The Complete Plays

by Oscar Wilde

  COUNT ROUVALOFF (to PRINCE PETROVITCH). I should be more alarmed for myself.

  CZAR. The Governor of Archangel shot in his own courtyard by a woman! I’m not safe here. I’m not safe anywhere, with that she-devil of the revolution, Vera Sabouroff, here in Moscow. Prince Paul, is that woman still here?

  PRINCE PAUL. They tell me she was at the Grand Duke’s ball last night. I can hardly believe that; but she certainly had intended to leave for Novgorod to-day, Sire. The police were watching every train for her; but, for some reason or other, she did not go. Some traitor must have warned her. But I shall catch her yet. A chase after a beautiful woman is always exciting.

  CZAR. You must hunt her down with bloodhounds, and when she is taken I shall hew her limb from limb. I shall stretch her on the rack till her pale white body is twisted and curled like paper in the fire.

  PRINCE PAUL. Oh, we shall have another hunt immediately, for her, Sire! Prince Alexis will assist us, I am sure.

  CZAREVITCH. You never require any assistance to ruin a woman, Prince Paul.

  CZAR. Vera, the Nihilist, in Moscow! O God, were it not better to die at once the dog’s death they plot for me than to live as I live now! Never to sleep, or, if I do, to dream such horrid dreams that hell itself were peace when matched with them. To trust none but those I have bought, to buy none worth trusting! To see a traitor in every smile, poison in every dish, a dagger in every hand! To lie awake at night, listening from hour to hour for the stealthy creeping of the murderer, for the laying of the damned mine! You are all spies! You are all spies! You worst of all – you, my own son! Which of you is it who hides these bloody proclamations under my own pillow, or at the table where I sit? Which of ye all is the Judas who betrays me? O God! O God! methinks there was a time once, in our war with England, when nothing could make me afraid. (This with more calm and pathos.) I have ridden into the crimson heart of war, and borne back an eagle which those wild islanders had taken from us. Men said I was brave then. My father gave me the Iron Cross of Valour. Oh, could he see me now, with this coward’s livery ever in my cheek! (Sinks into his chair.) I never knew any love when I was a boy. I was ruled by terror myself, how else should I rule now? (Starts up.) But I will have revenge; I will have revenge. For every hour I have lain awake at night, waiting for the noose or the dagger, they shall pass years in Siberia, centuries in the mines! Ay! I shall have revenge.

  CZAREVITCH. Father! have mercy on the people. Give them what they ask.

  PRINCE PAUL. And begin, Sire, with your own head; they have a particular liking for that.

  CZAR. The people! the people! A tiger which I have let loose on myself; but I will fight with it to the death. I am done with half measures. I shall crush these Nihilists at a blow. There shall not be a man of them, no, nor a woman either, left alive in Russia. Am I Emperor for nothing, that a woman should hold me at bay? Vera Sabouroff shall be in my power, I swear it, before a week is ended, though I burn my whole city to find her. She shall be flogged by the knout, stifled in the fortress, strangled in the square!

  CZAREVITCH. O God!

  CZAR. For two years her hands have been clutching at my throat; for two years she has made my life a hell; but I shall have revenge. Martial law, Prince, martial law over the whole Empire; that will give me revenge. A good measure, Prince, eh? a good measure.

  PRINCE PAUL. And an economical one too, Sire. It will carry off your surplus population in six months, and save you any expense in courts of justice; they will not be needed now.

  CZAR. Quite right. There are too many people in Russia, too much money spent on them, too much money on courts of justice. I’ll shut them up.

  CZAREVITCH. Sire, reflect before –

  CZAR. When can you have the proclamations ready, Prince Paul?

  PRINCE PAUL. They have been printed for the last six months, Sire. I knew you would need them.

  CZAR. That’s good! That’s very good! Let us begin at once.

  Ah, Prince, if every king in Europe had a minister like you – CZAREVITCH. There would be less kings in Europe than there are.

  CZAR (in frightened whisper, to PRINCE PAUL). What does he mean? Do you trust him? His prison hasn’t cured him yet. Shall I banish him? Shall I (whispers) …? The Emperor Paul did it. The Empress Catherine there (points to picture on the wall) did it. Why shouldn’t I?

  PRINCE PAUL. Your Majesty, there is no need for alarm. The Prince is a very ingenuous young man. He pretends to be devoted to the people, and lives in a palace; preaches socialism, and draws a salary that would support a province. Some day he’ll find out that the best cure for Republicism is the Imperial crown, and will cut up the red cap of liberty to make decorations for his Prime Minister.

  CZAR. You are right. If he really loved the people, he could not be my son.

  PRINCE PAUL. If he lived with the people for a fortnight, their bad dinners would soon cure him of his democracy. Shall we begin, Sire?

  CZAR. At once. Read the proclamation. Gentlemen, be seated. Alexis, Alexis, I say, come and hear it! It will be good practice for you; you will be doing it yourself some day.

  CZAREVITCH. I have heard too much of it already. (Takes his seat at the table. COUNT ROUVALOFF whispers to him.)

  CZAR. What are you whispering about there, Count Rouvaloff?

  COUNT ROUVALOFF. I was giving his Royal Highness some good advice, your Majesty.

  PRINCE PAUL. Count Rouvaloff is the typical spendthrift, Sire; he is always giving away what he needs most. (Lays papers before the CZAR.) I think, Sire, you will approve of this: – ‘Love of the people’, ‘Father of his people’, ‘Martial law’, and the usual allusions to Providence in the last line. All it requires now is your Imperial Majesty’s signature.

  CZAREVITCH. Sire!

  PRINCE PAUL (hurriedly). I promise your Majesty to crush every Nihilist in Russia in six months if you sign this proclamation; every Nihilist in Russia.

  CZAR. Say that again! To crush every Nihilist in Russia; to crush this woman, their leader, who makes war upon me in my own city. Prince Paul Maraloffski, I create you Maréchal of the whole Russian Empire to help you carry out martial law. Give me the proclamation. I will sign it at once.

  PRINCE PAUL (points on paper). Here, Sire.

  CZAREVITCH (starts up and puts his hands on the paper). Stay! I tell you, stay! The priests have taken heaven from the people, and you would take the earth away too.

  PRINCE PAUL (hurriedly). We have no time, Prince, now. This boy will ruin everything. The pen, Sire.

  CZAREVITCH. What! is it so small a thing to strangle a nation, to murder a kingdom, to wreck an empire? Who are we who dare lay this ban of terror on a people? Have we less vices than they have, that we bring them to the bar of judgement before us?

  PRINCE PAUL. What a Communist the Prince is! He would have an equal distribution of sin as well as of property.

  CZAREVITCH. Warmed by the same sun, nurtured by the same air, fashioned of flesh and blood like to our own, wherein are they different to us, save that they starve while we surfeit, that they toil while we idle, that they sicken while we poison, that they die while we –

  CZAR. How dare –?

  CZAREVITCH. I dare all for the people; but you would rob them of common rights of men.

  CZAR. The people have no rights.

  CZAREVITCH. Then they have great wrongs. Father, they have won your battles for you; from the pine forests of the Baltic to the palms of India they have ridden on victory’s mighty wings! Boy as I am in years, I have seen wave after wave of living men sweep up the heights of battle to their death; ay, and snatch perilous conquest from the scales of war when the bloody crescent seemed to shake above our eagles.

  CZAR (somewhat moved). Those men are dead. What have I to do with them?

  CZAREVITCH. Nothing! The dead are safe; you cannot harm them now. They sleep their last long sleep. Some in Turkish waters, others by the wind-swept heights of Norway and the Dane! But these, the living, our brothers, what have y
ou done for them? They asked you for bread, you gave them a stone. They sought for freedom, you scourged them with scorpions. You have sown the seeds of this revolution yourself – !

  PRINCE PAUL. And are we not cutting down the harvest?

  CZAREVITCH. Oh, my brothers! better far that ye had died in the iron hail and screaming shell of battle than to come back to such a doom as this! The beasts of the forest have their lairs, and the wild beasts their caverns, but the people of Russia, conquerors of the world, have not where to lay their heads.

  PRINCE PAUL. They have the headsman’s block.

  CZAREVITCH. The block! Ay! you have killed their souls at your pleasure, you would kill their bodies now.

  CZAR. Insolent boy! Have you forgotten who is Emperor of Russia?

  CZAREVITCH. No! The people reign now, by the grace of God. You should have been their shepherd; you have fled away like the hireling, and let the wolves in upon them.

  CZAR. Take him away! Take him away, Prince Paul!

  CZAREVITCH. God hath given his people tongues to speak with; you would cut them out that they may be dumb in their agony, silent in thier torture! But, He hath given them hands to smite with, and they shall smite! Ay! from the sick and labouring womb of this unhappy land some revolution, like a bloody child, may rise up and slay you.

  CZAR (leaping up). Devil! Assassin! Why do you beard me thus to my face?

  CZAREVITCH. Because I am a Nihilist! (The MINISTERS start to their feet; there is a dead silence for a few minutes.)

  CZAR. A Nihilist! a Nihilist! Viper whom I have nurtured, traitor whom I have fondled, is this your bloody secret? Prince Paul Maraloffski, Maréchal of the Russian Empire, arrest the Czarevitch!

  MINISTERS. Arrest the Czarevitch!

  CZAR. A Nihilist! If you have sown with them, you shall reap with them! If you have talked with them, you shall rot with them! If you have lived with them, with them you shall die!

  PRINCE PETROVITCH. Die!

  CZAR. A plague on all sons, I say! There should be no more marriages in Russia when one can breed such Serpents as you are! Arrest the Czarevitch, I say!

  PRINCE PAUL. Czarevitch! by order of the Emperor, I demand your sword. (CZAREVITCH gives up sword; PRINCE PAUL places it on the table.)

  CZAREVITCH. You will find it unstained by blood.

  PRINCE PAUL. Foolish boy! you are not made for a conspirator; you have not learned to hold your tongue. Heroics are out of place in a palace.

  CZAR (sinks into his chair with his eyes fixed on the CZAREVITCH). O God! My own son against me, my own flesh and blood against me; but I am rid of them all now.

  CZAREVITCH. The mighty brotherhood to which I belong has a thousand such as I am, ten thousand better still! (The CZAR starts in his seat.) The star of freedom is risen already, and far off I hear the mighty wave Democracy break on these cursed shores.

  PRINCE PAUL (to PRINCE PETROVITCH). In that case you and I must learn how to swim.

  CZAREVITCH. Father, Emperor, Imperial Master, I plead not for my own life, but for the lives of my brothers, the people.

  PRINCE PAUL (bitterly). Your brothers, the people, Prince, are not content with their own lives, they always want to take their neighbours’ too.

  CZAR (standing up). I am tired of being afraid. I have done with terror now. From this day I proclaim war against the people – war to their annihilation. As they have dealt with me, so shall I deal with them. I shall grind them to powder, and strew their dust upon the air. There shall be a spy in every man’s house, a traitor on every hearth, a hangman in every village, a gibbet in every square. Plague, leprosy, or fever shall be less deadly than my wrath; I will make every frontier a graveyard, every province a lazar-house, and cure the sick by the sword. I shall have peace in Russia, though it be the peace of the dead. Who said I was a coward? Who said I was afraid? See, thus shall I crush this people beneath my feet! (Takes up sword of CZAREVITCH off table and tramples on it.)

  CZAREVITCH. Father, beware, the sword you tread on may turn and wound you. The people suffer long, but vengeance comes at last, vengeance with red hands and silent feet.

  PRINCE PAUL. Bah! the people are bad shots; they always miss one.

  CZAREVITCH. There are times when the people are the instruments of God.

  CZAR. Ay! and when kings are God’s scourges for the people. Take him away! Take him away! Bring in my guards. (Enter the IMPERIAL GUARD. CZAR points to CZAREVITCH, who stands alone at the side of the stage.) We will bring him to prison ourselves: prison! I trust no prison. He would escape and kill me. I will have him shot here, here in the open square by the soldiers. Let me never see his face again. (CZAREVITCH is being led out.) No, no, leave him! I don’t trust guards. They are all Nihilists! (To PRINCE PAUL.) I trust you, you have no mercy. (Throws window open and goes out on balcony.)

  CZAREVITCH. If I am to die for the people I am ready. One Nihilist more or less in Russia, what does that matter?

  PRINCE PAUL (looking at his watch). The dinner is sure to be spoiled. How annoying politics are; and eldest sons!

  VOICE (outside, in the street). God save the people! (CZAR is shot, and staggers back into the room.)

  CZAREVITCH (breaking from the guards, and rushing over). Father!

  CZAR. Murderer! Murderer! You did it! Murderer! (Dies.)

  Tableau.

  Curtain.

  Third Act

  SCENE

  Same and business as Act I. Man in yellow dress, with drawn sword, at the door.

  Password outside. Væ tyrannis.

  Answer. Væ victis (repeated three times).

  Enter CONSPIRATORS, who form a semicircle, masked and cloaked.

  PRESIDENT. What hour is it?

  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. The hour to strike.

  PRESIDENT. What day?

  ECOND CONSPIRATOR. The day of Marat.

  PRESIDENT. In what month?

  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. The months of liberty.

  PRESIDENT. What is our duty?

  FOURTH CONSPIRATOR. To obey.

  PRESIDENT. Our creed?

  FIFTH CONSPIRATOR. Parbleu, Monsieur le President, I never knew you had one.

  CONSPIRATORS. A spy! A spy! Unmask! unmask! A spy! PRESIDENT. Let the doors be shut. There are others but Nihilists present.

  CONSPIRATORS. Unmask! Unmask! Kill him! kill him! (Masked Conspirator unmasks.) Prince Paul!

  VERA. Devil! Who lured you into the lion’s den?

  CONSPIRATORS. Kill him! Kill him!

  PRINCE PAUL. En vérité, Messieurs, you are not over-hospitable in your welcome.

  VERA. Welcome! What welcome should we give you but the dagger or the noose?

  PRINCE PAUL. I had no idea really that the Nihilists were so exclusive. Let me assure you that if I had not always had an entree to the very best society, and the worst conspiracies, I could never have been Prime Minister in Russia.

  VERA. The tiger cannot change its nature, nor the snake lose its venom; but are you turned a lover of the people?

  PRINCE PAUL. Mon Dieu, non, Mademoiselle! I would much sooner talk scandal in a drawing-room than treason in a cellar. Besides, I hate the common mob, who smell of garlic, smoke bad tobacco, get up early, and dine off one dish.

  PRESIDENT. What have you to gain, then, by a revolution?

  PRINCE PAUL. Mon ami, I have nothing left to lose. That scatter-brained boy, this new Czar, has banished me.

  VERA. To Siberia?

  PRINCE PAUL. No, to Paris. He has confiscated my estates, robbed me of my office and my cook. I have nothing left but my decorations. I am here for revenge.

  PRESIDENT. Then you have a right to be one of us. We also meet daily for revenge.

  PRINCE PAUL. You want money of course. No one ever joins a conspiracy who has any. Here. (Throws money on table.) You have so many spies that I should think you want information. Well, you will find me the best-informed man in Russia on the abuses of our Government. I made them nearly all myself.

  VERA. President, I don’t
trust this man. He has done us too much harm in Russia to let him go in safety.

  PRINCE PAUL. Believe me, Mademoiselle, you are wrong. I will be a most valuable addition to your circle; and as for you, gentlemen, if I had not thought that you would be useful to me I shouldn’t have risked my neck among you, or dined an hour earlier than usual so as to be in time.

  PRESIDENT. Ay, if he had wanted to spy on us, Vera, he wouldn’t have come himself.

  PRINCE PAUL (aside). No; I should have sent my best friend.

  PRESIDENT. Besides, Vera, he is just the man to give us the information we want about some business we have in hand to-night.

  VERA. Be it so if you wish it.

  PRESIDENT. Brothers, is it your will that Prince Paul Maraloffski be admitted, and take the oath of the Nihilist?

  CONSPIRATORS. It Is! It Is!

  PRESIDENT (holding out dagger and a paper). Prince Paul, the dagger or the oath?

  PRINCE PAUL (smiles sardonically). I would sooner annihilate than be annihilated. (Takes paper.)

  PRESIDENT. Remember: Betray us, and as long as earth holds poison or steel, as long as men can strike or women betray, you shall not escape vengeance. The Nihilists never forget their friends, or forgive their enemies.

  PRINCE PAUL. Really? I did not think you were so civilised. VERA (pacing up and down behind). Why is he not here? He will not keep the crown. I know him well.

  PRESIDENT. Sign. (PRINCE PAUL signs.) You said you thought we had no creed. You were wrong. Read it!

  VERA. This is a dangerous thing, President. What can we do with this man?

  PRESIDENT. We can use him. He is of value to us to-night and to-morrow.

  VERA. Perhaps there will be no morrow for any of us; but we have given him our word: he is safer here than ever he was in his palace.

  PRINCE PAUL (reading). ‘The rights of humanity’! In the old times men carried out their rights for themselves as they lived, but nowadays every baby seems born with a social manifesto in its mouth much bigger than itself. ‘Nature is not a temple, but a workshop: we demand the right to labour.’ Ah, I shall surrender my own rights in that respect.