Savva and the Life of Man Part 34

So I understood.

SAVVA

You say you have another key?

LIPA

Yes. The trunk is mine, you know. Well, and to-day--

SAVVA

When to-day?

LIPA

Toward evening--I couldn't find Kondraty anywhere--I told him that I knew all. He got very much frightened and told me the rest.

SAVVA

A worthy pair--spy and traitor.

LIPA

If you are going to insult me, I won't say another word.

SAVVA

Never mind, never mind--go on.

LIPA

He was going to tell the Father Superior, but I didn't let him. I didn't want to ruin you.

SAVVA

No?

LIPA

When it was, all over, I understood what a crazy scheme it was--so crazy that I simply can't think of it as real. It must have been a nightmare. It's quite impossible. And I began to feel sorry for you--

SAVVA

Yes.

LIPA

I am sorry for you now too. _(With tears)_ Savva, darling, you are my brother. I have rocked your cradle. My dear angel, what idea is this you have got into your mind? Why, it's terrible--it's madness. I understand how hard it must be for you to see how people live, and so you have resolved on a desperate deed. You have always been good and kind, and so I can understand you. Don't you think it's hard for me to see this life? Don't you think I suffer myself? Give me your hand.

SAVVA _(pus.h.i.+ng her hand away)_

He told you he would go to the Superior?

LIPA

But I didn't let him.

SAVVA

Has he got the machine?

LIPA

He'll give it back to you to-morrow. He was afraid to give it to me.

Savva dear, don't look at me like that. I know it's unpleasant for you, but you have a lot of common sense. You can't help seeing that what you wanted to do was an absurdity, a piece of lunacy, a vagary that can come to one only in one's dreams at night. Don't I understand that life is hard? Am I not suffering from it myself? I understand even your comrades, the anarchists. It's not right to kill anybody; but still I understand them. They kill the bad.

SAVVA

They are not my comrades. I have no comrades.

LIPA

Aren't you an anarchist?

SAVVA

No.

LIPA

What are you then?

TONY _(raising his head)_

They are going, they are going. Do you hear?

SAVVA _(quietly, but ominously)_

They are going.

LIPA

There, you see. Who is going? Think of it. It's human misery that's going. And you wanted to take away from them their last hope, their last consolation. And to what purpose? In the name of what? In the name of some wild, ghastly dream about a "naked earth." _(Peers with terror into the darkness of the room)_ A naked earth! It's terrible to think of it. A naked earth! How could a man, a human being, ever conceive such an idea? A naked earth! Nothing, nothing! Everything laid bare, everything annihilated. Everything that people worked for through all the years; everything they have created with so much toil, with so much pain. Unhappy people! There is among you a man who says that all this must be burned, must be consumed with fire.

SAVVA

You remember my words to perfection.

LIPA