STEPHEN: Alas, I need money more than I need a pretty girl. . . . You know that I didn’t manage very well that property my son inherited from his mother. He is going to demand the eight thousand rubles I owe him. He is accused of being a revolutionary, a socialist, of aiming to destroy God and property, and so forth. I don’t know about God, but as for property, he clings to his own, I assure you. . . . Besides, it’s a debt of honor for me. I must sacrifice myself. GRIGORIEV: But all this does you honor. Why are you complaining?
STEPAN: There’s something else to it. I suspect … Well . . . Oh, I am not as stupid as I seem in her presence! Why this marriage in haste?
Dasha was in Switzerland. She saw Nicholas.
And now . . .
GRIGORIEV: I don’t understand.
STEPAN: Yes, there’s a mystery about it. Why such a mystery? I don’t want to cover up the sins of others. Yes, the sins of others! O God who art so great and so good, who will console me!
(LISA and MAURICE NICOLAEVICH enter.)
LISA: Here he is at last, Maurice, this is he, this is the man. (To STEPAN TROFIMOVICH) YOU recog nize me, don’t you?
STEPAN: Dieuf Dieu! Chere Lisa! At last a minute of happiness!
LISA: Yes. It’s been twelve years since we have seen each other. And you are happy, aren’t you, to see me again? You haven’t forgotten your little pupil?
(STEPAN TROFIMOVICH rushes toward her, seizes her hand, and stares at her, unable to speak.) LISA: Here are some flowers for you. I wanted to bring you a cake, but Maurice Nicolaevich advised flowers. He has such a sense of propriety. This is Maurice: I should like you to become good friends. I like him very much. Yes, he is the man I like most in the world. Maurice, I want you to meet my dear old professor.
MAURICE: I feel most honored.
LISA (to STEPAN): What a delight to see you again! And yet I am sad. Why do I always feel sad at such moments? You are such a learned man —can’t you tell me? I always imagined that I should be madly happy when I saw you again and that I should remember everything, and here I am not at all happy—and, yet, I love you.
STEPAN (with the flowers in his hand): it doesn’t matter. Here I am too, loving you dearly, and you see I’m on the point of weeping.
LISA: Why, you have my portrait on the wall! (She goes and takes down a miniature.) Can this be I? Was I really so pretty? But I won’t look at it! One life ends, another begins, then it yields to still another, and so on ad infinitum. (Looking at GRIGORIEV) You see how all this calls up the past!
STEPAN: Forgive me, I was forgetting to introduce Grigoriev, an excellent old friend.
LISA (with a touch of coquetry): Oh, yes, you are the confidant! I like you very much. GRIGORIEV: I don’t deserve such an honor. LISA: Come, now, don’t be ashamed of being a good man. (She turns her back on him and he looks at her with admiration.) Dasha came back with us. But you know that already, of course. She’s a dear. I should like her to be happy. By the way, she told me a lot about her brother. What is Shatov like?
STEPAN: Well, he’s a dreamer! He was a socialist, then he abjured his ideas, and now he lives according to God and Russia.
LISA: Yes, someone told me that he was a bit odd. I want to know him. I should like to give him some work to do.
STEPAN: Indeed, that would be a godsend for him. LISA: A godsend—why? I want to know him; I am Interested. … I mean, I really need someone to help me.
GRIGORIEV: I know Shatov rather well, and, if I can help you, I’ll go and see him at once.
LISA: Yes, yes. I may even go myself. Although I don’t want to disturb him, nor anyone else in that house. But we will have to be back home in a quarter of an hour. Are you ready, Maurice? MAURICE: I am at your beck and call.
LISA: Splendid. You are good. (To STEPAN TROFIMOVICH as she goes toward the door) I imagine you are like me: I detest men who are not good, even if they are very handsome and very intelligent. The important thing is a good heart. By the way, let me congratulate you on your marriage. STEPAN: What, you know?
LISA: Of course. Varvara has just told us. What good news! And I am sure that Dasha was not expecting it. Come, Maurice . . .
BLACKOUT
THE NARRATOR: So I went to see Shatov because Lisa wanted me to and it already seemed to me that I could refuse her nothing, although I did not for a moment believe the explanations she gave for her sudden whim. This took me, and takes you likewise, to a less elegant section of town where landlady Filipov rented rooms and a common living room to odd individuals such as Lebyatkin and his sister Maria, Shatov, and, above all, the engineer Kirilov.
SCENE 3
The scene shows a living room and a small bedroom, Shatov’s, on the right. The living room has a door on the left opening into Kirilov’s room and two doors upstage, one for the outer entrance and the other opening onto the stairs leading to the upper story. In the center of the living room KIRILOV, facing the audience, is doing his exercises with a most serious look on his face.
KIRILOV: One, two, three, four . . . One, two, three, four . . . (He takes a deep breath.) One, two, three, four . . .
(GRIGORIEV enters.)
GRIGORIEV: Am I disturbing you? I was looking for Ivan Shatov.
KIRILOV. He is out. You are not disturbing me, but I still have one exercise to do. Allow me. (He goes through his exercise, muttering numbers as he does so.) There. Shatov will be back soon. May I give you some tea? I like drinking tea at night. Especially after my exercises. I walk a great deal, up and down, and I drink tea until dawn.
GRIGORIEV: DO you go to bed at dawn?
KIRILOV. Always. I have for a long time. At night I reflect.
GRIGORIEV: All night long?
KIRILOV (calmly): Yes, it is essential. You see, I am concerned with the reasons why men don’t dare kill themselves.
GRIGORIEV: Don’t dare? In your opinion, there are not enough suicides?
KIRILOV (absentminded): Normally, there ought to be many more.
GRIGORIEV (ironically): And what, in your opinion, keeps people from killing themselves? KIRILOV: The pain. Those who kill themselves through madness or despair don’t think of the pain. But those who kill themselves through reason obviously think of it.
GRIGORIEV: What, are there people who kill themselves through reason?
KIRILOV: Many. Were it not for the pain and the prejudice, there would be many more, a very large number, probably all men.
GRIGORIEV: What?
KIRILOV: But the idea that they will suffer keeps them from killing themselves. Even when one knows there is no pain, the idea remains. Just imagine a stone as big as a house falling on you. You wouldn’t have time to feel anything, to suffer at all. Well, even so, men are afraid and hesitate. It is interesting.
GRIGORIEV: There must be another reason. KIRILOV: Yes . . . The other world. GRIGORIEV: YOU mean punishment.
KIRILOV: NO, the other world. People think there is a reason for going on living.
GRIGORIEV: And there isn’t any?
KIRILOV: NO, there is none, and that’s why we are free. It is a matter of indifference whether we live or die.
GRIGORIEV: How can you say that so calmly? KIRILOV: I don’t like getting into disputes, and I never laugh.
GRIGORIEV: Man is afraid of death because he likes life, because life is good, that’s all.
KIRILOV (suddenly bursting out): But that’s cowardice, just cowardice! Life isn’t good. And the other world does not exist! God is simply a ghost conjured up by fear of death and suffering. In order to be free, it is essential to overcome pain and terror, it is essential to kill oneself. Then there will no longer be any God, and man will at last be free. Then history will be divided into two parts: from the ape to the destruction of God, and from the destruction of God . . . GRIGORIEV: TO the ape.
KIRILOV: To the divinity of man. (Suddenly calm) The man who dares to kill himself is God. No one had ever thought of that. But / have. GRIGORIEV: There have been millions of suicides.
KIRILOV: Never for that reason. Always from fear. Never to kill fear. The man who kills himself to kill fear will at that very moment become God. GRIGORIEV: I am afraid he won’t have time.
KIRILOV (rising and slowly with scorn in his voice): I am sorry that you seem to be laughing. GRIGORIEV: Forgive me; I wasn’t laughing. But it is all so strange.
KIRILOV: Why strange? The strange thing is that people can live without thinking of that. / can’t think of anything else. All my life I have thought of nothing else. (He gestures to GRIGORIEV, inho leans forward.) All my life I have been tormented by God.
GRIGORIEV: Why do you speak to me this way? You don’t know me.
KIRILOV: YOU look like my brother, who died seven years ago.
GRIGORIEV:
