A revolutionist. Keep the taxes!
Man. You join us at last!
Adr. No. We join each other ... under the only unconquerable power. Gather an army and go forth with guns, and you may be laid in the dust. But the gathered forces of peace are as the fingers on God's hand, one with His strength, one with His will. Friends, friends, we have been searching earth for the weapon already in our grasp. The woman at the loom, the mujik in the field, the workman on the housetop, the man at the wire, the throttle, the wheel, hold it in their hands. To know its might—to use it together—that is all. Together! O, they must see it—as I do now! I will gather my disciples, we will knock at every door and preach the gospel of united peace until all our unions are one union, all our bodies one body, with one breath, one heart, one head. In barin and peasant, mechanic and noble, Christian and Jew, Finn, Pole, Czech, Serb, Georgian, Tatar, must be born as in one man the conscious strength of peace. And to its deliverance I give my life, my soul! [Sits down. Sophie leans over him] ... Yes ... he shall be free.
Greg. [Who has been searching Vasil's violin, comes forward with a paper in his hand] They shall all be free! We will make no terms, we will accept no constitution, till every dungeon door be open, till we hold in our arms the brothers who have made freedom no longer a dream of the night but a song of the morning! To them we owe the liberty that is dawning, and shall we tread the earth they give us while they perish beneath it? Hear our latest martyr—the youngest of us all. Hear the "Voice of Schlusselburg!"
[Reads]
We are deep, we are deep
Beneath your swift feet
That pass and yet pass
With unfaltering beat;
But life has no sound