Domin. Yes. It’s inevitable. (Pause.)
Dr. Gall. (Swinging around; looking into room. Pause) That was criminal of old Europe to teach the Robots to fight. Damn them. Couldn’t they have given us a rest with their politics? It was a crime to make soldiers of them.
Alquist. It was a crime to make Robots.
Domin. (Quietly. Down C.) No, Alquist, I don’t regret that even today.
Alquist. Not even today?
Domin. (Dreamily) Not even today, the last day of civilization. It was a colossal achievement.
Busman. (Sotto voce) Three hundred sixty million.
Domin. (From window) Alquist, this is our last hour. We are already speaking half in the other world. That was not an evil dream to shatter the servitude of labor. The dreadful and humiliating labor that man had to undergo. Work was too hard. Life was too hard. And to overcome that—
Alquist. Was not what the two Rossums dreamed of. Old Rossum only thought of his Godless tricks, and the young one of his milliards. And that’s not what your R. U. R. shareholders dream of either. They dream of dividends, and their dividends are the ruin of mankind.
Domin. To Hell with your dividends. (Crossing R. in front of couch) Do you suppose I’d have done an hour’s work for them? It was for myself that I worked, for my own satisfaction. I wanted man to become the master. So that he shouldn’t live merely for the crust of bread. I wanted not a single soul to be broken by other people’s machinery. I wanted nothing, nothing, nothing to be left of this appalling social structure. I’m revolted by poverty. I wanted a new generation. I wanted—I thought—