DOMIN. (_From window_) Alquist, this is our last hour. We are already speaking half in the other world. That was not an evil _dream_ to shatter the servitude of labor. The dreadful and humiliating _labor_ 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 Godless 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. (_Crossing R. in front of couch_) 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 the 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. Well? DOMIN. (_Front of couch_) I wanted to turn the whole of mankind into an aristocracy of the world. An aristocracy nourished by millions of mechanical slaves. Unrestricted, free and consummated in man. And maybe more than man. ALQUIST. Superman? 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. (_DOMIN sits on couch._) HALLEMEIER. (_Pauses--back of couch_) 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. Life was a good thing, life was-- (_Looking out of window. Directly to FABRY_) Fabry, switch the current into that railing. FABRY. Why? (_Rushes to electric installation at L._) HALLEMEIER. They’re grabbing hold of it. (_DOMIN rises--straightens up. ALL rise._) DR. GALL. Connect it up. HALLEMEIER. Fine, that’s doubled them up. Two, three, four killed. DR. GALL. They’re retreating. (_DOMIN sits._) HALLEMEIER. Five killed. DR. GALL (_Pause_) The first encounter. HALLEMEIER. They’re charred to cinders, my boy. Who says we must give in? (_MUSIC stops._) DOMIN. (_ALQUIST and GALL sit. Wiping his forehead_) Perhaps we’ve been killed this 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. (_Looking at each as he speaks_) 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. (_Looks at each. Then speaks_) Why are you so quiet, you fools? (_Steps down_) Speak, can’t you? ALQUIST. And who is to blame for all this?