NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. What are you saying? He’s quite ill!
WOMAN. He’s ill, and what about me? Am I not ill? When it’s work, he’s ill; but to merry-make or pull my hair out, he’s not too ill. Let him die like a hound! What do I care?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. How can you say such wicked things?
WOMAN. I know it’s a sin; but I can’t subdue my heart. I’m expecting another child, and I have to work for two. Other people have their harvest in already, and we have not mowed a quarter of our oats yet. I ought to finish binding the sheaves, but can’t. I had to come and see what the children were about.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. The oats shall be cut–I’ll hire someone, and to bind the sheaves too.
WOMAN. Oh, binding’s nothing. I can do that myself, if it’s only mown down quick. What d’you think, Nicholas Ivánovich, will he die? He is very ill!
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. I don’t know. But he really is very ill. I think we must send him to the hospital.
WOMAN. Oh God! [Begins to cry] Don’t take him away, let him die here.[28] [To her husband, who utters something] What’s the matter?
[28] The woman, for all her roughness, is sorry to part from her husband.
IVÁN ZYÁBREV. I want to go to the hospital. Here I’m treated worse than a dog.
WOMAN. Well, I don’t know. I’ve lost my head. Maláshka, get dinner ready.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. What have you for dinner?
WOMAN. What? Why, potatoes and bread, and not enough of that. [Enters hut. A pig squeals, and children are crying inside].
IVÁN ZYÁBREV [groans] Oh Lord, if I could but die!
Enter Borís.
BORÍS. Can I be of any use?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Here no one can be of use to another. The evil is too deeply rooted. Here we can only be of use to ourselves, by seeing on what we build our happiness. Here is a family: five children, the wife pregnant, the husband ill, nothing but potatoes to eat, and at this moment the question is being decided whether they are to have enough to eat next year or not. Help is not possible. How can one help? Suppose I hire a labourer; who will he be? Just such another man: one who has given up his farming, from drink or from want.
BORÍS. Excuse me, but if so, what are you doing here?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. I am learning my own position. Finding out who weeds our gardens, builds our houses, makes our garments, and feeds and clothes us. [Peasants with scythes and women with rakes pass by and bow. Nicholas Ivánovich, stopping one of the Peasants] Ermíl, won’t you take on the job of carting for these people?
ERMÍL [shakes his head] I would with all my heart, but I can’t possibly do it. I haven’t carted my own yet. We are off now to do some carting. But is Iván dying?
ANOTHER PEASANT. Here’s Sebastian, he may take on the job. I say, Daddy Sebastian! They want a man to get the oats in.
SEBASTIAN. Take the job on yourself. At this time of year one day’s work brings a year’s food. [The Peasants pass on].
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. They are all half-starved; they have only bread and water, they are ill, and many of them are old. That old man, for instance, is ruptured and is suffering, and yet he works from four in the morning to ten at night, though he is only half alive. And we? Is it possible, realising all this, to live quietly and consider oneself a Christian? Or let alone a Christian–simply not a beast?
BORÍS. But what can one do?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Not take part in this evil. Not own the land, nor devour the fruits of their labour. How this can be arranged, I don’t yet know. The fact of the matter is–at any rate it was so with me–I lived and did not realise how I was living. I did not realise that I am a son of God and that we are all sons of God–and all brothers. But as soon as I realised it–realised that we have all an equal right to live–my whole life was turned upside down. But I cannot explain it to you now. I will only tell you this: I was blind, just as my people at home are, but now my eyes are opened and I cannot help seeing; and seeing it all, I can’t continue to live in such a way. However, that will keep till later. Now we must see what can be done.
Enter Policeman, Peter, his wife, and boy.
PETER [falls at Nicholas Ivánovich’s feet] Forgive me, for the Lord’s sake, or I’m ruined. How can the woman get in the harvest? If at least I might be bailed out.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. I will go and write a petition for you. [To Policeman] Can’t you let him remain here for the present?
POLICEMAN. Our orders are to take him to the police-station now.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [to Peter] Well then go, and I’ll do what I can. This is evidently my doing. How can one go on living like this? [Exit].
Curtain.
SCENE 3
In the same country-house. It is raining outside. A drawing-room with a grand piano. Tónya has just finished playing a sonata of Schumann’s and is sitting at the piano. Styópa is standing by the piano. Borís is sitting. Lyúba, Lisa, Mitrofán Ermílych and the young Priest are all stirred by the music.
LYÚBA. That andante! Isn’t it lovely!
STYÓPA. No, the scherzo. Though really the whole of it is beautiful.
LISA. Very fine.
STYÓPA. But I had no idea you were such an artist. It is real masterly play. Evidently the difficulties no longer exist for you, and you think only of the feeling, and express it with wonderful delicacy.
LYÚBA. Yes, and with dignity.
TÓNYA. While I felt that it was not at all what I meant it to be. A great deal remained unexpressed.
LISA. What could be better? It was wonderful.
LYÚBA. Schumann is good, but all the same Chopin takes a stronger hold of one’s heart.
STYÓPA. He is more lyrical.
TÓNYA. There is no comparison.
LYÚBA. Do you remember his prelude?
TÓNYA. Oh, the one called the George Sand prelude? [Plays the commencement].
LYÚBA. No, not that one. That is very fine, but so hackneyed. Do play this one. [Tónya plays what she can of it, and then breaks off].
TÓNYA. Oh, that is a lovely thing. There is something elemental about it–older than creation.
STYÓPA [laughs] Yes, yes. Do play it. But no, you are too tired. As it is, we have had a delightful morning, thanks to you.
TÓNYA [rises and looks out of window] There are some more peasants waiting outside.
LYÚBA. That is why music is so precious. I understand Saul. Though I’m not tormented by devils, I still understand him. No other art can make one so forget everything else as music does. [Approaches the window. To Peasants] Whom do you want?
PEASANTS. We have been sent to speak to Nicholas Ivánovich.
LYÚBA. He is not in. You must wait.
TÓNYA. And yet you are marrying Borís who understands nothing about music.
LYÚBA. Oh, surely not.
BORÍS [absently] Music? Oh no. I like music, or rather I don’t dislike it. Only I prefer something simpler–I like songs.
TÓNYA. But is not this sonata lovely?
BORÍS. The chief thing is, that it is not important; and it rather hurts me, when I think of the lives men live, that so much importance is attached to music.
They all eat sweetmeats, which are standing on the table.
LISA. How nice it is to have a fiancé here and sweetmeats provided!
BORÍS. Oh that is not my doing. It’s mamma’s.
TÓNYA. And quite right too.
LYÚBA. Music is precious because it seizes us, takes possession of us, and carries us away from reality. Everything seemed gloomy till you suddenly began to play, and really it has made everything brighter.
LISA. And Chopin’s valses. They are hackneyed, but all the same …
TÓNYA. This … [plays].
Enter Nicholas Ivánovich. He greets Borís, Tónya, Styópa, Lisa, Mitrofán Ermílych and the Priest.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Where’s mamma?
LYÚBA. I think she’s in the nursery.
Styópa calls the Man-servant.
LYÚBA. Papa, how wonderfully Tónya plays! And where have you been?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. In the village.
Enter servant, Afanásy.
STYÓPA. Bring another samovár.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [greets the Man-servant, and shakes hands with him[29]] Good-day. [Servant becomes confused. Exit Servant. Nicholas Ivánovich also goes off].
[29] People shake hands much more often in Russia than in England, but it is quite unusual to shake hands with a servant, and Nicholas Ivánovich does it in consequence of his belief that all men are brothers.
STYÓPA. Poor Afanásy! He was terribly confused. I can’t understand papa. It is as if we were guilty of something.
Enter Nicholas Ivánovich.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. I was going back to my room without having told you what I feel. [To Tónya] If what I say should offend you–who are our guest–forgive me, but I cannot help saying it. You, Lisa, say that Tónya plays well. All you here, seven or eight healthy young men and women, have slept till ten o’clock, have eaten and drunk and are still eating; and you play and discuss music: while there, where I have just been, they were all up at three in the morning, and those who pastured the horses at night have not slept at all; and old and young, the sick and the weak, children and nursing-mothers and pregnant women are working to the utmost limits of their strength, so that we here may consume the fruits of their labour. Nor is that all.
At this very moment, one of them, the only breadwinner of a family, is being dragged to prison because he has cut down one
