Scene 5

At Varvara’s. Stavrogin is dressing to go out. Peter looking sullen, in near the table.

Stavrogin (to Peter): And if you speak to me again like that, you will feel my cane.

Peter: There was nothing insulting in my proposition. If you really think of marrying Lisa…

Stavrogin: …you can free me from the only obstacle separating me from her. I know it, but don’t say it again. I’d rather not have to use my cane on you.

(He goes out. Peter looks around him, then goes over and ransacks the drawer of a secretary. He takes out some letters and reads them. Stepan enters. Peter hides the letters.)

Peter: Why, what are you doing in this house? I thought you had been driven out.

Stepan: I came to get the last of my things, and I am going to leave without hope of returning and without recriminations.

Peter: Oh, you’ll come back! A parasite is always a parasite.

Stepan: I don’t like the way you talk to me.

Peter: You have always said that truth was paramount. The truth is that you pretended to be in love with Varvara and that se pretended not to see that you were in love with her. As a reward for such silliness, she was keeping you. Hence you are a parasite. I advised her yesterday to put you in a suitable home.

Stepan: You spoke to her about me?

Peter: Yes. She told me that tomorrow she would have a conversation with you to settle everything. The truth is that she wants to see you squirm once more. She showed me your letters. How I laughed-good Lord, how I laughed!

Stepan: You laughed. Have you now heart? Do you know what a father is?

Peter: You taught me what a father is. You never provided for me. I wasn’t weaned yet when you shipped me off to Berlin by the post. Like a parcel.

Stepan: Wretch! Although I sent you by the post, my heart continued to bleed!

Peter: Mere words!

Stepan: Are you or aren’t you my son, monster?

Peter: You must know better than I. To be sure, fathers are inclined to have illusions about such things.

Stepan: Shut up!

Peter: I will not. And don’t whimper. You are a patriotic, sniveling, whimpering old woman. Besides, all Russia whimpers. Fortunately, we are going to change all that.

Stepan: Who is “we”?

Peter: Why, we normal men. We are going to remake the world. We are the saviors.

Stepan: Is it possible that anyone like you aims to offer himself up to men in the place of Christ? But just look at yourself!

Peter: Don’t shout. We shall destroy everything. We’ll not leave a stone standing, and then we’ll begin all over again. Then there will be true equality. You preached equality, didn’t you? Well, you shall have it! And I bet that you won’t recognize it.

Stepan: I shall not recognize it if it looks like you. No, it was not of such things that we used to dream! I don’t understand anything any more. I have given up understanding.

Peter: All that comes from your sick old nerves. You made speeches. We act. What are you complaining about, scatterbrained old man?

Stepan: How can you be son insensitive?

Peter: I followed your teachings. According to you, the thing to do was to treat injustice harshly and to be sure of one’s rights, to go ever forward toward the future! Well, that’s where we’re going, and we shall strike hard. A tooth for a tooth, as in the Gospels!

Stepan: You poor fellow, it’s not in the Gospels!

Peter: The devil take it! I have never read that confounded book. Nor any other book. What’s the use? What matters is progress.

Stepan: No, you’re crazy! Shakespeare and Hugo don’t stand in the way of progress. Quite the contrary, I assure you!

Peter: Don’t get excited! Hugo is an old pair of buttocks. As for Shakespeare, our peasants working in the fields don’t need him. They need shoes instead. They will be given them as soon as everything is destroyed.

Stepan: And when will this be?

Peter: In May. In June everyone will be making shoes. (Stepan falls into a chair, crushed.) Rejoice, ancestor, for your ideas are going to be put into practice.

Stepan: They are not my ideas. You want to destroy everything; you don’t want to leave a single stone standing. But I wanted people to love one another.

Peter: No need for love! Science will take its place.

Stepan: But that will be boring.

Peter: Why should it be boring? That’s an aristocratic idea. When men are equal, they are not bored. They don’t have a good time either. Nothing matters and everything is on the same plane. When we have justice plus science, then both love and boredom will be done away with. People will forget.

Stepan: No man will ever be willing to forget his love.

Peter: Again you’re indulging in words. Just remember, ancestor, that you forgot; you got married three times.

Stepan: Twice. And after a long interval.

Peter: Long or short, people forget. Consequently, the sooner they forget, the better. Oh, but you get on my nerves, never knowing what you want! I know what I want. Half the heads will have to be cut off. Those that remain will be taught to drink.

Stepan. It is easier to cut off heads than to have ideas.

Peter: What ideas? Ideas are nonsense. Nonsense has to be suppressed to achieve justice. Nonsense was good enough for oldsters like you. A man has to choose. If you believe in God, you are forced to say nonsense. If you don’t believe in him and yet refuse to admit that everything must be razed, you will still talk nonsense. You’re all in the same boat, and consequently you can’t keep yourselves from talking nonsense. I say that men must act. I’ll destroy everything and others will construct. No more reform and no more improvement. The more things are improved and reformed, the worse it is. The sooner people begin to destroy, the better it is. Let’s begin by destroying. What happens afterward doesn’t concern us. The rest is nonsense, nonsense!

Stepan (rushing out of the room, terrified): He’s mad, he’s mad…

(Peter laughs uproariously.)

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2008 - Stoppard & Caligari 2009