Mich. I have had a good deal of practice shooting, since I have been a boy, off your Highness’s wild boars.
Prince Paul. Are my gamekeepers like moles, then, always asleep?
Mich. No, Prince. I am one of them; but, like you, I am fond of robbing what I am put to watch.
Pres. This must be a new atmosphere for you, Prince Paul. We speak the truth to one another here.
Prince Paul. How misleading you must find it. You have an odd medley here, President — a little rococo, I am afraid.
Pres. You recognise a good many friends, I dare say?
Prince Paul. Yes, there is always more brass than brains in an aristocracy.
Pres. But you are here yourself?
Prince Paul. I? As I cannot be Prime Minister, I must be a Nihilist. There is no alternative.
Vera. O God, will he never come? The hand is on the stroke of the hour. Will he never come?
Mich. (aside). President, you know what we have to do? ‘Tis but a sorry hunter who leaves the wolf cub alive to avenge his father. How are we to get at this boy? It must be tonight. Tomorrow he will be throwing some sop of reform to the people, and it will be too late for a Republic.
Prince Paul. You are quite right. Good kings are the enemies of Democracy, and when he has begun by banishing me you may be sure he intends to be a patriot.
Mich. I am sick of patriot kings; what Russia needs is a Republic.
Prince Paul. Messieurs, I have brought you two documents which I think will interest you — the proclamation this young Czar intends publishing tomorrow, and a plan of the Winter Palace, where he sleeps tonight. (Hands paper.)
Vera. I dare not ask them what they are plotting about. Oh, why is Alexis not here?
Pres. Prince, this is most valuable information. Michael, you were right. If it is not tonight it will be too late. Read that.
Mich. Ah! A loaf of bread flung to a starving nation. A lie to cheat the people. (Tears it up.) It must be tonight. I do not believe in him. Would he have kept his crown had he loved the people? But how are we to get at him?
Prince Paul. The key of the private door in the street. (Hands key.)
Pres. Prince, we are in your debt.
Prince Paul (smiling). The normal condition of the Nihilists.
Mich. Ay, but we are paying our debts off with interest now. Two Emperors in one week. That will make the balance straight. We would have thrown in a Prime Minister if you had not come.
Prince Paul. Ah, I am sorry you told me. It robs my visit of all its picturesqueness and adventure. I thought I was perilling my head by coming here, and you tell me I have saved it. One is sure to be disappointed if one tries to get romance out of modern life.
Mich. It is not so romantic a thing to lose one’s head, Prince Paul.
Prince Paul. No, but it must often be very dull to keep it. Don’t you find that sometimes? (Clock strikes six.)
VERA (sinking into a seat). Oh, it is past the hour! It is past the hour!
Mich. (to President). Remember tomorrow will be too late.
Pres. Brothers, it is full time. Which of us is absent?
Consps. Alexis! Alexis!
Pres. Michael, read Rule 7.
Mich. “When any brother shall have disobeyed a summons to be present, the President shall enquire if there is anything alleged against him.”
Pres. Is there anything against our brother Alexis?
Consps. He wears a crown! He wears a crown!
Pres. Michael, read Article 7 of the Code of Revolution.
Mich. “Between the Nihilists and all men who wear crowns above their fellows, there is war to the death.”
Pres. Brothers, what say you? Is Alexis, the Czar, guilty or not?
Omnes. He is guilty!
Pres. What shall the penalty be?
Omnes. Death!
Pres. Let the lots be prepared; it shall be tonight.
Prince Paul. Ah, this is really interesting! I was getting afraid conspiracies were as dull as courts are.
Prof. Marfa. My forte is more in writing pamphlets than in taking shots. Still a regicide has always a place in history.
Mich. If your pistol is as harmless as your pen, this young tyrant will have a long life.
Prince Paul. You ought to remember, too, Professor, that if you were seized, as you probably would be, and hung, as you certainly would be, there would be nobody left to read your own articles.
Pres. Brothers, are you ready?
Vera (starting up). Not yet! Not yet! I have a word to say.
Mich. (Plague take her! I knew it would come to this.aside).
Vera. This boy has been our brother. Night after night he has perilled his own life to come here. Night after night, when every street was filled with spies, every house with traitors. Delicately nurtured like a king’s son, he has dwelt among us.
Pres. Ay! under a false name. He lied to us at the beginning. He lies to us now at the end.
Vera. I swear he is true. There is not a man here who does not owe him his life a thousand times. When the bloodhounds were on us that night, who saved us from arrest, torture, flogging, death, but he ye seek to kill? —
Mich. To kill all tyrants is our mission!
Vera. He is no tyrant. I know him well! He loves the people.
Pres. We know him too; he is a traitor.
Vera. A traitor! Three days ago he could have betrayed every man of you here, and the gibbet would have been your doom. He gave you all your lives once. Give him a little time — a week, a month, a few days; but not now! — O God, not now!
Consps. (brandishing daggers). Tonight! tonight! tonight!
Vera. Peace, you gorged adders; peace!
Mich. What, are we not here to annihilate? shall we not keep our oath?
Vera. Your oath! your oath! Greedy that you are of gain, every man’s hand lusting for his neighbour’s pelf, every heart set on pillage and rapine; who, of ye all, if the crown were set on his head, would give an empire up for the mob to scramble for? The people are not yet fit for a Republic in Russia.
Pres. Every nation is fit for a Republic.
Mich. The man is a tyrant.
Vera. A tyrant! Hath he not dismissed his evil counsellors. That ill-omened raven of his father’s life hath had his wings clipped and his claws pared, and comes to us croaking for revenge. Oh, have mercy on him! Give him a week to live!
Pres. Vera pleading for a king!
VERA (proudly). I plead not for a king, but for a brother.
Mich. For a traitor to his oath, for a coward who should have flung the purple back to the fools that gave it to him. No, Vera, no. The brood of men is not dead yet, nor the dull earth grown sick of child-bearing. No crowned man in Russia shall pollute God’s air by living.
Pres. You bade us try you once; we have tried you, and you are found wanting.
Mich. Vera, I am not blind; I know your secret. You love this boy, this young prince with his pretty face, his curled hair, his soft white hands. Fool that you are, dupe of a lying tongue, do you know what he would have done to you, this boy you think loved you? He would have made you his mistress, used your body at his pleasure, thrown you away when