FATHER GERÁSIM. Excuse me. When Pilate[32] said, “I adjure thee by the living God,” Christ accepted his oath by replying “I am.”
[32] Father Gerásim attributes to Pilate what was said by Caiaphas the high priest.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Dear me! What are you saying? That is really absurd.
FATHER GERÁSIM. That is why the Church does not permit everyone to interpret the Gospel, lest he should go astray, but like a mother caring for her child gives him an interpretation suitable to his strength. No, let me finish! The Church does not lay on its children burdens too heavy for them to bear, but demands that they should keep the Commandments: love, do no murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Yes! Do not kill me, do not steal from me my stolen goods. We have all robbed the people, we have stolen their land and have then made a law forbidding them to steal it back; and the Church sanctions all these things.
FATHER GERÁSIM. Heresy and spiritual pride are speaking through you. You ought to conquer your intellectual pride.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. It is not pride. I am only asking you what should I do according to Christ’s law, when I have become conscious of the sin of robbing the people and enslaving them by means of the land. How am I to act? Continue to own land and to profit by the labour of starving men: putting them to this kind of work [points to Servant who is bringing in the lunch and some wine], or am I to return the land to those from whom my ancestors stole it?
FATHER GERÁSIM. You must act as behoves a son of the Church. You have a family and children, and you must keep and educate them in a way suitable to their position.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Why?
FATHER GERÁSIM. Because God has placed you in that position. If you wish to be charitable, be charitable by giving away part of your property and by visiting the poor.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. But how is it that the rich young man was told that the rich cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven?
FATHER GERÁSIM. It is said, “If thou wouldest be perfect.”
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. But I do wish to be perfect. The Gospels say, “Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven …”
FATHER GERÁSIM. But we have to understand in what connection a thing is said.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. I do try to understand, and all that is said in the Sermon on the Mount is plain and comprehensible.
FATHER GERÁSIM. Spiritual pride.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Where is the pride, since it is said that what is hidden from the wise is revealed to babes?
FATHER GERÁSIM. Revealed to the meek, but not to the proud.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. But who is proud? I, who consider myself a man like the rest of mankind, and one who therefore must live like the rest by his own labour and as poorly as his brother men, or those who consider themselves to be specially selected sacred people, knowing the whole truth and incapable of error; and who interpret Christ’s words their own way?
FATHER GERÁSIM [offended] Pardon me, Nicholas Ivánovich, I did not come here to argue which of us is right, nor to receive an admonition, but I called, at Alexándra Ivánovna’s request, to talk things over with you. But since you know everything better than I do, we had better end our conversation. Only, once again, I must entreat you in God’s name to come to your senses. You have gone cruelly astray and are ruining yourself. [Rises].
MARY IVÁNOVNA. Won’t you have something to eat?
FATHER GERÁSIM. No, I thank you. [Exit with Alexándra Ivánovna].
MARY IVÁNOVNA [to young Priest] And what now?
PRIEST. Well, in my opinion, Nicholas Ivánovich spoke the truth, and Father Gerásim produced no argument on his side.
PRINCESS. He was not allowed to speak, and he did not like having a kind of debate with everybody listening. It was his modesty that made him withdraw.
BORÍS. It wasn’t modesty at all. All he said was so false. It was evident that he had nothing to say.
PRINCESS. Yes, with your usual instability I see that you are beginning to agree with Nicholas Ivánovich about everything. If you believe such things you ought not to marry.
BORÍS. I only say that truth is truth, and I can’t help saying it.
PRINCESS. You of all people should not talk like that.
BORÍS. Why not?
PRINCESS. Because you are poor, and have nothing to give away. However, all this is not our business. [Exit, followed by all except Nicholas Ivánovich and Mary Ivánovna].
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [sits pondering, then smiles at his own thoughts] Mary! What is all this for? Why did you invite that wretched, erring man? Why do those noisy women and that priest come into our most intimate life? Can we not settle our own affairs?
MARY IVÁNOVNA. What am I to do, if you want to leave the children penniless? That is what I cannot quietly submit to. You know that I am not grasping, and that I want nothing for myself.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. I know, I know and believe it. But the misfortune is that you do not trust the truth. I know you see it, but you can’t make up your mind to rely on it. You rely neither on the truth nor on me. Yet you trust the crowd–the Princess and the rest of them.
MARY IVÁNOVNA. I believe in you, I always did; but when you want to let the children go begging …
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. That means that you do not rely on me. Do you think I have not struggled and have not feared! But afterwards I became convinced that this course is not only possible but obligatory, and that it is the one thing necessary and good for the children themselves. You always say that were it not for the children you would follow me, but I say that if we had no children we might live as we are doing; we should then only be injuring ourselves, but now we are injuring them too.
MARY IVÁNOVNA. But what am I to do, if I don’t understand?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. And what am I to do? Don’t I know why that wretched man–dressed up in his cassock and wearing that cross–was sent for, and why Alexándra Ivánovna brought the Notary? You want me to hand the estate over to you, but I can’t. You know that I have loved you all the twenty years we have lived together. I love you and wish you well, and therefore cannot sign away the estate to you. If I sign it away at all, it can only be to give it back to those from whom it has been taken–the peasants. And I can’t let things remain as they are, but must give it to them. I’m glad the Notary has come; and I will do it.
MARY IVÁNOVNA. No, that is dreadful! Why this cruelty? Though you think it a sin, still give it to me. [Weeps].
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. You don’t know what you are saying. If I give it to you, I cannot go on living with you; I shall have to go away. I cannot continue to live under these conditions. I shall not be able to look on while the life-blood is squeezed out of the peasants and they are imprisoned, in your name if not in mine. So choose!
MARY IVÁNOVNA. How cruel you are! Is this Christianity? It is harshness! I cannot, after all, live as you want me to. I cannot rob my own children and give everything away to other people; and that is why you want to desert me. Well–do so! I see you have ceased loving me, and I even know why.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Very well then–I will sign; but, Mary, you demand the impossible of me. [Goes to writing-table and signs] You wished it, but I shall not be able to go on living like this.
Curtain.
ACT III
SCENE 1
The scene is laid in Moscow. A large room. In it a carpenter’s bench; a table with papers on it; a book-cupboard; a looking-glass and pictures on the wall behind, with some planks leaning in front of them. A Carpenter and Nicholas Ivánovich wearing a carpenter’s apron are working at the bench, planing.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [takes a board from the vice] Is that all right?
CARPENTER [setting a plane] Not quite, you must do it more boldly–like this.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. It is easy to say boldly, but I can’t manage it.
CARPENTER. But why should your honour trouble to learn to be a carpenter? There are such a lot of us nowadays that we can hardly get a living as it is.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [at work again] I’m ashamed to lead an idle life.
CARPENTER. Yours is that kind of position. God has given you property.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. That’s just where it is. I don’t believe that God gave it, but that some of us have taken it, and taken it from our brother men.
CARPENTER [taken aback] That’s so! But still you’ve no need to do this.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. I understand that it must seem strange to you that while living in this house where there is such superfluity, I should wish to earn something.
CARPENTER [laughs] No. Everybody knows that gentlefolk want to master everything. Well, now go over it again with the smoothing plane.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. You won’t believe me and will laugh, but still I must tell you that formerly I was not ashamed to live in this way, but now that I believe in Christ’s
