Mich. Who is that?
Vera. God save the people!
Pres. Welcome, Vera, welcome! [6]We have been sick at heart till we saw you; but now methinks the star of freedom has come to wake us from the night.[6]
Vera. [7]It is night, indeed, brother! Night without moon or star![7] Russia is smitten to the heart! The man Ivan whom men call the Czar strikes now at our mother with a dagger deadlier than ever forged by tyranny against a people's life!
Mich. What has the tyrant[8] done now?
Vera. To-morrow martial law is to be proclaimed in Russia.
Omnes. Martial law! We are lost! We are lost!
Alex. Martial law! Impossible!
Mich. Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.
Vera. Ay, martial law. The last right to which the people clung has been taken from them. Without trial, without appeal, without accuser even, our brothers will be taken from their houses, shot in the streets like dogs, sent away to die in the snow, to starve in the dungeon, to rot in the mine. Do you know what martial law means? It means the strangling of a whole nation. [9]The streets will be filled with soldiers night and day; there will be sentinels at every door.[9] No man dare walk abroad now but the spy or the traitor. Cooped up in the dens we hide in, meeting by stealth, speaking with bated breath; what good can we do now for Russia?