SCENE EIGHTEEN
The actor playing ELENA transtions into GRUSHENKA. As she does so—
[ELENA]: He was a difficult man to say No to, when the fire was in his eyes. The fierceness…
I knew it the first time we loved. In the grass it was. On the edge of the park at Lublino…
Within a week he’d worked me loose of my marriage and there was no going back. Not to my life as it had been…
Until his wife called him back to her—plucked at his guilt with her whining and ailing.
I thought I would die… thought I was dead… but…
There was a young man in our village. Went off to study the law. Came back certain of nothing but that it must be dragged down. And the Tsar and his nobles with it… He filled entirely the void Fedya had created in me—gave me my voice—teased out from me what I had for so long yearned to say…
It was when tuberculosis took him that I could think of nothing else but finding Fedya again.
She is now fully GRUSHENKA.
SCENE NINETEEN
We see FEDYA. He is writing in his notebook. GRUSHENKA is present in his imagination.
We see MITYA and KATYA, just as they were in scene thirteen.
MITYA: The loan would not be to your father.
A beat.
This is a matter of business.
A loan at a judicious rate.
Some gift would need to be given in return.
KATYA: I understand.
As GRUSHENKA speaks, MITYA approaches KATYA, begins caressing her face. Lets his hands run lightly over her body. He is clearly planning to take her.
GRUSHENKA: [to FEDYA] I know you think you love her.
I see the way you watch her.
FEDYA: Why play him off against his father? If you love him so much?
GRUSHENKA: To discover how much I love him. Is that answer enough for you? To discover how much he loves me.
Or maybe because it’s what women do.
A beat.
You’ve no need to pine over them. He won’t have her. He hasn’t the nerve. Not for this. Not for murder.
You know what must be done. Know in your heart he’s not the man to do it.
FEDYA: He said he’d kill him—
GRUSHENKA: He’s all bluster and air—
FEDYA: He wants his father dead—
GRUSHENKA: Not as fiercely as you do.
Oh, you have your reconciliation. You drink your father’s wine and tell him stories and pretend you don’t hate him—pretend you’ve forgotten the past…
He will bungle the deed and then weep when it’s done.
No, what you need is a brave man. A man who dares…
MITYA: [stepping back fom KATYA] You can go.
KATYA: But the money?
MITYA: It’s yours.
KATYA: But I have no way to…
MITYA: Go.
GRUSHENKA: There. You see?
All bluster and air.
SCENE TWENTY
Night. Pounding of the printing presses.
KARAKOZOV is nailing flyers to the walls and gates of houses.
STUDENT/S: [off] All our resources—all our energy—must be directed towards increasing—intensifying—the miseries that people suffer.
And we will go on doing so.
Until their patience is exhausted.
Until the people are driven to rise against their oppressors.
The pounding of the printing press fades, bleeding into the next scene.
SCENE TWENTY-ONE
FEDYA’s flat. FEDYA is sleeping, notes and work scattered around him. A single bang that might be the sound of a gunshot wakes him. A second banging sound (it could be a gunshot; it could be the broomstick).
LANDLADY: [off] Fyodor Mikhailovich!
The pounding of the LANDLADY’s broomstick.
The Magistrate from the fourth district. The one who put that revolutionary away. Shot in his carriage.
Do you hear me, Fyodor Mikhailovich?! Who among us will be spared?
Low sound of a roulette wheel slowly spinning.
It spins faster. Louder.
SCENE TWENTY-TWO
FEDYA’s flat. ANNA waiting. Eventually, FEDYA arrives bearing pastries etc. He empties the pockets of his coat as he takes it off, throws handfuls of coins on the table. There is something almost manic about him.
FEDYA: What time did you get here?
ANNA: An hour ago.
FEDYA: You were due at 10.
ANNA: The roads were barricaded. The cab needed to find another way.
FEDYA: You were due at 10.
ANNA: We’re working today then, are we?
FEDYA: There. Pastries. From the bakery on Kremensky. Nothing cheers a woman more than stuffing her face with something sweet. [Going to the door; yelling to the LANDLADY downstairs] What chance is there of some tea, Agafya Pavlovich?
LANDLADY: [off] For you? None.
FEDYA: [to ANNA] Go downstairs and get some tea from her.
LANDLADY: [off] I’m still waiting on last month’s rent.
FEDYA: [gesturing to the money on the table] And take her a handful of that to shut her up.
ANNA: I’m not here to make your tea. Nor to pay your rent.
FEDYA: Where are the pages from yesterday?
ANNA retrieves them and hands them over.
You can go.
ANNA doesn’t move.
You can go!
ANNA: You have a contract—
FEDYA: It bleeds me dry—
ANNA: Stellovsky will own you—
FEDYA: Do you think I care?
I have this. [Gesturing to his notebook] This is all I need. All I am.
ANNA: One week and it’s done. You’re free. We both are.
FEDYA: Do you understand the ocean of debt I’m drowning in—?
ANNA: Then meet your contract—
FEDYA: That only last week my crazed sister-in-law was back here demanding I buy her son out of the military/ because it no longer suits him?
ANNA: And there it is. Today’s great woe—
FEDYA: You think I don’t want to clear my debts? Be a free man again—?
ANNA: Any excuse. Any distraction. And you chase it like a dog after its tail. This novel won’t be written while you’re forever searching for the next thing to suffer over.
I don’t understand it. This misery you cling to.
FEDYA: It’s my lucky charm. It keeps me alive.
ANNA: It’s a vanity.
FEDYA: Do you know where I’ve been?
ANNA: Gambling.
FEDYA: Gambling, yes. With my life. With the future…
I see it now, Anna. Where to place my money. Where I’d been so fearful of placing it. They are right. The students. To a point, they are right. What must be done…What it is our right, our duty…
A slow tapping sound, building. A slow pounding.
FEDYA stares into the middle-distance, the almost trance-like state that precedes a fit.
ANNA realises something is wrong.
ANNA: Fyodor Mikhailovich—
The lights dim.