Vera; or, The Nihilists/Act I

by Oscar Wilde

Scene: 99 Tchernavaya, Moscow. A large garret lit by oil lamps hung from ceiling. Some masked men standing silent and apart from one another. A man in a scarlet mask is writing at a table. Door at back. Man in yellow with drawn sword at it. Knocks heard. Figures in cloaks and masks enter.
   Password. Per crucem ad lucem.^[1]
   Answer. Per sanguinem ad libertatem.^[2]
Clock strikes. Conspirators form a semi-circle in the middle of the stage.

President: What is the word?
First Conspirator: Nabat.
President: The answer?
Second Conspirator: Kalit.
President: What hour is it?
Third Conspirator: The hour to suffer.
President: What day?
Fourth Conspirator: The day of oppression.
President: What year?
Fifth Conspirator: The year of hope.
President: How many are we in number?
Sixth Conspirator: Ten, nine, and three.
President: The Galilæan had less to conquer the world; but what is our mission?
Seventh Conspirator: To give freedom.
President: Our creed?
Eighth Conspirator: To annihilate.
President: Our duty?
Ninth Conspirator: To obey.
President: Brothers, the questions have been answered well. There are none but Nihilists present. Let us see each other's faces. (The Conspirators unmask.) Michael, recite the oath.
Michael: To strangle whatever nature is in us; neither to love nor to be loved, neither to pity nor to be pitied, neither to marry nor to be given in marriage, till the end is come; to stab secretly by night; to drop poison in the glass; to set father against son, and husband against wife; without fear, without hope, without future, to suffer, to annihilate, to revenge.
President: Are we all agreed?
Conspirators: We are all agreed. (They disperse in various directions about the stage.)
President: 'Tis after the hour, Michael, and she is not yet here.
Michael: Would that she were! We can do little without her.
Alexis: She cannot have been seized, President? But the police are on her track, I know.
Michael: You always do seem to know a good deal about the movements of the police in Moscow—too much for an honest conspirator.
President: If those dogs have caught her the red flag of the people will float on a barricade in every street till we find her! It was foolish of her to go to the Grand Duke's ball. I told her so, but she said she wanted to see the Czar and all his cursed brood face to face for once.
Alexis: Gone to the State ball!
Michael: I have no fear. She is as hard to capture as a she-wolf is, and twice as dangerous; besides, she is well disguised. To-night it is a masked ball. But is there any news from the Palace, President? What is that bloody despot doing now besides torturing his only son? What sort of a whelp is this Czarevitch, by the way? Have any of you seen him? One hears strange stories about him. They say he loves the people; but a king's son never does that. You cannot breed them like that.
President: Since he came back from abroad a year ago his father has kept him in close prison in his palace.
Michael: An excellent training to make him a tyrant in his turn; but is there any news, I say?
President: A council is to be held to-morrow, at four o clock, on some secret business the committee cannot find out.
Michael: A council in a king's palace is sure to be about some bloody work or other. But in what room is it to be held?
President (reading from letter): In the yellow tapestry room called after the Empress Catherine.
Michael: I care not for such long sounding names. I would know where it is.
President: I cannot tell, Michael. I know more about the inside of prisons than of palaces.
Michael (speaking suddenly to Alexis): Where is this room, Alexis?
Alexis: It is on the first floor, looking out on to the inner courtyard. But why do you ask, Michael?
Michael: Nothing, nothing, boy! I merely take a great interest in the Czar's life and movements, and I knew you could tell me all about the palace. Every poor student of medicine in Moscow knows all about king's houses. It is their duty, is it not?
Alexis (aside): Can Michael suspect me? There is something strange in his manner to-night. Why doesn't she come? The whole fire of revolution seems fallen into dull ashes when she is not here.
Michael: Have you cured many patients, lately, at your hospital, boy?
Alexis: There is one who lies sick to death I would fain cure, but cannot.
Michael: Ay! and who is that?
Alexis: Russia, our mother.
Michael: The curing of Russia is surgeon's business, and must be done by the knife. I like not your method of medicine.
President: Professor, we have read the proofs of your last article it is very good indeed.
Michael: What is it about, Professor?
Professor: The subject, my good brother, is assassination considered as a method of political reform.
Michael: I think little of pen and ink in revolutions. One dagger will do more than a hundred epigrams. Still, let us read this scholar's last production. Give it to me. I will read it myself.
Professor: Brother, you never mind your stops; let Alexis read it.
Michael: Ay! he is as tripping of speech as if he were some young aristocrat; but for my own part I care not for the stops so that the sense be plain.
Alexis (reading): "The past has belonged to the tyrant, and he has defiled it; ours is the future, and we shall make it holy." Ay! let us make the future holy; let there be one revolution at least which is not bred in crime, nurtured in murder!
Michael: They have spoken to us by the sword, and by the sword we shall answer! You are too delicate for us, Alexis. There should be none here but men whose hands are rough with labour or red with blood.
President: Peace, Michael, peace! He is the bravest heart amongst us.
Michael (aside): He will need to be brave to-night.

The sound of sleigh bells is heard outside.

Voice (outside): Per crucem ad lucem. (Answer of man on guard): Per sanguinem ad libertatem.
Michael: Who is that?

Enter Vera in a cloak, which she throws off, appearing in full ball dress.

Vera: God save the people!
President: Welcome, Vera, welcome! We have been sick at heart till we saw you; but now methinks the star of freedom has come to wake us from the night.
Vera: It is night, indeed, brother! Night without moon or star! Russia is smitten to the heart! The man Ivan whom men called the Czar strikes now at our mother with a dagger deadlier than any ever forged by tyranny against a people's life!
Michael: What has the tyrant done now?
Vera: To-morrow martial law is to be proclaimed over all Russia.
Omnes: Martial law! We are lost! We are lost!
Alexis: Martial law! Impossible!
Michael: Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.
Vera: Ay, martial law. The last right to which the people clung has been taken from them. Without trial, without appeal, without accuser even, our brothers will be taken from their houses, shot in the streets like dogs, sent away to die in the snow, to starve in the dungeon, to rot in the mine. Do you know what martial law means? It means the strangling of a whole nation. The streets will be filled with soldiers night and day; there will be sentinels at every door. No man dare walk abroad now but the spy or the traitor. Cooped up in the dens we hide in, meeting by stealth, speaking with bated breath; what good can we do now for Russia?
President: We can suffer at least.
Vera: We have done that too much already. The hour is now come to annihilate and to revenge.
President: Up to this the people have borne everything.
Vera: Because they have understood nothing. But now we, the Nihilists, have given them the tree of knowledge to eat of, and the day of silent suffering is over for Russia.
Michael: Martial law, Vera! This is fearful tidings you bring.
President: It is the death-warrant of liberty in Russia.
Vera: Or the signal for revolution.
Michael: Are you sure it is true?
Vera: Here is the proclamation. I stole it myself at the ball to-night from a young fool, one of Prince Paul's secretaries, who had been given it to copy. It was that which made me so late.

Vera hands proclamation to Michael, who reads it.

Michael: "To ensure the public safety—martial law. By order of the Czar, father of his people." The father of his people!
Vera: Ay! a father whose name shall not be hallowed, whose kingdom shall change to a republic, whose trespasses shall not be forgiven him, because he has robbed us of our daily bread; with whom is neither might, nor right, nor glory, now or for ever.
President: It must be about this time that the council meet to-morrow. It has not yet been signed.
Alexis: It shall not be while I have a tongue to plead with.
Michael: Or while I have hands to smite with.
Vera: Martial law! O God, how easy it is for a king to kill his people by thousands, but we cannot rid ourselves of one crowned man in Europe! What is there of awful majesty in these men which makes the hand unsteady, the dagger treacherous, the pistol-shot harmless? Are they not men of like passions with ourselves, vulnerable to the same diseases, of flesh and blood not different from our own? What made Olgiati tremble at the supreme crisis of that Roman life, and Guido's nerve fail him when he should have been of iron and of steel? A plague, I say, on these fools of Naples, Berlin, and Spain! Methinks that if I stood face to face with one of the crowned men my eye would see more clearly, my aim be more sure, my whole body gain a strength and power that was not my own! Oh, to think what stands between us and freedom in Europe! a few old men, wrinkled, feeble, tottering dotards whom a boy could strangle for a ducat, or a woman stab in a night-time. These are the things that keep us from liberty. But now methinks the brood of men is dead and the dull earth grown sick of childbearing, else would no crowned dog pollute God's air by living.
Omnes: Try us! Try us! Try us!
Michael: We shall try thee, too, some day, Vera.
Vera: I pray God thou mayest! Have I not strangled whatever nature is in me, and shall I not keep my oath?
Michael (to President): Martial law, President! Come, there is no time to be lost. We have twelve hours yet before us till the council meet. Twelve hours! One can overthrow a dynasty in less than that.
President: Ay! or lose one's own head.

Michael and the President retire to one corner of the stage and sit whispering. Vera takes up the proclamation, and reads it to herself. Alexis watches and suddenly rushes up to her.

Alexis: Vera!
Vera: Alexis, you here! Foolish boy, have I not prayed you to stay away? All of us here are doomed to die before our time, fated to expiate by suffering whatever good we do; but you, with your bright boyish face, you are too young to die yet.
Alexis: One is never too young to die for one's country!
Vera: Why do you come here night after night?
Alexis: Because I love the people.
Vera: But your fellow-students must miss you. Are there no traitors among them? You know what spies there are in the University here. O Alexis, you must go! You see how desperate suffering has made us. There is no room here for a nature like yours. You must not come again.
Alexis: Why do you think so poorly of me? Why should I live while my brothers suffer?
Vera: You spake to me of your mother once. You said you loved her. Oh, think of her!
Alexis: I have no mother now but Russia, my life is hers to take or give away; but to-night I am here to see you. They tell me you are leaving for Novgorod to-morrow.
Vera: I must. They are getting faint-hearted there, and I would fan the flame of this revolution into such a blaze that the eyes of all kings in Europe shall be blinded. If martial law is passed they will need me all the more there. There is no limit, it seems, to the tyranny of one man; but to the suffering of a whole people there shall be a limit. Too many of us have died on block and barricade: it is their turn to be victims now.
Alexis: God knows it, I am with you. But you must not go. The police are watching every train for you. When you are seized they have orders to place you without trial in the lowest dungeon of the palace. I know it—no matter how. Oh, think how without you the sun goes from our life, how the people will lose their leader and liberty her priestess. Vera, you must not go!
Vera: You are right: I will stay. I would live a little longer for freedom, a little longer for Russia.
Alexis: When you die then Russia is smitten indeed, when you die then I shall lose all hope—all.… Vera, this is fearful news you bring—martial law—it is too terrible. I knew it not, by my soul, I knew it not!
Vera: How could you have known it? It is too well laid a plot for that. This great White Czar, whose hands are red with the blood of the people he has murdered, whose soul is black with this iniquity, is the cleverest conspirator of us all. Oh, how could Russia bear two hearts like yours and his!
Alexis: Vera, the Emperor was not always like this. There was a time when he loved the people. It is that devil, whom God curse, Prince Paul Maraloffski, who has brought him to this. To-morrow, I swear it, I shall plead for the people to the Emperor.
Vera: Plead to the Czar! Foolish boy, it is only those who are sentenced to death that ever see our Czar. Besides, what should he care for a voice that pleads for mercy? The cry of a strong nation in its agony has not moved that heart of stone.
Alexis (aside): Yet shall I plead to him. They can but kill me.
Professor: Here are the proclamations, Vera. Do you think they will do?
Vera: I shall read them. How fair he looks! Methinks he never seemed so noble as to-night. Liberty is blessed in having such a lover.
Alexis: Well, President, what are you deep in?
Michael: We are thinking of the best way of killing bears. (Whispers to President and leads him aside.)
Professor (to Vera): And the letters from our brothers at Paris and Berlin. What answer shall we send to them?
Vera (takes them mechanically): Had I not strangled nature, sworn neither to love nor to be loved, methinks I might have loved him. Oh, I am a fool, a traitor myself, a traitor myself! But why did he come amongst us with his bright young face, his heart aflame for liberty, his pure white soul? Why does he make me feel at times as if I would have him as my king, Republican though I be? Oh, fool, fool, fool! False to your oath! Weak as water! Have done! Remember what you are—a Nihilist, a Nihilist!
President (to Michael): But you will be seized, Michael.
Michael: I think not. I will wear the uniform of the Imperial Guard, and the Colonel on duty is one of us. It is on the first floor, you remember; so I can take a long shot.
President: Shall I not tell the brethren?
Michael: Not a word, not a word! There is a traitor amongst us.
Vera: Come, are these the proclamations? Yes, they will do; yes, they will do. Send five hundred to Kiev and Odessa and Novgorod, five hundred to Warsaw, and have twice the number distributed among the Southern provinces, though these dull Russian peasants care little for our proclamations, and less for our martyrdoms. When the blow is struck, it must be from the town, not from the country.
Michael: Ay, and by the sword, not by the goose quill.
Vera: Where are the letters from Poland?
Professor: Here.
Vera: Unhappy Poland! The eagles of Russia have fed on her heart. We must not forget our brothers there.
President: Is it true, Michael?
Michael: Ay, I stake my life on it.
President: Let the doors be locked, then. Alexis Ivanacievitch entered on our roll of the brothers as a student of the School of Medicine at Moscow. Why did you not tell us of this bloody scheme of martial law?
Alexis: I, President?
Michael: Ay, you! You knew it, none better. Such weapons as these are not forged in a day. Why did you not tell us of it? A week ago there had been time to lay the mine, to raise the barricade, to strike one blow at least for liberty. But now the hour is past! It is too late, it is too late! Why did you keep it a secret from us I say?
Alexis: Now by the hand of freedom, Michael, my brother, you wrong me. I knew nothing of this hideous law. By my soul, my brothers, I knew not of it! How should I know?
Michael: Because you are a traitor! Where did you go when you left us the night of our last meeting here?
Alexis: To mine own house, Michael.
Michael: Liar! I was on your track. You left here an hour after midnight. Wrapped in a large cloak, you crossed the river by a boat a mile below the second bridge, and gave the ferryman a gold piece, you, the poor student of medicine! You doubled back twice and hid in an archway so long that I had almost made up my mind to stab you at once, only that I am fond of hunting. So! you thought you had baffled all pursuit, did you? Fool! I am a bloodhound that never loses the scent. I followed you from street to street. At last I saw you pass swiftly across the Place St. Isaac, whisper to the guards some secret password, enter the palace by a private door with your own key.
Conspirators: The palace!
Vera: Alexis!
Michael: I waited. All through the dreary watches of our long Russian night I waited, that I might kill you with your Judas hire still hot in your hand. But you never came back; you never left that palace. I saw the blood-red sun rise through the yellow fog over the murky town; I saw a new day of oppression dawn on Russia; but you never came back. So you pass nights in the palace, do you? You know the password for the guards; you have a key to a secret door. You are a spy—I never trusted you, with your soft white hands, your curled hair, your pretty graces. You have no mark of suffering about you; you cannot be of the people. You are a spy—a spy—traitor!
Omnes: Kill him! Kill him! (Draw their knives.)
Vera (rushing in front of Alexis): Stand back, I say, Michael! Stand back all! Do not dare lay a hand upon him! He is the noblest heart amongst us.
Omnes: Kill him! Kill him! He is a spy!
Vera: Dare to lay a finger on him, and I leave you all to yourselves.
President: Vera, did you not hear what Michael said of him? He stayed all night in the Czar's palace. He has a password and a private key. What else should he be but a spy?
Vera: Bah! I do not believe Michael. It is a lie! It is a lie! Alexis, say it is a lie!
Alexis: It is true. Michael has told what he saw. I did pass that night in the Czar's palace. Michael has spoken the truth.
Vera: Stand back, I say; stand back! Alexis, I do not care. I trust you; you would not betray us; you would not sell the people for money. You are honest, true! Oh, say you are no spy!
Alexis: Spy? You know I am not. I am with you, my brothers, to the death.
Michael: Ay, to your own death.
Alexis: Vera, you know I am true.
Vera: I know it well.
President: Why are you here, traitor?
Alexis: Because I love the people.
Michael: Then you can be a martyr for them?
Vera: You must kill me first, Michael, before you lay a finger on him.
President: Michael, we dare not lose Vera. It is her whim to let this boy live. We can keep him here to-night. Up to this he has not betrayed us.

Tramp of soldiers outside, knocking at door.

Voice: Open, in the name of the Emperor!
Michael: He has betrayed us. This is your doing, spy!
President: Come, Michael, come. We have no time to cut one another's throats while we have our own heads to save.
Voice: Open, in the name of the Emperor!
President: Brothers, be masked, all of you. Michael, open the door. It is our only chance.

Enter General Kotemkin and soldiers.

General: All honest citizens should be in their own houses an hour before midnight, and not more than five people have a right to meet privately. Have you not noticed the proclamation fellows?
Michael: Ay, you have spoiled every honest wall in Moscow with it.
Vera: Peace, Michael, peace. Nay, Sir, we know it not. We are a company of strolling players travelling from Samara to Moscow to amuse his Imperial Majesty the Czar.
General: But I heard loud voices before I entered. What was that?
Vera: We were rehearsing a new tragedy.
General: Your answers are too honest to be true. Come, let me see who you are. Take off those players' masks. By St. Nicholas, my beauty, if your face matches your figure, you must be a choice morsel! Come, I say, pretty one, I would sooner see your face than those of all the others.
President: O God! If he sees it is Vera, we are all lost!
General: No coquetting, my girl. Come, unmask, I say, or I shall tell my guards to do it for you.
Alexis: Stand back, I say, General Kotemkin!
General: Who are you, fellow, that talk with such a tripping tongue to your betters? (Alexis takes his mask off.) His Imperial Highness the Czarevitch!
Omnes: The Czarevitch! It is all over!
President: I knew he was a spy. He will give us up to the soldiers.
Michael (to Vera): Why did you not let me kill him? Come, we must fight to the death for it.
Vera: Peace! he will not betray us.
Alexis: A whim of mine, General! You know how my father keeps me from the world and imprisons me in the palace. I should really be bored to death if I could not get out at night in disguise sometimes, and have some romantic adventure in town. I tell in with these honest folks a few hours ago.
General: Actors, are they, Prince?
Alexis: Ay, and very ambitious actors, too. They only care to play before kings.
General: I' faith, your Highness, I was in hopes I had made a good haul of Nihilists.
Alexis: Nihilists in Moscow, General! With you as head of the police! Impossible!
General: So I always tell your Imperial father. But I heard at the council to-day that that woman Vera Sabouroff, the head of them, had been seen in this very city. The Emperor's face turned as white as the snow outside. I think I never saw such terror in a man before.
Alexis: She is a dangerous woman, then, this Vera Sabouroff?
General: The most dangerous in all Europe.
Alexis: Did you ever see her, General?
General: Why, five years ago, when I was a plain Colonel, I remember her, your Highness, a common waiting-girl in an inn. If I had known then what she was going to turn out, I would have flogged her to death on the roadside. She is not a woman at all, she is a sort of devil! For the last eighteen months I have been hunting her, and caught sight of her once last September outside Odessa.
Alexis: How did you let her go, General?
General: I was by myself, and she shot one of my horses just as I was gaining on her. If I see her again I shan't miss my chance. The Emperor has put twenty thousand roubles on her head.
Alexis: I hope you will get it, General; but meanwhile you are frightening these honest folk out of their wits, and disturbing the tragedy. Good-night, General.
General: Yes; but I should like to see their faces, your Highness.
Alexis: No, General; you must not ask that; you know how these gipsies hate to be stared at.
General: Yes. But, your Highness——
Alexis (haughtily): General, they are my friends, that is enough. Good-night. And, General, not a word of my little adventure here, you understand.
General: But shall we not see you back to the palace? The State ball is almost over and you are expected.
Alexis: I shall be there; but I shall return alone. Remember, not a word.
General: Or your pretty gipsy, eh, Prince? Your pretty gipsy! I' faith, I should like to see her before I go; she has such fine eyes through her mask. Well, good night, your Highness; good night.
Alexis: Good night, General.

Exeunt General and the soldiers.

Vera (throwing off her mask): Saved! and by you!
Alexis (clasping her hand): Brothers, you trust me now?

Exit.

Tableau

Act drop

Notes

1. Through the cross to the light.
2. Through blood to liberty.