Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress
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George Bernard Shaw >> Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress
This etext was produced by Dudley P. Duck.
This etext was produced by Eve Sobol, South Bend, Indiana, USA
ANNAJANSKA, THE BOLSHEVIK EMPRESS
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
ANNAJANSKA is frankly a bravura piece. The modern variety theatre
demands for its "turns" little plays called sketches, to last
twenty minutes or so, and to enable some favorite performer to
make a brief but dazzling appearance on some barely passable
dramatic pretext. Miss Lillah McCarthy and I, as author and
actress, have helped to make one another famous on many serious
occasions, from Man and Superman to Androcles; and Mr Charles
Ricketts has not disdained to snatch moments from his painting
and sculpture to design some wonderful dresses for us. We three
unbent as Mrs Siddons, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr Johnson might
have unbent, to devise a turn for the Coliseum variety theatre.
Not that we would set down the art of the variety theatre as
something to be condescended to, or our own art as elephantine.
We should rather crave indulgence as three novices fresh from the
awful legitimacy of the highbrow theatre.
Well, Miss McCarthy and Mr Ricketts justified themselves easily
in the glamor of the footlights, to the strains of Tchaikovsky's
1812. I fear I did not. I have received only one compliment on my
share; and that was from a friend who said, "It is the only one
of your works that is not too long." So I have made it a page or
two longer, according to my own precept: EMBRACE YOUR REPROACHES:
THEY ARE OFTEN GLORIES IN DISGUISE.
Annajanska was first performed at the Coliseum Theatre in
London on the 21st January, 1918, with Lillah McCarthy as
the Grand Duchess, Henry Miller as Schneidekind, and Randle
Ayrton as General Strammfest.
ANNAJANSKA, THE BOLSHEVIK EMPRESS
The General's office in a military station on the east front in
Beotia. An office table with a telephone, writing materials,
official papers, etc., is set across the room. At the end of the
table, a comfortable chair for the General. Behind the chair, a
window. Facing it at the other end of the table, a plain wooden
bench. At the side of the table, with its back to the door, a
common chair, with a typewriter before it. Beside the door, which
is opposite the end of the bench, a rack for caps and coats.
There is nobody in the room.
General Strammfest enters, followed by Lieutenant Schneidekind.
They hang up their cloaks and caps. Schneidekind takes a little
longer than Strammfest, who comes to the table.
STRAMMFEST. Schneidekind.
SCHNEIDEKIND. Yes, sir.
STRAMMFEST. Have you sent my report yet to the government? [He
sits down.]
SCHNEIDEKIND [coming to the table]. Not yet, sir. Which
government do you wish it sent to? [He sits down.]
STRAMMFEST. That depends. What's the latest? Which of them do you
think is most likely to be in power tomorrow morning?
SCHNEIDEKIND. Well, the provisional government was going strong
yesterday. But today they say that the Prime Minister has shot
himself, and that the extreme left fellow has shot all the
others.
STRAMMFEST. Yes: that's all very well; but these fellows always
shoot themselves with blank cartridge.
SCHNEIDEKIND. Still, even the blank cartridge means backing down.
I should send the report to the Maximilianists.
STRAMMFEST. They're no stronger than the Oppidoshavians; and in
my own opinion the Moderate Red Revolutionaries are as likely to
come out on top as either of them.
SCHNEIDEKIND. I can easily put a few carbon sheets in the
typewriter and send a copy each to the lot.
STRAMMFEST. Waste of paper. You might as well send reports to an
infant school. [He throws his head on the table with a groan.]
SCHNEIDEKIND. Tired out, Sir?
STRAMMFEST. O Schneidekind, Schneidekind, how can you bear to
live?
SCHNEIDEKIND. At my age, sir, I ask myself how can I bear to die?
STRAMMFEST. You are young, young and heartless. You are excited
by the revolution: you are attached to abstract things like
liberty. But my family has served the Panjandrums of Beotia
faithfully for seven centuries. The Panjandrums have kept our
place for us at their courts, honored us, promoted us, shed their
glory on us, made us what we are. When I hear you young men
declaring that you are fighting for civilization, for democracy,
for the overthrow of militarism, I ask myself how can a man shed
his blood for empty words used by vulgar tradesmen and common
laborers: mere wind and stink. [He rises, exalted by his theme.]
A king is a splendid reality, a man raised above us like a god.
You can see him; you can kiss his hand; you can be cheered by his
smile and terrified by his frown. I would have died for my
Panjandrum as my father died for his father. Your toiling
millions were only too honored to receive the toes of our boots
in the proper spot for them when they displeased their betters.
And now what is left in life for me? [He relapses into his chair
discouraged.] My Panjandrum is deposed and transported to herd
with convicts. The army, his pride and glory, is paraded to hear
seditious speeches from penniless rebels, with the colonel
actually forced to take the chair and introduce the speaker. I
myself am made Commander-in-Chief by my own solicitor: a Jew,
Schneidekind! a Hebrew Jew! It seems only yesterday that these
things would have been the ravings of a madman: today they are
the commonplaces of the gutter press. I live now for three
objects only: to defeat the enemy, to restore the Panjandrum, and
to hang my solicitor.
SCHNEIDEKIND. Be careful, sir: these are dangerous views to utter
nowadays. What if I were to betray you?
STRAMMFEST. What!
SCHNEIDEKIND. I won't, of course: my own father goes on just like
that; but suppose I did?
STRAMMFEST [chuckling]. I should accuse you of treason to the
Revolution, my lad; and they would immediately shoot you, unless
you cried and asked to see your mother before you died, when they
would probably change their minds and make you a brigadier.
Enough. [He rises and expands his chest.] I feel the better for
letting myself go. To business. [He takes up a telegram: opens
it: and is thunderstruck by its contents.] Great heaven! [He
collapses into his chair. This is the worst blow of all.
SCHNEIDEKIND. What has happened? Are we beaten?
STRAMMFEST. Man, do you think that a mere defeat could strike me
down as this news does: I, who have been defeated thirteen times
since the war began? O, my master, my master, my Panjandrum! [he
is convulsed with sobs.]
SCHNEIDEKIND. They have killed him?
STRAMMFEST. A dagger has been struck through his heart--
SCHNEIDEKIND. Good God!
STRAMMFEST. --and through mine, through mine.
SCHNEIDEKIND [relieved]. Oh, a metaphorical dagger! I thought you
meant a real one. What has happened?
STRAMMFEST. His daughter the Grand Duchess Annajanska, she whom
the Panjandrina loved beyond all her other children, has--has--
[he cannot finish.]
SCHNEIDEKIND. Committed suicide?
STRAMMFEST. No. Better if she had. Oh, far far better.
SCHNEIDEKIND [in hushed tones]. Left the Church?
STRAMMFEST [shocked]. Certainly not. Do not blaspheme, young man.
SCHNEIDEKIND. Asked for the vote?
STRAMMFEST. I would have given it to her with both hands to save
her from this.
SCHNEIDEKIND. Save her from what? Dash it, sir, out with it.
STRAMMFEST. She has joined the Revolution.
SCHNEIDEKIND. But so have you, sir. We've all joined the
Revolution. She doesn't mean it any more than we do.
STRAMMFEST. Heaven grant you may be right! But that is not the
worst. She had eloped with a young officer. Eloped, Schneidekind,
eloped!
SCHNEIDEKIND [not particularly impressed]. Yes, Sir.
STRAMMFEST. Annajanska, the beautiful, the innocent, my master's
daughter! [He buries his face in his hands.]
The telephone rings.
SCHNEIDEKIND [taking the receiver]. Yes: G.H.Q. Yes...Don't bawl:
I'm not a general. Who is it speaking?...Why didn't you say so?
don't you know your duty? Next time you will lose your
stripe...Oh, they've made you a colonel, have they? Well, they've
made me a field-marshal: now what have you to say?...Look here:
what did you ring up for? I can't spend the day here listening to
your cheek...What! the Grand Duchess [Strammfest starts.] Where
did you catch her?
STRAMMFEST [snatching the telephone and listening for the
answer]. Speak louder, will you: I am a General I know that, you
dolt. Have you captured the officer that was with her?...
Damnation! You shall answer for this: you let him go: he bribed
you. You must have seen him: the fellow is in the full dress
court uniform of the Panderobajensky Hussars. I give you twelve
hours to catch him or...what's that you say about the devil? Are
you swearing at me, you...Thousand thunders! [To Schneidekind.]
The swine says that the Grand Duchess is a devil incarnate. [Into
the telephone.] Filthy traitor: is that the way you dare speak of
the daughter of our anointed Panjandrum? I'll--
SCHNEIDEKIND [pulling the telephone from his lips]. Take care,
sir.
STRAMMFEST. I won't take care: I'll have him shot. Let go that
telephone.
SCHNEIDEKIND. But for her own sake, sir--
STRAMMFEST. Eh?--
SCHNEIDEKIND. For her own sake they had better send her here. She
will be safe in your hands.
STRAMMFEST [yielding the receiver]. You are right. Be civil to
him. I should choke [he sits down].
SCHNEIDEKIND [into the telephone]. Hullo. Never mind all that:
it's only a fellow here who has been fooling with the telephone.
I had to leave the room for a moment. Wash out: and send the girl
along. We'll jolly soon teach her to behave herself here...Oh,
you've sent her already. Then why the devil didn't you say so,
you--[he hangs up the telephone angrily]. Just fancy: they
started her off this morning: and all this is because the fellow
likes to get on the telephone and hear himself talk now that he
is a colonel. [The telephone rings again. He snatches the
receiver furiously.] What's the matter now?...[To the General.]
It's our own people downstairs. [Into the receiver.] Here! do you
suppose I've nothing else to do than to hang on to the telephone
all day?...What's that? Not men enough to hold her! What do you
mean? [To the General.] She is there, sir.
STRAMMFEST. Tell them to send her up. I shall have to receive her
without even rising, without kissing her hand, to keep up
appearances before the escort. It will break my heart.
SCHNEIDEKIND [into the receiver]. Send her up...Tcha! [He hangs
up the receiver.] He says she is halfway up already: they
couldn't hold her.
The Grand Duchess bursts into the room, dragging with her two
exhausted soldiers hanging on desperately to her arms. She is
enveloped from head to foot by a fur-lined cloak, and wears a fur
cap.
SCHNEIDEKIND [pointing to the bench]. At the word Go, place your
prisoner on the bench in a sitting posture; and take your seats
right and left of her. Go.
The two soldiers make a supreme effort to force her to sit down.
She flings them back so that they are forced to sit on the bench
to save themselves from falling backwards over it, and is herself
dragged into sitting between them. The second soldier, holding on
tight to the Grand Duchess with one hand, produces papers with
the other, and waves them towards Schneidekind, who takes them
from him and passes them on to the General. He opens them and
reads them with a grave expression.
SCHNEIDEKIN. Be good enough to wait, prisoner, until the General
has read the papers on your case.
THE GRAND DUCHESS [to the soldiers]. Let go. [To Strammfest].
Tell them to let go, or I'll upset the bench backwards and bash
our three heads on the floor.
FIRST SOLDIER. No, little mother. Have mercy on the poor.
STRAMMFEST [growling over the edge of the paper he is reading].
Hold your tongue.
THE GRAND DUCHESS [blazing]. Me, or the soldier?
STRAMMFEST [horrified]. The soldier, madam.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Tell him to let go.
STRAMMFEST. Release the lady.
The soldiers take their hands off her. One of them wipes his
fevered brow. The other sucks his wrist.
SCHNEIDKIND [fiercely]. 'ttention!
The two soldiers sit up stiffly.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, let the poor man suck his wrist. It may be
poisoned. I bit it.
STRAMMFEST [shocked]. You bit a common soldier!
GRAND DUCHESS. Well, I offered to cauterize it with the poker in
the office stove. But he was afraid. What more could I do?
SCHNEIDEKIND. Why did you bite him, prisoner?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. He would not let go.
STRAMMFEST. Did he let go when you bit him?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. [Patting the soldier on the back]. You
should give the man a cross for his devotion. I could not go on
eating him; so I brought him along with me.
STRAMMFEST. Prisoner--
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Don't call me prisoner, General Strammfest. My
grandmother dandled you on her knee.
STRAMMFEST [bursting into tears]. O God, yes. Believe me, my
heart is what it was then.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Your brain also is what it was then. I will
not be addressed by you as prisoner.
STRAMMFEST. I may not, for your own sake, call you by your
rightful and most sacred titles. What am I to call you?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. The Revolution has made us comrades. Call me
comrade.
STRAMMFEST. I had rather die.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then call me Annajanska; and I will call you
Peter Piper, as grandmamma did.
STRAMMFEST [painfully agitated]. Schneidekind, you must speak to
her: I cannot--[he breaks down.]
SCHNEIDEKIND [officially]. The Republic of Beotia has been
compelled to confine the Panjandrum and his family, for their own
safety, within certain bounds. You have broken those bounds.
STRAMMFEST [taking the word from him]. You are I must say it--a
prisoner. What am I to do with you?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. You should have thought of that before you
arrested me.
STRAMMFEST. Come, come, prisoner! do you know what will happen to
you if you compel me to take a sterner tone with you?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. But I know what will happen to you.
STRAMAIFEST. Pray what, prisoner?
THE GLAND DUCHESS. Clergyman's sore throat.
Schneidekind splutters; drops a paper: and conceals his laughter
under the table.
STRAMMFEST [thunderously]. Lieutenant Schneidekind.
SCHNEIDEKIND [in a stifled voice]. Yes, Sir. [The table vibrates
visibly.]
STRAMMFEST. Come out of it, you fool: you're upsetting the ink.
Schneidekind emerges, red in the face with suppressed mirth.
STRAMMFEST. Why don't you laugh? Don't you appreciate Her
Imperial Highness's joke?
SCHNEIDEKIND [suddenly becoming solemn]. I don't want to, sir.
STRAMMFEST. Laugh at once, sir. I order you to laugh.
SCHNEIDEKIND [with a touch of temper]. I really can't, sir. [He
sits down decisively.]
STRAMMFEST [growling at him]. Yah! [He turns impressively to the
Grand Duchess.] Your Imperial Highness desires me to address you
as comrade?
THE GRAND DUCHESS [rising and waving a red handkerchief]. Long
live the Revolution, comrade!
STRAMMFEST [rising and saluting]. Proletarians of all lands,
unite. Lieutenant Schneidekind, you will rise and sing the
Marseillaise.
SCHNEIDEKIND [rising]. But I cannot, sir. I have no voice, no
ear.
STRAMMFEST. Then sit down; and bury your shame in your
typewriter. [Schneidekind sits down.] Comrade Annajanska, you
have eloped with a young officer.
THE GRAND DUCHESS [astounded]. General Strammfest, you lie.
STRAMMFEST. Denial, comrade, is useless. It is through that
officer that your movements have been traced. [The Grand Duchess
is suddenly enlightened, and seems amused. Strammfest continues
an a forensic manner.] He joined you at the Golden Anchor in
Hakonsburg. You gave us the slip there; but the officer was
traced to Potterdam, where you rejoined him and went alone to
Premsylople. What have you done with that unhappy young man?
Where is he?
THE GRAND DUCHESS [pretending to whisper an important secret].
Where he has always been.
STRAMMFEST [eagerly]. Where is that?
THE GRAND DUCHESS [impetuously]. In your imagination. I came
alone. I am alone. Hundreds of officers travel every day from
Hakonsburg to Potterdam. What do I know about them?
STRAMMFEST. They travel in khaki. They do not travel in full
dress court uniform as this man did.
SCHNEIDEKIND. Only officers who are eloping with grand duchesses
wear court uniform: otherwise the grand duchesses could not be
seen with them.
STRAMMFEST. Hold your tongue. [Schneidekind, in high dudgeon,
folds his arms and retires from the conversation. The General
returns to his paper and to his examination of the Grand
Duchess.] This officer travelled with your passport. What have
you to say to that?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Bosh! How could a man travel with a woman's
passport?
STRAMMFEST. It is quite simple, as you very well know. A dozen
travellers arrive at the boundary. The official collects their
passports. He counts twelve persons; then counts the passports.
If there are twelve, he is satisfied.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then how do you know that one of the passports
was mine?
STRAMMFEST. A waiter at the Potterdam Hotel looked at the
officer's passport when he was in his bath. It was your passport.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stuff! Why did he not have me arrested?
STRAMMFEST. When the waiter returned to the hotel with the police
the officer had vanished; and you were there with your own
passport. They knouted him.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh! Strammfest, send these men away. I must
speak to you alone.
STRAMMFEST [rising in horror]. No: this is the last straw: I
cannot consent. It is impossible, utterly, eternally impossible,
that a daughter of the Imperial House should speak to any one
alone, were it even her own husband.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. You forget that there is an exception. She may
speak to a child alone. [She rises.] Strammfest, you have been
dandled on my grandmother's knee. By that gracious action the
dowager Panjandrina made you a child forever. So did Nature, by
the way. I order you to speak to me alone. Do you hear? I order
you. For seven hundred years no member of your family has ever
disobeyed an order from a member of mine. Will you disobey me?
STRAMMFEST. There is an alternative to obedience. The dead cannot
disobey. [He takes out his pistol and places the muzzle against
his temple.]
SCHNEIDEKIND [snatching the pistol from him]. For God's sake,
General--
STRAMMFEST [attacking him furiously to recover the weapon]. Dog
of a subaltern, restore that pistol and my honor.
SCHNEIDEKIND [reaching out with the pistol to the Grand Duchess].
Take it: quick: he is as strong as a bull.
THE GRAND DUCHESS [snatching it]. Aha! Leave the room, all of you
except the General. At the double! lightning! electricity! [She
fires shot after shot, spattering the bullets about the ankles of
the soldiers. They fly precipitately. She turns to Schneidekind,
who has by this time been flung on the floor by the General.] You
too. [He scrambles up.] March. [He flies to the door.]
SCHNEIDEKIND [turning at the door]. For your own sake, comrade--
THE GRAND DUCHESS [indignantly]. Comrade! You!!! Go. [She fires
two more shots. He vanishes.]
STRAMMFEST [making an impulsive movement towards her]. My
Imperial Mistress--
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stop. I have one bullet left, if you attempt
to take this from me [putting the pistol to her temple].
STRAMMFEST [recoiling, and covering his eyes with his hands]. No
no: put it down: put it down. I promise everything: I swear
anything; but put it down, I implore you.
THE GRAND DUCHESS [throwing it on the table]. There!
STRAMMFEST [uncovering his eyes]. Thank God!
THE GRAND DUCHESS [gently]. Strammfest: I am your comrade. Am I
nothing more to you?
STRAMMFEST [falling on his knee]. You are, God help me, all that
is left to me of the only power I recognize on earth [he kisses
her hand].
THE GRAND DUCHESS [indulgently]. Idolater! When will you learn
that our strength has never been in ourselves, but in your
illusions about us? [She shakes off her kindliness, and sits down
in his chair.] Now tell me, what are your orders? And do you mean
to obey them?
STRAMMFEST [starting like a goaded ox, and blundering fretfully
about the room]. How can I obey six different dictators, and not
one gentleman among the lot of them? One of them orders me to
make peace with the foreign enemy. Another orders me to offer all
the neutral countries 48 hours to choose between adopting his
views on the single tax and being instantly invaded and
annihilated. A third orders me to go to a damned Socialist
Conference and explain that Beotia will allow no annexations and
no indemnities, and merely wishes to establish the Kingdom of
Heaven on Earth throughout the universe. [He finishes behind
Schneidekind's chair.]
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Damn their trifling!
STRAMMFEST. I thank Your Imperial Highness from the bottom of my
heart for that expression. Europe thanks you.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. M'yes; but--[rising]. Strammfest, you know
that your cause--the cause of the dynasty--is lost.
STRAMMFEST. You must not say so. It is treason, even from you.
[He sinks, discouraged, into the chair, and covers his face with
his hand.]
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Do not deceive yourself, General: never again
will a Panjandrum reign in Beotia. [She walks slowly across the
room, brooding bitterly, and thinking aloud.] We are so decayed,
so out of date, so feeble, so wicked in our own despite, that we
have come at last to will our own destruction.
STRAMMFEST. You are uttering blasphemy.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. All great truths begin as blasphemies. All the
king's horses and all the king's men cannot set up my father's
throne again. If they could, you would have done it, would you
not?
STRAMMFEST. God knows I would!
THE GRAND DUCHESS. You really mean that? You would keep the
people in their hopeless squalid misery? you would fill those
infamous prisons again with the noblest spirits in the land? you
would thrust the rising sun of liberty back into the sea of blood
from which it has risen? And all because there was in the middle
of the dirt and ugliness and horror a little patch of court
splendor in which you could stand with a few orders on your
uniform, and yawn day after day and night after night in
unspeakable boredom until your grave yawned wider still, and you
fell into it because you had nothing better to do. How can you be
so stupid, so heartless?
STRAMMFEST. You must be mad to think of royalty in such a way. I
never yawned at court. The dogs yawned; but that was because they
were dogs: they had no imagination, no ideals, no sense of honor
and dignity to sustain them.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. My poor Strammfest: you were not often enough
at court to tire of it. You were mostly soldiering; and when you
came home to have a new order pinned on your breast, your
happiness came through looking at my father and mother and at me,
and adoring us. Was that not so?
STRAMMFEST. Do YOU reproach me with it? I am not ashamed of it.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, it was all very well for you, Strammfest.
But think of me, of me! standing there for you to gape at, and
knowing that I was no goddess, but only a girl like any other
girl! It was cruelty to animals: you could have stuck up a wax
doll or a golden calf to worship; it would not have been bored.
STRAMMFEST. Stop; or I shall renounce my allegiance to you. I
have had women flogged for such seditious chatter as this.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Do not provoke me to send a bullet through
your head for reminding me of it.
STRAMMFEST. You always had low tastes. You are no true daughter
of the Panjandrums: you are a changeling, thrust into the
Panjandrina's bed by some profligate nurse. I have heard stories
of your childhood: of how--
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Ha, ha! Yes: they took me to the circus when I
was a child. It was my first moment of happiness, my first
glimpse of heaven. I ran away and joined the troupe. They caught
me and dragged me back to my gilded cage; but I had tasted
freedom; and they never could make me forget it.
STRAMMFEST. Freedom! To be the slave of an acrobat! to be
exhibited to the public! to--
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, I was trained to that. I had learnt that
part of the business at court.
STRAMMFEST. You had not been taught to strip yourself half naked
and turn head over heels--
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Man, I WANTED to get rid of my swaddling
clothes and turn head over heels. I wanted to, I wanted to, I
wanted to. I can do it still. Shall I do it now?
STRAMMFEST. If you do, I swear I will throw myself from the
window so that I may meet your parents in heaven without having
my medals torn from my breast by them.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, you are incorrigible. You are mad,
infatuated. You will not believe that we royal divinities are
mere common flesh and blood even when we step down from our
pedestals and tell you ourselves what a fool you are. I will
argue no more with you: I will use my power. At a word from me
your men will turn against you: already half of them do not
salute you; and you dare not punish them: you have to pretend not
to notice it.
STRAMMFEST. It is not for you to taunt me with that if it is so.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. [haughtily]. Taunt! I condescend to taunt! To
taunt a common General! You forget yourself, sir.