PARATOV. As you wish. Listen, Larisa Dmitriyevna, can you admit the possibility of a momentary passion?
LARISA. I can. I myself am capable of being carried away.
PARATOV. No, I didn’t express myself properly. Can you admit the possibility that a man chained hand and foot by unbreakable chains could be so carried away that he would forget everything in the world, that he would even forget the reality oppressing him, even forget his chains?
LARISA. Well, so what! It’s a good thing he does forget them.
PARATOV. A state of mind like that is a very good thing, I won’t argue with you, but it’s not long-lasting. The intoxication of ardent passion soon wears off, leaving the chains and common sense, which says that it’s impossible to break those chains, that they’re unbreakable.
LARISA (pensively). Unbreakable chains! (Quickly.) Are you married?
PARATOV. No.
LARISA. But all other chains are no hindrance! We’ll carry them together, I’ll share this burden with you, I’ll take the greater share of the weight myself.
PARATOV. I’m engaged.
LARISA. Oh!
PARATOV (showing the engagement ring). You see the golden chains by which I’m chained for the rest of my life.
LARISA. But why didn’t you tell me? It’s shameless, shameless! (She sits down on a chair.)
PARATOV. But was I really in a condition to remember anything! I saw you, and nothing more existed for me.
LARISA. Look at me!
Paratov looks at her.
“Your eyes shine bright like heaven’s light…”11 Ha, ha, ha! (She laughs hysterically.) Get away from me! I’ve had enough! I’ll do my own thinking about myself. (She rests her head on her hand.)
Knurov, Vozhevatov, and Robinson come out onto the steps of the coffee house.
PARATOV (going toward the coffee house). Robinson, go look for my carriage. It’s there by the boulevard. You’ll take Larisa Dmitriyevna home.
ROBINSON. La Serge! He’s here, he’s going about with a pistol.
PARATOV. Who’s “he”?
ROBINSON. Karandyshov.
PARATOV. What does that have to do with me?
ROBINSON. He’ll kill me.
PARATOV. A matter of importance! Do what you’re told! Without arguments! I don’t like that, Robinson.
ROBINSON. I’m telling you, as soon as he sees me with her, he’ll kill me.
PARATOV. Whether he’ll kill you or not is still a question, but if you don’t do right away what I’ve told you, then I’ll kill you for sure. (He goes off into the coffee house.)
ROBINSON (threatening with his fist). Oh you barbarians, you highway robbers! What company I’ve fallen in with! (He goes off.)
Vozhevatov goes up to Larisa.
LARISA (looking at Vozhevatov). Vasya, I’m lost!
VOZHEVATOV. Larisa Dmitriyevna, my dear! What can you do! It can’t be helped.
LARISA. Vasya, you and I have known each other since childhood, we’re almost relatives. What am I to do? Teach me.
VOZHEVATOV. Larisa Dmitriyevna, I respect you, and I’d be glad… there’s nothing I can do. Believe me.
LARISA. But I’m not asking you for anything, I’m only asking you to show me a little pity. Well, perhaps cry a bit with me.
VOZHEVATOV. I can’t, there’s nothing I can do.
LARISA. Do you have chains too?
VOZHEVATOV. I’m in irons, Larisa Dmitriyevna.
LARISA. What kind of irons?
VOZHEVATOV. A merchant’s word of honor. (He goes off into the coffee house.)
KNUROV (approaches Larisa). Larisa Dmitriyevna, listen to me and don’t take offense. I have no intention of offending you. I only wish you the good and happiness you so fully deserve. Wouldn’t you like to go with me to Paris, to the exposition?
Larisa shakes her head no.
And have full security for the rest of your life?
Larisa remains silent.
Don’t be afraid of shame, there won’t be any condemnations. There are boundaries which condemnation does not cross. I can offer you such tremendous wealth that even the meanest critics of other people’s morals will have to keep still and open their mouths in astonishment.
Larisa turns her head to the other side.
I wouldn’t hesitate a moment to offer you my hand, but I’m married.
Larisa remains silent.
You’re upset, I don’t have the right to hurry your answer. Think about it. If you feel you can give my offer a favorable reply, let me know, and from that very moment I’ll be your most devoted servant, and I’ll carry out absolutely exactly all your wishes and whims no matter how strange or expensive. For me the impossible would be too little. (He bows respectfully and goes off into the coffee house. Larisa is left alone.)
LARISA. A little while ago I looked down over the railing, my head was spinning, and I almost fell. And if one falls down there, they say it’s… certain death. (She thinks.) It would be a good thing to throw myself down! No, why throw myself down!… If I stand by the railing and look down, I’d get dizzy and fall… Yes, that would be better… unconscious, no pain… I wouldn’t feel a thing! (She goes to the railing, and looks down, She bends over, grabs firmly onto the railing, and then jumps back in horror.) Oh, oh, how horrible! (She almost falls and grabs onto the arbor.) How my head is spinning! I’m falling, I’m falling, oh! (She sits down at a table by the arbor.) Oh, no… (In tears.) To part with life isn’t nearly so simple as I thought. I just don’t have the strength! How unlucky I am! But some people find it easy. It must be absolutely impossible for those people to go on living, nothing attracts them, nothing is dear to them, there’s nothing they can’t part with. And me!… There’s nothing really dear to me either, and it’s impossible for me to live, there’s no reason for me to live! Then why can’t I make up my mind? What’s holding me back from this precipice? What’s in the way? (She becomes pensive.) Oh no, no… It’s not Knurov… luxury, glitter… no, no… I’m far from earthly things… (Shuddering.) Depravity… oh no… It’s just that I don’t have any will power. It’s a pitiful weakness to want to live, somehow or other… when it’s impossible to live and one shouldn’t. How pitiful I am, how unlucky. If only somebody would kill me now… How nice it would be to die… while I still don’t have anything to reproach myself for. Or to die from illness… And I think I will be ill. How awful I feel!… To be ill for a long time, to find peace, to reconcile myself with everything, to say good-bye to everybody and to die… Oh, how awful I feel, how my head is turning. (She supports her head with her hand and sits oblivious to everything.)
Robinson and Karandyshov enter.
KARANDYSHOV. You say you were told to take her home?
ROBINSON. Yes, sir, I was told to do that.
KARANDYSHOV. And you say they treated her badly?
ROBINSON. How could it be worse, how more humiliating!
KARANDYSHOV. She herself is at fault, and what she did deserves a punishment. I told her what kind of people they are. She could have noticed it herself, she had the time to see the difference between me and them. Yes, she’s at fault, but I’m the only one who has the right to judge her, not speaking of humiliating her. It’s my own business whether to forgive her or not, but I’m obliged to be her defender. She doesn’t have any brothers or close friends, I’m all she has. I alone must stand up for her and punish those who wronged her. Where is she?
ROBINSON. She was here. There she is!
KARANDYSHOV. When she and I have things out there mustn’t be any outsiders around, you’ll be in the way. Leave us.
ROBINSON. With the greatest pleasure. I’ll say that I handed Larisa Dmitriyevna over to you. My best wishes. (He goes off into the coffee house.)
Karandyshov goes up to the table and sits down opposite Larisa.
LARISA (raising her head). How disgusting you are to me, if you only knew! What are you doing here?
KARANDYSHOV. Where am I supposed to be?
LARIS
A. I don’t know. Anywhere you want, so long as it’s not where I am.
KARANDYSHOV. You’re wrong, I must always be with you, to protect you. And I’m here now, to avenge the wrong you’ve suffered.
LARISA. The most painful wrong I could suffer is your protection. Nobody wronged me.
KARANDYSHOV. You’re too hard on me. Knurov and Vozhevatov cast lots to see who’d get you, they tossed a coin. Isn’t that wronging you? Fine friends you have! What respect for you! They don’t look on you as a woman, as a person. A person has some control over his fate, but they look on you as a thing. Well, if you’re a thing, that’s another matter. Naturally a thing belongs to the man who’s won it, and a thing can’t be wronged.
LARISA (deeply hurt). A thing… yes, a thing! They’re right, I am a thing, and not a person. I’ve just become convinced of it, I experienced it… I’m a thing! (With heat.) At last the word for me’s been found, and you found it. Now go! Please leave me alone!
KARANDYSHOV. Leave you? How can I leave you, who to?
LARISA. Every thing has to have its owner. I’ll go to my owner.
KARANDYSHOV (with heat). I’ll take you, I’m your owner. (He seizes her by the hand.)
LARISA (pushing him away). Oh no! Every thing has its price… Ha, ha, ha… I’m too expensive, too expensive for you.
KARANDYSHOV. What did you say! How could I ever expect to hear such shameless words from you?
LARISA (in tears). If one has to be a thing, there’s one consolation, to be expensive, very expensive. Do me one last favor, go send Knurov to me.
KARANDYSHOV. What’s wrong with you, what’s gotten into you? You’re out of your mind!
LARISA. All right, then I’ll go myself.
KARANDYSHOV. Larisa Dmitriyevna! Stop! I forgive you, I forgive you everything.
LARISA (with a bitter smile). You forgive me? Thank you. Only I don’t forgive myself for taking it into my head to tie up my fate with such a nonentity as you.
KARANDYSHOV. Let’s go away, let’s go away from this town right away, I agree to everything.
LARISA. It’s too late. I asked you to take me right off from the gypsy camp, but you couldn’t manage that. It’s clear enough I have to live and die in a gypsy camp.
KARANDYSHOV. I beg you, make me happy.
LARISA. It’s too late. Gold has already flashed before my eyes. Diamonds have sparkled.
KARANDYSHOV. I’m ready for any sacrifice. I’ll endure any humiliation for you.
LARISA (with disgust). Go away. You’re petty, you’re too insignificant for me.
KARANDYSHOV. But tell me, how can I deserve your love? (He falls on his knees.) I love you, I love you.
LARISA. That’s not true. I was looking for love and didn’t find it. People looked on me and still look on me as a toy. Nobody ever tried to look into my soul. I didn’t get any sympathy from anybody, I didn’t hear a warm or kind word. And when you live like that, life is cold. It’s not my fault. I was looking for love and didn’t find it… it doesn’t exist in the world… there’s no point in looking for it. I didn’t find love, so I’ll look for gold. Go away, I can’t be yours.
KARANDYSHOV (getting up). Oh, don’t punish yourself for the past! (He places his hand behind the breast of his suit coat.) You must be mine.
LARISA. If I’m going to be anybody’s I won’t be yours.
KARANDYSHOV (vehemently). Not mine?
LARISA. Never!
KARANDYSHOV. Then nobody’ll get you! (He shoots her with his pistol.)
LARISA (grabbing her breast). Oh! Thank you! (She sinks onto a chair.)
KARANDYSHOV. What have I done, what have I done… oh, I’m mad! (He drops the pistol.)
LARISA (tenderly). My dear, what a nice thing you did for me! Put the pistol here on the table. I did it myself… myself. Oh, what a nice thing…(She lifts the pistol and puts it on the table.)
Paratov, Knurov, Vozhevatov, Robinson, and Ivan come out of the coffee house.
ALL. What happened, what happened?
LARISA. I did it myself… Nobody’s guilty, nobody… I did it myself… (Off stage the gypsies begin a song.)
PARATOV. Tell them to be quiet! Tell them to be quiet!
LARISA (with a gradually weakening voice). No, no, what for!… Let them be merry, anyone who can… I don’t want to be in anyone’s way! Live, everybody live! You have to live, and I have to… die… I have no complaints against anybody, no resentment against anybody… you’re all good people… I love you all… all of you. (She sends a kiss.)
Loud chorus of the gypsies.
CURTAIN
NOTES
1. Name of a town of the Volga which existed in the seventeenth century.
2. Altered quotation from the fable “The Fox and the Grapes” (Lisitsa i vinograd) by I. Krylov based on Aesop’s fable with the same title.
3. From “The Tomb of Askold” (Askol’dova mogila), opera by A.N. Verstovsky, libretto by M.N. Zagoskin.
4. From a romance by A.L. Gurilev, words by Nirkomsky.
5. “O tempt me not if there’s no need…” (Ne iskushai menia bez nuzhdy…) Romance by M.I. Glinka, words by E.A. Baratynsky.
6. From “I Retire to the Desert” (la v pustyniu udaliaius’), song by M.V. Zubova (d. 1799).
7. “I’ll whistle not where’er I stray, and those I meet won’t get away” (la edu-edu, ne svishchu, a naedu-ne spushchu). From Pushkin’s narrative poem Ruslan i Liudmila.
8. Operetta (La Périchole) by Jacques Offenbach (1819-80).
9. “We’ll swing the rope she skips, the maid is wearing shoes (Verev’iushki verev’iu, na baryshne bashmachki). Russian folksong.
10. The reference is to Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-92), Florentine ruler and patron.
11. “Your eyes shine bright like heaven’s light…” (V glazakh, kak na nebe svetlo…). From M. Lermontov’s poem “To a Portrait” (K portretu).
* In the original Ostrovsky has Robinson speak the asterisked expressions of this scene in English but with a Russian accent. “Thank” is pronounced like “senk.” “If” rhymes with “beef,” “please” with “fleece.”
AFTERWORD
Without a Dowry (Bespridannitsa) was conceived in November, 1874 and finished some four years later on October 17, 1878. Though Ostrovsky wrote other plays during that time, it was Without a Dowry which he valued most, spending an unusually long time as well as meticulous care on it. It was passed almost immediately by the censor for performance, later published in the No. 1, 1879 issue of Fatherland Notes (Otechestvennye zapiski). The Moscow premiere occurred on November 10, 1878, then in St. Petersburg on November 22, 1878. Though some of Ostrovsky’s contemporaries volunteered that they considered the play Ostrovsky’s best, it was not really successful on the stage until 1896 when the great actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya played Larisa.
The play is remarkably unified, each scene directly or indirectly bearing on the fate of Larisa, whom all the male principals want to have at their disposal and whom her mother wants to dispose of. Seemingly free to make choices denied most of Ostrovsky’s earlier heroines, in actuality she is not, since she has no realizable options that would be both attractive and honorable. Like it or not, she has to perform in her mother’s entertainment center while being on display as a marketable commodity for potentially interested men.
Larisa has grown up in the artistic milieu of the gypsies where she, obviously talented to begin with, has received an excellent musical training. Her performance is appreciated by even the most mercenary-minded in the play. What Karandyshov disparagingly calls the “gypsy camp” is Larisa’s spiritual ally, and she, herself of gypsy lineage through her mother, is attracted to the fun-loving gypsies. On the other hand, in contrast to her amoral mother, Larisa has moral principles, and she longs for an honorable life elsewhere.1
It has been generalized that when Ostrovsky’s heroines are in love, that love becomes their whole world. This is certainly true for Larisa, who, once in love with Paratov, is
ready at any given moment to trust, idealize, and forgive him. For Paratov love is like a good meal—to be enjoyed for the moment—but for Larisa it’s a full and lasting commitment of her very life which she makes without looking back or, for that matter, ahead.
Larisa is disgusted by her mother’s way of surviving through ingratiation and even trickery, but at this point her only honorable escape seems to be marriage, for which her prospects are limited. All she has to offer is herself, no dowry. After Larisa has given up hope that Paratov, following his first desertion, might return to her, Larisa settles for the faithful but dull and mediocre Karandyshov. She fantasizes that since she respects Karandyshov, even though she doesn’t love him (though one can easily wonder if this respect isn’t based on her strong need to believe in it), that they will be able to have a decent family life elsewhere, away from the insincere hurly-burly bazaar of her home, where she already senses, without being able to articulate it, that she is treated as a thing.
Like Larisa, Karandyshov is a pathetic victim of people and circumstances but at the same time a victim of his limitations, for which he tries to compensate by being spitefully envious of those with higher status. He even goes so far as to use his pending marriage with Larisa to get in some revenge, boasting that she has chosen him over the others. Compared to the other male principals he is a “good man” morally (as none of them are), but only in the sense of not doing conventionally bad things rather than in doing anything positively good. He can always be counted on to be honest, which is hardly a sure-fire asset in his case.
All the same, as most seem to agree, Karandyshov, along with his perverse possessiveness, does love Larisa for herself and has endured a good deal of abuse while waiting for her to come his way. He is sensitive enough to see through the other male principals, and it is he who finds the right word for Larisa: “thing.” True, he’s nasty to Larisa, but she has also been nasty to him and hasn’t made it easy for him to show her the affection and support she now feels the need of. Proud and envious, much in the manner of Dostoevsky’s underground man, Karandyshov oscillates between inevitable submission to humiliation and precipitous thrusts in society which make him look ridiculous, something Larisa finds impossible to forgive.
Without a Dowry and Other Plays Page 28