Oscar Wilde
Complete Plays
Vera, The Duchess of Padua, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Salomé, An Ideal Husband, For Love of the King, The Decay of Lying…
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2019 OK Publishing
EAN 4064066051860
Table of Contents
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Decay of Lying (A Dialogue)
The Critic as Artist (A Dialogue)
The Plays
Vera
PERSONS IN THE PROLOGUE.
Peter Sabouroff (an Innkeeper).
Vera Sabouroff (his Daughter).
Michael (a Peasant).
Colonel Kotemkin.
Scene , Russia. Time, 1795.
PERSONS IN THE PLAY.
Ivan the Czar.
Prince Paul Maraloffski (Prime Minister of Russia).
Prince Petrovitch.
Count Rouvaloff.
Marquis de Poivrard.
Baron Raff.
General Kotemkin.
A Page.
Nihilists.
Peter Tchernavitch , President of the Nihilists.
Michael.
Alexis Ivanacievitch, known as a Student of Medicine.
Professor Marfa.
Vera Sabouroff.
Soldiers, Conspirators, &c.
Scene, Moscow. Time, 1800.
PROLOGUE
Scene. — A Russian Inn.
Large door opening on snowy landscape at back of stage.
Peter Sabouroff and Michael.
Peter (warming his hands at a stove). Has Vera not come back yet, Michael?
Mich. No, Father Peter, not yet; ‘tis a good three miles to the post office, and she has to milk the cows besides, and that dun one is a rare plaguey creature for a wench to handle.
Peter. Why didn’t you go with her, you young fool? she’ll never love you unless you are always at her heels; women like to be bothered.
Mich. She says I bother her too much already, Father Peter, and I fear she’ll never love me after all.
Peter. Tut, tut, boy, why shouldn’t she? you’re young and wouldn’t be ill-favoured either, had God or thy mother given thee another face. Aren’t you one of Prince Maraloffski’s gamekeepers; and haven’t you got a good grass farm, and the best cow in the village? What more does a girl want?
Mich. But Vera, Father Peter —
Peter. Vera, my lad, has got too many ideas; I don’t think much of ideas myself; I’ve got on well enough in life without ‘em; why shouldn’t my children? There’s Dmitri! could have stayed here and kept the inn; many a young lad would have jumped at the offer in these hard times; but he, scatter-brained featherhead of a boy, must needs go off to Moscow to study the law! What does he want knowing about the law! let a man do his duty, say I, and no one will trouble him.
Mich. Ay! but Father Peter, they say a good lawyer can break the law as often as he likes, and no one can say him nay.
Peter. That is about all they are good for; and there he stays, and has not written a line to us for four months now — a good son that, eh?
Mich. Come, come, Father Peter, Dmitri’s letters must have gone astray — perhaps the new postman can’t read; he looks stupid enough, and Dmitri, why, he was the best fellow in the village.