_Adr._ Friends, the truth that was clear to you before the enemy's blow fell to-day is no less true now that the blow has fallen. _Manl._ Not on your back, Lavrov. _A peasant._ The lash of the Czar goes deeper than the words of the preacher. _Another._ We have obeyed you until now, shepherd of Lonz. _Adr._ [_Gently_] And you will obey me again. _Manl._ You will obey the voice of your own manhood! _Adr._ You will remember that you bear the leaven of the race, that you carry in your blood the universal peace. _Manl._ Every beat of your hearts is telling you now to be men! _Adr._ Submission is the only death-answer to violence. The world for very shame must cease to crucify Christ! _Gregorief._ [_Leaping up_] Move your Sunday-school to the dungeons of Schlusselburg! Yes, I have been there. I was twenty years under the storm-waves of Lake Ladoga, and if your words could have reached me through the damp walls they would have received their true answer--a madman's answer. For torture does not give men the serenity of gods or preachers, Lavrov. Twenty years of the silence that welcomes the silence of death--twenty years of the loneliness that makes men pray for the joy of weeping together--twenty years with starving eyes on naked walls, while above me the great, wide seasons were going by--twenty years of void and gloom with the windy waters whipping my prison island, and all the more maddening because I could not hear them, because they too were a silent guard. I was like this boy [_touching Vasil, who is leaning toward him listening intently_] when they put me in, and I came out--as you see. [_Laughs ironically_] But I am fortunate. I left others behind me to whom those dark doors will never open, while I have the privilege of--_dying_ above ground. _Adr._ It makes no difference which side of a prison door the conquering spirit is on, Gregorief. _Greg._ Ha! I wasn't a spirit then. They put me in while I was still in this life, where the flesh throbs and the blood sings. I was like this boy, I say, and I came out two months ago a broken consumptive wretch. You see me, Lavrov. Am I fit to leaven the race? _I_ am what oppression makes, not the meek angels you dream about. Into my children will go the bitterness of the wronged to come out in hate, the feebleness of the broken man to come out in cunning, the stinging for revenge to come out in murder---- _Adr._ But if you had triumphed--the immortal you--what a soul you could bequeath to your country! O, one such could almost save her! _Greg._ One! She has them by the thousand, everywhere thwarting us--their holy tears putting out our living fire as fast as we kindle it! [_Laying his hands on Vasil_] Ah, here is a spirit worth all your saints, Lavrov. Son, take up my torch as I drop it--my torch and sword, lad---- _Vasil._ [_Eager and trembling_] I am a singer, not a fighter.