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 _(pushing 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

You awakened me,