27
Oct
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 A startling way to introduce the play’s main character 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. Similar to marital discussions in An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest — in the first few lines we can already see Wilde’s emerging writing style \
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— ‘Vera isn’t like other girls’ — a little cliche \
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 the first of many comic but controversial statements examining the corruption of supposedly ‘good’ institutions 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. Do you remember how he shot the bear at the barn in the great winter? It was perhaps unnatural-sounding, bolted-on sentences like this intended to seem ‘Russian’ that led the New York Daily Tribune to ridicule Vera as foolishly ‘invested with the Russian accessories of fur and dark-lanterns \
Peter. Ay, it was a good shot; I never did a better myself.\
Mich. And as for dancing, he tired out three fiddlers Christmas come two years.\
Peter. Ay, ay, he was a merry lad. It is the girl that has the seriousness—she goes about as solemn as a priest for days at a time.\
Mich. Vera is always thinking of others.\
Peter. There is her mistake, boy. Let God and our Little Father look to the world. It is none of my work to mend my neighbour’s thatch. Why, last winter old Michael was frozen to death in his sleigh in the snowstorm, and his wife and children starved afterwards when the hard times came; but what business was it of mine? I didn’t make the world. Let God and the Czar look to it. And then the blight came, and the black plague with it, and the priests couldn’t bury the people fast enough, and they lay dead on the roads—men and women both. But what business was it of mine? I didn’t make the world. Let God and the Czar look to it. Or two autumns ago, when the river overflowed on a sudden, and the children’s school was carried away and drowned every girl and boy in it. I didn't make the world—let God and the Czar look to it. After listing a horrifying and appalling sequence of misfortunes, he declares that because the suffering does not impact him he feels disconnected and unaffected by it, and denotes the hands of authority as responsible \
Mich. But, Father Peter—\
Peter. No, no, boy; no man could live if he took his neighbour’s pack on his shoulders. (Enter Vera in peasant's dress. Presented as down to earth and poor ) Well, my girl, you’ve been long enough away—where is the letter?\
Vera. There is none to-day, Father.\
Peter. I knew it.\
Vera. But there will be one to-morrow, Father.\
Peter. Curse him, for an ungrateful son.\
Vera. Oh, Father, don’t say that; he must be sick.\
Peter. Ay! sick of profligacy, perhaps.\
Vera. How dare you say that of him, Father? You know that is not true.\
Peter. Where does the money go, then? Michael, listen. I gave Dmitri half his mother’s fortune to bring with him to pay the lawyer folk of Moscow. He has only written three times, and every time for more money. He got it, not at my wish, but at hers We see Vera’s good natured and determined spirit in how she remains loving and loyal towards her absent brother (pointing to Vera), and now for five months, close on six almost, we have heard nothing from him.\
Vera. Father, he will come back.\
Peter. Ay! the prodigals always return; but let him never darken my doors again. A dark twist on a popular biblical parable \
Vera (sitting down pensive). Some evil has come on him; he must be dead! Oh! Michael, I am so wretched about Dmitri.\
Mich. Will you never love any one but him, Vera?\
Vera (smiling). I don’t know; there is so much else to do in the world but love. implying a desire for independence, and a disinterest in marriage, both of which were relatively scandalous opinions for a woman to hold in the fin de siecle \
Mich. Nothing else worth doing, Vera.\
Peter. What noise is that, Vera? (A metallic clink is heard.)\
Vera (rising and going to the door). I don’t know, Father; it is not like the cattle bells, or I would think Nicholas had come from the fair. Oh! Father! it is soldiers!—coming down the hill—there is one of them on horseback. How pretty they look! an incredibly simple and naive remark which establishes that despite Vera having ‘too many ideas’ she is young and as of yet unafflicted by Russia’s corruption But there are some men with them with chains on! They must be robbers. Oh! don’t let them in, Father; I couldn’t look at them.\
Peter. Men in chains! Why, we are in luck, my child! I heard this was to be the new road to Siberia, to bring the prisoners to the mines; but I didn’t believe it. My fortune is made! He shockingly expresses no empathy for the suffering of the chained men Bustle, Vera, bustle! I’ll die a rich man after all. There will be no lack of good customers now. An honest man should have the chance of making his living out of rascals This apathy is excused by denoting the prisoners as ‘rascals’ who have betrayed their country. He believes then, that as an ‘honest man’ he shall be justly rewarded for his loyalty now and then.\
Vera. Are these men rascals, Father? What have they done?\
Peter. I reckon they’re some of those Nihilists the priest warns us against. Rather than be guided by experience or evidence, he recites the word of the priest Don’t stand there idle, my girl.\
Vera. I suppose, then, they are all wicked men. A statement which embodies how Wilde’s audience typically would have viewed Nihilism, and so perhaps implies that the Nihilists’ unpopularity is sustained by voices of authority moulding public opinion \
(Sound of soldiers outside; cry of “Halt!” enter Russian officer with a body of soldiers and eight men in chains, raggedly dressed; one of them on entering hurriedly puts his coat above his ears and hides his face; some soldiers guard the door, others sit down; the prisoners stand.)\
Colonel. Innkeeper!\
Peter. Yes, Colonel.\
Colonel (pointing to Nihilists). Give these men some bread and water.\
Peter (to himself). I shan’t make much out of that order.\
Colonel. As for myself, what have you got fit to eat?\
Peter. Some good dried venison, your Excellency—and some rye whisky.\
Colonel. Nothing else?\
Peter. Why, more whisky, your Excellency.\
Colonel. What clods these peasants are! You have a better room than this?\
Peter. Yes, sir.