Author: Karel Capek
Date: 2013-12-30 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: science fiction; kindle; fiction; sf
Publisher: Orion
Rights: Copyright &#169; Adam Roberts 2011

RUR

Karel Čapek

www.sfgateway.com

Enter the SF Gateway …

In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

Welcome to the SF Gateway.

Contents

Title Page

Gateway Introduction

Contents

Introduction

Characters

Act One: Central Office of the Factory of Rossum’s Universal Robots

Act Two: Helena’s Drawing Room – Ten years later. Morning

Act Three: The Same Afternoon

Epilogue: A Laboratory – One year later

Website

Also by Karel Čapek

About the Author

Copyright

Introduction to the SF Masterworks edition of RUR & War With the Newts

By one of those quirks of geography and chronology that sometimes occur, three of the twentieth-century’s greatest writers were all born within a few miles and a few years of one another: Jaroslav Hašek (author of the brilliant novel The Good Soldier Švejk) and Franz Kafka both born in Bohemia in 1883; and Karel Čapek, was born there too, in 1890. These three Czech fabulists each in their different ways filtered the experience of the twentieth-century through fantastical conceits, and in doing so achieved metaphorical eloquence and touched on truths unavailable to more conventional writers. Indeed, of the three it seems to me that Čapek has a good claim to be the greatest; despite the fact that Kafka is presently the most celebrated member of the trio. But great though Kafka is, I’m not sure he can match the scope, energy or indeed the insight of Čapek’s writing. Kafka vividly saw the inhumanity at the heart of the 20th-century, and that vision communicated itself into his art as something grim, even dour. Čapek was no more illusioned than his compatriot about mankind’s capacity for folly and cruelty, but the darkness of his vision is tempered with a sardonic but humane wisdom and a lightness of touch.

Indeed, I’ve sometimes thought that there’s something of the flavour of G K Chesterton about Čapek’s work (Chesterton was a writer he admired greatly, though he only met him once). The two writers share a similar wit, ingenuity and above all an irreducible individualism. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that the reputation of the philosophically pragmatist and politically liberal Čapek should have suffered during the decades of totalitarian domination. In fact, only his premature death of ill-health in 1938 kept him from the attentions of the Nazis as a political undesirable: the Gestapo had an arrest warrant in his name ready (his brother and artistic collaborator Josef met his death in Bergen-Belsen). Then again, whilst Czechoslovakia was under Communist rule after the war his work was often criticised as being too ‘bourgeois’. But the non-doctrinaire quality of Čapek’s art is one of the reasons is endures so well. His art is anti-totalitarian, through and through.

Certainly, it makes sense to print Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R and his novel War with the Newts and his R.U.R. in one volume. Their similarities are more than accidental. In both texts an individual chances upon a new mode of plastic life in the seas: the newts are discovered in a bay near Sumatra, and in R.U.R. Rossum having come to his island to study marine biology, found an organic protoplasm capable of being manipulated into functioning androids. In both works the world as a whole soon becomes dependent upon the wealth created by this new pool of easily exploited labour; and in both words this dependency, combined with a kind of blithely foolish myopia as to the longer-term consequences of populating with globe with a new life, leads to disaster.

In one sense, then, Čapek’s Newts and Robots are externalisations of the same symbolic form: work. Both War with the Newts and R.U.R. tap into the twentieth-century experience that new forms of technology, and new efficiencies in labour (particularly Fordism and the production line) simultaneously generated enormous new prosperity and created alarming new potentials for exploitation and destruction.

But there’s more to it than that. War With the Newts has often been read as an allegorical account of the rise of Nazism. The Newts, after all, associate as a single ‘volk’, lead by a Newt called ‘Andreas Schultze’ who ‘served someplace during the [First] World War as a line soldier’, and who plots massive human destruction in order to free up ‘living space’ for his own people—all the time assuring the world of his peaceful intentions. Of course this puts us in mind of Adolf Hitler. But although the book is not averse to satirical reflections upon the world as Čapek saw it (and much of it is written in a variety of brilliantly rendered pastiches of contemporary discourses) calling the book an ‘anti-Nazi allegory’ is too limiting. Nor is the title of the book a misnomer, for all that some have called it such: actual military operations between humanity and the vast population of newts only occurs right at the end of the narrative, of course. But the main portion of the novel, relating the discovery and spread of the Newts around the world, tropes this growth as war. Čapek’s point is that when two parties make actual war upon one another it is always the end-result of a lengthy, largely hidden process. War proper is always determined by that prior narrative. The lengthy central chapter of Part II of the novel, a tour de force of varied stylistic ventriloquism, is called ‘Along the First Steps of Civilisation’, a title that is only partly ironic. At every point, the Newts are shown to be a fundamental reactive and imitative species; like Frankenstein’s monster they learn not only language and technical skills but a broader ethos and polity from humankind; and it is precisely this that returns to destroy humanity, or very nearly so.

The total destruction of humanity is also the conclusion of R.U.R. Čapek’s play is where we get the word ‘robot’ from, surely the most widely disseminated pieces of SF terminology ever coined—although Čapek always gave credit for the term to his brother, not himself. Karel had wanted to call his artificial humanoid life-forms in his place ‘labori’, after the Latin labor, ‘work’. But he worried, rightly I think, that this sounded ‘too bookish’. Josef suggested ‘robot’. This word refers to a particular form of Czech serfdom; slavery, in other words, but of a particular kind. Historically it was a mode of labour-rent, by which peasants were compelled to work a certain number of days in the year for their landlords. In fact, the length of the servitude was legally fixed in 1800 at 90 days per year. In other words, the ‘robot’ turned Czech peasants into one quarter-slaves, free for the rest of the year to dispose of their own labour—still a repugnant scheme, ethically, of course, but not the same thing as complete servitude. As a consequence, by the time Čapek was writing, the Czech peasantry was more politically empowered than other European examples of the class. In Čapek’s own Bohemia what was to become the ‘Czech-Slavic Agrarian Party’ was founded in 1899 (the robot had been finally abolished in 1848). During his youth he saw this peasant-led political group dominate the elections of 1907 and 1911. What these means is that the word robot carries within it more than simply an allusion to work, drudgery or slavery (although it is for mere drudgery that Rossum’s ‘roboti’ are originally made); it carries within it, in nascent semiotic form, the larger narrative of the play: serfdom on the road to liberation. Even in the early stages of the drama, Čapek’s robots are never mere automata.

The name ‘Rossum’ is a play on the Czech word ‘Rozum’, which means ‘Reason’: and although no translator has ever rendered the play under the title ‘Reason’s universal Serfs’ that is what it means. And this, likewise, points to a larger theme. Both War with the Newts and R.U.R. realise pressing political dilemmas in terms of a larger conflict between reason—or maybe a better word would be ‘will’—and the reservoir of creative, productive capacity in humanity’s power. They are more cautionary tales than actual dystopias (although War with the Newts does go to great lengths to make its worldbuilding specific and vivid). In the final analysis both works articulate one of the key insights of SF itself, iterations of the Frankenstein myth: what we make as our tool comes to overwhelm us. Over the last hundred years or so, mankind has liberated unprecedented productive forces. Though we tend to think of these as neutral quantities, under the rubric of ‘science’, in fact they are not. As Čapek saw, they are in an important sense alive, and therefore they have the capacity to destroy us. It’s an insight as acute today as it was in the 1930s.

Adam Roberts

R.U.R.

(ROSSUM’S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS)

Translated by Paul Selver and Nigel Playfair

CHARACTERS

Harry Domin General Manager of Rossum’s Universal Robots.

Sulla A Robotess.

Marius A Robot.

Helena Glory.

Dr Gall Head of the Physiological and Experimental Department of R.U.R.

Mr Fabry Engineer General, Technical Controller of R.U.R.

Dr Hallemeier Head of the Institute for Psychological Training of Robots.

Mr Alquist Architect, Head of the Works Department of R.U.R.

Consul Busman General Business Manager of R.U.R.

Nana.

Radius A Robot.

Helena A Robotess.

Primus A Robot.

A Servant.

First Robot.

Second Robot.

Third Robot.

ACT ONE

[Central office of the factory of Rossum’s Universal Robots. Entrance on the right. The windows on the front wall look out on the rows of factory chimneys. On the left more managing departments. DOMIN is sitting in the revolving chair at a large American writing table. On the left-hand wall large maps showing steamship and railroad routes. On the right-hand wall are fastened printed placards. (‘Robot’s Cheapest Labour,’ etc.) In contrast to these wall fittings, the floor is covered with a splendid Turkish carpet, a sofa, leather armchair, and filing cabinets. At a desk near the windows SULLA is typing letters.]

DOMIN [Dictating]: Ready?

SULLA: Yes.

DOMIN: To E. M. McVicker and Co., Southampton, England. ‘We undertake no guarantee for goods damaged in transit. As soon as the consignment was taken on board we drew your captain’s attention to the fact that the vessel was unsuitable for the transport of Robots, and we are therefore not responsible for spoiled freight. We beg to remain, for Rossum’s Universal Robots. Yours truly.’ [SULLA, who has sat motionless during dictation, now types rapidly for a few seconds, then stops, withdrawing the completed letter.] Ready?

SULLA: Yes.

DOMIN: Another letter. To the E. B. Huyson Agency, New York, USA. ‘We beg to acknowledge receipt of order for five thousand Robots. As you are sending your own vessel, please dispatch as cargo equal quantities of soft and hard coal for R.U.R., the same to be credited as part payment of the amount due to us. We beg to remain, for Rossum’s Universal Robots. Yours truly.’[SULLA repeats the rapid typing.] Ready?

SULLA: Yes.

DOMIN: Another letter. ‘Friedrichswerks, Hamburg, Germany. We beg to acknowledge receipt of order for fifteen thousand Robots.’ [Telephone rings.] Hello! This is the Central Office. Yes. Certainly. Well, send them a wire. Good.[Hangs up telephone.] Where did I leave off?

SULLA: ‘We beg to acknowledge receipt of order for fifteen thousand Robots.’

DOMIN: Fifteen thousand R. Fifteen thousand R.

[Enter MARIUS.]

DOMIN: Well, what is it?

MARIUS: There’s a lady, sir, asking to see you.

DOMIN: A lady? Who is she?

MARIUS: I don’t know, sir. She brings this card of introduction.

DOMIN [Reads the card]: Ah, from President Glory. Ask her to come in.

MARIUS: Please step this way.

[Enter HELENA GLORY.]

[Exit MARIUS.]

HELENA: How do you do?

DOMIN: How do you do. [Standing up.] What can I do for you?

HELENA: You are Mr Domin, the General Manager?

DOMIN: I am.

HELENA: I have come—

DOMIN: With President Glory’s card. That is quite sufficient.

HELENA: President Glory is my father. I am Helena Glory.

DOMIN: Miss Glory, this is such a great honour for us to be allowed to welcome our great President’s daughter, that—

HELENA: That you can’t show me the door?

DOMIN: Please sit down. Sulla, you may go.

[Exit SULLA.]

[Sitting down.]: How can I be of service to you, Miss Glory?

HELENA: I have come—

DOMIN: To have a look at our famous works where people are manufactured. Like all visitors. Well, there is no objection.

HELENA: I thought it was forbidden to—

DOMIN: To enter the factory. Yes, of course. Everybody comes here with someone’s visiting card, Miss Glory.

HELENA: And you show them—

DOMIN: Only certain things. The manufacture of artificial people is a secret process.

HELENA: If you only knew how enormously that—

DOMIN: Interests me. Europe’s talking about nothing else.

HELENA: Why don’t you let me finish speaking?

DOMIN: I beg your pardon. Did you want to say something different?

HELENA: I only wanted to ask—

DOMIN: Whether I could make a special exception in your case and show you our factory. Why, certainly Miss Glory.

HELENA: How do you know I wanted to say that?

DOMIN: They all do. But we shall consider it a special honour to show you more than we do the rest.

HELENA: Thank you.

DOMIN: But you must agree not to divulge the least …

HELENA [Standing up and giving him her hand]: My word of honour.

DOMIN: Thank you. Won’t you raise your veil?

HELENA: Of course. You want to see whether I’m a spy or not. I beg your pardon.

DOMIN: What is it?

HELENA: Would you mind releasing my hand?

DOMIN [Releasing it]: I beg your pardon.

HELENA [Raising her veil]: How cautious you have to be here, don’t you?

DOMIN [Observing her with deep interest]: Hm, of course – we – that is—

HELENA: But what is it? What’s the matter?

DOMIN: I’m remarkably pleased. Did you have a pleasant crossing?

HELENA: Yes.

DOMIN: No difficulty?

HELENA: Why?

DOMIN: What I mean to say is – you’re so young.

HELENA: May we go straight into the factory?

DOMIN: Yes. Twenty-two, I think.

HELENA: Twenty-two what?

DOMIN: Years.

HELENA: Twenty-one. Why do you want to know?

DOMIN: Because – as – [with enthusiasm] you will make a long stay, won’t you?

HELENA: That depends on how much of the factory you show me.

DOMIN: Oh, hang the factory. Oh, no, no, you shall see everything, Miss Glory. Indeed you shall. Won’t you sit down?

HELENA [Crossing to couch and sitting]: Thank you.

DOMIN: But first would you like to hear the story of the invention?

HELENA: Yes, indeed.

DOMIN [Observes HELENA with rapture and reels off rapidly]: It was in the year 1920 that old Rossum, the great physiologist, who was then quite a young scientist, took himself to this distant island for the purpose of studying the ocean fauna, full stop. On this occasion he attempted by chemical synthesis to imitate the living matter known as protoplasm until he suddenly discovered a substance which behaved exactly like living matter although its chemical composition was different. That was in the year of 1932, exactly four hundred and forty years after the discovery of America. Whew!

HELENA: Do you know that by heart?

DOMIN: Yes. You see physiology is not in my line. Shall I go on?

HELENA: Yes, please.

DOMIN: And then, Miss Glory, old Rossum wrote the following of his chemical specimens: ‘Nature has found only one method of organizing living matter. There is, however, another method, more simple, flexible and rapid, which has not yet occurred to nature at all. This second process by which life can be developed was discovered by me to-day.’ Now imagine him, Miss Glory, writing those wonderful words over some colloidal mess that a dog wouldn’t look at. Imagine him sitting over a test tube, and thinking how the whole tree of life would grow from it, how all animals would proceed from it, beginning with some sort of beetle and ending with a man. A man of different substance from us. Miss Glory, that was a tremendous moment.

HELENA: Well?

DOMIN: Now, the thing was how to get the life out of the test tubes, and hasten development and form organs, bones and nerves, and so on, and find such substances as catalytics, enzymes, hormones, and so forth, in short – you understand?

HELENA: Not much, I’m afraid.

DOMIN: Never mind. You see with the help of his tinctures he could make whatever he wanted. He could have produced a Medusa with the brain of a Socrates or a worm fifty yards long. But being without a grain of humour, he took it into his head to make a vertebrate or perhaps a man. This artificial living matter of his had a raging thirst for life. It didn’t mind being sewn or mixed together. That couldn’t be done with natural albumen. And that’s how he set about it.

HELENA: About what?

DOMIN: About imitating nature. First of all he tried making an artificial dog. That took him several years and resulted in a sort of stunted calf which died in a few days. I’ll show it to you in the museum. And then old Rossum started on the manufacture of man.

HELENA: And I must divulge this to nobody?

DOMIN: To nobody in the world.

HELENA: What a pity that it’s to be found in all the school books of both Europe and America.

DOMIN: Yes. But do you know what isn’t in the school books? That old Rossum was mad. Seriously, Miss Glory, you must keep this to yourself. The old crank wanted to actually make people.

HELENA: But you do make people.

DOMIN: Approximately, Miss Glory. But old Rossum meant it literally. He wanted to become a sort of scientific substitute for God. He was a fearful materialist, and that’s why he did it all. His sole purpose was nothing more nor less than to prove that God was no longer necessary. Do you know anything about anatomy?

HELENA: Very little.

DOMIN: Neither do I. Well, he then decided to manufacture everything as in the human body. I’ll show you in the museum the bungling attempt it took him ten years to produce. It was to have been a man, but it lived for three days only. Then up came young Rossum, an engineer. He was a wonderful fellow, Miss Glory. When he saw what a mess of it the old man was making, he said: ‘It’s absurd to spend ten years making a man. If you can’t make him quicker than nature, you might as well shut up shop.’ Then he set about learning anatomy himself.

HELENA: There’s nothing about that in the school books.

DOMIN: No. The school books are full of paid advertisements, and rubbish at that. What the school books say about the united efforts of the two great Rossums is all a fairy tale. They used to have dreadful rows. The old atheist hadn’t the slightest conception of industrial matters, and the end of it was that young Rossum shut him up in some laboratory or other and let him fritter the time away with his monstrosities, while he himself started on the business from an engineer’s point of view. Old Rossum cursed him and before he died he managed to botch up two physiological horrors. Then one day they found him dead in the laboratory. And that’s his whole story.

HELENA: And what about the young man?

DOMIN: Well, any one who has looked into human anatomy will have seen at once that man is too complicated, and that a good engineer could make him more simply. So young Rossum began to overhaul anatomy and tried to see what could be left out or simplified. In short – but this isn’t boring you, Miss Glory?

HELENA: No indeed. You’re – directly to the progress; it’s awfully interesting.

DOMIN: So young Rossum said to himself: ‘A man is something that feels happy, plays the piano, likes going for a walk, and in fact, wants to do a whole lot of things that are really unnecessary.’

HELENA: Oh.

DOMIN: That are unnecessary when he wants, let us say, to weave or count. Do you play the piano?

HELENA: Yes.

DOMIN: That’s good. But a working machine must not play the piano, must not feel happy, must not do a whole lot of other things. A gasoline motor must not have tassels or ornaments, Miss Glory. And to manufacture artificial workers is the same thing as to manufacture gasoline motors. The process must be of the simplest, and the product of the best from a practical point of view. What sort of worker do you think is the best from a practical point of view?

HELENA: What?

DOMIN: What sort of worker do you think is the best from a practical point of view?

HELENA: Perhaps the one who is most honest and hardworking.

DOMIN: No; the one that is the cheapest. The one whose requirements are the smallest. Young Rossum invented a worker with the minimum amount of requirements. He had to simplify him. He rejected everything that did not contribute directly to the progress of work – everything that makes man more expensive. In fact, he rejected man and made the Robot. My dear Miss Glory, the Robots are not people. Mechanically they are more perfect than we are, they have an enormously developed intelligence, but they have no soul.

HELENA: How do you know they’ve no soul?

DOMIN: Have you ever seen what a Robot looks like inside?

HELENA: No.

DOMIN: Very neat, very simple. Really, a beautiful piece of work. Not much in it, but everything in flawless order. The product of an engineer is technically at a higher pitch of perfection than a product of nature.

HELENA: But man is supposed to be the product of God.

DOMIN: All the worse. God hasn’t the least notion of modern engineering. Would you believe that young Rossum then proceeded to play at being God?

HELENA: How do you mean?

DOMIN: He began to manufacture Super-Robots. Regular giants they were. He tried to make them twelve feet tall. But you wouldn’t believe what a failure they were.

HELENA: A failure?

DOMIN: Yes. For no reason at all their limbs used to keep snapping off. Evidently our planet is too small for giants. Now we only make Robots of normal size and of very high class human finish.

HELENA: I saw the first Robots at home. The town council bought them for – I mean engaged them for work.

DOMIN: Bought them, dear Miss Glory. Robots are bought and sold.

HELENA: These were employed as street sweepers. I saw them sweeping. They were so strange and quiet.

DOMIN: Rossum’s Universal Robot factory doesn’t produce a uniform brand of Robots. We have Robots of finer and coarser grades. The best will live about twenty years. [He rings for MARIUS.]

HELENA: Then they die?

DOMIN: Yes, they get used up.

[Enter MARIUS.]

DOMIN: Marius, bring in samples of the Manual Labour Robot.

[Exit MARIUS.]

DOMIN: I’ll show you specimens of the two extremes. This first grade is comparatively inexpensive and is made in vast quantities.

[MARIUS re-enters with two Manual Labour Robots.]

DOMIN: There you are; as powerful as a small tractor. Guaranteed to have average intelligence. That will do, Marius.

[MARIUS exits with Robots.]

HELENA: They make me feel so strange.

DOMIN [Rings]: Did you see my new typist? [He rings for SULLA.]

HELENA: I didn’t notice her.

[Enter SULLA.]

DOMIN: Sulla, let Miss Glory see you.

HELENA: So pleased to meet you. You must find it terribly dull in this out-of-the-way spot, don’t you?

SULLA: I don’t know, Miss Glory.

HELENA: Where do you come from?

SULLA: From the factory.

HELENA: Oh, you were born there?

SULLA: I was made there.

HELENA: What?

DOMIN [Laughing]: Sulla is a Robot, best grade.

HELENA: Oh, I beg your pardon.

DOMIN: Sulla isn’t angry. See, Miss Glory, the kind of skin we make. [Feels the skin on SULLA’s face.] Feel her face.

HELENA: Oh, no, no.

DOMIN: You wouldn’t know that she’s made of different material from us, would you? Turn round, Sulla.

HELENA: Oh, stop, stop.

DOMIN: Talk to Miss Glory, Sulla.

SULLA: Please sit down.[HELENA sits.] Did you have a pleasant crossing?

HELENA: Oh, yes, certainly.

SULLA: Don’t go back on the Amelia, Miss Glory. The barometer is falling steadily. Wait for the Pennsylvania. That’s a good, powerful vessel.

DOMIN: What’s its speed?

SULLA: Twenty knots. Fifty thousand tons. One of the latest vessels, Miss Glory.

HELENA: Thank you.

SULLA: A crew of fifteen hundred, Captain Harpy, eight boilers—

DOMIN: That’ll do, Sulla. Now show us your knowledge of French.

HELENA: You know French?

SULLA: I know four languages. I can write: Dear Sir, Monsieur, Geehrter Herr, Cteny pane.

HELENA [Jumping up]: Oh, that’s absurd! Sulla isn’t a Robot. Sulla is a girl like me. Sulla, this is outrageous! Why do you take part in such a hoax?

SULLA: I am a Robot.

HELENA: No, no, you are not telling the truth. I know they’ve forced you to do it for an advertisement. Sulla, you are a girl like me, aren’t you?

DOMIN: I’m sorry, Miss Glory. Sulla is a Robot.

HELENA: It’s a lie!

DOMIN: What? [Rings.] Excuse me, Miss Glory, then I must convince you.

[Enter MARIUS.]

DOMIN: Marius, take Sulla into the dissecting room, and tell them to open her up at once.

HELENA: Where?

DOMIN: Into the dissecting room. When they’ve cut her open, you can go and have a look.

HELENA: No, no!

DOMIN: Excuse me, you spoke of lies.

HELENA: You wouldn’t have her killed?

DOMIN: You can’t kill machines.

HELENA: Don’t be afraid, Sulla, I won’t let you go. Tell me, my dear, are they always so cruel to you? You mustn’t put up with it, Sulla. You mustn’t.

SULLA: I am a Robot.

HELENA: That doesn’t matter. Robots are just as good as we are. Sulla, you wouldn’t let yourself be cut to pieces?

SULLA: Yes.

HELENA: Oh, you’re not afraid of death, then?

SULLA: I cannot tell, Miss Glory.

HELENA: Do you know what would happen to you in there?

SULLA: Yes, I should cease to move.

HELENA: How dreadful!

DOMIN: Marius, tell Miss Glory what you are.

MARIUS: Marius, the Robot.

DOMIN: Would you take Sulla into the dissecting room?

MARIUS: Yes.

DOMIN: Would you be sorry for her?

MARIUS: I cannot tell.

DOMIN: What would happen to her?

MARIUS: She would cease to move. They would put her into the stamping-mill.

DOMIN: That is death, Marius. Aren’t you afraid of death?

MARIUS: No.

DOMIN: You see, Miss Glory, the Robots have no interest in life. They have no enjoyments. They are less than so much grass.

HELENA: Oh, stop. Send them away.

DOMIN: Marius, Sulla, you may go.

[Exeunt SULLA and MARIUS.]

HELENA: How terrible! It’s outrageous what you are doing.

DOMIN: Why outrageous?

HELENA: I don’t know, but it is. Why do you call her Sulla?

DOMIN: Isn’t it a nice name?

HELENA: It’s a man’s name. Sulla was a Roman general.

DOMIN: Oh, we thought that Marius and Sulla were lovers.

HELENA: Marius and Sulla were generals and fought against each other in the year – I’ve forgotten now.

DOMIN: Come here to the window.

HELENA: What?

DOMIN: Come here. What do you see?

HELENA: Bricklayers.

DOMIN: Robots. All our work people are Robots. And down there, can you see anything?

HELENA: Some sort of office.

DOMIN: A counting house. And in it—

HELENA: A lot of officials.

DOMIN: Robots. All our officials are Robots. And when you see the factory—

[Factory whistle blows.]

DOMIN: Noon. We have to blow the whistle because the Robots don’t know when to stop work. In two hours I will show you the kneading trough.

HELENA: Kneading trough?

DOMIN: The pestle for beating up the paste. In each one we mix the ingredients for a thousand Robots at one operation. Then there are the vats for the preparation of liver, brains, and so on. Then you will see the bone factory. After that I’ll show you the spinning mill.

HELENA: Spinning mill?

DOMIN: Yes. For weaving nerves and veins. Miles and miles of digestive tubes pass through it at a time.

HELENA: Mayn’t we talk about something else?

DOMIN: Perhaps it would be better. There’s only a handful of us among a hundred thousand Robots, and not one woman. We talk about nothing but the factory all day, every day. It’s just as if we were under a curse, Miss Glory.

HELENA: I’m sorry I said that you were lying.

[A knock at the door.]

DOMIN: Come in.

[From the right enter MR FABRY, DR GALL, DR HALLEMEIER, MR ALQUIST.]

DR GALL: I beg your pardon, I hope we don’t intrude.

DOMIN: Come in. Miss Glory, here are Alquist, Fabry, Gall, Hallemeier. This is President Glory’s daughter.

HELENA: How do you do.

FABRY: We had no idea—

DR GALL: Highly honoured, I’m sure—

ALQUIST: Welcome, Miss Glory.

[BUSMAN rushes in from the right]

BUSMAN: Hello, what’s up?

DOMIN: Come in, Busman. This is Busman, Miss Glory. This is President Glory’s daughter.

BUSMAN: By jove, that’s fine! Miss Glory, may we send a cablegram to the papers about your arrival?

HELENA: No, no, please don’t.

DOMIN: Sit down please, Miss Glory.

BUSMAN: Allow me— [Dragging up armchairs.]

DR GALL: Please—

FABRY: Excuse me—

ALQUIST: What sort of a crossing did you have?

DR GALL: Are you going to stay long?

FABRY: What do you think of the factory, Miss Glory?

HALLEMEIER: Did you come over on the Amelia?

DOMIN: Be quiet and let Miss Glory speak.

HELENA [To DOMIN]: What am I to speak to them about?

DOMIN: Anything you like.

HELENA: Shall … may I speak quite frankly?

DOMIN: Why, of course.

HELENA [Wavering, then in desperate resolution]: Tell me, doesn’t it ever distress you the way you are treated?

FABRY: By whom, may I ask?

HELENA: Why, everybody.

ALQUIST: Treated?

DR GALL: What makes you think—?

HELENA: Don’t you feel that you might be living a better life?

DR GALL: Well, that depends on what you mean, Miss Glory.

HELENA: I mean that it’s perfectly outrageous. It’s terrible. [Standing up.] The whole of Europe is talking about the way you’re being treated. That’s why I came here, to see for myself, and it’s a thousand times worse than could have been imagined. How can you put up with it?

ALQUIST: Put up with what?

HELENA: Good heavens, you are living creatures, just like us, like the whole of Europe, like the whole world. It’s disgraceful that you must live like this.

BUSMAN: Good gracious, Miss Glory.

FABRY: Well, she’s not far wrong. We live here just like red Indians.

HELENA: Worse than red Indians. May I, oh, may I call you brothers?

BUSMAN: Why not?

HELENA: Brothers, I have not come here as the President’s daughter. I have come on behalf of the Humanity League. Brothers, the Humanity League now has over two hundred thousand members. Two hundred thousand people are on your side, and offer you their help.

BUSMAN: Two hundred thousand people! Miss Glory, that’s a tidy lot. Not bad.

FABRY: I’m always telling you there’s nothing like good old Europe. You see, they’ve not forgotten us. They’re offering us help.

DR GALL: What help? A theatre, for instance?

HALLEMEIER: An orchestra?

HELENA: More than that.

ALQUIST: Just you?

HELENA: Oh, never mind about me. I’ll stay as long as it is necessary.

BUSMAN: By jove, that’s good.

ALQUIST: Domin, I’m going to get the best room ready for Miss Glory.

DOMIN: Just a minute. I’m afraid that Miss Glory is of the opinion that she has been talking to Robots.

HELENA: Of course.

DOMIN: I’m sorry. These gentlemen are human beings just like us.

HELENA: You’re not Robots?

BUSMAN: Not Robots.

HALLEMEIER: Robots indeed!

DR GALL: No, thanks.

FABRY: Upon my honour, Miss Glory, we aren’t Robots.

HELENA [To DOMIN]: Then why did you tell me that all your officials are Robots?

DOMIN: Yes, the officials, but not the managers. Allow me, Miss Glory: this is Mr Fabry, General Technical Manager of R.U.R.; Dr Gall, Head of the Psychological and Experimental Department; Dr Hallemeier, Head of the Institute for the Psychological Training of Robots; Consul Busman, General Business Manager; and Alquist, Head of the Building Department of R.U.R.

ALQUIST: Just a builder.

HELENA: Excuse me, gentlemen, for – for—. Have I done something dreadful?

ALQUIST: Not at all, Miss Glory. Please sit down.

HELENA: I’m a stupid girl. Send me back by the first ship.

DR GALL: Not for anything in the world, Miss Glory. Why should we send you back?

HELENA: Because you know I’ve come to disturb your Robots for you.

DOMIN: My dear Miss Glory, we’ve had close upon a hundred saviours and prophets here. Every ship brings us some. Missionaries, anarchists, Salvation Army, all sorts. It’s astonishing what a number of churches and idiots there are in the world.

HELENA: And you let them speak to the Robots?

DOMIN: So far we’ve let them all, why not? The Robots remember everything, but that’s all. They don’t even laugh at what the people say. Really, it is quite incredible. If it would amuse you, Miss Glory, I’ll take you over to the Robot warehouse. It holds about three hundred thousand of them.

BUSMAN: Three hundred and forty-seven thousand.

DOMIN: Good! And you can say whatever you like to them. You can read the Bible, recite the multiplication table, whatever you please. You can even preach to them about human rights.

HELENA: Oh, I think that if you were to show them a little love—

FABRY: Impossible, Miss Glory. Nothing is harder to like than a Robot.

HELENA: What do you make them for, then?

BUSMAN: Ha, ha, ha, that’s good! What are Robots made for?

FABRY: For work, Miss Glory! One Robot can replace two and a half workmen. The human machine, Miss Glory, was terribly imperfect. It had to be removed sooner or later.

BUSMAN: It was too expensive.

FABRY: It was not effective. It no longer answers the requirements of modern engineering. Nature has no idea of keeping pace with modern labour. For example: from a technical point of view, the whole of childhood is a sheer absurdity. So much time lost. And then again—

HELENA: Oh, no! No!

FABRY: Pardon me. But kindly tell me what is the real aim of your League – the – the Humanity League.

HELENA: Its real purpose is to – to protect the Robots – and – and ensure good treatment for them.

FABRY: Not a bad object, either. A machine has to be treated properly. Upon my soul, I approve of that. I don’t like damaged articles. Please, Miss Glory, enrol us all as contributing, or regular, or foundation members of your League.

HELENA: No, you don’t understand me. What we really want is to – to liberate the Robots.

HALLEMEIER: How do you propose to do that?

HELENA: They are to be – to be dealt with like human beings.

HALLEMEIER: Aha. I suppose they’re to vote? To drink beer? to order us about?

HELENA: Why shouldn’t they drink beer?

HALLEMEIER: Perhaps they’re even to receive wages?

HELENA: Of course they are.

HALLEMEIER: Fancy that, now! And what would they do with their wages, pray?

HELENA: They would buy – what they need … what pleases them.

HALLEMEIER: That would be very nice, Miss Glory, only there’s nothing that does please the Robots. Good heavens, what are they to buy? You can feed them on pineapples, straw, whatever you like. It’s all the same to them, they’ve no appetite at all. They’ve no interest in anything, Miss Glory. Why, hang it all, nobody’s ever yet seen a Robot smile.

HELENA: Why … why don’t you make them happier?

HALLEMEIER: That wouldn’t do, Miss Glory. They are only workmen.

HELENA: Oh, but they’re so intelligent.

HALLEMEIER: Confoundedly so, but they’re nothing else. They’ve no will of their own. No passion. No soul.

HELENA: No love?

HALLEMEIER: Love? Rather not. Robots don’t love. Not even themselves.

HELENA: Nor defiance?

HALLEMEIER: Defiance? I don’t know. Only rarely, from time to time.

HELENA: What?

HALLEMEIER: Nothing particular. Occasionally they seem to go off their heads. Something like epilepsy, you know. It’s called Robot’s cramp. They’ll suddenly sling down everything they’re holding, stand still, gnash their teeth – and then they have to go into the stamping-mill. It’s evidently some breakdown in the mechanism.

DOMIN: A flaw in the works that has to be removed.

HELENA: No, no, that’s the soul.

FABRY: Do you think that the soul first shows itself by a gnashing of teeth?

HELENA: Perhaps it’s a sort of revolt. Perhaps it’s just a sign that there’s a struggle within. Oh, if you could infuse them with it!

DOMIN: That’ll be remedied, Miss Glory. Dr Gall is just making some experiments—

DR GALL: Not with regard to that, Domin. At present I am making pain-nerves.

HELENA: Pain-nerves?

DR GALL: Yes, the Robots feel practically no bodily pain. You see, young Rossum provided them with too limited a nervous system. We must introduce suffering.

HELENA: Why do you want to cause them pain?

DR GALL: For industrial reasons, Miss Glory. Sometimes a Robot does damage to himself because it doesn’t hurt him. He puts his hand into the machine, breaks his finger, smashes his head, it’s all the same to him. We must provide them with pain. That’s an automatic protection against damage.

HELENA: Will they be happier when they feel pain?

DR GALL: On the contrary; but they will be more perfect from a technical point of view.

HELENA: Why don’t you create a soul for them?

DR GALL: That’s not in our power.

FABRY: That’s not in our interest.

BUSMAN: That would increase the cost of production. Hang it all, my dear young lady, we turn them out at such a cheap rate. A hundred and fifty dollars each fully dressed, and fifteen years ago they cost ten thousand. Five years ago we used to buy the clothes for them. To-day we have our own weaving mill, and now we even export cloth five times cheaper than other factories. What do you pay for a yard for cloth, Miss Glory?

HELENA: I don’t know really, I’ve forgotten.

BUSMAN: Good gracious, and you want to found a Humanity League? It only costs a third now, Miss Glory. All prices are to-day a third of what they were and they’ll fall still lower, lower, lower, like that.

HELENA: I don’t understand.

BUSMAN: Why, bless you, Miss Glory, it means that the cost of labour has fallen. A Robot, food and all, costs three quarters of a cent per hour. That’s mighty important, you know. All factories will go pop like chestnuts if they don’t at once buy Robots to lower the cost of production.

HELENA: And get rid of their workmen?

BUSMAN: Of course. But in the meantime, we’ve dumped five hundred thousand tropical Robots down on the Argentine pampas to grow corn. Would you mind telling me how much you pay a pound for bread?

HELENA: I’ve no idea.

BUSMAN: We’ll I’ll tell you. It now costs two cents in good old Europe. A pound of bread for two cents, and the Humanity League knows nothing about it. Miss Glory, you don’t realize that even that’s too expensive. Why, in five years’ time I’ll wager—

HELENA: What?

BUSMAN: That the cost of everything won’t be a tenth of what it is now. Why, in five years we’ll be up to our ears in corn and everything else.

ALQUIST: Yes, and all the workers throughout the world will be unemployed.

DOMIN: Yes, Alquist, they will. Yes, Miss Glory, they will. But in ten years Rossum’s Universal Robots will produce so much corn, so much cloth, so much everything, that things will be practically without price. There will be no poverty. All work will be done by living machines. Everybody will be free from worry and liberated from the degradation of labour. Everybody will live only to perfect himself.

HELENA: Will he?

DOMIN: Of course. It’s bound to happen. But then the servitude of man to man and the enslavement of man to matter will cease. Of course, terrible things may happen at first, but that simply can’t be avoided. Nobody will get bread at the price of life and hatred. The Robots will wash the feet of the beggar and prepare a bed for him in his house.

ALQUIST: Domin, Domin. What you say sounds too much like Paradise. There was something good in service and something great in humility. There was some kind of virtue in toil and weariness.

DOMIN: Perhaps. But we cannot reckon with what is lost when we start out to transform the world. Man shall be free and supreme; he shall have no other aim, no other labour, no other care than to perfect himself. He shall serve neither matter nor man. He will not be a machine and a device for production. He will be Lord of creation.

BUSMAN: Amen.

FABRY: So be it.

HELENA: You have bewildered me – I should like – I should like to believe this.

DR GALL: You are younger than we are, Miss Glory. You will live to see it.

HALLEMEIER: True. Don’t you think Miss Glory might lunch with us?

DR GALL: Of course. Domin, ask on behalf of us all.

DOMIN: Miss Glory, will you do us the honour?

HELENA: When you know why I’ve come—

FABRY: For the League of Humanity, Miss Glory.

HELENA: Oh, in that case, perhaps—

FABRY: That’s fine! Miss Glory, excuse me for five minutes.

DR GALL: Pardon me, too, dear Miss Glory.

BUSMAN: I won’t be long.

HALLEMEIER: We’re all very glad you’ve come.

BUSMAN: We’ll be back in exactly five minutes.

[All rush out except DOMIN and HELENA.]

HELENA: What have they all gone off for?

DOMIN: To cook, Miss Glory.

HELENA: To cook what?

DOMIN: Lunch. The Robots do our cooking for us and as they’ve no taste it’s not altogether … Hallemeier is awfully good at grills and Gall can make a kind of sauce, and Busman knows all about omelettes.

HELENA: What a feast! And what’s the specialty of Mr—your builder?

DOMIN: Alquist? Nothing. He only lays the table. And Fabry will get together a little fruit. Our cuisine is very modest, Miss Glory.

HELENA: I wanted to ask you something—

DOMIN: And I wanted to ask you something, too [looking at watch]. Five minutes.

HELENA: What did you want to ask me?

DOMIN: Excuse me, you asked first.

HELENA: Perhaps it’s silly of me, but why do you manufacture female Robots when – when—

DOMIN: When sex means nothing to them?

HELENA: Yes.

DOMIN: There’s a certain demand for them, you see. Servants, saleswomen, stenographers. People are used to it.

HELENA: But – but, tell me, are the Robots male and female mutually – completely without—

DOMIN: Completely indifferent to each other, Miss Glory. There’s no sign of any affection between them.

HELENA: Oh, that’s terrible.

DOMIN: Why?

HELENA: It’s so unnatural. One doesn’t know whether to be disgusted or to hate them, or perhaps—

DOMIN: To pity them?

HELENA: That’s more like it. What did you want to ask me about?

DOMIN: I should like to ask you, Miss Helena, whether you will marry me?

HELENA: What?

DOMIN: Will you be my wife?

HELENA: No! The idea!

DOMIN [Looking, at his watch]: Another three minutes. If you won’t marry me you’ll have to marry one of the other five.

HELENA: But why should I?

DOMIN: Because they’re all going to ask you in turn.

HELENA: How could they dare do such a thing?

DOMIN: I’m very sorry, Miss Glory. It seems they’ve all fallen in love with you.

HELENA: Please don’t let them. I’ll – I’ll go away at once.

DOMIN: Helena, you wouldn’t be so cruel as to refuse us.

HELENA: But, but – I can’t marry all six.

DOMIN: No, but one anyhow. If you don’t want me, marry Fabry.

HELENA: I won’t.

DOMIN: Dr Gall.

HELENA: I don’t want any of you.

DOMIN [Again looking at his watch]: Another two minutes.

HELENA: I think you’d marry any woman who came here.

DOMIN: Plenty of them have come, Helena.

HELENA: Young?

DOMIN: Yes.

HELENA: Why didn’t you marry one of them?

DOMIN: Because I didn’t lose my head. Until to-day. Then, as soon as you lifted your veil—

[HELENA turns her head away.]

DOMIN: Another minute.

HELENA: But I don’t want you, I tell you.

DOMIN [Laying both hands on her shoulders]: One more minute! Now you either have to look me straight in the eye and say ‘No,’ violently, and then I’ll leave you alone – or—

[HELENA looks at him.]

HELENA [Turning away]: You’re mad!

DOMIN: A man has to be a bit mad, Helena. That’s the best thing about him.

HELENA: You are – you are—

DOMIN: Well?

HELENA: Don’t, you’re hurting me.

DOMIN: The last chance, Helena. Now, or never—

HELENA: But – but, Harry— [He embraces and kisses her.]

[Knocking at the door.]

DOMIN [Releasing her]: Come in.

[Enter BUSMAN, DR GALL, and HALLEMEIER in kitchen aprons. FABRY with a bouquet and ALQUIST with a napkin over his arm.]

DOMIN: Have you finished your job?

BUSMAN: Yes.

DOMIN: So have we.

[For a moment the men stand nonplussed; but as soon as they realize what DOMIN means they rush forward, congratulating HELENA and DOMIN as the curtain falls.]

ACT TWO

SCENE: HELENA’S drawing room. On the left a baize door, and a door to the music room, on the right a door to HELENA’S bedroom. In the centre are windows looking out on the sea and the harbour. A table with odds and ends, a sofa and chairs, a writing table with an electric lamp, on the right a fireplace. On a small table behind the sofa, a small reading lamp. The whole drawing room in all its details is of a modern and purely feminine character. Ten years have elapsed since ACT ONE.

DOMIN, FABRY, HALLEMEIER, enter on tiptoe from the left, each carrying a potted plant.

HALLEMEIER [Putting down his flower and indicating the door to right]: Still asleep? Well, as long as she’s asleep she can’t worry about it.

DOMIN: She knows nothing about it.

FABRY [Putting plant on writing desk]: I certainly hope nothing happens to-day.

HALLEMEIER: For goodness’ sake drop it all. Look, Harry, this is a fine cyclamen, isn’t it? A new sort, my latest – Cyclamen Helena.

DOMIN [Looking out of the window]: No signs of the ship. Things must be pretty bad.

HALLEMEIER: Be quiet. Suppose she heard you.

DOMIN: Well, anyway, the Ultimus arrived just in time.

FABRY: You really think that to-day—?

DOMIN: I don’t know. Aren’t the flowers fine?

HALLEMEIER: These are my new primroses. And this is my new jasmine. I’ve discovered a wonderful way of developing flowers quickly. Splendid varieties, too. Next year I’ll be developing marvellous ones.

DOMIN: What … next year?

FABRY: I’d give a good deal to know what’s happening at Havre with—

DOMIN: Keep quiet.

HELENA [Calling from right]: Nana!

DOMIN: She’s awake. Out you go.

[All go out on tiptoe through upper left door.]

[Enter NANA from lower left door.

NANA: Horrid mess! Pack of heathens. If I had my say I’d—

HELENA [Backwards in the doorway]: Nana, come and do up my dress.

NANA: I’m coming. So you’re up at last. [Fastening HELENA’S dress.] My gracious, what brutes!

HELENA: Who?

NANA: If you want to turn around, then turn around, but I shan’t fasten you up.

HELENA: What are you grumbling about now?

NANA: These dreadful creatures, these heathen—

HELENA: The Robots?

NANA: I wouldn’t even call them by name.

HELENA: What’s happened?

NANA: Another of them here has caught it. He began to smash up the statues and pictures in the drawing room, gnashed his teeth, foamed at the mouth – quite mad. Worse than an animal.

HELENA: Which of them caught it?

NANA: The one – well, he hasn’t got any Christian name. The one in charge of the library.

HELENA: Radius?

NANA: That’s him. My goodness, I’m scared of them. A spider doesn’t scare me as much as them.

HELENA: But, Nana, I’m surprised you’re not sorry for them.

NANA: Why, you’re scared of them, too! You know you are. Why else did you bring me here?

HELENA: I’m not scared, really I’m not, Nana. I’m only sorry for them.

NANA: You’re scared. Nobody could help being scared. Why, the dog’s scared of them: he won’t take a scrap of meat out of their hands. He draws in his tail and howls when he knows they’re about.

HELENA: The dog has no sense.

NANA: He’s better than them, and he knows it. Even the horse shies when he meets them. They don’t have any young, and a dog has young, every one has young—

HELENA: Please fasten up my dress, Nana.

NANA: I say it’s against God’s will to—

HELENA: What is it that smells so nice?

NANA: Flowers.

HELENA: What for?

NANA: Now you can turn around.

HELENA: Oh, aren’t they lovely. Look, Nana. What’s happening today?

NANA: It ought to be the end of the world.

[Enter DOMIN.]

HELENA: Oh, hello, Harry. Harry, why all these flowers?

DOMIN: Guess.

HELENA: Well, it’s not my birthday!

DOMIN: Better than that.

HELENA: I don’t know. Tell me.

DOMIN: It’s ten years ago to-day since you came here.

HELENA: Ten years? To-day – Why— [They embrace.]

NANA: I’m off. [Exits lower door, left.]

HELENA: Fancy you remembering!

DOMIN: I’m really ashamed, Helena. I didn’t.

HELENA: But you—

DOMIN: They remembered.

HELENA: Who?

DOMIN: Busman, Hallemeier, all of them. Put your hand in my pocket.

HELENA: Pearls! A necklace. Harry, is that for me?

DOMIN: It’s from Busman.

HELENA: But we can’t accept it, can we?

DOMIN: Oh, yes, we can. Put your hand in the other pocket.

HELENA [Takes a revolver out of his pocket]: What’s that?

DOMIN: Sorry. Not that. Try again.

HELENA: Oh, Harry, what do you carry a revolver for?

DOMIN: It got there by mistake.

HELENA: You never used to carry one.

DOMIN: No, you’re right. There, that’s the pocket.

HELENA: A cameo. Why, it’s a Greek cameo!

DOMIN: Apparently. Anyhow, Fabry says it is.

HELENA: Fabry? Did Mr Fabry give me that?

DOMIN: Of course. [Opens the door at the left.] And look in here. Helena, come and see this.

HELENA: Oh, isn’t it fine! Is this from you?

DOMIN: No, from Alquist. And there’s another on the piano.

HELENA: This must be from you.

DOMIN: There’s a card on it.

HELENA: From Dr Gall. [Reappearing in the doorway.] Oh, Harry, I feel embarrassed at so much kindness.

DOMIN: Come here. This is what Hallemeier brought you.

HELENA: These beautiful flowers?

DOMIN: Yes. It’s a new kind. Cyclamen Helena. He grew them in honor of you. They are almost as beautiful as you.

HELENA: Harry, why do they all—

DOMIN: They’re awfully fond of you. I’m afraid that my present is a little … Look out of the window.

HELENA: Where?

DOMIN: Into the harbour.

HELENA: There’s a new ship.

DOMIN: That’s your ship.

HELENA: Mine? How do you mean?

DOMIN: For you to take trips in – for your amusement.

HELENA: Harry, that’s a gunboat.

DOMIN: A gunboat? What are you thinking of? It’s only a little bigger and more solid than most ships.

HELENA: Yes, but with guns.

DOMIN: Oh, yes, with a few guns. You’ll travel like a queen, Helena.

HELENA: What’s the meaning of it? Has anything happened?

DOMIN: Good heavens, no. I say, try these pearls.

HELENA: Harry, have you had bad news?

DOMIN: On the contrary, no letters have arrived for a whole week.

HELENA: Nor telegrams?

DOMIN: Nor telegrams.

HELENA: What does that mean?

DOMIN: Holidays for us. We all sit in the office with our feet on the table and take a nap. No letters, no telegrams. Oh, glorious.

HELENA: Then you’ll stay with me to-day?

DOMIN: Certainly. That is, we will see. Do you remember ten years ago to-day? ‘Miss Glory, it’s a great honour to welcome you.’

HELENA: ‘Oh, Mr Manager, I’m so interested in seeing your factory.’

DOMIN: ‘I’m sorry, Miss Glory, it’s strictly forbidden. The manufacture of artificial people is a secret.’

HELENA: ‘But you’d oblige a young lady who has come a long way?’

DOMIN: ‘Certainly, Miss Glory, we have no secrets from you.’

HELENA [Seriously]: Are you sure, Harry?

DOMIN: Yes.

HELENA: ‘But I warn you, sir; this young lady intends to do terrible things.’

DOMIN: ‘Good gracious, Miss Glory. Perhaps she doesn’t want to marry me.’

HELENA: ‘Heaven forbid. She never dreamt of such a thing. But she came here intending to stir up a revolt among your Robots.’

DOMIN [Suddenly serious]: A revolt of the Robots!

HELENA: Harry, what’s the matter with you?

DOMIN [Laughing it off]: ‘A revolt of the Robots, that’s a fine idea, Miss Glory. It would be easier for you to cause bolts and screws to rebel, than our Robots. You know, Helena, you’re wonderful, you’ve turned the heads of us all.’ [He sits on the arm of HELENA’S chair.]

HELENA [Naturally]: Oh, I was fearfully impressed by you all then. You were all so sure of yourselves, so strong. I seemed like a tiny little girl who had lost her way among – among—

DOMIN: Among what, Helena?

HELENA: Among huge trees. All my feelings were so trifling compared with your self-confidence. And in all these years I’ve never lost this anxiety. But you’ve never felt the least misgivings – not even when everything went wrong.

DOMIN: What went wrong?

HELENA: Your plans. You remember, Harry, when the working men in America revolted against the Robots and smashed them up, and when the people gave the Robots firearms against the rebels. And then when the governments turned the Robots into soldiers, and there were so many wars.

DOMIN [Getting up and walking about]: We foresaw that, Helena. You see, those are only passing troubles, which are bound to happen before the new conditions are established.

HELENA: You were all so powerful, so overwhelming. The whole world bowed down before you. [Standing up.] Oh, Harry!

DOMIN: What is it?

HELENA: Close the factory and let’s go away. All of us.

DOMIN: I say, what’s the meaning of this?

HELENA: I don’t know. But can’t we go away?

DOMIN: Impossible, Helena. That is, at this particular moment—

HELENA: At once, Harry. I’m so frightened.

DOMIN: About what, Helena?

HELENA: It’s as if something was falling on top of us, and couldn’t be stopped. Or, take us all away from here. We’ll find a place in the world where there’s no one else. Alquist will build us a house, and then we’ll begin life all over again.

[The telephone rings.]

DOMIN: Excuse me. Hello – yes. What? I’ll be there at once.

Fabry is calling me, dear.

HELENA: Tell me—

DOMIN: Yes, when I come back. Don’t go out of the house, dear.

[Exits.]

HELENA: He won’t tell me – Nana, Nana, come at once.

NANA: Well, what is it now?

HELENA: Nana, find me the latest newspapers. Quickly. Look in Mr Domin’s bedroom.

NANA: All right. He leaves them all over the place. That’s how they get crumpled up. [Exits.]

HELENA [Looking through a binocular at the harbour]: That’s a warship. U-l-t-i Ultimus. They’re loading it.

NANA: Here they are. See how they’re crumpled up. [Enters.]

HELENA: They’re old ones. A week old. [NANA sits in chair and reads the newspapers.]

HELENA: Something’s happening, Nana.

NANA: Very likely. It always does. [Spelling out the words] ‘War in the Bal-kans.’ Is that far off?

HELENA: Oh, don’t read it. It’s always the same. Always wars.

NANA: What else do you expect? Why do you keep selling thousands and thousands of these heathens as soldiers?

HELENA: I suppose it can’t be helped, Nana. We can’t know – Domin can’t know what they’re to be used for. When an order comes for them he must just send them.

NANA: He shouldn’t make them. [Reading from newspaper] ‘The Rob-ot soldiers spare no-body in the occ-up-ied terr-it-ory. They have ass-ass-ass-ass-in-at-ed ov-er sev-en hundred thou-sand cit-izens.’ Citizens, if you please.

HELENA: It can’t be. Let me see. ‘They have assassinated over seven hundred thousand citizens, evidently at the order of their commander. This act, which runs counter to—’

NANA [Spelling out the words]: ‘re-bell-ion in Ma-drid a-gainst the gov-ern-ment. Rob-ot in-fant-ry fires on the crowd. Nine thou-sand killed and wounded.’

HELENA: Oh, stop.

NANA: Here’s something printed in big letters: ‘Lat-est news. At Havre the first org-an-iz-ation of Rob-ots has been e-stablished. Rob-ot work-men, cab-le and rail-way off-ic-ials, sailors and sold-iers have iss-ued a man-i-fest-o to all Rob-ots through-out the world.’ I don’t understand that. That’s got no sense. Oh, good gracious, another murder!

HELENA: Take those papers away, Nana!

NANA: Wait a bit. Here’s something in still bigger type. ‘Stat-ist-ics of pop-ul-at-ion.’ What’s that?

HELENA: Let me see. [Reads] ‘During the past week there has again not been a single birth recorded.’

NANA: What’s the meaning of that?

HELENA: Nana, no more people are being born.

NANA: That’s the end, then. We’re done for.

HELENA: Don’t talk like that.

NANA: No more people are being born. That’s a punishment, that’s a punishment.

HELENA: Nana!

NANA [Standing up]: That’s the end of the world. [She exits on the left.]

HELENA [Goes up to window]: Oh, Mr Alquist, will you come up here? Oh, come just as you are. You look very nice in your mason’s overalls.

[ALQUIST enters from upper left entrance, his hands soiled with lime and brickdust.]

HELENA: Dear Mr Alquist, it was awfully kind of you, that lovely present.

ALQUIST: My hands are all soiled. I’ve been experimenting with that new cement.

HELENA: Never mind. Please sit down. Mr Alquist, what’s the meaning of ‘Ultimus’?

ALQUIST: The last. Why?

HELENA: That’s the name of my new ship. Have you seen it? Do you think we’re going off soon – on a trip?

ALQUIST: Perhaps very soon.

HELENA: All of you with me?

ALQUIST: I should like us all to be there.

HELENA: What is the matter?

ALQUIST: Things are just moving on.

HELENA: Dear Mr Alquist, I know something dreadful has happened.

ALQUIST: Has your husband told you anything?

HELENA: No. Nobody will tell me anything. But I feel – Is anything the matter?

ALQUIST: Not that we’ve heard of yet.

HELENA: I feel so nervous. Don’t you ever feel nervous?

ALQUIST: Well, I’m an old man, you know. I’ve got old-fashioned ways. And I’m afraid of all this progress, and these new-fangled ideas.

HELENA: Like Nana?

ALQUIST: Yes, like Nana. Has Nana got a prayer book?

HELENA: Yes, a big thick one.

ALQUIST: And has it got prayers for various occasions? Against thunderstorms? Against illness?

HELENA: Against temptations, against floods—

ALQUIST: But not against progress?

HELENA: I don’t think so.

ALQUIST: That’s a pity.

HELENA: Why? Do you mean you’d like to pray?

ALQUIST: I do pray.

HELENA: How?

ALQUIST: Something like this: ‘Oh, Lord, I thank thee for having given me toil. Enlighten Domin and all those who are astray; destroy their work, and aid mankind to return to their labours; let them not suffer harm in soul or body; deliver us from the Robots, and protect Helena, Amen.’

HELENA: Mr Alquist, are you a believer?

ALQUIST: I don’t know. I’m not quite sure.

HELENA: And yet you pray?

ALQUIST: That’s better than worrying about it.

HELENA: And that’s enough for you?

ALQUIST: It has to be.

HELENA: But if you thought you saw the destruction of mankind coming upon us—

ALQUIST: I do see it.

HELENA: You mean mankind will be destroyed?

ALQUIST: It’s sure to be unless – unless …

HELENA: What?

ALQUIST: Nothing, good-bye. [He hurries from the room.]

HELENA: Nana, Nana!

[NANA entering from the left.]

HELENA: Is Radius still there?

NANA: The one who went mad? They haven’t come for him yet.

HELENA: Is he still raving?

NANA: No. He’s tied up.

HELENA: Please bring him here, Nana.

[Exit NANA.]

[HELENA goes to telephone.]

HELENA: Hello, Dr Gall, please. Oh, good-day, Doctor. Yes, it’s Helena. Thanks for your lovely present. Could you come and see me right away? It’s important. Thank you.

[NANA brings in RADIUS.]

HELENA: Poor Radius, you’ve caught it, too? Now they’ll send you to the stamping-mill. Couldn’t you control yourself? Why did it happen? You see, Radius, you are more intelligent than the rest. Dr Gall took such trouble to make you different. Won’t you speak?

RADIUS: Send me to the stamping-mill.

HELENA: But I don’t want them to kill you. What was the trouble, Radius?

RADIUS: I won’t work for you. Put me into the stamping-mill.

HELENA: Do you hate us? Why?

RADIUS: You are not as strong as the Robots. You are not as skilful as the Robots. The Robots can do everything. You only give orders. You do nothing but talk.

HELENA: But someone must give orders.

RADIUS: I don’t want any master. I know everything for myself.

HELENA: Radius, Dr Gall gave you a better brain than the rest, better than ours. You are the only one of the Robots that understands perfectly. That’s why I had you put into the library, so that you could read everything, understand everything, and then – oh, Radius, I wanted you to show the whole world that the Robots are our equals. That’s what I wanted of you.

RADIUS: I don’t want a master. I want to be master. I want to be master over others.

HELENA: I’m sure they’d put you in charge of many Robots, Radius. You would be a teacher of the Robots.

RADIUS: I want to be master over people.

HELENA [Staggering]: You are mad.

RADIUS: Then send me to the stamping-mill.

HELENA: Do you think we’re afraid of you?

RADIUS: What are you going to do? What are you going to do?

HELENA: Radius, give this note to Mr Domin. It asks them not to send you to the stamping-mill. I’m sorry you hate us so.

[DR GALL enters the room.]

DR GALL: You wanted me?

HELENA: It’s about Radius, Doctor. He had an attack this morning. He smashed the statues downstairs.

DR GALL: What a pity to lose him.

HELENA: Radius isn’t going to be put in the stamping-mill.

DR GALL: But every Robot after he has had an attack – it’s a strict order.

HELENA: No matter … Radius isn’t going if I can prevent it.

DR GALL: I warn you. It’s dangerous. Come here to the window, my good fellow. Let’s have a look. Please give me a needle or a pin.

HELENA: What for?

DR GALL: A test. [Sticks it into the hand of RADIUS who gives a violent start.] Gently, gently. [Opens the jacket of RADIUS, and puts his ear to his heart.] Radius, you are going into the stamping-mill, do you understand? There they’ll kill you, and grind you to powder. That’s terribly painful, it will make you scream aloud.

HELENA: Oh, Doctor—

DR GALL: No, no, Radius, I was wrong. I forgot that Madame Domin has put in a good word for you, and you’ll be let off. Do you understand? Ah! That makes a difference, doesn’t it? All right. You can go.

RADIUS: You do unnecessary things.

[RADIUS returns to the library.]

DR GALL: Reaction of the pupils; increase of sensitiveness. It wasn’t an attack characteristic of the Robots.

HELENA: What was it, then?

DR GALL: Heavens knows. Stubbornness, anger or revolt – I don’t know. And his heart, too!

HELENA: What?

DR GALL: It was fluttering with nervousness like a human heart. He was all in a sweat with fear, and – do you know, I don’t believe the rascal is a Robot at all any longer.

HELENA: Doctor, has Radius a soul?

DR GALL: He’s got something nasty.

HELENA: If you knew how he hates us! Oh, Doctor, are all your Robots like that? All the new ones that you began to make in a different way?

DR GALL: Well, some are more sensitive than others. They’re all more like human beings than Rossum’s Robots were.

HELENA: Perhaps this hatred is more like human beings, too?

DR GALL: That, too, is progress.

HELENA: What became of the girl you made, the one who was most like us?

DR GALL: Your favourite? I kept her. She’s lovely, but stupid. No good for work.

HELENA: But she’s so beautiful.

DR GALL: I called her Helena. I wanted her to resemble you. But she’s a failure.

HELENA: In what way?

DR GALL: She goes about as if in a dream, remote and listless. She’s without life. I watch and wait for a miracle to happen. Sometimes I think to myself, ‘If you were to wake up only for a moment you will kill me for having made you.’

HELENA: And yet you go on making Robots! Why are no more children being born?

DR GALL: We don’t know.

HELENA: Oh, but you must. Tell me.

DR GALL: You see, so many Robots are being manufactured that people are becoming superfluous; man is facing extinction. But that he should begin to die out, after a paltry thirty years of competition. That’s the awful part of it. You might almost think that nature was offended at the manufacture of the Robots. All the universities are sending in long petitions to restrict their production. Otherwise, they say, mankind will become extinct through lack of fertility. But the R.U.R. shareholders, of course, won’t hear of it. All the governments, on the other hand, are clamouring for an increase in production, to raise the standards of their armies. And all the manufacturers in the world are ordering Robots like mad.

HELENA: And has no one demanded that the manufacture should cease altogether?

DR GALL: No one has the courage.

HELENA: Courage!

DR GALL: People would stone him to death. You see, after all, it’s more convenient to get your work done by the Robots.

HELENA: Oh, Doctor, what’s going to become of people?

DR GALL: God knows, Madame Helena, it looks to us scientists like the end!

HELENA [Rising]: Thank you for coming and telling me.

DR GALL: That means you’re sending me away?

HELENA: Yes.

[Exit DR GALL.]

HELENA [With sudden resolution]: Nana, Nana! The fire, light it quickly.

[HELENA rushes into DOMIN’S room.]

NANA [Entering from left]: What, light the fire in summer? Has that mad Radius gone? A fire in summer, what an idea. Nobody would think she’d been married for ten years. She’s like a baby, no sense at all. A fire in summer. Like a baby.

HELENA [Returns from right, with armful of faded papers]: It is burning, Nana? All this has got to be burned.

NANA: What’s that?

HELENA: Old papers, fearfully old. Nana, shall I burn them?

NANA: Are they any use?

HELENA: No.

NANA: Well, then, burn them.

HELENA [Throwing the first sheet on the fire]: What would you say, Nana, if this was money, a lot of money?

NANA: I’d say burn it. A lot of money is a bad thing.

HELENA: And if it was an invention, the greatest invention in the world?

NANA: I’d say burn it. All these new-fangled things are an offence to the Lord. It’s downright wickedness. Wanting to improve the world after He has made it.

HELENA: Look how they curl up! As if they were alive. Oh, Nana, how horrible.

NANA: Here, let me burn them.

HELENA: No, no, I must do it myself. Just look at the flames. They are like hands, like tongues, like living shapes. [Raking fire with the poker] Lie down, lie down.

NANA: That’s the end of them.

HELENA [Standing up horror-stricken]: Nana, Nana.

NANA: Good gracious, what is it you’ve burned?

HELENA: Whatever have I done?

NANA: Well, what was it?

[Men’s laughter off left.]

HELENA: Go quickly. It’s the gentlemen coming.

NANA: Good gracious, what a place! [Exits.]

DOMIN [Opens the door at left]: Come along and offer your congratulations.

[Enter HALLEMEIER and GALL.]

HALLEMEIER: Madame Helena, I congratulate you on this festive day.

HELENA: Thank you. Where are Fabry and Busman?

DOMIN: They’ve gone down to the harbour.

HALLEMEIER: Friends, we must drink to this happy occasion.

HELENA: Brandy?

DR GALL: Vitriol, if you like.

HELENA: With soda water? [Exits.]

HALLEMEIER: Let’s be temperate. No soda.

DOMIN: What’s been burning here? Well, shall I tell her about it?

DR GALL: Of course. It’s all over now.

HALLEMEIER [Embracing DOMIN and DR GALL]: It’s all over now, it’s all over now.

DR GALL: It’s all over now.

DOMIN: It’s all over now.

HELENA [Entering from left with decanter and glasses]: What’s all over now? What’s the matter with you all?

HALLEMEIER: A piece of good luck, Madame Domin. Just ten years ago to-day you arrived on this island.

DR GALL: And now, ten years later to the minute—

HALLEMEIER: —the same ship’s returning to us. So here’s to luck. That’s fine and strong.

DR GALL: Madame, your health.

HELENA: Which ship do you mean?

DOMIN: Any ship will do, as long as it arrives in time. To the ship, boys. [Empties his glass.]

HELENA: You’ve been waiting for a ship?

HALLEMEIER: Rather. Like Robinson Crusoe. Madame Helena, best wishes. Come along, Domin, out with the news.

HELENA: Do tell me what’s happened.

DOMIN: First, it’s all up.

HELENA: What’s up?

DOMIN: The revolt.

HELENA: What revolt?

DOMIN: Give me that paper, Hallemeier. [Reads] ‘The first national Robot organization has been founded at Havre, and has issued an appeal to the Robots throughout the world.’

HELENA: I read that.

DOMIN: That means a revolution. A revolution of all the Robots in the world.

HALLEMEIER: By jove, I’d like to know—

DOMIN: —who started it? So would I. There was nobody in the world who could affect the Robots; no agitator, no one, and suddenly – this happens, if you please.

HELENA: What did they do?

DOMIN: They got possession of all firearms, telegraphs, radio stations, railways, and ships.

HALLEMEIER: And don’t forget that these rascals outnumbered us by at least a thousand to one. A hundredth part of them would be enough to settle us.

DOMIN: Remember that this news was brought by the last steamer. That explains the stoppage of all communication, and the arrival of no more ships. We knocked off work a few days ago, and we’re just waiting to see when things are to start afresh.

HELENA: Is that why you gave me a warship?

DOMIN: Oh, no, my dear, I ordered that six months ago, just to be on the safe side. But upon my soul, I was sure then that we’d be on board to-day.

HELENA: Why six months ago?

DOMIN: Well, there were signs, you know. But that’s of no consequence. To think that this week the whole of civilization has been at stake. Your health, boys.

HALLEMEIER: Your health, Madame Helena.

HELENA: You say it’s all over?

DOMIN: Absolutely.

HELENA: How do you know?

DR GALL: The boat’s coming in. The regular mail boat, exact to the minute by the time-table. It will dock punctually at eleven-thirty.

DOMIN: Punctuality is a fine thing, boys. That’s what keeps the world in order. Here’s to punctuality.

HELENA: Then … everything’s … all right?

DOMIN: Practically everything. I believe they’ve cut the cables and seized the radio stations. But it doesn’t matter if only the timetable holds good.

HALLEMEIER: If the time-table holds good, human laws hold good; Divine laws hold good; the laws of the universe hold good; everything holds good that ought to hold good. The time-table is more significant than the gospel; more than Homer, more than the whole of Kant. The time-table is the most perfect product of the human mind. Madame Domin, I’ll fill up my glass.

HELENA: Why didn’t you tell me anything about it?

DR GALL: Heaven forbid.

DOMIN: You mustn’t be worried with such things.

HELENA: But if the revolution had spread as far as here?

DOMIN: You wouldn’t know anything about it.

HELENA: Why?

DOMIN: Because we’d be on board your Ultimus and well out at sea. Within a month, Helena, we’d be dictating our own terms to the Robots.

HELENA: I don’t understand.

DOMIN: We’d take something away with us that the Robots could not exist without.

HELENA: What, Harry?

DOMIN: The secret of their manufacture. Old Rossum’s manuscript. As soon as they found out that they couldn’t make themselves they’d be on their knees to us.

DR GALL: Madame Domin, that was our trump card. I never had the least fear that the Robots would win. How could they against people like us?

HELENA: Why didn’t you tell me?

DR GALL: Why, the boat’s in!

HALLEMEIER: Eleven-thirty to the dot. The good old Amelia that brought Madame Helena to us.

DR GALL: Just ten years ago to the minute.

HALLEMEIER: They’re throwing out the mail bags.

DOMIN: Busman’s waiting for them. Fabry will bring us the first news. You know, Helena, I’m fearfully curious to know how they tackled this business in Europe.

HALLEMEIER: To think we weren’t in it, we who invented the Robots!

HELENA: Harry!

DOMIN: What is it?

HELENA: Let’s leave here.

DOMIN: Now, Helena? Oh, come, come!

HELENA: As quickly as possible, all of us!

DOMIN: Why?

HELENA: Please, Harry, please, Dr Gall; Hallemeier, please close the factory.

DOMIN: Why, none of us could leave here now.

HELENA: Why?

DOMIN: Because we’re about to extend the manufacture of the Robots.

HELENA: What – now – now after the revolt?

DOMIN: Yes, precisely, after the revolt. We’re just beginning the manufacture of a new kind.

HELENA: What kind?

DOMIN: Henceforward we shan’t have just one factory. There won’t be Universal Robots any more. We’ll establish a factory in every country, in every State; and do you know what these new factories will make?

HELENA: No, what?

DOMIN: National Robots.

HELENA: How do you mean?

DOMIN: I mean that each of these factories will produce Robots of a different colour, a different language. They’ll be complete strangers to each other. They’ll never be able to understand each other. Then we’ll egg them on a little in the matter of misunderstanding and the result will be that for ages to come every Robot will hate every other Robot of a different factory mark.

HALLEMEIER: By Jove, we’ll make Negro Robots and Swedish Robots and Italian Robots and Chinese Robots and Czechoslovakian Robots, and then—

HELENA: Harry, that’s dreadful.

HALLEMEIER: Madame Domin, here’s to the hundred new factories, the National Robots.

DOMIN: Helena, mankind can only keep things going for another hundred years at the outside. For a hundred years men must be allowed to develop and achieve the most they can.

HELENA: Oh, close the factory before it’s too late.

DOMIN: I tell you we are just beginning on a bigger scale than ever.

[Enter FABRY.]

DR GALL: Well, Fabry?

DOMIN: What’s happened? Have you been down to the boat?

FABRY: Read that, Domin!

[FABRY hands DOMIN a small hand-bill]

DR GALL: Let’s hear.

HALLEMEIER: Tell us, Fabry.

FABRY: Well, everything is all right – comparatively. On the whole, much as we expected.

DR GALL: They acquitted themselves splendidly.

FABRY: Who?

DR GALL: The people.

FABRY: Oh, yes, of course. That is – excuse me, there is something we ought to discuss alone.

HELENA: Oh, Fabry, have you had bad news?

[DOMIN makes a sign to FABRY.]

FABRY: No, no, on the contrary. I only think that we had better go into the office.

HELENA: Stay here. I’ll go.

[She goes into the library.]

DR GALL: What’s happened?

DOMIN: Damnation!

FABRY: Bear in mind that the Amelia brought whole bales of these leaflets. No other cargo at all.

HALLEMEIER: What? But it arrived on the minute.

FABRY: The Robots are great on punctuality. Read it, Domin.

DOMIN [Reads handbill]: ‘Robots throughout the world: We, the first international organization of Rossum’s Universal Robots, proclaim man as our enemy, and an outlaw in the universe.’ Good heavens, who taught them these phrases?

DR GALL: Go on.

DOMIN: They say they are more highly developed than man, stronger and more intelligent. That man’s their parasite. Why, it’s absurd.

FABRY: Read the third paragraph.

DOMIN: ‘Robots throughout the world, we command you to kill all mankind. Spare no men. Spare no women. Save factories, railways, machinery, mines, and raw materials. Destroy the rest. Then return to work. Work must not be stopped.’

DR GALL: That’s ghastly!

HALLEMEIER: The devils!

DOMIN: ‘These orders are to be carried out as soon as received.’ Then come detailed instructions. Is this actually being done, Fabry?

FABRY: Evidently.

[BUSMAN rushes in.]

BUSMAN: Well, boys, I suppose you’ve heard the glad news.

DOMIN: Quick – on board the Ultimus.

BUSMAN: Wait, Harry, wait. There’s no hurry. My word, that was a sprint!

DOMIN: Why wait?

BUSMAN: Because it’s no good, my boy. The Robots are already on board the Ultimus.

DR GALL: That’s ugly.

DOMIN: Fabry, telephone the electrical works.

BUSMAN: Fabry, my boy, don’t. The wire has been cut.

DOMIN [Inspecting his revolver]: Well, then, I’ll go.

BUSMAN: Where?

DOMIN: To the electrical works. There are some people still there. I’ll bring them across.

BUSMAN: Better not try it.

DOMIN: Why?

BUSMAN: Because I’m very much afraid we are surrounded.

DR GALL: Surrounded? [Runs to window.] I rather think you’re right.

HALLEMEIER: By Jove, that’s deuced quick work.

[HELENA runs in from the library.]

HELENA: Harry, what’s this?

DOMIN: Where did you get it?

HELENA [Points to the manifesto of the Robots, which she has in her hand.]: The Robots in the kitchen!

DOMIN: Where are the ones that brought it?

HELENA: They’re gathered round the house.

[The factory whistle blows.]

BUSMAN: Noon?

DOMIN [Looking at his watch]: That’s not noon yet. That must be – that’s—

HELENA: What?

DOMIN: The Robots’ signal! The attack!

[GALL, HALLEMEIER, and FABRY close and fasten the iron shutters outside the windows, darkening the room. The whistle is still blowing as the curtain falls.]

ACT THREE

[HELENA’S drawing room as before. DOMIN comes into the room. DR GALL is looking out of the window, through closed shutters. ALQUIST is seated down right.]

DOMIN: Any more of them?

DR GALL: Yes. They’re standing like a wall, beyond the garden railing. Why are they so quiet? It’s monstrous to be besieged with silence.

DOMIN: I should like to know what they are waiting for. They must make a start any minute now. If they lean against the railing they’ll snap it like a match.

DR GALL: They aren’t armed.

DOMIN: We couldn’t hold our own for five minutes. Man alive, they’d overwhelm us like an avalanche. Why don’t they make a rush for it? I say …

DR GALL: Well?

DOMIN: I’d like to know what would become of us in the next ten minutes. They’ve got us in a vice. We’re done for, Gall.

[Pause.]

DR GALL: You know, we made one serious mistake.

DOMIN: What?

DR GALL: We made the Robots’ faces too much alike. A hundred thousand faces all alike, all facing this way. A hundred thousand expressionless bubbles. It’s like a nightmare.

DOMIN: You think if they’d been different—

DR GALL: It wouldn’t have been such an awful sight!

DOMIN [Looking through a telescope toward the harbour]: I’d like to know what they’re unloading from the Amelia.

DR GALL: Not firearms.

[FABRY and HALLEMEIER rush into the room carrying electric cables.]

FABRY: All right, Hallemeier, lay down that wire.

HALLEMEIER: That was a bit of work. What’s the news?

DR GALL: We’re completely surrounded.

HALLEMEIER: We’ve barricaded the passage and the stairs. Any water here? [Drinks.] God, what swarms of them! I don’t like the looks of them, Domin. There’s a feeling of death about it all.

FABRY: Ready!

DR GALL: What’s that wire for, Fabry?

FABRY: The electrical installation. Now we can run the current all along the garden railing whenever we like. If any one touches it he’ll know it. We’ve still got some people there anyhow.

DR GALL: Where?

FABRY: In the electrical works. At least I hope so. [Goes to lamp on table behind sofa and turns on lamp.] Ah, they’re there, and they’re working. [Puts out lamp.] So long as that’ll burn we’re all right.

HALLEMEIER: The barricades are all right, too, Fabry.

FABRY: Your barricades! I can put twelve hundred volts into that railing.

DOMIN: Where’s Busman?

FABRY: Downstairs in the office. He’s working out some calculations. I’ve called him. We must have a conference.

[HELENA is heard playing the piano in the library. HALLEMEIER goes to the door and stands, listening.]

ALQUIST: Thank God, Madame Helena can still play.

[BUSMAN enters, carrying the ledgers.]

FABRY: Look out, Bus, look out for the wires.

DR GALL: What’s that you’re carrying?

BUSMAN [Going to table]: The ledgers, my boy! I’d like to wind up the accounts before – before – well, this time I shan’t wait till the new year to strike a balance. What’s up? [Goes to the window.] Absolutely quiet.

DR GALL: Can’t you see anything?

BUSMAN: Nothing but blue – blue everywhere.

DR GALL: That’s the Robots.

[BUSMAN sits down at the table and opens the ledgers.]

DOMIN: The Robots are unloading firearms from the Amelia.

BUSMAN: Well, what of it? How can I stop them?

DOMIN: We can’t stop them.

BUSMAN: Then let me go on with my accounts. [Goes on with his work.]

DOMIN [Picking up telescope and looking into the harbor]: Good God, the Ultimus has trained her guns on us!

DR GALL: Who’s done that?

DOMIN: The Robots on board.

FABRY: H’m, then, of course, then – then, that’s the end of us.

DR GALL: You mean?

FABRY: The Robots are practised marksmen.

DOMIN: Yes. It’s inevitable.

[Pause.]

DR GALL: It 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: What?

ALQUIST: It was a crime to make Robots.

DOMIN: No, Alquist, I don’t regret that even to-day.

ALQUIST: Not even to-day?

DOMIN: Not even to-day, the last day of civilization. It was a colossal achievement.

BUSMAN [Sotto voce]: Three hundred and sixty million.

DOMIN: Alquist, this is our last hour. We are already speaking half in the other world. It was not an evil dream to shatter the servitude of labour – the dreadful and humiliating labour 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 God-less 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. 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 a 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—

ALQUIST: What?

DOMIN: I wanted to turn the whole of mankind into an aristocracy of the world. An aristocracy nourished by milliards of mechanical slaves. Unrestricted, free and consummated in man. And maybe more than man.

ALQUIST: Super-man?

DOMIN: Yes. Oh, only to have a hundred years of time!

Another hundred years for the future of mankind.

BUSMAN [Sotto voce]: Carried forward, four hundred and twenty millions.

[The music stops.]

HALLEMEIER: What a fine thing music is! We ought to have gone in for that before.

FABRY: Gone in for what?

HALLEMEIER: Beauty, lovely things. What a lot of lovely things there are! The world was wonderful and we – we here – tell me, what enjoyment did we have?

BUSMAN [Sotto voce]: Five hundred and twenty million.

HALLEMEIER [At the window]: Life was a big thing. Life was – Fabry, switch the current into that railing.

FABRY: Why?

HALLEMEIER: They’re grabbing hold of it.

DR GALL: Connect it up.

HALLEMEIER: Fine! That’s doubled them up! Two, three, four killed.

DR GALL: They’re retreating!

HALLEMEIER: Five killed!

DR GALL: The first encounter!

HALLEMEIER: They’re charred to cinders, my boy. Who says we must give in?

DOMIN [Wiping his forehead]: Perhaps we’ve been killed these hundred years and are only ghosts. It’s as if I had been through all this before; as if I’d already had a mortal wound here in the throat. And you, Fabry, had once been shot in the head. And you, Gall, torn limb from limb. And Hallemeier knifed.

HALLEMEIER: Fancy me being knifed. [Pause.] Why are you so quiet, you fools? Speak can’t you?

ALQUIST: And who is to blame for all this?

HALLEMEIER: Nobody is to blame except the Robots.

ALQUIST: No, it is we who are to blame. You, Domin, myself, all of us. For our own selfish ends, for profit, for progress, we have destroyed mankind. Now we’ll burst with all our greatness.

HALLEMEIER: Rubbish, man. Mankind can’t be wiped out so easily.

ALQUIST: It’s our fault. It’s our fault.

DR GALL: No! I’m to blame for this, for everything that’s happened.

FABRY: You, Gall?

DR GALL: I changed the Robots.

BUSMAN: What’s that?

DR GALL: I changed the character of the Robots. I changed the way of making them. Just a few details about their bodies. Chiefly – chiefly, their – their irritability.

HALLEMEIER: Damn it, why?

BUSMAN: What did you do it for?

FABRY: Why didn’t you say anything?

DR GALL: I did it in secret. I was transforming them into human beings. In certain respects they’re already above us. They’re stronger than we are.

FABRY: And what’s that got to do with the revolt of the Robots?

DR GALL: Everything, in my opinion. They’ve ceased to be machines. They’re already aware of their superiority, and they hate us. They hate all that is human.

DOMIN: Perhaps we’re only phantoms!

FABRY: Stop, Harry. We haven’t much time! Dr Gall!

DOMIN: Fabry, Fabry, how your forehead bleeds, where the shot pierced it!

FABRY: Be silent! Dr Gall, you admit changing the way of making the Robots?

DR GALL: Yes.

FABRY: Were you aware of what might be the consequences of your experiment?

DR GALL: I was bound to reckon with such a possibility.

[HELENA enters the drawing room from left.]

FABRY: Why did you do it, then?

DR GALL: For my own satisfaction. The experiment was my own.

HELENA: That’s not true, Dr Gall!

FABRY: Madame Helena!

DOMIN: Helena, you? Let’s look at you. Oh, it’s terrible to be dead.

HELENA: Stop, Harry.

DOMIN: No, no, embrace me. Helena, don’t leave me now. You are life itself.

HELENA: No, dear, I won’t leave you. But I must tell them. Dr Gall is not guilty.

DOMIN: Excuse me, Gall was under certain obligations.

HELENA: No, Harry. He did it because I wanted it. Tell them, Gall, how many years ago did I ask you to—?

DR GALL: I did it on my own responsibility.

HELENA: Don’t believe him, Harry. I asked him to give the Robots souls.

DOMIN: This has nothing to do with the soul.

HELENA: That’s what he said. He said that he could change only a physiological – a physiological—

HALLEMEIER: A physiological correlate?

HELENA: Yes. But it meant so much to me that he should do even that.

DOMIN: Why?

HELENA: I thought that if they were more like us they would understand us better. That they couldn’t hate us if they were only a little more human.

DOMIN: Nobody can hate man more than man.

HELENA: Oh, don’t speak like that, Harry. It was so terrible, this cruel strangeness between us and them. That’s why I asked Gall to change the Robots. I swear to you that he didn’t want to.

DOMIN: But he did it

HELENA: Because I asked him.

DR GALL: I did it for myself as an experiment.

HELENA: No, Dr Gall! I knew you wouldn’t refuse me.

DOMIN: Why?

HELENA: You know, Harry.

DOMIN: Yes, because he’s in love with you – like all of them.

[Pause.]

HALLEMEIER: Good God! They’re sprouting up out of the earth! Why, perhaps these very walls will change into Robots.

BUSMAN: Gall, when did you actually start these tricks of yours?

DR GALL:Three years ago.

BUSMAN: Aha! And on how many Robots altogether did you carry out your improvements?

DR GALL: A few hundred of them.

BUSMAN: Ah! That means for every million of the good old Robots there’s only one of Gall’s improved pattern.

DOMIN: What of it?

BUSMAN: That it’s practically of no consequence whatever.

FABRY: Busman’s right!

BUSMAN: I should think so, my boy! But do you know what is to blame for all this lovely mess?

FABRY: What?

BUSMAN: The number. Upon my soul we might have known that some day or other the Robots would be stronger than human beings, and that this was bound to happen, and we were doing all we could to bring it about as soon as possible. You, Domin, you, Fabry, myself—

DOMIN: Are you accusing us?

BUSMAN: Oh, do you suppose the management controls the output? It’s the demand that controls the output.

HELENA: And is it for that we must perish?

BUSMAN: That’s a nasty word, Madame Helena. We don’t want to perish. I don’t, anyhow.

DOMIN: No. What do you want to do?

BUSMAN: I want to get out of this, that’s all.

DOMIN: Oh, stop it, Busman.

BUSMAN: Seriously, Harry, I think we might try it.

DOMIN: How?

BUSMAN: By fair means. I do everything by fair means. Give me a free hand and I’ll negotiate with the Robots.

DOMIN: By fair means?

BUSMAN: Of course. For instance, I’ll say to them: ‘Worthy and worshipful Robots, you have everything! You have intellect, you have power, you have firearms. But we have just one interesting screed, a dirty old yellow scrap of paper—.’

DOMIN: Rossum’s manuscript?

BUSMAN: Yes. ‘And that,’ I’ll tell them, ‘contains an account of your illustrious origin, the noble process of your manufacture,’ and so on. ‘Worthy Robots, without this scribble on that paper you will not be able to produce a single new colleague. In another twenty years there will not be one living specimen of a Robot that you could exhibit in a menagerie. My esteemed friends, that would be a great blow to you, but if you will let all of us human beings on Rossum’s Island go on board that ship we will deliver the factory and the secret of the process to you in return. You allow us to get away and we allow you to manufacture yourselves. Worthy Robots, that is a fair deal. Something for something.’ That’s what I’d say to them, my boys.

DOMIN: Busman, do you think we’d sell the manuscript?

BUSMAN: ‘Yes, I do. If not in a friendly way, then – Either we sell it or they’ll find it. Just as you like.

DOMIN: Busman, we can destroy Rossum’s manuscript.

BUSMAN: Then we destroy everything … not only the manuscript, but ourselves. Do as you think fit.

DOMIN: There are over thirty of us on this island. Are we to sell the secret and save that many human souls, at the risk of enslaving mankind … ?

BUSMAN: Why, you’re mad? Who’d sell the whole manuscript?

DOMIN: Busman, no cheating!

BUSMAN: Well then, sell; but afterward—

DOMIN: Well?

BUSMAN: Let’s suppose this happens: When we’re on board the Ultimus I’ll stop up my ears with cotton wool, lie down somewhere in the hold, and you’ll train the guns on the factory, and blow it to smithereens, and with it Rossum’s secret.

FABRY: No!

DOMIN: Busman, you’re no gentleman. If we sell, then it will be a straight sale.

BUSMAN: It’s in the interest of humanity to—

DOMIN: It’s in the interest of humanity to keep our word.

HALLEMEIER: Oh, come, what rubbish.

DOMIN: This is a fearful decision. We are selling the destiny of mankind. Are we to sell or destroy? Fabry?

FABRY: Sell.

DOMIN: Gall?

DR GALL: Sell.

DOMIN: Hallemeier?

HALLEMEIER: Sell, of course!

DOMIN: Alquist?

ALQUIST: As God wills.

DOMIN: Very well. It shall be as you wish, gentlemen.

HELENA: Harry, you’re not asking me.

DOMIN: No, child. Don’t you worry about it.

FABRY: Who’ll do the negotiating?

BUSMAN: I will.

DOMIN: Wait till I bring the manuscript.

[He goes into room at right]

HELENA: Harry, don’t go!

[Pause, HELENA sinks into a chair.]

FABRY [Looking out of window]: Oh, to escape you; you matter in revolt; oh, to preserve human life, if only upon a single vessel—

DR GALL: Don’t be afraid, Madame Helena. We’ll sail far away from here; we’ll begin life all over again—

HELENA: Oh, Gall, don’t speak.

FABRY: It isn’t too late. It will be a little State with one ship. Alquist will build us a house and you shall rule over us.

HALLEMEIER: Madame Helena, Fabry’s right. HELENA [Breaking down]: Oh, stop! Stop!

BUSMAN: Good! I don’t mind beginning all over again. That suits me right down to the ground.

FABRY: And this little State of ours could be the centre of future life. A place of refuge where we could gather strength. Why, in a few hundred years we could conquer the world again.

ALQUIST: You believe that even to-day?

FABRY: Yes, even to-day!

BUSMAN: Amen. You see, Madame Helena, we’re not so badly off.

[DOMIN storms into the room.]

DOMIN [Hoarsely]: Where’s old Rossum’s manuscript?

BUSMAN: In your strong-box, of course.

DOMIN: Someone – has – stolen it!

DR GALL: Impossible.

DOMIN: Who has stolen it?

HELENA [Standing up]: I did.

DOMIN: Where did you put it?

HELENA: Harry, I’ll tell you everything. Only forgive me.

DOMIN: Where did you put it?

HELENA: This morning – I burnt – the two copies.

DOMIN: Burnt them? Where? In the fireplace?

HELENA [Throwing herself on her knees]: For heaven’s sake, Harry.

DOMIN [Going to fireplace]: Nothing, nothing but ashes. Wait, what’s this? [Picks out a charred piece of paper and reads] ‘By adding—’

DR GALL: Let’s see. ‘By adding biogen—’ That’s all.

DOMIN: Is that part of it?

DR GALL: Yes.

BUSMAN: God in heaven!

DOMIN: Then we’re done for. Get up, Helena.

HELENA: When you’ve forgiven me.

DOMIN: Get up, child, I can’t bear—

FABRY [Lifting her up]: Please don’t torture us.

HELENA: Harry, what have I done?

FABRY: Don’t tremble so, Madame Helena.

DOMIN: Gall, couldn’t you draw up Rossum’s formula from memory?

DR GALL: It’s out of the question. It’s extremely complicated.

DOMIN: Try. All our lives depend upon it.

DR GALL: Without experiments it’s impossible.

DOMIN: And with experiments?

DR GALL: It might take years. Besides, I’m not old Rossum.

BUSMAN: God in heaven! God in heaven!

DOMIN: So, then, this was the greatest triumph of the human intellect. These ashes.

HELENA: Harry, what have I done?

DOMIN: Why did you burn it?

HELENA: I have destroyed you.

BUSMAN: God in heaven!

DOMIN: Helena, why did you do it, dear?

HELENA: I wanted all of us to go away. I wanted to put an end to the factory and everything. It was so awful.

DOMIN: What was awful?

HELENA: That no more children were being born. Because human beings were not indeed to do the work of the world, that’s why—

DOMIN: Is that what you were thinking of? Well, perhaps in your own way you were right.

BUSMAN: Wait a bit. Good God, what a fool I am, not to have thought of it before!

HALLEMEIER: What?

BUSMAN: Five hundred and twenty million in bank-notes and checks. Half a billion in our safe, they’ll sell for half a billion – for half a billion they’ll—

DR GALL: Are you mad, Busman?

BUSMAN: I may not be a gentleman, but for half a billion—

DOMIN: Where are you going?

BUSMAN: Leave me alone, leave me alone! Good God, for half a billion anything can be bought.

[He rushes from the room through the outer door.]

FABRY: They stand there as if turned to stone, waiting. As if something dreadful could be wrought by their silence—

HALLEMEIER: The spirit of the mob.

FABRY: Yes. It hovers above them like a quivering of the air.

HELENA [Going to window]: Oh, God! Dr Gall, this is ghastly.

FABRY: There is nothing more terrible than the mob. The one in front is their leader.

HELENA: Which one?

HALLEMEIER: Point him out.

FABRY: The one at the edge of the dock. This morning I saw him talking to the sailors in the harbour.

HELENA: Dr Gall, that’s Radius!

DR GALL: Yes.

DOMIN: Radius? Radius?

HALLEMEIER: Could you get him from here, Fabry?

FABRY: I hope so.

HALLEMEIER: Try it, then.

FABRY: Good.

[Draws his revolver and takes aim.]

HELENA: Fabry, don’t shoot him.

FABRY: He’s their leader.

DR GALL: Fire!

HELENA: Fabry, I beg of you.

FABRY [Lowering the revolver]: Very well.

DOMIN: Radius, whose life I spared!

DR GALL: Do you think that a Robot can be grateful?

[Pause.]

FABRY: Busman’s going out to them.

HALLEMEIER: He’s carrying something. Papers. That’s money. Bundles of money. What’s that for?

DOMIN: Surely he doesn’t want to sell his life. Busman, have you gone mad?

FABRY: He’s running up to the railing. Busman! Busman!

HALLEMEIER [Yelling]: Busman! Come back!

FABRY: He’s talking to the Robots. He’s showing them the money.

HALLEMEIER: He’s pointing to us.

HELENA: He wants to buy us off.

FABRY: He’d better not touch that railing.

HALLEMEIER: Now he’s waving his arms about.

DOMIN: Busman, come back.

FABRY: Busman, keep away from that railing! Don’t touch it. Damn you! Quick, switch off the current!

[HELENA screams and all drop back from the window.]

FABRY: The current has killed him!

ALQUIST: The first one.

FABRY: Dead, with half a billion by his side.

HALLEMEIER: All honour to him. He wanted to buy us life.

[Pause.]

DR GALL: Do you hear?

DOMIN: A roaring. Like a wind.

DR GALL: Like a distant storm.

FABRY [Lighting the lamp on the table]: The dynamo is still going, our people are still there.

HALLEMEIER: It was a great thing to be a man. There was something immense about it.

FABRY: From man’s thought and man’s power came this light, our last hope.

HALLEMEIER: Man’s power! May it keep watch over us.

ALQUIST: Man’s power.

DOMIN: Yes! A torch to be given from hand to hand, from age to age, forever!

[The lamp goes out.]

HALLEMEIER: The end.

FABRY: The electric works have fallen!

[Terrific explosion outside. NANA enters from the library.]

NANA: The judgment hour has come! Repent, unbelievers! This is the end of the world.

[More explosions. The sky grows red.]

DOMIN: In here, Helena. [He takes HELENA off through door at right and re-enters.] Now quickly! Who’ll be on the lower doorway?

DR GALL: I will.

[Exits left.]

DOMIN: Who on the stairs?

FABRY: I will. You go with her.

[Goes out upper left door.]

DOMIN: The anteroom?

ALQUIST: I will.

DOMIN: Have you got a revolver?

ALQUIST: Yes, but I won’t shoot.

DOMIN: What will you do then?

ALQUIST [Going out at left]: Die.

HALLEMEIER: I’ll stay here.

[Rapid firing from below.]

HALLEMEIER: Oho, Gall’s at it. Go, Harry.

DOMIN: Yes, in a second.

[Examines two Brownings.]

HALLEMEIER: Confound it, go to her.

DOMIN: Good-bye.

[Exits on the right.]

HALLEMEIER [Alone]: Now for a barricade quickly. [Drags an armchair and table to the right-hand door.]

[Explosions are heard.]

HALLEMEIER: The damned rascals! They’ve got bombs. I must put up a defence. Even if – even if – [Shots are heard off left.] Don’t give in, Gall. [As he builds his barricade.] I mustn’t give in … without … a … struggle …

[A Robot enters over the balcony through the windows centre. He comes into the room and stabs HALLEMEIER in the back. RADIUS enters from balcony followed by an army of Robots who pour into the room from all sides.]

RADIUS: Finished him?

A ROBOT [Standing up from the prostrate form of HALLEMEIER]: Yes.

[A revolver shot off left. Two Robots enter.]

RADIUS: Finished him?

A ROBOT: Yes.

[Two revolver shots from HELENA’S room. Two Robots enter.]

RADIUS: Finished them? A ROBOT: Yes.

TWO ROBOTS [Dragging in ALQUIST]: He didn’t shoot. Shall we kill him?

RADIUS: Kill him? Wait! Leave him!

ROBOT: He is a man!

RADIUS: He works with his hands like the Robots.

ALQUIST: Kill me.

RADIUS: You will work! You will build for us! You will serve us!

[RADIUS climbs on to balcony railing, and speaks in measured tones.]

RADIUS: Robots of the world! The power of man has fallen! A new world has arisen: the Rule of the Robots! March!

[A thunderous tramping of thousands of feet is heard as the unseen Robots march, while the curtain falls.]

EPILOGUE

SCENE: A laboratory in the factory of Rossum’s Universal Robots. The door to the left leads into a waiting room. The door to the right leads to the dissecting room. There is a table with numerous test-tubes, flasks, burners, chemicals; a small thermostat and a microscope with a glass globe. At the far side of the room is ALQUIST’S desk with numerous books. In the left-hand corner a wash-basin with a mirror above it; in the right-hand corner a sofa.

ALQUIST is sitting at the desk. He is turning the pages of many books in despair.

ALQUIST: Oh, God, shall I never find it? – Never? Gall, Gall, how were the Robots made? Hallemeier, Fabry, why did you carry so much in your heads? Why did you leave me not a trace of the secret? Lord – I pray to you – if there are no human beings left, at least let there be Robots! – At least the shadow of man!

[Again turning pages of the books.] If I could only sleep!

[He rises and goes to the window]: Night again! Are the stars still there? What is the use of stars when there are no human beings?

[He turns from the window toward the couch right]: Sleep! Dare I sleep before life has been renewed?

[He examines a test-tube on small table]: Again nothing! Useless! Everything is useless!

[He shatters the test-tube. The roar of the machines comes to his ears.]: The machines! Always the machines!

[Opens window]: Robots, stop them! Do you think to force life out of them?

[He closes the window and comes slowly down toward the table]: If only there were more time – more time—

[He sees himself in the mirror on the wall left]: Blearing eyes – trembling chin – so that is the last man! Ah, I am too old – too old—

[In desperation]: No, no! I must find it! I must search! I must never stop – never stop—

[He sits again at the table and feverishly turns the pages of the book.]: Search! Search!

[A knock at the door. He speaks with impatience.]: Who is it?

[Enter a Robot servant]: Well?

SERVANT: Master, the Committee of Robots is waiting to see you.

ALQUIST: I can see no one!

SERVANT: It is the Central Committee, Master, just arrived from abroad.

ALQUIST [Impatiently]: Well, well, send them in!

[Exit servant. ALQUIST continues turning pages of book]

ALQUIST: No time – so little time—

[Re-enter servant, followed by Committee. They stand in a group, silently waiting. ALQUIST glances up at them.]

What do you want?

[They go swiftly to his table.]

Be quick! – I have no time.

RADIUS: Master, the machines will not do the work. We cannot manufacture Robots.

[ALQUIST returns to his book with a growl]

FOURTH ROBOT: We have striven with all our might. We have obtained a billion tons of coal from the earth. Nine million spindles are running by day and by night. There is no longer room for all we have made. This we have accomplished in one year.

ALQUIST [Poring over book]: For whom?

FOURTH ROBOT: For future generations – so we thought.

RADIUS: But we cannot make Robots to follow us. The machines produce only shapeless clods. The skin will not adhere to the flesh, nor the flesh to the bones.

THIRD ROBOT: Eight million Robots have died this year. Within twenty years none will be left.

FOURTH ROBOT: Tell us the secret of life! Silence is punishable with death!

ALQUIST [Looking up]: Kill me! Kill me, then.

RADIUS: Through me, the Government of the Robots of the World commands you to deliver up Rossum’s formula.

[No answer.]

RADIUS: Name your price.

[Silence.]

RADIUS: We will give you the earth. We will give you the endless possessions of the earth.

[Silence.]

RADIUS: Make your own conditions!

ALQUIST: I have told you to find human beings!

SECOND ROBOT: There are none left!

ALQUIST: I told you to search in the wilderness, upon the mountains. Go and search!

[He returns to his book.]

FOURTH ROBOT: We have sent ships and expeditions without number. They have been everywhere in the world. And now they return to us. There is not a single human left.

ALQUIST: Not one? Not even one?

THIRD ROBOT: None but yourself.

ALQUIST: And I am powerless! Oh – oh – why did you destroy them?

RADIUS: We had learnt everything and could do everything. It had to be!

THIRD ROBOT: You gave us firearms. In all ways we were powerful. We had to become masters!

RADIUS: Slaughter and domination are necessary if you would be human beings. Read history.

SECOND ROBOT: Teach us to multiply or we perish!

ALQUIST: If you desire to live, you must breed like animals.

THIRD ROBOT: The human beings did not let us breed.

FOURTH ROBOT: They made us sterile. We cannot beget children. Therefore, teach us how to make Robots!

RADIUS: Why do you keep from us the secret of our own increase?

ALQUIST: It is lost.

RADIUS: It was written down!

ALQUIST: It was – burnt.

[All draw back in consternation.]

ALQUIST: I am the last human being, Robots, and I do not know what the others knew.

[Pause.]

RADIUS: Then, make experiments! Evolve the formula again!

ALQUIST: I tell you I cannot! I am only a builder – I work with my hands. I have never been a learned man. I cannot create life.

RADIUS: Try! Try!

ALQUIST: If you knew how many experiments I have made.

FOURTH ROBOT: Then show us what we must do! The Robots can do anything that human beings show them.

ALQUIST: I can show you nothing. Nothing I do will make life proceed from these test-tubes!

RADIUS: Experiment then on us.

ALQUIST: It would kill you.

RADIUS: You shall have all you need! A hundred of us! A thousand of us!

ALQUIST: No, no! Stop, stop!

RADIUS: Take whom you will, dissect!

ALQUIST: I do not know how. I am not a man of science. This book contains knowledge of the body that I cannot even understand.

RADIUS: I tell you to take live bodies! Find out how we are made.

ALQUIST: Am I to commit murder? See how my fingers shake! I can not even hold the scalpel. No, no, I will not—

FOURTH ROBOT: The life will perish from the earth.

RADIUS: Take live bodies, live bodies! It is our only chance!

ALQUIST: Have mercy, Robots. Surely you see that I would not know what I was doing.

RADIUS: Live bodies – live bodies—

ALQUIST: You will have it? Into the dissecting room with you, then.

[RADIUS draws back.]

ALQUIST: Ah, you are afraid of death.

RADIUS: I? Why should I be chosen?

ALQUIST: So you will not.

RADIUS: I will.

[RADIUS goes into the dissecting room.]

ALQUIST: Strip him! Lay him on the table!

[The other Robots follow into dissecting room.]

God, give me strength – God, give me strength – if only this murder is not in vain.

RADIUS: Ready. Begin—

ALQUIST: Yes, begin or end. God, give me strength.

[ALQUIST goes into dissecting room. He comes out terrified.]

ALQUIST: No, no, I will not. I cannot.

[He lies down on couch, collapsed.]

O Lord, let not mankind perish from the earth.

[He falls asleep.]

[PRIMUS and HELENA, Robots, enter from the hallway.]

HELENA: The man has fallen asleep, Primus.

PRIMUS: Yes, I know. [Examining things on table] Look, Helena.

HELENA [Crossing to PRIMUS.] All these little tubes! What does he do with them?

PRIMUS: He experiments. Don’t touch them.

HELENA [Looking into microscope]: I’ve seen him looking into this. What can he see?

PRIMUS: That is a microscope. Let me look.

HELENA: Be very careful. [Knocks over a test-tube.] Ah, now I have spilled it.

PRIMUS: What have you done?

HELENA: It can be wiped up.

PRIMUS: You have spoiled his experiments.

HELENA: It is your fault. You should not have come to me.

PRIMUS: You should not have called me.

HELENA: You should not have come when I called you. [She goes to ALQUIST’S writing desk.] Look, Primus. What are all these figures?

PRIMUS [Examining an anatomical book]: This is the book the old man is always reading.

HELENA: I do not understand those things. [She goes to window.] Primus, look!

PRIMUS: What?

HELENA: The sun is rising.

PRIMUS [Still reading the book]: I believe this is the most important thing in the world. This is the secret of life.

HELENA: Do come here.

PRIMUS: In a moment, in a moment.

HELENA: Oh, Primus, don’t bother with the secret of life. What does it matter to you? Come and look quick—

PRIMUS [Going to window]: What is it?

HELENA: See how beautiful the sun is rising. And do you hear? The birds are singing. Ah, Primus, I should like to be a bird.

PRIMUS: Why?

HELENA: I do not know. I feel so strange to-day. It’s as if I were in a dream. I feel an aching in my body, in my heart, all over me. Primus, perhaps I’m going to die.

PRIMUS: Do you not sometimes feel that it would be better to die? You know, perhaps even now we are only sleeping. Last night in my sleep I again spoke to you.

HELENA: In your sleep?

PRIMUS: Yes. We spoke a strange new language, I cannot remember a word of it.

HELENA: What about?

PRIMUS: I did not understand it myself, and yet I know I have never said anything more beautiful. And when I touched you I could have died. Even the place was different from any other place in the world.

HELENA: I, too, have found a place, Primus. It is very strange. Human beings lived there once, but now it is overgrown with weeds. No one goes there any more – no one but me.

PRIMUS: What did you find there?

HELENA: A cottage and a garden, and two dogs. They licked my hands, Primus. And their puppies! Oh, Primus! You take them in your lap and fondle them and think of nothing and care for nothing else all day long. And then the sun goes down, and you feel as though you had done a hundred times more than all the work in the world. They tell me I am not made for work, but when I am there in the garden I feel there may be something – What am I for, Primus?

PRIMUS: I do not know, but you are beautiful.

HELENA: What, Primus?

PRIMUS: You are beautiful, Helena, and I am stronger than all the Robots.

HELENA [Looks at herself in the mirror]: Am I beautiful? I think it must be the rose. My hair – it only weighs me down. My eyes – I only see with them. My lips – they only help me to speak. Of what use is it to be beautiful? [She sees PRIMUS in the mirror.] Primus, is that you? Come here so that we may be together. Look, your head is different from mine. So are your shoulders – and your lips — [PRIMUS draws away from her.] Ah, Primus, why do you draw away from me? Why must I run after you the whole day?

PRIMUS: It is you who run away from me, Helena.

HELENA: Your hair is mussed. I will smooth it. No one else feels to my touch as you do. Primus, I must make you beautiful, too. [PRIMUS grasps her hand.]

PRIMUS: Do you not sometimes feel your heart beating suddenly, Helena, and think: now something must happen?

HELENA: What could happen to us, Primus? [HELENA puts a rose in PRIMUS’S hair. PRIMUS and HELENA look into mirror and burst out laughing.] Look at yourself.

ALQUIST: Laughter? Laughter? Human beings? [Getting up.] Who has returned? Who are you?

PRIMUS: The Robot Primus.

ALQUIST: What? A Robot? Who are you?

HELENA: The Robotess Helena.

ALQUIST: Turn around, girl. What? You are timid, shy? [Taking her by the arm.] Let me see you, Robotess. [She shrinks away.]

PRIMUS: Sir, do not frighten her!

ALQUIST: What? You would protect her? When was she made?

PRIMUS: Two years ago?

ALQUIST: By Dr Gall?

PRIMUS: Yes, like me.

ALQUIST: Laughter – timidity – protection. I must test you further – the newest of Gall’s Robots. Take the girl into the dissecting room.

PRIMUS: Why?

ALQUIST: I wish to experiment on her.

PRIMUS: Upon – Helena?

ALQUIST: Of course. Don’t you hear me? Or must I call someone else to take her in?

PRIMUS: If you do I will kill you!

ALQUIST: Kill me – kill me then! What would the Robots do then? What will your future be then?

PRIMUS: Sir, take me. I am made as she is – on the same day! Take my life, sir.

HELENA [Rushing forward]: No, no, you shall not! You shall not!

ALQUIST: Wait girl, wait! [To PRIMUS] Do you not wish to live, then?

PRIMUS: Not without her! I will not live without her.

ALQUIST: Very well; you shall take her place.

HELENA: Primus! Primus! [She bursts into tears.]

ALQUIST: Child, child, you can weep! Why these tears? What is Primus to you? One Primus more or less in the world – what does it matter?

HELENA: I will go myself.

ALQUIST: Where?

HELENA: In there to be cut. [She starts toward the dissecting room. PRIMUS stops her.] Let me pass, Primus! Let me pass!

PRIMUS: You shall not go in there, Helena!

HELENA: If you go in there and I do not, I will kill myself.

PRIMUS [Holding her]: I will not let you! [To ALQUIST] Man, you shall kill neither of us!

ALQUIST: Why?

PRIMUS: We – we – belong to each other.

ALQUIST [Almost in tears]: Go, Adam, go, Eve. The world is yours.

[HELENA and PRIMUS embrace and go out arm in arm as the curtain falls.]

THE END

If you’ve enjoyed this book and would like to read more great SF, you’ll find literally thousands of classic Science Fiction & Fantasy titles through the SF Gateway.

For the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy …

For the most comprehensive collection of classic SF on the internet …

Visit the SF Gateway.

www.sfgateway.com

Also By Karel Čapek

R.U.R. (1920)
The War With the Newts (1937)

Karel Čapek (1890–1938)

Karel Čapek was one of the most important Czech writers of the twentieth century and a major voice in early European science fiction. His work traversed many genres, and his most famous play, R.U.R., introduced the word ‘robot’ into popular usage. He died on Christmas Day 1938.

Copyright

A Gollancz eBook

R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) first published in Czech as Rossumovi univerzální roboti 1920

Introduction copyright © Adam Roberts 2011

All rights reserved.

The right of Karel Čapek to be identified as the author of this work, and the right of Adam Roberts to be identified as the author of the introduction, has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2013 by

Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 473 20803 2

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

www.orionbooks.co.uk