The Game of Chess: A Play in One Act

by Kenneth Sawyer Goodman

ALEXIS. Nor you, my friend, for that matter! You hardly expect to leave the house, shall we say, unmolested?

BORIS. I do not expect to leave it alive, excellency.

ALEXIS. No, that would be asking too much. I was here to let you in. I won’t be able to let you out again. You will have lost a useful friend, Boris Ivanovitch.

BORIS. Your excellency!

ALEXIS. It is in your hands to end the interview. Come, come, you must hate me a great deal, my friend, to give your own life for the sake of taking mine.

BORIS. I do not hate you.

ALEXIS. So? How odd! I thought that everyone of your sort hated me. You might at least flatter me to the extent of showing some emotion. Come, come, flatter me to that extent.

BORIS. I do not care to flatter you.

ALEXIS. Ah, well, well! I shall have to do without it then.

BORIS. My own feelings have nothing to do with it. I am an instrument of God.