Czar monologue (Act 3) — Vera; Or, The Nihilists

Then I banish you for your bad jokes. Bon voyage, Messieurs.[4] If you value your lives you will catch the first train for Paris. (_Exeunt MINISTERS._) Russia is well rid of such men as these. They are the jackals that follow in the lion's track. [5]They have no courage themselves, except to pillage and rob.[5] But for these men and for Prince Paul my father would have been a good king, would not have died so horribly as he did die. How strange it is, the most real parts of one's life always seem to be a dream! The council, the fearful law which was to kill the people, the arrest, the cry in the courtyard, the pistol-shot, my father's bloody hands, and then the crown! One can live for years sometimes, without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into a single hour. I had no time to think. Before my father's hideous shriek of death had died in my ears I found this crown on my head, the purple robe around me, and heard myself called a king. I would have given it up all then; it seemed nothing to me then; but now, can I give it up now? Well, Colonel, well? (_Enter COLONEL OF THE GUARD._)