by Oscar Wilde
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD: Oh, that’s nothing; but he actually disapproved of a State banquet every night because there is a famine in the Southern provinces. (The young CZAR enters unobserved, and overhears the rest.)
PRINCE PETROVITCH: Quelle bêtise!
The more starvation there is among the people the better. It teaches them self-denial, an excellent virtue, Baron.
BARON RAFF: I have often heard so.
GENERAL KOTEMKIN: He talked of a Parliament, too, in Russia, and said the people should have deputies to represent them.
BARON RAFF: As if there was not enough brawling in the streets already, but we must give the people a room to do it in. But, Messieurs, the worst is yet to come. He threatens a complete reform of the public service on the ground that the people are too heavily taxed.
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD: He can’t be serious there. What is the use of the people except for us to get money out of? But talking of the taxes, my dear Baron you must really let me have forty thousand roubles to-morrow; my wife says she must have a new diamond bracelet.
COUNT ROUVALOFF (aside to BARON RAFF): Ah, to match the one Prince Paul gave her last week, I suppose.
PRINCE PETROVITCH: I must have sixty thousand roubles at once, Baron. My son is overwhelmed with debts of honour which he can’t pay.
BARON RAFF: What an excellent son to imitate his father so carefully!
GENERAL KOTEMKIN: You are always getting money. I never get a single kopeck I have not got a right to. It’s unbearable; it’s ridiculous! My nephew is going to be married. I must get his dowry for him.
PRINCE PETROVITCH: My dear General, your nephew must be a perfect Turk. He seems to get married three times a week regularly.
GENERAL KOTEMKIN: Well, he wants a dowry to console him.
COUNT ROUVALOFF: I am sick of town. I want a house in the country.
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD: I am sick of the country. I want a house in town.
BARON RAFF: Gentlemen, I am extremely sorry for you. It is out of the question.
PRINCE PETROVITCH: But my son, Baron?
GENERAL KOTEMKIN: But my nephew?
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD: But my house in town?
COUNT ROUVALOFF: But my house in the country?
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD: But my wife’s diamond bracelet?
BARON RAFF: Gentlemen, impossible! The old regime in Russia is dead; the funeral begins to-day.
COUNT ROUVALOFF: Then I shall wait for the resurrection.
PRINCE PETROVITCH: Yes; but, en attendant, what are we to do?
BARON RAFF: What have we always done in Russia when a Czar suggests reform? Nothing. You forget we are diplomatists. Men of thought should have nothing to do with action. Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.
COUNT ROUVALOFF: I wish Prince Paul were here. By the by, I think this boy is rather ungrateful to him. If that clever old Prince had not proclaimed him Emperor at once without giving him time to think about it, he would have given up his crown, I believe, to the first cobbler he met in the street.
PRINCE PETROVITCH: But do you think, Baron, that Prince Paul is really going?
BARON RAFF: He is exiled.
PRINCE PETROVITCH: Yes; but is he going?
BARON RAFF: I am sure of it; at least he told me he had sent two telegrams already to Paris about his dinner.
COUNT ROUVALOFF: Ah! That settles the matter.
CZAR (coming forward): Prince Paul had better send a third telegram and order (counting them) six extra places.
BARON RAFF: The devil!
CZAR: No, Baron, the Czar. Traitors! There would be no bad kings in the world if there were no bad ministers like you. It is men such as you are who wreck mighty empires on the rock of their own greatness. Our mother, Russia, hath no need of such unnatural sons. You can make no atonement now; it is too late for that. The grave cannot give back your dead, nor the gibbet your martyrs, but I shall be more merciful to you. I give you your lives! That is the curse I would lay on you. But if there is a man of you found in Moscow by tomorrow night your heads will be off your shoulders.
BARON RAFF: You remind us wonderfully, Sire, of your Imperial father.
CZAR: I banish you all from Russia. Your estates are confiscated to the people. You may carry your titles with you. Reforms in Russia, Baron, always end in a farce. You will have a good opportunity, Prince Petrovitch, of practising self-denial, that excellent virtue! That excellent virtue! So, Baron, you think a Parliament in Russia would be merely a place for brawling. Well, I will see that the reports of each session are sent to you regularly.
BARON RAFF: Sire, you are adding another horror to exile.
CZAR: But you will have such time for literature now. You forget you are diplomatists. Men of thought should have nothing to do with action.
PRINCE PETROVITCH: Sire, we did hut jest.
CZAR: Then I banish you for your bad jokes. Bon voyage Messieurs. If you value your lives you will catch the first train for Paris. (Exeunt Ministers.) Russia is well rid of such men as these. They are the jackals that follow in the lion’s track. They have no courage themselves except to pillage and rob. But for these men and for Prince Paul my father would have been a good king, would not have died so horribly as he did die. How strange it is, the most real parts of one’s life always seem to be a dream! The council, the fearful law which was to kill the people, the arrest, the cry in the court-yard, the pistol-shot, my father’s bloody hands, and then the crown! One can live for years sometimes without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into one single hour. I had no time to think. Before my father’s hideous shriek of death had died in my ears I found this crown on my head, the purple robe around me, and heard myself called a king. I would have given it up all then; it seemed nothing to me then; but now, can I give it up now? Well, Colonel, well? (Enter COLONEL OF THE GUARD.)
COLONEL: What password does your Imperial Majesty desire should be given to-night?
CZAR: Password?
COLONEL: For the cordon of guards, Sire, on night duty around the palace.
CZAR: You can dismiss them. I have no need of them. (Exit COLONEL). (Goes to the crown lying on the table.) What subtle potency lies hidden in this gaudy bauble, the crown, that makes one feel like a god when one wears it? To hold in one’s hand this little fiery-coloured world, to reach out one’s arm to earth’s uttermost limit, to girdle the seas with one’s galley; to make the land a highway for one’s hosts; this is to wear a crown! To wear a crown! The meanest serf in Russia who is loved is better crowned than I. How love outweighs the balance! How poor appears the widest empire of this golden world when matched with love! Pent up in this palace, with spies dogging every step, I have heard nothing of her; I have not seen her once since that fearful hour, three days ago, when I found myself suddenly the Czar of this wide waste, Russia. Oh, could I see her for a moment; tell her now the secret of my life I have never dared to utter before; tell her why I wear this crown, when I have sworn eternal war against all crowned men! There was a meeting to-night. I received my summons by an unknown hand; but how could I go? I, who have broken my oath! Who have broken my oath!
Enter PAGE.
PAGE: It is after eleven, Sire. Shall I take the first watch in your room to-night?
CZAR: Why should you watch me, boy? The stars are my best sentinels.
PAGE: It was your Imperial father’s wish, Sire, never to be left alone while he slept.
CZAR: My father was troubled with bad dreams. Go, get to your bed, boy; it is nigh on midnight, and these late hours will spoil those red cheeks. (PAGE tries to kiss his hand.) Nay, nay; we have played together too often for that. Oh, to breathe the same air as her, and not to see her! The light seems to have gone from my life, the sun vanished from my day.
PAGE: Sire – Alexis – let me stay with you to-night! There is some danger over you; I feel there is.
CZAR: What should I fear? I have banished all my enemies from Russia. Set the brazier here, by me; it is ve
ry cold, and I would sit by it for a time. Go, boy, go; I have much to think about to-night. (Goes to back of stage, draws aside a curtain. View of Moscow by moonlight.) The snow has fallen heavily since sunset. How white and cold my city looks under this pale moon! And yet what hot and fiery hearts beat in this icy Russia, for all its frost and snow. Oh, to see her for a moment; to tell her all; to tell her why I am a king! But she does not doubt me; she said she would trust in me. Though I have broken my oath, she will have trust. It is very cold. Where is my cloak? I shall sleep for an hour. Then I have ordered my sledge, and, though I die for it, I shall see Vera to-night. Did I not bid thee go, boy? What! Must I play the tyrant so soon? Go, go! I cannot live without seeing her. My horses will be here in an hour; one hour between me and love! How heavy this charcoal fire smells. (Exit the PAGE. Lies down on a couch beside brazier.)
Enter VERA, in a black cloak.
VERA: Asleep! God, thou art good! Who shall deliver him from my hands now? This is he! The democrat who would make himself a king, the republican who hath worn a crown, the traitor who hath lied to us. Michael was right. He loved not the people. He loved me not. (Bends over him.) Oh, why should such deadly poison lie in such sweet lips? Was there not gold enough in his hair before, but he should tarnish it with this crown? But my day has come now; the day of the people, of liberty, has come! Your day, my brother, has come! Though I have strangled whatever nature is in me, I did not think it had been so easy to kill. One blow and it is over, and I can wash my hands in water afterwards, I can wash my hands afterwards. Come, I shall save Russia. I have sworn it. (Raises the dagger to strike.)
CZAR (starting up, seizes her by both hands): Vera, you here! My dream was no dream at all. Why have you left me three days alone, when I most needed you? O God, you think I am a traitor, a liar, a king? I am, for love of you. Vera, it was for you I broke my oath and wear my father’s crown. I would lay at your feet this mighty Russia, which you and I have loved so well; would give you this earth as your footstool; set this crown on your head. The people will love us. We will rule them by love, as a father rules his children. There shall be liberty in Russia for every man to think as his heart bids him; liberty for men to speak as they think. I have banished the wolves that preyed on us; I have brought back your brother from Siberia; I have opened the blackened jaws of the mine. The courier is already on his way; within a week Dmitri and all those with him will be back in their own land. The people shall be free – are free now. When they gave me this crown first, I would have flung it back to them, had it not been for you, Vera. O God! It is men’s custom in Russia to bring gifts to those they love. I said, I will bring to the woman I love a people, an empire, a world! Vera, it is for you, for you alone, I kept this crown; for you alone I am a king. Oh, I have loved you better than my oath! Why will you not speak to me? You love me not! You love me not! You have come to warn me of some plot against my life. What is life worth to me without you? (CONSPIRATORS murmur outside.)
VERA: Oh, lost! Lost! Lost!
CZAR: Nay, you are safe here. It wants five hours still of dawn. To-morrow, I will lead you forth to the whole people –
VERA: To-morrow –
CZAR: Will crown you with my own hands as Empress in that great cathedral which my fathers built.
VERA (loosens her hand violently from him, and starts up): I am a Nihilist! I cannot wear a crown!
CZAR (falls at her feet): I am no king now. I am only a boy who has loved you better than his honour, better than his oath. For love of the people I would have been a patriot. For love of you I have been a traitor. Let us go forth together, we will live amongst the common people. I am no king. I will toil for you like the peasant or the serf. Oh, love me a little too! (CONSPIRATORS murmur outside.)
VERA (clutching dagger): To strangle whatever nature is in me, neither to love nor to be loved, neither to pity nor – oh, I am a woman! God help me, I am a woman! O Alexis! I too have broken my oath; I am a traitor. I love. Oh, do not speak, do not speak – (kisses his lips) – the first, the last time. (He clasps her in his arms; they sit on the couch together.)
CZAR: I could die now.
VERA: What does death do in thy lips? Thy life, thy love are enemies of death. Speak not of death. Not yet, not yet.
CZAR: I know not why death came into my heart. Perchance the cup of life is filled too full of pleasure to endure. This is our wedding night.
VERA: Our wedding night!
CZAR: And if death came himself, methinks that I could kiss his pallid mouth, and such sweet poison from it.
VERA: Our wedding night! Nay, nay. Death should not sit at the feast. There is no such thing as death.
CZAR: There shall not be for us. (CONSPIRATORS murmur outside.)
VERA: What is that? Did you not hear something?
CZAR: Only your voice, that fowler’s note which lures my heart away like a poor bird upon the limed twig.
VERA: Methought that someone laughed.
CZAR: It was but the wind and rain; the night is full of storm. (CONSPIRATORS murmur outside.)
VERA: It should be so, indeed. Oh, where are your guards? Where are your guards?
CZAR: Where should they be but at home? I shall not live pent round by sword and steel. The love of a people is a king’s best bodyguard.
VERA: The love of a people!
CZAR: Sweet, you are safe here. Nothing can harm you here. O love, I knew you trusted me! You said you would have trust.
VERA: I have had trust. O love, the past seems but some dull, grey dream from which our souls have wakened. This is life at last.
CZAR: Ay, life at last.
VERA: Our wedding night! Oh, let me drink my fill of love to-night! Nay, sweet, not yet, not yet. How still it is, and yet methinks the air is full of music. It is some nightingale who, wearying of the south, has come to sing in this bleak north to lovers such as we. It is the nightingale. Dost thou not hear it?
CZAR: O sweet, mine ears are clogged to all sweet sounds save thine own voice, and mine eyes blinded to all sights but thee, else had I heard that nightingale, and seen the golden-vestured morning sun itself steal from its sombre east before its time, for jealousy that thou art twice as fair.
VERA: Yet would that thou hadst heard the nightingale. Methinks that bird will never sing again.
CZAR: It is no nightingale. ’Tis love himself singing for very ecstasy of joy that thou art changed into his votaress. (Clock begins striking twelve.) Oh, listen, sweet, it is the lovers’ hour. Come, let us stand without, and hear the midnight answered from tower to tower over the wide white town. Our wedding night! What is that? What is that? (Loud murmurs of CONSPIRATORS in the street.)
VERA (breaks from him and rushes across the stage): The wedding guests are here already! Ay! You shall have your sign! (Stabs herself.) You shall have your sign! (Rushes to the window.)
CZAR (intercepts her by rushing between her and window, and snatches dagger out of her hand): Vera!
VERA (clinging to him): Give me back the dagger! Give me back the dagger! There are men in the street who seek your life! Your guards have betrayed you! This bloody dagger is the signal that you are dead. (CONSPIRATORS begin to shout below in the street.) Oh, there is not a moment to be lost! Throw it out! Throw it out! Nothing can save me now; this dagger is poisoned! I feel death already in my heart. There was no other way but this.
CZAR (holding dagger out of her reach): Death is in my heart too; we shall die together!
VERA: Oh, love! Love! Love! Be merciful to me! The wolves are hot upon you! – you must live for liberty, for Russia, for me! Oh, you do not love me! You offered me an empire once! Give me this dagger, now! Oh, you are cruel! My life for yours! What does it matter? (Loud shout in the street, ‘VERA! VERA! To the rescue! To the rescue!’)
CZAR: The bitterness of death is past for me.
VERA: Oh, they are breaking in below! See! The bloody man behind you! (CZAR turns round for an instant.) Ah! (VERA snatches dagger and flings it out of win
dow.)
CONSPIRATORS (below): Long live the people!
CZAR: What have you done?
VERA: I have saved Russia! (Dies).
TABLEAU
CURTAIN
A FLORENTINE TRAGEDY1
Enter THE HUSBAND
SIMONE: My good wife, you come slowly, were it not better
To run to meet your lord? Here, take my cloak.
Take this pack first. ’Tis heavy. I have sold nothing:
Save a furred robe unto the Cardinal’s son,
Who hopes to wear it when his father dies,
And hopes that will be soon.
But who is this?
Why you have here some friend. Some kinsman doubtless,
Newly returned from foreign lands and fallen
Upon a house without a host to greet him?
I crave your pardon, kinsman. For a house
Lacking a host is but an empty thing
And void of honour; a cup without its wine,
A scabbard without steel to keep it straight,
A flowerless garden widowed of the sun.
Again I crave your pardon, my sweet cousin.
BIANCA: This is no kinsman and no cousin neither.
SIMONE: No kinsman, and no cousin! You amaze me.
Who is it then who with such courtly grace
Deigns to accept our hospitalities?
GUIDO: My name is Guido Bardi.
SIMONE: What! The son
Of that great Lord of Florence whose dim towers
Like shadows silvered by the wandering moon
I see from out my casement every night!
Sir Guido Bardi, you are welcome here,
Twice welcome. For I trust my honest wife,
Most honest if uncomely to the eye,
Hath not with foolish chatterings wearied you,
As is the wont of women.
GUIDO: Your gracious lady,
Whose beauty is a lamp that pales the stars
And robs Diana’s quiver of her beams
Has welcomed me with such sweet courtesies