Karel Čapek

“ Primus
It is you who run away from me, Helena.
Helena
Your hair is mussed. I will smooth it. No one else feels to my touch as you do. Primus, I must make you beautiful, too. [Primus grasps her hand.]
Primus
Do you not sometimes feel your heart beating suddenly, Helena, and think: now something must happen?
Helena
What could happen to us, Primus? [Helena puts a rose in Primus's hair. Primus and Helena look into mirror and burst out laughing.] Look at yourself.
Alquist
Laughter? Laughter? Human beings? [Getting up.] Who has returned? Who are you? ”

“ Helena
I read that.
Domin
That means a revolution. A revolution of all the Robots in the world.
Hallemeier
By jove, I'd like to know——
Domin
—who started it? So would I. There was nobody in the world who could affect the Robots; no agitator, no one, and suddenly—this happens, if you please.
Helena
What did they do?
Domin
They got possession of all firearms, telegraphs, radio stations, railways, and ships.
Hallemeier
And don't forget that these rascals outnumbered us by at least a thousand to one. A hundredth part of them would be enough to settle us. ”

“ Helena
I, too, have found a place, Primus. It is very strange. Human beings lived there once, but now it is overgrown with weeds. No one goes there any more—no one but me.
Primus
What did you find there?
Helena
A cottage and a garden, and two dogs. They licked my hands, Primus. And their puppies! Oh, Primus! You take them in your lap and fondle them and think of nothing and care for nothing else all day long. And then the sun goes down, and you feel as though you had done a hundred times more than all the work in the world. ”

“ Helena
Then . . . everything's . . . all right?
Domin
Practically everything. I believe they've cut the cables and seized the radio stations. But it doesn't matter if only the time-table holds good.
Hallemeier
If the time-table holds good human laws hold good; Divine laws hold good; the laws of the universe hold good; everything holds good that ought to hold good. The time-table is more significant than the gospel; more than Homer, more than the whole of Kant. The time-table is the most perfect product of the human mind. Madame Domin, I'll fill up my glass. ”

“ Thank you.
[Nana brings in Radius.]
Helena
Poor Radius, you've caught it, too? Now they'll send you to the stamping-mill. Couldn't you control yourself? Why did it happen? You see, Radius, you are more intelligent than the rest. Dr. Gall took such trouble to make you different. Won't you speak?
Radius
Send me to the stamping-mill.
Helena
But I don't want them to kill you. What was the trouble, Radius?
Radius
I won't work for you. Put me into the stamping-mill.
Helena
Do you hate us? Why?
Radius
You are not as strong as the Robots. You are not as skillful as the Robots. ”

“ Domin
Yes, Alquist, they will. Yes, Miss Glory, they will. But in ten years Rossum's Universal Robots will produce so much corn, so much cloth, so much everything, that things will be practically without price. There will be no poverty. All work will be done by living machines. Everybody will be free from worry and liberated from the degradation of labor. Everybody will live only to perfect himself. ”

“ Helena
Please, Harry, please, Dr. Gall; Hallemeier, please close the factory.
Domin
Why, none of us could leave here now.
Helena
Why?
Domin
Because we're about to extend the manufacture of the Robots.
Helena
What—now-—now after the revolt?
Domin
Yes, precisely, after the revolt. We're just beginning the manufacture of a new kind.
Helena
What kind?
Domin
Henceforward we shan't have just one factory. There won't be Universal Robots any more. We'll establish a factory in every country, in every State; and do you know what these new factories will make? ”

“ Helena
Radius, Dr. Gall gave you a better brain than the rest, better than ours. You are the only one of the Robots that understands perfectly. That's why I had you put into the library, so that you could read everything, understand everything, and then—oh, Radius, I wanted you to show the whole world that the Robots are our equals. ”

“ Domin
Well, any one who has looked into human anatomy will have seen at once that man is too complicated, and that a good engineer could make him more simply. So young Rossum began to overhaul anatomy and tried to see what could be left out or simplified. In short—but this isn't boring you, Miss Glory? ”

“ When we're on board the Ultimus I'll stop up my ears with cotton wool, lie down somewhere in the hold, and you'll train the guns on the factory, and blow it to smithereens, and with it Rossum's secret.
Fabry
No!
Domin
Busman, you're no gentleman. If we sell, then it will be a straight sale.
Busman
It's in the interest of humanity to——
Domin
It's in the interest of humanity to keep our word.
Hallemeier
Oh, come, what rubbish.
Domin
This is a fearful decision. We are selling the destiny of mankind. Are we to sell or destroy? Fabry?
Fabry
Sell.
Domin
Gall? ”

“ Helena
Oh, but you must. Tell me.
Dr. Gall
You see, so many Robots are being manufactured that people are becoming superfluous; man is really a survival. But that he should begin to die out, after a paltry thirty years of competition. That's the awful part of it. You might almost think that nature was offended at the manufacture of the Robots. All the universities are sending in long petitions to restrict their production. Otherwise, they say, mankind will become extinct through lack of fertility. ”

“ In another twenty years there will not be one living specimen of a Robot that you could exhibit in a menagerie. My esteemed friends, that would be a great blow to you, but if you will let all of us human beings on Rossum's Island go on board that ship we will deliver the factory and the secret of the process to you in return. You allow us to get away and we allow you to manufacture yourselves. Worthy Robots, that is a fair deal. ”

“ Gall
Fire!
Helena
Fabry, I beg of you.
Fabry
[Lowering the revolver] : Very well.
Domin
Radius, whose life I spared!
Dr. Gall
Do you think that a Robot can be grateful?
[Pause.]
Fabry
Busman's going out to them.
Hallemeier
He's carrying something. Papers. That's money. Bundles of money. What's that for?
Domin
Surely he doesn't want to sell his life. Busman, have you gone mad?
Fabry
He's running up to the railing. Busman! Busman!
Hallemeier
[Yelling] : Busman! Come back!
Fabry
He's talking to the Robots. He's showing them the money. ”

“ Alquist
Something like this: "Oh, Lord, I thank thee for having given me toil. Enlighten Domin and all those who are astray; destroy their work, and aid mankind to return to their labors; let them not suffer harm in soul or body; deliver us from the Robots, and protect Helena, Amen." ”

“ If you knew how many experiments I have made.
Fourth Robot
Then show us what we must do! The Robots can do anything that human beings show them.
Alquist
I can show you nothing. Nothing I do will make life proceed from these test-tubes! ”

“ Domin
No; the one that is the cheapest. The one whose requirements are the smallest. Young Rossum invented a worker with the minimum amount of requirements. He had to simplify him. He rejected everything that did not contribute directly to the progress of work—everything that makes man more expensive. In fact, he rejected man and made the Robot. My dear Miss Glory, the Robots are not people. Mechanically they are more perfect than we are, they have an enormously developed intelligence, but they have no soul. ”

“ Domin
And then, Miss Glory, old Rossum wrote the following among his chemical specimens: "Nature has found only one method of organizing living matter. There is, however, another method, more simple, flexible and rapid, which has not yet occurred to nature at all. This second process by which life can be developed was discovered by me to-day." Now imagine him, Miss Glory, writing those wonderful words over some colloidal mess that a dog wouldn't look at. ”

“ Night again! Are the stars still there? What is the use of stars when there are no human beings?
[He turns from the window toward the couch right] : Sleep! Dare I sleep before life has been renewed? ”

“ Old Rossum only thought of his God-less 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
I wanted to turn the whole of mankind into an aristocracy of the world. An aristocracy nourished by milliards of mechanical slaves. Unrestricted, free and consummated in man. And maybe more than man. ”

“ But a working machine must not play the piano, must not feel happy, must not do a whole lot of other things. A gasoline motor must not have tassels or ornaments, Miss Glory. And to manufacture artificial workers is the same thing as to manufacture gasoline motors. The process must be of the simplest, and the product of the best from a practical point of view. What sort of worker do you think is the best from a practical point of view? ”

“ Helena
How do you mean?
Domin
I mean that each of these factories will produce Robots of a different color, a different language. They'll be complete strangers to each other. They'll never be able to understand each other. Then we'll egg them on a little in the matter of misunderstanding and the result will be that for ages to come every Robot will hate every other Robot of a different factory mark. ”

“ Domin
Neither do I. Well, he then decided to manufacture everything as in the human body. I'll show you in the museum the bungling attempt it took him ten years to produce. It was to have been a man, but it lived for three days only. Then up came young Rossum, an engineer. He was a wonderful fellow, Miss Glory. When he saw what a mess of it the old man was making, he said: "It's absurd to spend ten years making a man. If you can't make him quicker than nature, you might as well shut up shop." Then he set about learning anatomy himself. ”

“ It is murderous social satire, done in terms of the most hair-raising melodrama. It has as many social implications as the most heady of Shavian comedies, and it also has as many frank appeals to the human gooseflesh as 'The Bat' or any other latter day thriller." Heywood Broun in the New York World—
"The play begins as an extraordinary searching study of the nature of human life and human society . . . . Capek is potentially one of the great men in the modern drama. He has devised a scene at the end of the third act as awe-inspiring as anything we have ever seen in the theatre." ”

“ It is significant of the oneness of the world and the unity of the intellectual life of modern civilization that the freshest and most thoughtful play in America this season comes from Czechoslovakia. ”

“ Domin
Of course. It's bound to happen. But then the servitude of man to man and the enslavement of man to matter will cease. Of course, terrible things may happen at first, but that simply can't be avoided. Nobody will get bread at the price of life and hatred. The Robots will wash the feet of the beggar and prepare a bed for him in his house. ”

“ You never used to carry one.
Domin
No, you're right. There, that's the pocket.
Helena
A cameo. Why, it's a Greek cameo!
Domin
Apparently. Anyhow, Fabry says it is.
Helena
Fabry? Did Mr. Fabry give me that?
Domin
Of course. [Opens the door at the left.] And look in here. Helena, come and see this.
Helena
Oh, isn't it fine! Is this from you?
Domin
No, from Alquist. And there's another on the piano.
Helena
This must be from you.
Domin
There's a card on it.
Helena
From Dr. Gall. [Reappearing in the doorway.] Oh, Harry, I feel embarrassed at so much kindness. ”

“ You will serve us!
[Radius climbs on to balcony railing, and speaks in measured tones.]
Radius
Robots of the world! The power of man has fallen! A new world has arisen: the Rule of the Robots! March! ”

“ To hell with your dividends. 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 a crust of bread. I wanted not a single soul to be broken by other people's machinery. ”

“ Imagine him sitting over a test tube, and thinking how the whole tree of life would grow from it, how all animals would proceed from it, beginning with some sort of beetle and ending with a man. A man of different substance from us. Miss Glory, that was a tremendous moment. ”

“ It is significant that at the period when Czechoslovakia is so triumphantly justifying its establishment as an independent State, Capek is beginning to obtain for Czech literature, of whose vigorous and progressive spirit he is a typical representative, the world-wide attention which it merits, but of which it has hitherto been deprived owing to the adverse circumstances of its development. ”

“ Brothers, I have not come here as the President's daughter. I have come on behalf of the Humanity League. Brothers, the Humanity League now has over two hundred thousand members. Two hundred thousand people are on your side, and offer you their help.
Busman
Two hundred thousand people! Miss Glory, that's a tidy lot. Not bad.
Fabry
I'm always telling you there's nothing like good old Europe. You see, they've not forgotten us. They're offering us help.
Dr. Gall
What help? A theatre, for instance?
Hallemeier
An orchestra? ”

“ Sulla was a Roman general.
Domin
Oh, we thought that Marius and Sulla were lovers.
Helena
Marius and Sulla were generals and fought against each other in the year—I've forgotten now.
Domin
Come here to the window.
Helena
What?
Domin
Come here. What do you see?
Helena
Bricklayers.
Domin
Robots. All our work people are Robots. And down there, can you see anything?
Helena
Some sort of office.
Domin
A counting house. And in it——
Helena
A lot of officials.
Domin
Robots. All our officials are Robots. And when you see the factory——
[Factory whistle blows.] ”

“ We are already speaking half in the other world. It 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. ”