R.U.R. | Page 3

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