Produced by Meredith Bach, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) VERA; OR, THE NIHILISTS. _Of this work, 200 copies only have been printed, for private circulation. This is No...._ VERA; OR, THE NIHILISTS. A DRAMA IN A PROLOGUE, AND FOUR ACTS. BY OSCAR WILDE. NOW FIRST PUBLISHED. [Device] _PRIVATELY PRINTED_, 1902. This Play was written in 1881, and is now published from the author's own copy, showing his corrections of and additions to the original text. PERSONS IN THE PROLOGUE. PETER SABOUROFF (an Innkeeper). VERA SABOUROFF (his Daughter). MICHAEL (a Peasant). COLONEL KOTEMKIN. Scene, Russia. Time, 1795. PERSONS IN THE PLAY. IVAN THE CZAR. PRINCE PAUL MARALOFFSKI (Prime Minister of Russia). PRINCE PETROVITCH. COUNT ROUVALOFF. MARQUIS DE POIVRARD. BARON RAFF. GENERAL KOTEMKIN. A PAGE. _Nihilists._ PETER TCHERNAVITCH, President of the Nihilists. MICHAEL. ALEXIS IVANACIEVITCH, known as a Student of Medicine. PROFESSOR MARFA. VERA SABOUROFF. _Soldiers, Conspirators, &c._ Scene, Moscow. Time, 1800. PROLOGUE. SCENE.--_A Russian Inn._ _Large door opening on snowy landscape at back of stage._ _PETER SABOUROFF and MICHAEL._ PETER (_warming his hands at a stove_). Has Vera not come back yet, Michael? MICH. No, Father Peter, not yet; 'tis a good three miles to the post office, and she has to milk the cows besides, and that dun one is a rare plaguey creature for a wench to handle. PETER. Why didn't you go with her, you young fool? she'll never love you unless you are always at her heels; women like to be bothered. MICH. She says I bother her too much already, Father Peter, and I fear she'll never love me after all. PETER. Tut, tut, boy, why shouldn't she? you're young and wouldn't be ill-favoured either, had God or thy mother given thee another face. Aren't you one of Prince Maraloffski's gamekeepers; and haven't you got a good grass farm, and the best cow in the village? What more does a girl want? MICH. But Vera, Father Peter-- PETER. Vera, my lad, has got too many ideas; I don't think much of ideas myself; I've got on well enough in life without 'em; why shouldn't my children? There's Dmitri! could have stayed here and kept the inn; many a young lad would have jumped at the offer in these hard times; but he, scatter-brained featherhead of a boy, must needs go off to Moscow to study the law! What does he want knowing about the law! let a man do his duty, say I, and no one will trouble him. MICH. Ay! but Father Peter, they say a good lawyer can break the law as often as he likes, and no one can say him nay.