R.U.R. E-Book

Bauer Books

• Herausgeber: Bauer Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

R.U.R, Rossum's Universal Robots. Written in 1920 by Czech writer Karel Capek. It is a science fiction play, and it has the distinction of introducing the word robot into the English language.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Introductory Scene

Act one

Act two

Act three

R.U.R.

(Rossum’s Universal Robots)

A play in introductory scene and three acts

by Karel Capek

Translated into English by David Wyllie

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Harry Domin: Director General, Rossum’s Universal Robots

Fabry: Technical Director, R.U.R.

Dr. Gall: Head of Physiology and Research Department, R.U.R.

Dr. Hallemeier: Head of Institute for Robot Psychology and Behaviour,  R.U.R

Busman: Commercial Director, R.U.R.

Alquist: Head of Construction, R.U.R.

Helena Glory

Nana: Her Nanny

Marius: Robot

Sulla: Robot, female

Radius: Robot

Damon: Robot

1st Robot

2nd Robot

3rd Robot

4th Robot

Primus: Robot

Helena: Robot, female

Robot servant

and numerous robots

Domin: in introductory scene, about thirty-eight years old, tall, clean shaven

Fabry: also clean shaven, fair, serious and delicate features

Dr. Gall: light build, lively, dark complexion and black moustache

Hallemeier: heavy build, noisy, big ginger moustache and ginger shock of hair

Busman: fat, bald, short-sighted Jew

Alquist: older than the others, dressed without care, long grey hair and beard

Helena: very elegant

In the play proper, all ten years older.

In the introductory scene, the robots are dressed like people.  They are slightly mechanical in their speech and movements, blank of expression, fixed in their gaze.  In the play proper they wear linen blouses seized at the waist with a  belt and on their breasts wear a brass number

Intervals after the introductory scene and the second act.

Introductory Scene

Central office at the factory of Rossum‘s Universal Robots. Entrance stage right. Through the windows can be seen endless rows of factory buildings. Stage left, further administrative areas.

Domin: (Sitting at a large American desk in a swivelling chair. On the table are a lamp, telephone, paperweight, files, letters, papers etc. On the wall, stage left, are large maps showing shipping lines and railway lines, large calendar, clock showing just before midday; on the wall stage right are printed posters: “The Cheapest Workforce You Can Get: Rossum’s Robots”, “Latest invention; Robots for the Tropics. 150 d. each”, “Everyone Should have a Robot!”, “Reduce the Cost of your Products! Order a Robot from Rossum’s!”. Also other maps, shipping timetable, notice board with telegrams, rates of exchange etc. In contrast with the content of the walls, the floor is covered with a magnificent Turkish carpet, stage right is as round armchair, settee, sumptuous leather armchair, bookshelves containing not books but bottles of wines and spirits. Stage left, safe. Beside Domin’s desk a typewriter at which Sulla is writing)

Domin: (dictating) “… cannot take responsibility for items damaged in transit. The captain of your vessel was given warning at time of loading that it was not suitable for the carriage of robots, and so damage to its cargo cannot be charged to our account. Yours faithfully, Rossum’s Universal Robots.” Is that it now?

Sulla: Yes

Domin: New letter. Friedrichswerke, Hamburg. Date. “We are pleased to confirm receipt of your order for fifteen thousand robots …” (telephone rings. Domin lifts receiver and speaks) Hello, central office … yes … certainly … oh yes, as always … of course, send him a telegram … fine! (hangs up) Where were we?

Sulla: … your order for fifteen thousand robots.

Domin: (thoughtfully) fifteen thousand robots, fifteen thousand robots,

Marius: (enters) Mr. Domin, there is a lady outside who is asking …

Domin: Who is it?

Marius: I do not know. (gives him visiting card)

Domin: (reading) Mr. Glory, managing director of … Show him in!

Marius: (opens door) Please come in, madam.

(enter Helena Glory. Exit Marius)

Domin: (standing) Do come in.

Helena: Mr. Domin, the managing director?

Domin: At your service

Helena: I’ve come to see you …

Domin: … with the visiting card of Mr. Glory — no more need be said.

Helena: Mr. Glory is my father. I’m Helena Glory.

Domin: Miss Glory, this is an exceptional honour for us that …

Helena: … that you can’t just show me the door

Domin: … that we can welcome the daughter of an illustrious businessman like you father. Please take a seat. Sulla, you can go now (exit Sulla)

Domin: (sitting) How can I help you, Miss Glory?

Helena: I’ve come here …

Domin: … to see our factory for making people for yourself. All our visitors want to see the factory. And of course you’re very welcome.

Helena: I thought it wasn’t allowed to …

Domin: … enter the factory? Well, of course it’s not, but everyone who comes here has a recommendation from somebody, Miss Glory.

Helena: And do you let everyone see it …  ?

Domin: Not all of it. Making artificial people is an industrial secret.

Helena: Why will you never let me finish what I say?

Domin: Oh, I’m sorry. Is that not what you were going to say?

Helena: I was going to ask …

Domin: … whether I might show you something in our factory that the others aren’t allowed to see. Well, I’m sure that’ll be OK, Miss Glory.

Helena: What makes you think that’s what I was going to ask?

Domin: Everyone asks for the same thing. (standing) I can personally show you more than the others are allowed to see.

Helena: Thank you.

Domin: All I ask is that you don’t say anything at all to anyone else.

Helena: (stands and offers her hand) Word of honour.

Domin: Thank you. Would you not like to take off your veil?

Helena: Oh, of course, you’ll be wanting to see my face. Do excuse me.

Domin: That’s alright.

Helena: And, if you would just let go of my hand …

Domin: (releases hand) I’m sorry, I forgot.

Helena: (removes veil) Do you want to make sure I’m not a spy. You seem very careful.

Domin: (looks at her, enchanted) Hm — oh, yes, — well — that’s just how we are.

Helena: Don’t you trust me?

Domin: Exceptionally. Miss, er, do excuse me Miss Glory. This really is an exceptional pleasure. Did you have a good crossing?

Helena: Yes. Why?

Domin: Because — well, that is — because you are very young.

Helena: Are we going into the factory now?

Domin: Yes. I suppose about twenty-two?

Helena: Twenty-two what?

Domin: Years.

Helena: Twenty-one. Why do you want to know that?

Domin: Because … sort of … (with enthusiasm) You will be staying here for some time, won’t you.

Helena: That depends on how much you choose to show me.

Domin: Ah, the damned factory! But of course, Miss Glory, you can see everything. Do please sit down. Would you be interested in hearing the history of our invention?

Helena: Yes, I would. (sits)

Domin: Well this is what happened. (sits at desk, seems captivated by Helena and speaks quickly) It was in 1920 when old Rossum, still a young man then but a great scientist, came to live on this isolated island in order to study marine biology. Stop. Alongside his studies, he made several attempts to synthesise the chemical structure of living tissues, known as protoplasm, and he eventually discovered a material that behaved just the same as living tissue despite being, chemically, quite different. That was in 1932, exactly four hundred and forty years after the discovery of America.

Helena: Do you know all this by heart?

Domin: I do. Physiology really isn’t my subject. Shall I carry on?

Helena: If you like.

Domin: (triumphant) And then, Miss Glory, this is what he wrote down in his chemical notes: “Nature has found only one way of organising living matter. There is however another way which is simpler, easier to mould, and quicker to produce than Nature ever stumbled across. This other path along which life might have developed is what I have just discovered.” Just think: he wrote these words about a blob of some kind of coloidal jelly that not even a dog would eat. Imagine him sitting with a test tube and thinking about how it could grow out into an entire tree of life made of all the animals starting with a tiny coil of life and ending with … ending with man himself. Man made of different material than we are. Miss Glory, this was one of the great moments of history.

Helena: What happened next?

Domin: Next? Next he had to get this life out of the test tube and speed up its development so that it would create some of organs needed such as bone and nerves and all sorts of things and find materials such as catalysts and enzymes and hormones and so on and in short … are you understanding all of this?

Helena: I … I’m not sure. Perhaps not all of it.

Domin: I don’t understand any of it. It’s just that using this slime he could make whatever he wanted. He could have made a Medusa with the brain of Socrates or a worm fifty meters long. But old Rossum didn’t have a trace of humour about him, so he got it into his head to make a normal vertebrate, such as human being. And so that’s what he started doing.

Helena: What exactly was it he tried to do?

Domin: Imitating Nature. First he tried to make an artificial dog. It took him years and years, and the result was something like a malformed deer which died after a few days. I can show you it in the museum. And then he set to work making a human being.

(Pause)

Helena: And that’s what I’m not allowed to tell anyone?

Domin: No-one whatsoever.

Helena: Pity it’s in all the papers then.

Domin: That is a pity. (jumps off desk and sits beside Helena) But do you know what’s not in all the papers? (taps his forehead) That old Rossum was completely mad. Seriously. But keep that to yourself. He was quite mad. He seriously wanted to make a human being.

Helena: Well that’s what you do, isn’t it?

Domin: Something like that, yes, but old Rossum meant it entirely literally. He wanted, in some scientific way, to take the place of God. He was a convinced materialist, and that’s why he wanted to do everything simply to prove that there was no God needed. That’s how he had had the idea of making a human being, just like you or me down to the smallest hair. Do you know anything about anatomy, Miss Glory?

Helena: Er, not really, no.

Domin: No, nor do I. But just think of how old Rossum got it into his head to make everything, every gland, every organ, just as they are in the human body. The Appendix. The tonsils. The belly-button. Even the things with no function and even, er, even the sexual organs.

Helena: But the sexual organs would, er, they’d …

Domin: They do have a function, I realise that. But if people are going to be made artificially then, er, then there’s not really much need for them.

Helena: I see what you mean.

Domin: In the museum I’ll show you the monstrosity he created over the ten years he was working. It was supposed to be a man, but it lived for a total of three days. Old Rossum had no taste whatsoever. This thing is horrible, just horrible what he did. But on the inside it’s got all the things that a man’s supposed to have. Really! The detail of the work is quite amazing. And then Rossum’s nephew came out here. Now this man, Miss Glory, he was a genius. As soon as he saw what the old man was doing he said, ‘This is ridiculous, to spend ten years making a man; if you can’t do it quicker than Nature then you might as well give up on it’. And then he began to study anatomy himself.

Helena: That’s not what they say in the papers either.

Domin: (standing) What they say in the papers are paid advertisements and all sorts of nonsense. They say the old man invented the robots himself, for one thing. What the old man did might have been alright for a university but he had no idea at all about industrial production. He thought he’d be making real people, real Indians or real professors or real idiots. It was young Rossum who had the idea of making robots that would be a living and intelligent workforce. What they say in the papers about the two great men working together is just a fairy tale — in fact they never stopped arguing. The old atheist had no idea about industry and commerce, and the young man ended up shutting him up in his laboratory where he could play around with his great failures while he got on with the real job himself in a proper scientific way. Old Rossum literally cursed him. He carried on in his laboratory, producing two more physiological monstrosities, until one day they found him there dead. And that’s the whole story.

Helena: And then, what did the young one do?

Domin: Ah now, young Rossum; that was the start of a new age. After the age of research came the age of production. He took a good look at the human body and he saw straight away that it was much too complicated, any good engineer would design it much more simply. So he began to re-design the whole anatomy, seeing what he could leave out or simplify. In short, Miss Glory … I’m not boring you, am I?

Helena: No, quite the opposite, this is fascinating.

Domin: So young Rossum said to himself: Man is a being that does things such as feeling happiness, plays the violin, likes to go for a walk, and all sorts of other things which are simply not needed.

Helena: Oh, I see!