Vera: or, The Nihilists

Vera.It is night, indeed, brother! Night without moon or star! Russia is smitten to the heart! The man Ivan whom men call the Czar strikes now at our mother with a dagger deadlier than ever forged by tyranny against a people's life!

Mich. What has the tyrant done now?

Vera. To-morrow martial law is to be proclaimed in Russia.

Omnes. Martial law! We are lost! We are lost!

Alex. Martial law! Impossible!

Mich. 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?

Pres. We can suffer at least.

Vera. We have done that too much already. The hour is now come to annihilate and to revenge.

Pres. 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.

Mich. Martial law, Vera! This is fearful tidings you bring.

Pres. It is the death warrant of liberty in Russia.

Vera. Or the tocsin of revolution.

Mich. 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.)

Mich. "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.

Pres. It must be about this that the council meet to-morrow. It has not yet been signed.

Alex. It shall not be while I have a tongue to plead with.

Mich. 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. And these are the things that keep us from democracy, that keep us from liberty. But now methinks the brood of men is dead and the dull earth grown sick of child-bearing, else would no crowned dog pollute God's air by living.

Omnes. Try us! Try us! Try us!

Mich. 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?

Mich. (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 time than that.

Pres.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.)

Alex. 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.

Alex. One is never too young to die for one's country!

Vera. Why do you come here night after night?

Alex. 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.

Alex. 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!

Alex. 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 there shall be a limit to the suffering of a whole people.

Alex. 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. If you wish it, I will stay. I would live a little longer for freedom, a little longer for Russia.

Alex. 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 his iniquity, is the cleverest conspirator of us all. Oh, how could Russia bear two hearts like yours and his!

Alex. 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.

Alex. (aside). Yet shall I plead to him. They can but kill me.

Prof. 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.

Alex. Well, President, what are you deep in?

Mich. We are thinking of the best way of killing bears. (Whispers to President and leads him aside.)