STAVROGIN: No. He is not telling the truth. (LISA moans.)
PETER: But don’t you see that this man has lost his reason! Besides, he spent the night with you. Hence
LISA: Nicholas, talk to me as if you stood before God at this moment. Are you guilty or not? I will trust your word as I would God’s word. And I shall follow you, like a dog, to the end of the world.
STAVROGIN (slowly): I did not kill and I was against that murder, but I knew they would be assassinated and I did not keep the murderers from doing it. Now, leave me.
LISA (looking at him with horror): No! No! No! (She rushes off, shouting.)
PETER: So I have wasted my time with you! STAVROGIN (in a dull voice): Me. Oh! Me . . . (He laughs madly all of a sudden; then, getting up, shouts in a thundrous voice) I loathe and detest everything that exists in Russia, the people, the Tsar, and you and Lisa. I hate everything that lives on earth, and myself first of all. So let destruction reign and crush them all, and with them all those who ape Stavrogin, and Stavrogin himself. . . .
BLACKOUT
«SCENE 17*
*This scene was cut in production.
In the street, LISA is running, PETER VERKHOVENSKY is running after her.
PETER: Wait, Lisa, wait. I’ll take you home. I have a fiacre.
LISA (bewildered): Yes, yes, you are good. Where are they? Where is the blood?
PETER: Stop! What can you do? It’s raining, you see. Come. Maurice Nicolaevich is here.
LISA: Maurice! Where is he? Oh, my God, he’s waiting for me! He knows!
PETER: What does that matter? Surely he doesn’t have any prejudices!
LISA: Wonderful, wonderful! Ah, he mustn’t see me. Let’s flee in the woods, in the fields. . . . (PETER leaves and LISA continues running. MAURICE appears and pursues her. She falls. He bends over her, weeping, takes off his coat, and covers her with it. She kisses his hand, weeping.) MAURICE: Lisa! I am nothing compared to you, but don’t reject me!
LISA: Maurice, don’t abandon me! I’m afraid of death. I don’t want to die.
MAURICE: You are soaked! Good Lord! And it’s still raining!
LISA: It doesn’t matter. Come, lead me. I want to see the blood. They killed his wife, I’ve heard. And he says he was the one who killed her. But it’s not true, is it? Oh, I must see with my own eyes those who were killed because of me. . . . Hurry! Hurry! Oh, Maurice, don’t forgive me.
I was wicked. Why should anyone forgive me? Why are you weeping? Strike me and kill me, right here!
MAURICE: No one has the right to judge you. And I least of all. May God forgive you!
(Little by little the curtain is lighted by the flames of the fire, and the sound of the crowd can be heard, STEPAN TROFIMOVICH appears in traveling costume with a traveling bag in his left hand, a staff and an umbrella in his right hand.) STEPAN (in delirium): Oh, you! Chere, chere, is it possible? In this fog . . . You see the fire!
. . . You are unhappy, aren’t you? I can see it. We are all unhappy, but we must forgive them all. To shake off the world and become free, it faut pardonner, pardonner, par dormer. . . . LISA: Oh! Get up! Why are you kneeling? STEPAN: At the moment of saying farewell to tEe world, I want to say farewell to you and so to my whole past. (He weeps.) I am kneeling down before everything that was beautiful in my life.
I dreamed of scaling the heights to heaven, and here I am in the mud, a crushed old man. . . . See their crime in all its red horror. They couldn’t do otherwise. I am fleeing their delirium, their nightmare, and I am going in search of Russia. But you are both soaked. Here, take my umbrella, (MAURICE automatically takes the umij brella.) I’ll find a cart of some kind. But, dear Lisa, what did you just say? Has someone been killed? (LISA starts to swoon.) Oh, my God, she is fainting!
LISA: Quick, Quick, Maurice. Give this child back his umbrella! At once! (She turns back toivard STEPAN TROFIMQVICH.) I want to make the sign of the cross over you, poor man. You, too, pray for poor Lisa!
(STEPAN TROFIMQVICH goes off, and they ivalk toward the flames. The noise increases. The flames are becoming brighter. The crowd is now shouting.)
VOICES: It’s Stavrogin’s wench. It’s not enough for them to kill people. They also want to see the bodies.
(A man strikes LISA. MAURICE NICOLAEVICH throws himself on him. They fight, LISA picks herself up. Two other men strike her, one of them with a stick. She falls. Everything becomes calm, MAURICE NICOLAEVICH takes her in his arms and drags her toward the light.)
MAURICE: Lisa, Lisa, don’t forsake me. (LISA falls back dead.) Lisa, dear Lisa, now it’s my turn to join you!
BLACKOUT
THE NARRATOR: While they were looking everywhere for Stepan Trofimovich, who was wandering on the road like a deposed king, events were precipitated. Shatov’s wife returned after three years’ absence. But what Shatov took for a new beginning was in reality to be an end.
SCENE 18
Shatov’s room, MARIA SHATOV is standing ivith a traveling bag in her hand.
MARIA: I’ll not stay long, just long enough to find work. But if I am in your way, I beg you to tell me at once quite honestly. I’ll sell something and go to the hotel. (She sits down on the bed.) SHATOV: Maria, you mustn’t talk of a hotel. You are at home here.
MARIA: No, I am not at home here. We separated three years ago. Don’t get it into your head that I am repenting and coming back to begin over again.
SHATOV: No, no, that would be pointless. But it doesn’t matter anyway. You are the only person who ever told me she loved me. That’s enough. You are doing what you want, and now you are here.
MARIA: Yes, you are good. I have come back under your roof because I have always considered you a good man—so far above all those scoundrels. . . .
SHATOV: Listen, Maria, you look exhausted. Please don’t get annoyed. … If you’d only take a little tea, for instance. Tea always does one good. If you would only . . .
MARIA: Yes, I would. You are still just as much a child. Give me some tea if you have any. It’s so cold here.
SHATOV: Yes, yes, you shall have tea. MARIA: You don’t have any here?
SHATOV; There will be some. There will be some. (He steps out and knocks at Kirilov’s door.) Can you lend me some tea?
KIRILOV: Come in and drink it!
SHATOV: NO. My wife has come back. . . . KIRILOV: Your wife!
SHATOV (sputtering and half weeping): Kirilov, Kirilov, we suffered together in America. KIRILOV: Yes, yes, wait. (He disappears and reappears with a tea tray.) Here it is. Take it. And a ruble too take it.
SHATOV: I’ll give it back to you tomorrow! Ah, Kirilov!
KIRILOV: No, no, I am glad she has come back and that you still love her. I am glad that you turned to me. If you need anything, just call me at any time whatever. I shall be thinking of you and her. SHATOV: Oh, what a man you would be if you could only get rid of your dreadful ideas.
(KIRILOV disappears suddenly, SHATOV stares after him. There is a knock at the door, LYAMSHIN comes in.)
SHATOV: I can’t receive you now.
LYAMSHIN: I have something to tell you. I have come to tell you from Verkhovensky that everything is arranged. You are free.
SHATOV: IS that true?
LYAMSHIN: Yes, absolutely free. You will just have to show Liputin the place where the press is burled. I shall come to get you tomorrow at exactly six o’clock, before dawn.
SHATOV: I’ll come. Now go. My wife has come back, (LYAMSHIN leaves, SHATOV goes back toward the room, MARIA has gone to sleep. He places the tray on the table and matches her.) Oh, how beautiful you are!
MARIA (waking up) Why did you let me go to sleep? I’m in your bed. Ah! (She stiffens as if in a sort of attack and grips SHATOV’j hand.)
SHATOV: You are suffering, my dear. I shall call the doctor. . . . Where does it hurt? Do you want compresses? I know how to make them. . . . MARIA: What? What do you mean?
SHATOV: Nothing … I don’t understand you. MARIA: No, it’s nothing. . . . Don’t stand still. Tell me something. . . . Talk to me of your new ideas. What are you preaching now? You can’t
keep yourself from preaching; it’s in your nature. SHATOV: Yes . . . That is … I am preaching God now.
MARIA: And yet you don’t believe in him. (New attack.) Oh, how unbearable you are! (She repulses SHATOV, who is bending over the bed.) SHATOV: Maria, I’ll do what you want. . . . I’ll keep moving. . . . I’ll talk.
MARIA: But don’t you see that it’s begun? SHATOV: Begun? What has?
MARIA: Don’t you see that I’m about to give birth? Oh! Cursed be this child! (SHATOV gets up.) Where are you going, where are you going? I forbid you!
SHATOV: I’ll be back, I’ll be back. We need money and a midwife. . . . OE, Maria! . . . Kirilov! Kiriiovi
(BLACKOUT. Then the light gradually increases in the room.)
SHATOV: She’s in the next room with him.
