R.U.R. by Karel Čapek

Author:Karel Čapek
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Czech drama -- Translations into English, Robots -- Drama, Science fiction plays
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2020-09-24T17:59:22+00:00

Act III

Scene: He­le­na’s draw­ing-room as be­fore. The room is dark and gray. The steel shut­ters which are out­side are still closed as at the end of Act II. Alquist is sit­ting in chair down stage at ex­treme R. Domin comes in­to the room, L. 2. Sub­dued voic­es. Dr. Gall is look­ing out of the win­dow at Cen­ter. He is seat­ed in a chair.

Domin Gets binoc­u­lars from desk; cross­es up to win­dow. To Gall. Any more of them?

Dr. Gall Yes. There stand­ing like a wall, be­yond the gar­den rail­ing. Why are they so qui­et? It’s mon­strous to be be­sieged with si­lence.

Domin Look­ing through the barred win­dows. I should like to know what they are wait­ing for? They must make a start any minute now. If they lean against the rail­ings it will snap like a match.

Dr. Gall They aren’t armed.

Domin Puz­zled. We couldn’t hold our own for five min­utes. Man alive, they over­whelm us like an avalanche. Why don’t they make a rush for it? I say. Turns to Gall.

Dr. Gall Well?

Domin I’d like to know what will be­come of us in the next ten min­utes. They’ve got us in a vise. We’re done for, Gall.

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 Looks through binoc­u­lars to­wards the har­bor. I’d like to know what they’re un­load­ing from the Amelia.

Dr. Gall Not firearms.

Fab­ry En­ters L. 2 with a plug-box to which is at­tached a long ca­ble or wire. Halle­meier fol­low­ing him. Fab­ry at­tach­es the ca­ble to an elec­tric in­stal­la­tion which is on the floor near the wall, down stage at L. 1 en­trance. All right, Halle­meier, lay down that wire.

Halle­meier Just in­side the room. That was a bit of work. What’s the news? See­ing Domin and Gall at the win­dow.

Dr. Gall We’re com­plete­ly sur­round­ed.

Halle­meier Cross­es to win­dow.) We’ve bar­ri­cad­ed the pas­sages and the stairs. Go­ing to win­dow. God, what swarms of them. I don’t like the looks of them, Domin. There’s a feel­ing of death about it all. Any wa­ter here?

Fab­ry Ready!

Dr. Gall Turn­ing round in the chair. What’s that wire for, Fab­ry?

Fab­ry The elec­tri­cal in­stal­la­tion. Now we can run the cur­rent all along the gar­den rail­ing. Up to win­dow. When­ev­er we like. If any­one 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.

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