SERVANTS’ COOK. Rather! Why, he has a room all to himself; he gets his washing, his tea and sugar, and food from the master’s table.
DISCHARGED COOK [on the oven]. Why shouldn’t the old beggar live well? He’s lined his pockets all right!
SECOND PEASANT. Who’s that up there, on the oven?
SERVANTS’ COOK. Oh, it’s only a man.
Silence.
FIRST PEASANT. Well, and you too, as I noticed a while since when you were supping, have capital food to eat.
SERVANTS’ COOK. We can’t complain. She’s not mean about the food. We have wheat bread every Sunday, and fish when a holiday happens to be a fast-day too, and those who like may eat meat.
SECOND PEASANT. And does any one tuck into flesh on fast-days?
SERVANTS’ COOK. Oh, they nearly all do! Only the old coachman–not the one who was here just now but the old one–and Simon, and I and the housekeeper, fast–all the others eat meat.
SECOND PEASANT. And the master himself?
SERVANTS’ COOK. Catch him! Why, I bet he’s forgotten there is such a thing as fasting!
THIRD PEASANT. Oh Lord!
FIRST PEASANT. That’s the gentlefolks’ way: they have got it all out of their books. ‘Cos of their intelex!
THIRD PEASANT. Shouldn’t wonder if they feed on wheat bread every day!
SERVANTS’ COOK. Wheat bread indeed! Much they think of wheat bread! You should see what food they eat. No end of different things!
FIRST PEASANT. In course gentlefolks’ food is of an airial kind.
SERVANTS’ COOK. Airial, of course, but all the same they’re good at stuffing themselves, they are!
FIRST PEASANT. Have healthy appekites, so to say.
SERVANTS’ COOK. ‘Cos they always rinse it down! All with sweet wines, and spirits, and fizzy liquors. They have a different one to suit every kind of food. They eat and rinse it down, and eat and rinse it down, they do.
FIRST PEASANT. And so the food’s floated down in proportion, so to say.
SERVANTS’ COOK. Ah yes, they are good at stuffing! It’s awful! You see, it’s not just sitting down, eating, then saying grace and going away–they’re always at it!
SECOND PEASANT. Like pigs with their feet in the trough! [Peasants laugh].
SERVANTS’ COOK. As soon as, by God’s grace, they have opened their eyes, the samovár is brought in–tea, coffee, chocolate. Hardly is the second samovár emptied, a third has to be set. Then lunch, then dinner, then again coffee. They’ve hardly left off, then comes tea, and all sorts of tit-bits and sweetmeats–there’s never an end to it! They even lie in bed and eat!
THIRD PEASANT. There now; that’s good! [Laughs].
FIRST AND SECOND PEASANTS. What are you about?
THIRD PEASANT. If I could only live a single day like that!
SECOND PEASANT. But when do they do their work?
SERVANTS’ COOK. Work indeed! What is their work? Cards and piano–that’s all their work. The young lady used to sit down to the piano as soon as she opened her eyes, and off she’d go! And that other one who lives here, the teacher, stands and waits. “When will the piano be free?” When one has finished, off rattles the other, and sometimes they’d put two pianos near one another and four of ’em would bust out at once. Bust out in such a manner, you could hear ’em down here!
THIRD PEASANT. Oh Lord!
SERVANTS’ COOK. Well, and that’s all the work they do! Piano or cards! As soon as they have met together–cards, wine, smoking, and so on all night long. And as soon as they are up: eating again!
Enter Simon.
SIMON. Hope you’re enjoying your tea!
FIRST PEASANT. Come and join us.
SIMON [comes up to the table] Thank you kindly. [First Peasant pours out a cup of tea for him].
SECOND PEASANT. Where have you been?
SIMON. Upstairs.
SECOND PEASANT. Well, and what was being done there?
SIMON. Why, I couldn’t make it out at all! I don’t know how to explain it.
SECOND PEASANT. But what was it?
SIMON. I can’t explain it. They have been trying some kind of strength in me. I can’t make it out. Tánya says, “Do it, and we’ll get the land for our peasants; he’ll sell it them.”
SECOND PEASANT. But how is she going to manage it?
SIMON. I can’t make it out, and she won’t say. She says, “Do as I tell you,” and that’s all.
SECOND PEASANT. But what is it you have to do?
SIMON. Nothing just now. They made me sit down, put out the lights and told me to sleep. And Tánya had hidden herself there. They didn’t see her, but I did.
SECOND PEASANT. Why? What for?
SIMON. The Lord only knows–I can’t make it out.
FIRST PEASANT. Naturally it is for the distraction of time.
SECOND PEASANT. Well, it’s clear you and I can make nothing of it. You had better tell me whether you have taken all your wages yet.
SIMON. No, I’ve not drawn any. I have twenty-eight roubles to the good, I think.
SECOND PEASANT. That’s all right! Well, if God grants that we get the land, I’ll take you home, Simon.
SIMON. With all my heart!
SECOND PEASANT. You’ve got spoilt, I should say. You’ll not want to plough?
SIMON. Plough? Only give me the chance! Plough or mow,–I’m game. Those are things one doesn’t forget.
FIRST PEASANT. But it don’t seem very desirous after town life, for example? Eh!
SIMON. It’s good enough for me. One can live in the country too.
FIRST PEASANT. And Daddy Mítry here, is already on the look-out for your place; he’s hankering after a life of luckshury!
SIMON. Eh, Daddy Mítry, you’d soon get sick of it. It seems easy enough when one looks at it, but there’s a lot of running about that takes it out of one.
SERVANTS’ COOK. You should see one of their balls, Daddy Mítry, then you would be surprised!
THIRD PEASANT. Why, do they eat all the time?
SERVANTS’ COOK. My eye! You should have seen what we had here awhile ago. Theodore Ivánitch took me upstairs and I peeped in. The ladies–awful! Dressed up! Dressed up, bless my heart, and all bare down to here, and their arms bare.
THIRD PEASANT. Oh Lord!
SECOND PEASANT. Faugh! How beastly!
FIRST PEASANT. I take it the climate allows of that sort of thing!
SERVANTS’ COOK. Well, daddy, so I peeped in. Dear me, what it was like! All of ’em in their natural skins! Would you believe it: old women–our mistress, only think, she’s a grandmother, and even she’d gone and bared her shoulders.
THIRD PEASANT. Oh Lord!
SERVANTS’ COOK. And what next? The music strikes up, and each man of ’em went up to his own, catches hold of her, and off they go twirling round and round!
SECOND PEASANT. The old women too?
SERVANTS’ COOK. Yes, the old ones too.
SIMON. No, the old ones sit still.
SERVANTS’ COOK. Get along,–I’ve seen it myself!
SIMON. No they don’t.
DISCHARGED COOK [in a hoarse voice, looking down from the oven] That’s the Polka-Mazurka. You fools don’t understand what dancing is. The way they dance …
SERVANTS’ COOK. Shut up, you dancer! And keep quiet–there’s some one coming.
Enter Gregory; old Cook hides hurriedly.
GREGORY [to Servants’ Cook] Bring some sour cabbage.
SERVANTS’ COOK. I am only just up from the cellar, and now I must go down again! Who is it for?
GREGORY. For the young ladies. Be quick, and send it up with Simon. I can’t wait!
SERVANTS’ COOK. There now, they tuck into sweetmeats till they are full up, and then they crave for sour cabbage!
FIRST PEASANT. That’s to make a clearance.
SERVANTS’ COOK. Of course, and as soon as there is room inside, they begin again! [Takes basin, and exit].
GREGORY [at Peasants] Look at them, how they’ve established themselves down here! Mind, if the mistress finds it out she’ll give it you hot, like she did this morning! [Exit, laughing].
FIRST PEASANT. That’s just it, she did raise a storm that time–awful!
SECOND PEASANT. That time it looked as if the master was going to step in, but seeing that the missus was about to blow the very roof off the house, he slams the door. Have your own way, thinks he.
THIRD PEASANT [waving his arm] It’s the same everywhere. My old woman, let’s say, she kicks up such a rumpus sometimes–it’s just awful! Then I just get out of the hut. Let her go to Jericho! She’ll give you one with the poker if you don’t mind. Oh Lord!
Jacob enters hurriedly with a prescription.
JACOB. Here, Simon, you run to the chemist’s and get these powders for the mistress!
SIMON. But master told me not to go out.
JACOB. You’ve plenty of time; your business won’t begin till after their tea. Hope you are enjoying your tea!
FIRST PEASANT. Thanks, come and join us.
Exit Simon.
JACOB. I haven’t time. However, I’ll just have one cup for company’s sake.
FIRST PEASANT. And we’ve just been having a conversation as to how your mistress carried on so haughty this morning.
JACOB. Oh, she’s a reg’lar fury! So hot-tempered, that she gets quite beside herself. Sometimes she even bursts out crying.
FIRST PEASANT. Now, there’s a thing I wanted to ask you about. What, for example, be these mikerots she was illuding to erewhile? “They’ve infested the house with mikerots, with mikerots,” she says. What is one to make of these same mikerots?
JACOB. Mikerogues, you mean! Well, it seems there is such a kind of bugs; all illnesses come from them, they say. So she says there are some of ’em on you. After you were gone, they washed and washed and sprinkled the place where you had stood. There’s a kind of physic as kills these same bugs, they say.
SECOND PEASANT. Then where have we got these bugs on us?
JACOB [drinking his tea] Why, they say they’re so small that one can’t see ’em even through a glass.
SECOND PEASANT. Then how does
