Alexis monologue — The Game of Chess: A Play in One Act

Ah, your order against mine, eh? Centuries of pain against centuries of oppression. Well, well! You set aside to-day, do you? You throw your own little pains and penalties out of the scale on one side, and my little tyrannies and floggings and acts of villainy out on the other? You see yourself only as the avenger of a caste against a caste. The right of vengeance and the need of it comes down to you in the blood, does it? You’re exalted by the breath of dead peasants, are you? It’s because of that and only because of it that you take pride in the work you have set your hand to. Huh! Grotesque! You strike the air with a rod of smoke. You’ve stumbled upon the essence of the inane. You’re about to commit a fantastic mockery of Justice.