PETER (leaps up and places paper and pen in front of KIRILOV) : I, Alexey Kirilov, declare . . . KIRILOV: Yes. To whom? To whom? I want to know to whom I’m making this declaration. PETER: TO no one, to everyone. Why specify? To the whole world.
KIRILOV: To the whole world! Bravo. And without repenting. I don’t want any repenting. I don’t want to address myself to the authorities. Go ahead, dictate. The universe is evil. I’ll sign.
PETER: Yes, the universe is evil. And down with the authorities! Write.
KIRILOV: Wait a minute! I want to draw on the top of the page a face sticking out its tongue. PETER: No. No drawing. The tone is enough.
KIRILOV: The toneyes, that’s it. Dictate the tone. PETER: «I declare that this morning I killed the student Shatov in the woods for his betrayal and his denunciation in the matter of the proclamation.»
KIRILOV: IS that ail? I want to insult them too. PETER: That’s enough. Give it to me. But you haven’t dated it or signed. Sign it now. KIRILOV: I want to insult them.
PETER: Put down «Long live the Republic.» That’ll get them.
KIRILOV: Yes. Yes. No, I’m going to put: «Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death.» There. And then in French: «gentilhomme, seminariste russe et citoyen du monde civilise.» There! There! It’s perfect. Perfect. (He gets up, takes the revolver, and runs and turns out the lamp. The stage isjn complete darkness. He shouts in the darkness at the top of his lungs) At once! At once!
(A shot rings out. Silence. Someone can be heard groping in the darkness, PETER VERKHOVENSKY lights a candle and casts a light on KIRILOV’S body.)
PETER: Perfect! (He goes out.)
MARIA SHATOV (shouting on the landing): Shatov! Shatov!
BLACKOUT
THE NARRATOR: Denounced by the weak Lyamshin, Shatov’s murderers were arrested, except for Verkhovensky, who at that moment, comfortably Installed in a firstclass carriage, was crossing the frontier and outlining new plans for a better society. But if such as Verkhovensky are immortal, it is not certain that such as Stavrogin are.
SCENE 22
At Varvara Stavrogin’s, VARVARA STAVROGIN is putting on a cape. Beside her, DASHA is wearing mourning. ALEXEY YEGOROVICH IS at the doOT. VARVARA: Prepare the carriage! (ALEXEY leaves.)
To run away like that at his age, and in the rain! (She weeps.) The fool! The fool! But he is ill now. Oh! I’ll bring him back dead or alive! (She starts toward the door, stops, and comes back toward DASHA.) My dear, my dear! (She kisses her and leaves, DASHA watches her from the window, then goes and sits down.)
DASHA: Protect them ail, good Lord, protect them all before protecting me too. (STAVROGIN suddenly enters, DASHA stares at him fixedly. Silence.) You have come to get me, haven’t you? STAVROGIN: Yes.
DASHA: What do you want with me? STAVROGIN: I have come to ask you to leave with me tomorrow.
DASHA: I will! Where shall we go?
STAVROGIN : Abroad. We shall settle there for good. Will you come?
DASHA: I’ll come.
STAVROGIN: The place I am thinking of is lugubrious. At the bottom of a ravine. The mountain cuts off the view and crushes one’s thoughts. It is the one place in the world that is most like death. DASHA: I’ll follow you. But you will learn to live, to live again. . . . You are strong
.
STAVROGIN (with a wry smile): Yes, I am strong. I was capable of being slapped without saying a word, of overpowering a murderer, of living in dissipation, of publicly confessing my downfall. I can do anything. I have infinite strength. But I don’t know where to apply it. Everything is foreign to me.
DASHA: Ah, may God give you just a little love, even if I am not the object of it!
STAVROGIN: Yes, you are courageous; you will be a good nurse! But, let me repeat, don’t let yourself be taken in. I have never been able to hate anything. Hence, I shall never love. I am capable only of negation, of petty negation. If I could believe in something, I could perhaps kill myself. But I can’t believe.
DASHA (trembling): Nicholas, such a void is faith or the promise of faith.
STAVROGIN (looking at her after a moment of silence): Hence, I have faith. (He straightens up.) Don’t say anything. I have something to do now. (He gives a strange little laugh.) What weakness to have come for you! You were dear to me, and in my sorrow it was pleasant to be with you.
DASHA: You made me happy by coming. STAVROGIN (stares at her with an odd look): Happy? All right, all right . . . No, it isn’t possible. … I bring nothing but evil. . . . But I’m not accusing anyone.
(He goes out on the right. Hubbub outside.
VARVARA comes in upstage. Behind her, STEPAN TROFIMOVICH is carried like a child by a tall, stalwart peasant.)
VARVARA: Quick, put him on this sofa. (To ALEXEY YEGOROVICH) GO and get the doctor. (To DASHA) YOU, get the room warmed up. (After laying STEPAN on the sofa, the peasant withdraws.) Well! You poor fool, did you have a good walk? (He faints. Panicstricken, she sits down beside him and taps his hands.) Oh, calm yourself, calm yourself! My dear! Oh, tormentor, tormentor!
STEPAN (lifting his head): Ah, cherel Ah, cherel VARVARA: No, just wait, keep quiet.
(He takes her hand and squeezes it hard. Suddenly he lifts VARVARA’.? hand to his lips. Gritting her teeth, VARVARA STAVROGIN stares at a corner of the room.)
STEPAN: I loved you. . . . VARVARA: Keep quiet.
STEPAN: I loved you all my life, for twenty years. . . .
VARVARA: But why do you keep repeating: «I loved you, I loved you»? Enough . . . Twenty years are over, and they’ll not return. I’m just a fool! (She rises.) If you don’t go to sleep again, I’ll . . . (With a sudden note of affection) Sleep. I’ll watch over you.
STEPAN: Yes. I shall sleep. (He begins raving, but in an almost reasonable way.) Chere et incomparable amie, it seems to me . . . yes, I am almost happy. But happiness doesn’t suit me, for right away I begin to forgive my enemies. … If only I could be forgiven too.
VARVARA (deeply moved and speaking bluffly): You will be forgiven. And yet . . .
STEPAN: Yes. I don’t deserve it, though. We are all guilty. But when you are here, I am innocent as a child. Chere, I have to live in the presence of a woman. And it was so cold on the highway. . . . But I got to know the people. I told them my life.
VARVARA: You spoke about me in your taverns! STEPAN: Yes . . . but only by allusion . . . you see. And they didn’t understand a word. Oh, let me kiss the hem of your frock!
VARVARA: Stay still. You will always be impossible. STEPAN: Yes, strike me on the other cheek, as in the Gospels. I have always been a wretch. Except with you.
VARVARA (weeping): With me too.
STEPAN (getting excited): No, but all my life I’ve lied . . . even when I told the truth. I never spoke with the truth in mind, but solely with myself in mind. Do you realize that I am lying even now, perhaps?
VARVARA: Yes, you are lying.
STEPAN: That is . . . The only true thing is that I love you. As for all the rest, yes, I am lying, that’s certain. The trouble is that I believe what I say when I lie. The hardest thing is to go on living and not to believe in one’s own lies. Mais vous etes Id, vous nf aiderez. . . . (He swoons.) VARVARA: Come back to life! Come back to life! Oh, he is burning hot! Alexey!
(ALEXEY YEGOROVICH enters.)
ALEXEY: The doctor is coming, madame. (ALEXEY goes out on the right, VARVARA turns back toward STEPAN.)
STEPAN: Chere, chere, vous voila! I reflected on the road and I understood many things . . . that we should give up negating. We should never negate anything again. . . . It’s too late for us, but for those to come, the young who will take our place, la jeune Russie . . .
VARVARA: What do you mean?
STEPAN: Oh! Read me the passage about the swine.
VARVARA (frightened): About the swine? STEPAN: Yes, in St. Luke, you know, when the devils enter into the swine, (VARVARA goes to get the Gospels on her desk and leafs through them.)
Chapter VIII, verses 32 to 36.
VARVARA (standing near him and reading):
«. . . Then went the devils up out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.
«And when they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told this in the city and in the country.
«Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.»
STEPAN: Ah, yes! Yes . . . Those devils who depart
