by Albert Camus
someone has to begin and kill himself to prove
to others the terrible freedom of man. I am un-
fortunate because I am the first and because I am
dreadfully frightened. I am Tsar only for a short
time. But I shall begin and open the door. And
all men will be happy; they will all be Tsars and
forever. (He rushes to the table.) Ah! Give me
the pen. Dictate and I'll sign anything. Even that
I killed Shatov. Dictate. I don't fear anyone;
everything is a matter of indifference. All that is
hidden will be known, and you will be crushed.
I believe. I believe. Dictate.
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 with-
out 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.
Third Part 174
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 tone�yes, 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 proclama-
tion."
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: "Lib-
erty, 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 Lyam-
175 Scene 2i
shin, Shatov's murderers were arrested, except
for Verkhovensky, who at that moment, com-
fortably Installed in a first-class 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 put-
ting on a cape. Beside her, DASHA is wearing mourn-
ing. 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 to-
ward 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 sud-
denly 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 lugubri-
ous. At the bottom of a ravine. The mountain
cuts off the view and crushes one's thoughts. It is
177 Scene 22
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 for-
eign 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 your-
self 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 be-
lieve 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 si-
lence): 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 pos-
sible. ... I bring nothing but evil. . . . But I'm
not accusing anyone.
Third Part 178
(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 with-
draws.) Well! You poor fool, did you have a
good walk? (He faints. Panic-stricken, 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. Sud-
denly 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 incompa-
rable amie, it seems to me . . . yes, I am almost
happy. But happiness doesn't suit me, for right
179 Scene 22
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 high-
way. . . . 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 my-
self 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 liv-
ing 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!
Third Part 180
(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 vio-
lently 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 de-
part from the sick man, chere, you see�well,
i8i
Scene 22
you recognize them. . . . They are our defects,
our impurities, of course, and the sick man is Rus-
sia. . . . But the impurities leave him, they enter
into the swine, I mean us, my son, the others, and
we run violently down a steep place as if pos-
sessed of the devil, and we shall perish. But the
sick man will be cured and he will sit at the feet
of jesus and all will be cured. . . . Yes, Russia
will be cured someday!
VARVARA: You're not going to die. You say that
just to torment me a little more, cruel man. . . .
STEPAN: No, chere, no . . . Besides, I shall not
die altogether. We shall be raised from the dead,
we shall be raised from the dead, won't we? If
God is, we shall be raised. . . . That is my pro-
fession of faith. And I make it to you whom I
loved. . . .
VARVARA: God is, Stepan Troflmovich. I assure
you that he exists.
STEPAN: I realized that on the road . . . amidst
my people. I have lied all life long. Tomorrow, to-
morrow, chere, we shall live again together. . . .
(He falls back dead.)
VARVARA: Dasha! (Then, standing stiffly) 0,mon
Dieu, have pity on this child!
ALEXEY (rushing out of the room on the right):
Madame, madame! . . . (DASHA comes on.)
There! Look there! (He points to the room.)
Mr. Stavrogin!
(DASHA runs toward the room. A gasp is heard
from her. Then she comes out slowly.)
DASHA (falling on her knees): He has hanged him-
self.
I
I
Third Part 182
(The NARRATOR enters.)
THE NARRATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, one word
more. After Stavrogin's death the doctors con-
ferred and pronounced that he showed not the
slightest sign of insanity.
CURTAIN
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
THROUGHOUT his distinguished literary career
Albert Camus has devoted himself with pas-
sion to the theater. When he was working his
way through school and university in Algeria,
where he was born in 1913, he organized a
theatrical stock company and took part as ac-
tor, adaptor, and director. Between 1944 and
1949 four Camus plays (The Misunderstand-
ing, Caligula, State of Siege, and The Just
Assassins) were produced in Paris; not only
had he made a brilliant mark for himself in
France during the war years as a novelist, es-
sayist, and journalist, but Camus's place in the
post-war theater was assured. Between 1953
and 1957 he adapted and directed five plays,
the most successful of which was his version
of Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun, produced in
1957, the same year that he was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature. Camus's eagerly
anticipated re-creation and lavish production
of Dostoevsky's The Possessed was the high
point of the 1959 theater season in Paris; it
was then presented at the Venice Festival and
toured Eu
rope for five months.
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
THE TEXT of this book was set on the Linotype in
Janson, a remitting made direct from the type cast
from matrices long thought to have been made by
Anton Janson, a Dutchman who was a practising
type-founder in Leipzig during the years 1668-
1687. However, it has been conclusively demon-
strated that these types are actually the work of
Nicholas Kis (1650-1702), a Hungarian who
learned his trade most probably from the master
Dutch type-founder Dirk Voskens.
The type is an excellent example of the influ-
ential and sturdy Dutch types that prevailed in
England prior to the development by William
Caslon (1692-1766) of his own incomparable de-
signs, which he evolved from these Dutch faces.
The Dutch in their turn had been influenced by
Claude Garamond (i;io-is6i) in France. The
general tone of the Janson, however, is darker
than Garamond and has a sturdiness and substance
quite different from its' predecessors. This book
was composed, printed, and bound by Kingsport
Press, Inc., Kingsport, Tennessee. The paper was
manufactured by P. H. Glatfelter Company,
Spring Grove, Pennsylvania. Typography based
on designs by HARRY FORD.