by Leo Tolstoy
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 she know I've got 'em on me? Perhaps there's more of that muck on her than on me!
JACOB. There now, you go and ask her!
SECOND PEASANT. I believe it's humbug.
JACOB. Of course it's bosh. The doctors must invent something, or else what are they paid for? There's one comes to us every day. Comes,-- talks a bit,--and pockets ten roubles!
SECOND PEASANT. Nonsense!
JACOB. Why, there's one as takes a hundred!
FIRST PEASANT. A hundred? Humbug!
JACOB. A hundred. Humbug, you say? Why, if he has to go out of town, he'll not do it for less than a thousand! "Give a thousand," he says
, "or else you may kick the bucket for what I care!"
THIRD PEASANT. Oh, Lord!
SECOND PEASANT. Then does he know some charm?
JACOB. I suppose he must. I served at a General's outside Moscow once: a cross, terrible proud old fellow he was--just awful. Well, this General's daughter fell ill. They send for that doctor at once. "A thousand roubles, then I'll come." Well, they agreed, and he came. Then they did something or other he didn't like, and he bawled out at the General and says, "Is this the way you show your respect for me? Then I'll not attend her!" And, oh, my! The old General forgot all his pride, and starts wheedling him in every way not to chuck up the job!
FIRST PEASANT. And he got the thousand?
JACOB. Of course!
SECOND PEASANT. That's easy got money. What wouldn't a peasant do with such a sum!
THIRD PEASANT. And I think it's all bosh. That time my foot was festering I had it doctored ever so long. I spent nigh on five roubles on it,--then I gave up doctoring, and it got all right!
[DISCHARGED COOK on the oven coughs.
JACOB. Ah, the old crony is here again!
FIRST PEASANT. Who might that man be?
JACOB. He used to be our master's cook. He comes to see Loukérya.
FIRST PEASANT. Kitchen-master, as one might say. Then, does he live here?
JACOB. No, they won't allow that. He's here one day, there another. If he's got a copper he goes to a dosshouse; but when he has drunk all, he comes here.
SECOND PEASANT. How did he come to this?
JACOB. Simply grew weak. And what a man he used to be--like a gentleman! Went about with a gold watch; got forty roubles a month wages. And now look at him! He'd have starved to death long ago if it hadn't been for Loukérya.
[Enter SERVANTS' COOK with the sour cabbage.
JACOB (to SERVANTS' COOK). I see you've got Paul Petróvitch here again?
SERVANTS' COOK. And where's he to go to? Is he to go and freeze?
THIRD PEASANT. What liquor does.... Liquor, let's say....
[Clicks his tongue sympathetically.
SECOND PEASANT. Of course. A firm man's firm as a rock; a weak man's weaker than water.
DISCHARGED COOK (gets off the oven with trembling hands and legs). Loukérya, I say, give us a drop!
SERVANTS' COOK. What are you up to? I'll give you such a drop!...
DISCHARGED COOK. Have you no conscience? I'm dying! Brothers, a copper....
SERVANTS' COOK. Get back on the oven, I tell you!
DISCHARGED COOK. Half a glass only, cook, for Heaven's sake! I say, do you understand? I ask you in the name of Heaven, now!
SERVANTS' COOK. Come along, here's some tea for you.
DISCHARGED COOK. Tea; what is tea? Weak, sloppy stuff. A little vódka --just one little drop.... Loukérya!
THIRD PEASANT. Poor old soul, what agony it is!
SECOND PEASANT. You'd better give him some.
SERVANTS' COOK (gets out a bottle and fills a wine-glass). Here you are; you'll get no more.
DISCHARGED COOK (clutches hold of it and drinks, trembling all over). Loukérya, Cook! I am drinking, and you must understand....
SERVANTS' COOK. Now, then, stop your chatter! Get on to the oven, and let not a breath of you be heard!
[The old COOK meekly begins to climb up, muttering something to himself.
SECOND PEASANT. What it is, when a man gives way to his weakness!
FIRST PEASANT. That's just it--human weakness.
THIRD PEASANT. That goes without saying.
[The DISCHARGED COOK settles down, muttering all the time.
[Silence.
SECOND PEASANT. I want to ask you something: that girl of Aksínya's as comes from our village and is living here. How is she? What is she like? How is she living--I mean, does she live honest?
JACOB. She's a nice girl; one can say nothing but good of her.
SERVANTS' COOK. I'll tell you straight, daddy; I know this here establishment out and out, and if you mean to have Tánya for your son's wife--be quick about it, before she comes to grief, or else she'll not escape!
JACOB. Yes, that's true. A while ago we had a girl here, Nataly. She was a good girl too. And she was lost without rhyme or reason. No better than that chap!
[Pointing to the old COOK.
SERVANTS' COOK. There's enough to dam a mill-pool, with the likes of us, as perish! 'Cos why, every one is tempted by the easy life and the good food. And see there,--as soon as one has tasted the good food she goes and slips. And once she's slipped, they don't want her, but get a fresh one in her place. So it was with dear little Nataly; she also slipped, and they turned her out. She had a child and fell ill, and died in the hospital last spring. And what a girl she used to be!
THIRD PEASANT. Oh, Lord! People are weak; they ought to be pitied.
DISCHARGED COOK. Those devils pity? No fear! (He hangs his legs down from the oven.) I have stood roasting myself by the kitchen range for thirty years, and now that I am not wanted, I may go and die like a dog.... Pity indeed!...
FIRST PEASANT. That's just it. It's the old circumstances.
SECOND PEASANT. While they drank and they fed, you were "curly head." When they'd finished the prog, 'twas "Get out, mangy dog!"
THIRD PEASANT. Oh Lord!
DISCHARGED COOK. Much you know. What is "Sautey a la Bongmont"? What is "Bavassary"? Oh, the things I could make! Think of it! The Emperor tasted my work, and now the devils want me no longer. But I am not going to stand it!
SERVANTS' COOK. Now, then, stop that noise, mind.... Get up right into the corner, so that no one can see you, or else Theodore Ivánitch or some one may come in, and both you and me'll be turned out!
[Silence.
JACOB. And do you know my part of the country? I'm from Voznesénsky.
SECOND PEASANT. Not know it? Why, it's no more'n ten miles from our village; not that across the ford! Do you cultivate any land there?
JACOB. My brother does, and I send my wages. Though I live here, I am dying for a sight of home.
FIRST PEASANT. That's just it.
SECOND PEASANT. Then Anísim is your brother?
JACOB. Own brother. He lives at the farther end of the village.
SECOND PEASANT. Of course, I know; his is the third house.
[Enter TÁNYA, running.
TÁNYA. Jacob, what are you doing, amusing yourself here? She is calling you!
JACOB. I'm coming; but what's up?
TÁNYA. Frisk is barking; it's hungry. And she's scolding you. "How cruel he is," she says. "He's no feeling," she says. "It's long past Frisk's dinner-time, and he has not brought her food!"
[Laughs.
JACOB (rises to go). Oh, she's cross? What's going to happen now, I wonder?
SERVANTS' COOK. Here, take the cabbage with you.
JACOB. All right, give it here.
[Takes basin, and exit.
FIRST PEASANT. Who is going to dine now?
TÁNYA. Why, the dog! It's her dog. (Sits down and takes up the tea-pot.) Is there any more tea? I've brought some.
[Puts fresh tea into the tea-pot.
FIRST PEASANT. Dinner for a dog?
TÁNYA. Yes, of course! They prepare a special cutlet for her; it must not be too fat. And I do the washing--the dog's washing, I mean.
THIRD PEASANT. Oh Lord!
TÁNYA. It's like that gentleman who had a funeral for his dog.
SECOND PEASANT. What's that?
TÁNYA. Why, some one told me he had a dog--I mean the gentleman had a dog. And it died. It was winter, and he went in his sledge to bury that dog. Well, he buried it, and on the way home he sits and cries-- the gentleman does. Well, there was such a bitter frost that the coachman's nose keeps running, and he has to keep wiping it. Let me fill your cup! (Fills it.) So he keeps wiping his nose, and the gentleman sees it, and says, "What are you crying about?" And the coachman, he says, "Why, sir, how can I help it; is there another dog like him?"
[Laughs.