ALEXIS. I expect nothing. I know that I am one dead man talking to another.
BORIS. I can’t fathom you. I know there must be some trick up your sleeve, but I can’t fathom you.
ALEXIS. There is no trick. You asked me why I chose to give you this opportunity to kill me. I’m telling you. That’s all.
BORIS. Lies! Utterly useless lies!
ALEXIS. No! Utterly useless truth! Do you think I wish to believe myself Boris Ivanovitch Shamrayeff, born a peasant? I, who have sat in high places and given my life to preserving an order of men to which I do not belong, which my blood ought to cry out against. Do you think I would have believed it if the belief had not been forced upon me? I have ways of knowing truth from falsehood, my friend. You are striking at a man who is dead before you touch him. What I have found out in the past week, others already know. I have come to the end, I tell you. I have been a fantastic dupe. I cannot go on. I would have killed myself to-day, but I have a horror of taking my own life. You have come in time to save me from that.
BORIS. Was that your only reason for seeing me?
ALEXIS. I admit I was curious to see another man who had been as great a dupe as myself.
BORIS. Lies! Lies! What else? Have you anything more to say?
ALEXIS. I only ask you to finish your work. Unless you have a scruple against killing your— In which case, go! The door is still open to you.
BORIS. [Sneering.] Very pretty! Very touching! Go back, eh? And tell my comrades that I let Alexis the Red slip through my fingers because he told me a child’s story of changeling foster-brothers? No, no! [He cocks his pistol.]