN sits down in the light, MARIA TIMOFEYEVNA screams.)
STAVROGIN (with a touch of impatience): What’s the matter?
MARIA: Nothing. Suddenly I didn’t recognize you. It seemed to me that you were someone else. What are you holding in your hand?
STAVROGIN: What hand?
MARIA: Your right hand. It’s a knife! STAVROGIN: But look, my hand is empty. MARIA: Yes. Last night I saw in a dream a man who looked like my Prince, but it wasn’t he. He was coming toward me with a knife. Ah! (She screams.) Are you the murderer from my dream or my Prince?
STAVROGIN: You are not dreaming. Calm yourself. MARIA: If you are my Prince, why don’t you kiss me? To be sure, he never kissed me. But he was affectionate. I don’t feel anything affectionate in you. On the other hand, there’s something stirring in you that threatens me. He called me his dove. He gave me a ring. He said: “Look at it in the evening and I’ll come to you in your sleep.”
STAVROGIN: Where is the ring?
MARIA: My brother drank it up. And now I am alone at night. Every night . . . (She weeps.)
STAVROGIN:’ Don’t weep, Maria Timofeyevna.
From now on we shall live together. (She stares at him fixedly.)
MARIA: Yes, your voice is soft now. And I recall. I know why you are telling me we shall live together. The other day in the carriage you told me that our marriage would be made public. But I’m afraid of that too.
STAVROGIN: Why?
MARIA: I’ll never know how to handle guests. I don’t suit you at all. I know, there are lackeys. But I saw your family—all those ladies—at your house. They are the ones I don’t suit.
STAVROGIN: Did they do anything to hurt you? MARIA: Hurt? Not at all. I was watching you all. There you were, getting excited and bickering. You don’t even know how to laugh freely when you are together. So much money and so little joy! It’s dreadful. No, I wasn’t hurt. But I was sad. It seemed to me that you were ashamed of me. Yes, you were ashamed, and that morning you began to be rrtore remote. Your very face changed. My Prince went away, and I was left with the man who scorned me, who perhaps hated me. No more kind words—just impatience, anger, the knife . . . (She gets up, trembling.) STAVROGIN (suddenly beside himself): Enough! You are mad, mad!
MARIA (in a meek little voice): Please, Prince, go outside and come back in.
STAVROGIN (still trembling and impatiently): Come back in? Why come back in?
MARIA: So that I’ll know who you are. For those five years I was waiting for him to come, I constantly imagined the way he would come in. Go outside and come back in as if you had just returned from a long absence, and then perhaps I’ll recognize you.
STAVROGIN: Be quiet. Now, listen carefully. I want all. your attention. Tomorrow, if I’m still alive, I shall make our marriage public. We shall not live in my house. We shall go to Switzerland, to the mountains. We shall spend our whole life in that gloomy, deserted spot. That is how I see things. MARIA: Yes, yes, you want to die, you are already burying yourself. But when you come to want to live again, you will want to get rid of me. No matter how!
STAVROGIN: No. I shall not leave that place; I’ll not leave you. Why do you talk to me this way? MARIA: Because now I have recognized you and I know that you are not my Prince. He would not be ashamed of me. He would not hide me in the mountains. He would show me to everyone— yes, even to that young lady who couldn’t take her eyes off me the other day. No, you look very much like my Prince, but it’s all over. … I have seen through you. You want to make an impression on that young lady. You covet her. STAVROGIN: Will you listen to me? Cease this madness!
MARIA: He never told me I was mad. He was a Prince, an eagle. He could fall at the feet of God if he wanted to, and not fall at the feet of God if he didn’t want to. As for you, Shatov slapped you. You are a lackey too.
STAVROGIN (taking her by the arm): Look at me. Recognize me. I am your husband.
MARIA: Let go of me, impostor. I don’t fear your knife. He would have defended me against the whole world. You want my death because I am in your way.
STAVROGIN: What have you said, you wretch! What have you said?
(He flings her backward. She falls and he rushes toward the door. She stumbles after him. But LEBYATKIN suddenly appears and holds her down while she screams.)
MARIA: Assassin! Anathema! Assassin!
BLACKOUT
SCENE 9
The bridge, STAVROGIN is walking rapidly while muttering to himself. When he has gone beyond the middle of the bridge, FEDKA pops up behind him. STAVROGIN turns around suddenly, seizes him by the neck, and pins him face downward on the ground, without seeming to make an effort. Then he lets go of him. At once FEDKA is on his feet with a broad, short knife in his hand.
STAVROGIN: Put away that knife! (FEDKA hides the knife, STAVROGIN turns his back and continues walking, FEDKA follows him. A long walk. The bridge has now been replaced by a long, deserted street.) I almost broke your neck, I was so angry. FEDKA: You are strong, Excellency. The soul is weak, but the body is vigorous. Your sins must be great.
STAVROGIN (laughing): So you’ve gone in for preaching? Yet I have heard that you robbed a church last week.
FEDKA: TO tell the truth, I had gone in to pray. And then it occurred to me that Divine Grace had led me there and that I should take advantage of it because God was willing to give me a little help.
STAVROGIN: You slaughtered the watchman too. FEDKA: YOU might say we cleaned out the church together. But in the morning, down by the river, we fell to disputing as to who should carry the big bag. And then I sinned.
STAVROGIN: Superb. Go on slaughtering and robbing!
FEDKA: That’s what little Verkhovensky told me. I’m quite willing. There are plenty of opportunities. Why, at Captain Lebyaktin’s, where you went this evening . . .
STAVROGIN (suddenly stopping): Well?
FEDKA: NOW, don’t hit me again! I mean that that drunkard leaves the door open every night, he is so drunk. Anyone could go in and kill everyone in the house, both brother and sister.
STAVROGIN: Did you go in? FEDKA: Yes.
STAVROGIN: Why didn’t you kill everybody? FEDKA: I made a little calculation. STAVROGIN: What?
FEDKA: I could steal a hundred and fifty rubles after having killed him—after having killed them, I mean. But if I am to believe little Verkhovensky, I could get fifteen hundred rubles from you for the same work. So . . . (STAVROGIN looks at him in silence.) I am turning to you as to a brother or father. [Nobody will ever know anything about it, not even young Verkhovensky.] But I need to know whether you want me to do it: just give me the word or a little down payment, (STAVROGIN begins to laugh as he looks at him.) Now, wouldn’t you like to give me the three rubles I asked you for earlier?
(STAVROGIN, still laughing, takes bills out of his pocket and drops them on the ground one by one. FEDKA picks them up, uttering “ah’s” ivhich go on after the light has dimmed to a BLACKOUT.) THE NARRATOR: The man who kills, or plans to kill, or lets others be killed, often wants to die himself. He is a comrade of death. Perhaps that is what Stavrogin’s laugh meant. But it is not certain that Fedka understood it thus.
BLACKOUT
SCENE 10*
*The whole scene of the duel was cut in production.
The Forest of Brykovo. It is wet and ivindy. The trees are bare, the ground is soaking wet. On the stage are two barriers. In front of one of them, STAVROGIN, wearing a light coat and a white beaver hat, and in front of the other, GAGANOV—thirtythree years old, tail, fat, well fed, blond. In the middle are the seconds, MAURICE NICOLAEVICH on Gaganov’s side and KIRILOV. The opponents already hold their pistols.
KIRILOV: And now for the last time I propose a reconciliation. I say this only to observe the rules; it is my duty as a second.
MAURICE: I wholeheartedly approve Mr. Kirilov’s words. The idea that there can be no reconciliation on the field is merely a prejudice which we can leave to the French. Besides, there’s no sense in this duel, since Mr. Stavrogin is ready to offer his apologies again.
STAVROGIN: I confirm once more my proposal to offer every possible apology.
GAGANOV: But this is unbearable! We’re not going to go through the same comedy again. (To MAURICE NICOLAEVICH) If you are my second and not my enemy, explain to this man . . . (He points
at him with his pistol.) . . . that his concessions only aggravate the insult. He always seems to consider that my offensive remarks can’t touch him and that there is no shame in dodging me. He insults me constantly, I tell you, and you are only irritating me so that I’ll miss him.
KIRILOV: That’s enough. I beg you to follow my orders. Back to your places. (The opponents go back to their places behind
