Vera; or, The Nihilists
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Vera; or, The Nihilists is a play by Oscar Wilde. It is a melodramatic tragedy set in Russia. It was the first play that Wilde ever wrote. It was produced in New York in 1882, but it was not a success, and is nowadays rarely revived.
Plot
Prologue
Vera is a barmaid in her father's tavern, which is situated along a road to the prison camps in Siberia. A gang of prisoners stop at the tavern. Vera immediately recognises her brother Dmitri as one of the prisoners. He begs her too go to Moscow and join the Nihilists, a terrorism group trying to assassinate the Czar, and avenge his imprisonment. She and her father's manservant Michael leave to join the Nihilists.Act I
Years later, Vera has become the Nihilists' top assassin, and is wanted across Europe. She is in love with a fellow Nihilist named Ivan: however, Nihilists are sworn never to marry. A Nihilist meeting is nearly broken up by soldiers, but Ivan thwarts the soldiers by revealing his true identity: he is the Tsarevich, heir to the Russian throne. This act earns him the further admiration of Vera and the hatred of the Nihilists.Act II
At a council meeting, the Tsar and his cruel epigrammatic minister Prince Paul Maraloffski criticise Tsarovitch Ivan's democratic leanings, but the Tsar is assassinated by Michael.Act III
Ivan ascends the throne and exiles Prince Paul Maraloffski, not to Siberia, but to Paris. Maraloffski joins the the Nihilists to kill Ivan. The task of assassinating Tsar Ivan is given to Vera. She must infiltrate the palace, stab the Tsar and throw the dagger out the window as a signal to Nihilist agents below. If she does not, the agents will break in and kill him. Vera is reluctant to kill the man she loves, though.Act IV
Ivan returns to the palace after his coronation, intending to end injustice in Russia during his reign. Vera enters the palace, knife at the ready. Ivan asks her to marry him. She accepts, but then she hears the agents outside crying out for the signal. She stabs herself and throws the dagger out the window, and the agent departs satisfied.- Ivan: Vera, what have you done?
- Vera: I have saved Russia. [dies]
Quotes
- To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist - the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's salad.
- Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.
- There is always more brass than brains in an aristocracy.
- Good kings are the only dangerous enemies that modern democracy has.
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