by Leo Tolstoy
AKOULINA. Marry whom to Akoulina?
NAN. Why, Nikita.
AKOULINA. A likely story. Who says it?
NIKITA [looks at her and laughs] It seems people do say it. Would you marry me, Akoulina?
AKOULINA. Who, you? Perhaps I might have afore, but I won’t now.
NIKITA. And why not now?
AKOULINA. ’Cos you wouldn’t love me.
NIKITA. Why not?
AKOULINA. ’Cos you’d be forbidden to. [Laughs].
NIKITA. Who’d forbid it?
AKOULINA. Who? My step-mother. She does nothing but grumble, and is always staring at you.
NIKITA [laughing] Just hear her! Ain’t she cute?
AKOULINA. Who? Me? What’s there to be cute about? Am I blind? She’s been rowing and rowing at dad all day. The fat-muzzled witch! [Goes into closet].
NAN [looking out of the window] Look, Nikita, she’s coming! S’elp me, it’s she! I’ll go away. [Exit].
MARINA [enters] What are you doing with me?
NIKITA. Doing? I’m not doing anything.
MARINA. You meant to desert me.
NIKITA [ gets up angrily] What does this look like, your coming here?
Marina. Oh, Nikita!
NIKITA. Well, you are strange! What have you come for?
MARINA. Nikita!
NIKITA. That’s my name. What do you want with Nikita? Well, what next? Go away, I tell you!
MARINA. I see, you do want to throw me over.
NIKITA. Well, and what’s there to remember? You yourself don’t know. When you stood out there round the corner and sent Nan for me, and I didn’t come, wasn’t it plain enough that you’re not wanted? It seems pretty simple. So there—go!
MARINA. Not wanted! So now I’m not wanted! I believed you when you said you would love me. And now that you’ve ruined me, I’m not wanted.
NIKITA. Where’s the good of talking? This is quite improper. You’ve been telling tales to father. Now, do go away, will you?
MARINA. You know yourself I never loved any one but you. Whether you married me or not, I’d not have been angry. I’ve done you no wrong, then why have you left off caring for me? Why?
NIKITA. Where’s the use of baying at the moon? You go away. Goodness me! what a duffer!
MARINA. It’s not that you deceived me when you promised to marry me that hurts, but that you’ve left off loving. No, it’s not that you’ve stopped loving me either, but that you’ve changed me for another, that’s what hurts. I know who it is!
NIKITA [comes up to her viciously] Eh! what’s the good of talking to the likes of you, that won’t listen to reason? Be off, or you’ll drive me to do something you’ll be sorry for.
MARINA. What, will you strike me, then? Well then, strike me! What are you turning away for? Ah, Nikita!
NIKITA. Supposing some one came in. Of course, it’s quite improper. And what’s the good of talking?
MARINA. So this is the end of it! What has been has flown. You want me to forget it? Well then, Nikita, listen. I kept my maiden honor as the apple of my eye. You have ruined me for nothing, you have deceived me. You have no pity on a fatherless and motherless girl! [Weeping] You have deserted, you have killed me, but I bear you no malice. God forgive you! If you find a better one you’ll forget me, if a worse one you’ll remember me. Yes, you will remember, Nikita! Good-bye, then, if it is to be. Oh, how I loved you! Goodbye for the last time. [Takes his head in her hands and tries to kiss him].
NIKITA [tossing his head back] I’m not going to talk with the likes of you. If you won’t go away I will, and you may stay here by yourself.
MARINA [screams] You are a brute. [In the doorway] God will give you no joy. [Exit, crying].
AKOULINA [comes out of closet] You’re a dog, Nikita!
NIKITA. What’s up?
AKOULINA. What a cry she gave! [Cries].
NIKITA. What’s up with you?
AKOULINA. What’s up? You’ve hurt her so. That’s the way you’ll hurt me also. You’re a dog. [Exit into closet].
Silence.
NIKITA. Here’s a fine muddle. I’m as sweet as honey on the lasses, but when a fellow’s sinned with ’em it’s a bad look-out!
Curtain.
ACT II
The scene represents the village street. To the left the outside of Peter’s hut, built of logs, with a porch in the middle; to the right of the hut the gates and a corner of the yard buildings. Anisya is beating hemp in the street near the corner of the yard. Six months have elapsed since the First Act.
ANISYA [stops and listens] Mumbling something again. He’s probably got off the stove.
Akoulina enters, carrying two pails on a yoke.
ANISYA. He’s calling. You go and see what he wants, kicking up such a row.
AKOULINA. Why don’t you go?
ANISYA. Go, I tell you! [Exit Akoulina into hut] He’s bothering me to death. Won’t let out where the money is, and that’s all about it. He was out in the passage the other day. He must have been hiding it there. Now, I don’t know myself where it is. Thank goodness he’s afraid of parting with it, so that at least it will stay in the house. If only I could manage to find it. He hadn’t it on him yesterday. Now I don’t know where it can be. He has quite worn the life out of me.
Enter Akoulina, tying her kerchief over her head.
ANISYA. Where are you off to?
AKOULINA. Where? Why, he’s told me to go for Aunt Martha. “Fetch my sister,” he says. “I am going to die,” he says. “I have a word to say to her.”
ANISYA [aside] Asking for his sister? Oh my poor head! Sure he wants to give it her. What shall I do? Oh! [To Akoulina] Don’t go! Where are you off to?
AKOULINA. To call Aunt.
ANISYA. Don’t go I tell you, I’ll go myself. You go and take the clothes to the river to rinse. Else you’ll not have finished by the evening.
AKOULINA. But he told me to go.
ANISYA. You go and do as you’re bid. I tell you I’ll fetch Martha myself. Take the shirts off the fence.
AKOULINA. The shirts? But maybe you’ll not go. He’s given the order.
ANISYA. Didn’t I say I’d go? Where’s Nan?
AKOULINA. Nan? Minding the calves.
ANISYA. Send her here. I dare say they’ll not run away. [Akoulina collects the clothes, and exit].
ANISYA. If one doesn’t go he’ll scold. If one goes he’ll give the money to his sister. All my trouble will be wasted. I don’t myself know what I’m to do. My poor head’s splitting. [Continues to work].
Enter Matryona, with a stick and a bundle, in outdoor clothes.
MATRYONA. May the Lord help you, honey.
ANISYA [looks round, stops working, and claps her hands with joy] Well, I never expected this! Mother Matryona, God has sent the right guest at the right time.
MATRYONA. Well, how are things?
ANISYA. Ah, I’m driven well-nigh crazy. It’s awful!
MATRYONA. Well, still alive, I hear?
ANISYA. Oh, don’t talk about it. He doesn’t live and doesn’t die!
MATRYONA. But the money—has he given it to anybody?
ANISYA. He’s just sending for his sister Martha—probably about the money.
MATRYONA. Well, naturally! But hasn’t he given it to any one else?
ANISYA. To no one. I watch like a hawk.
MATRYONA. And where is it?
ANISYA. He doesn’t let out. And I can’t find out in any way. He hides it now here, now there, and I can’t do anything because of Akoulina. Idiot though she is, she keeps watch, and is always about. Oh my poor head! I’m bothered to death.
MATRYONA. Oh, my jewel, if he gives the money to any one but you, you’ll never cease regretting it as long as you live! They’ll turn you out of house and home without anything. You’ve been worriting, and worriting all your life with one you don’t love, and will have to go a-begging when you are a widow.
ANISYA. No need to tell me, mother. My heart’s that weary,
and I don’t know what to do. No one to get a bit of advice from. I told Nikita, but he’s frightened of the job. The only thing he did was to tell me yesterday it was hidden under the floor.
MATRYONA. Well, and did you look there?
ANISYA. I couldn’t. The old man himself was in the room. I notice that sometimes he carries it about on him, and sometimes he hides it.
MATRYONA. But you, my lass, must remember that if once he gives you the slip there’s no getting it right again! [Whispering] Well, and did you give him the strong tea?
ANISYA. Oh! oh! . . . [About to answer, but sees neighbor and stops].
The neighbor (a woman) passes the hut, and listens to a call from within.
NEIGHBOR [to Anisya] I say, Anisya! Eh, Anisya! There’s your old man calling, I think.
ANISYA. That’s the way he always coughs,—just as if he were screaming. He’s getting very bad.
NEIGHBOR [approaches Matryona] How do you do, granny? Have you come far?
MATRYONA. Straight from home, dear. Come to see my son. Brought him some shirts—can’t help thinking of these things, you see, when it’s one’s own child.
NEIGHBOR. Yes, that’s always so. [To Anisya] And I was thinking of beginning to bleach the linen, but it is a bit early, no one has begun yet.
ANISYA. Where’s the hurry?
MATRYONA. Well, and has he had communion?
ANISYA. Oh dear yes, the priest was here yesterday.
NEIGHBOR. I had a look at him yesterday. Dearie me! one wonders his body and soul keep together. And, O Lord, the other day he seemed just at his last gasp, so that they laid him under the holy icons.1 They started lamenting and got ready to lay him out.
ANISYA. He came to, and creeps about again.
MATRYONA. Well, and is he to have extreme unction?
ANISYA. The neighbors advise it. If he lives till tomorrow we’ll send for the priest.
NEIGHBOR. Oh, Anisya dear, I should think your heart must be heavy. As the saying goes, “Not he is sick that’s ill in bed, but he that sits and waits in dread.”
ANISYA. Yes, if it were only over one way or other!
NEIGHBOR. Yes, that’s true, dying for a year, it’s no joke. You’re bound hand and foot like that.
MATRYONA. Ah, but a widow’s lot is also bitter. It’s all right as long as one’s young, but who’ll care for you when you’re old? Oh yes, old age is not pleasure. Just look at me. I’ve not walked very far, and yet am so footsore I don’t know how to stand. Where’s my son?
ANISYA. Ploughing. But you come in and we’ll get the samovar ready; the tea’ll set you up again.
MATRYONA [sitting down] Yes, it’s true, I’m quite done up, my dears. As to extreme unction, that’s absolutely necessary. Besides, they say it’s good for the soul.
ANISYA. Yes, we’ll send to-morrow.
MATRYONA. Yes, you had better. And we’ve had a wedding down in our parts.
NEIGHBOR. What, during spring? 2
MATRYONA. Ah, now if it were a poor man, then, as the saying is, it’s always unseasonable for a poor man to marry. But it’s Simon Matveyitch, he’s married that Marina.
ANISYA. What luck for her!
NEIGHBOR. He’s a widower. I suppose there are children?
MATRYONA. Four of ’em. What decent girl would have him! Well, so he’s taken her, and she’s glad. You see, the vessel was not sound, so the wine trickled out.
NEIGHBOR. Oh my! What do people say of it? And he’s a rich peasant?
MATRYONA. They are living well enough so far.
NEIGHBOR. Yes, it’s true enough. Who wants to marry where there are children? There now, there’s our Michael. He’s such a fellow, dear me . . .
PEASANT’S VOICE. Hullo, Mavra. Where the devil are you? Go and drive the cow in.
Exit neighbor.
MATRYONA [while the neighbor is within hearing speaks in her ordinary voice] Yes, lass, thank goodness, she’s married. At any rate my old fool won’t go bothering about Nikita. Now [suddenly changing her tone], she’s gone! [Whispers] I say, did you give him the tea?
ANISYA. Don’t speak about it. He’d better die of himself. It’s no use—he doesn’t die, and I have only taken a sin on my soul. O-oh, my poor head! Oh, why did you give me those powders?
MATRYONA. What of the powders? The sleeping powders, lass,—why not give them? No evil can come of them.
ANISYA. I am not talking of the sleeping ones, but the others, the white ones.
MATRYONA. Well, honey, those powders are medicinal.
ANISYA [sighs] I know, yet it’s frightening. Though he’s worried me to death.
MATRYONA. Well, and did you use many?
ANISYA. I gave two doses.
MATRYONA. Was anything noticeable?
ANISYA. I had a taste of the tea myself—just a little bitter. And he drank them with the tea and says, “Even tea disgusts me,” and I say, “Everything tastes bitter when one’s sick.” But I felt that scared, mother.
MATRYONA. Don’t go thinking about it. The more one thinks the worse it is.
ANISYA. I wish you’d never given them to me and led me into sin. When I think of it something seems to tear my heart. Oh dear, why did you give them to me?
MATRYONA. What do you mean, honey? Lord help you! Why are you turning it on to me? Mind, lass, don’t go twisting matters from the sick on to the healthy. If anything were to happen, I stand aside! I know nothing! I’m aware of nothing! I’ll kiss the cross on it; I never gave you any kind of powders, never saw any, never heard of any, and never knew there were such powders. You think about yourself, lass. Why, we were talking about you the other day. “Poor thing, what torture she endures. The step-daughter an idiot; the old man rotten, sucking her life-blood. What wouldn’t one be ready to do in such a case!”
ANISYA. I’m not going to deny it. A life such as mine could make one do worse than that. It could make you hang yourself or throttle him. Is this a life?
MATRYONA. That’s just it. There’s no time to stand gaping; the money must be found one way or other, and then he must have his tea.
ANISYA. O-oh, my poor head! I can’t think what to do. I am so frightened; he’d better die of himself. I don’t want to have it on my soul.
MATRYONA [viciously] And why doesn’t he show the money? Does he mean to take it along with him? Is no one to have it? Is that right? God forbid such a sum should be lost all for nothing. Isn’t that a sin? What’s he doing? Is he worth considering?
ANISYA. I don’t know myself. He’s worried me to death.
MATRYONA. What is it you don’t know? The business is clear. If you make a slip now, you’ll repent it all your life. He’ll give the money to his sister and you’ll be left without.
ANISYA. O-oh dear! Yes, and he did send for her—I must go.
MATRYONA. You wait a bit and light the samovar first. We’ll give him some tea and search him together—we’ll find it, no fear.
ANISYA. Oh dear, oh dear; supposing something were to happen.
MATRYONA. What now? What’s the good of waiting? Do you want the money to slip from your hand when it’s just in sight? You go and do as I say.
ANISYA. Well, I’ll go and light the samovar.
MATRYONA. Go, honey, do the business so as not to regret it afterwards. That’s right! [Anisya turns to go. Matryona calls her back].
MATRYONA. Just a word. Don’t tell Nikita about the business. He’s silly. God forbid he should find out about the powders. The Lord only knows what he would do. He’s so tender-hearted. D’you know, he usen’t to be able to kill a chicken. Don’t tell him. ’Twould be a fine go, he wouldn’t understand things. [Stops horror-struck as Peter appears in the doorway].
PETER [holding on to the wall, creeps out into the porch and calls with a faint voice] How’s it one can’t make you hear? Oh, oh, Anisya! Who’s there? [Drops on the bench].
ANISYA [steps from behind the corner] Why have you come out? You should have lain where you were lying.
PETER.
Has the girl gone for Martha? It’s very hard. . . . Oh, if only death would come quicker!
ANISYA. She had no time. I sent her to the river. Wait a bit, I’ll go myself when I’m ready.
PETER. Send Nan. Where’s she? Oh, it is bad! Oh, death’s at hand!
ANISYA. I’ve sent for her already.
PETER. Oh dear! Then where is she?
ANISYA. Where’s she got to, the plague seize her!
PETER. Oh, dear! I can’t bear it. All my inside’s on fire. It’s as if a gimlet were boring me. Why have you left me as if I were a dog? . . . no one to give me a drink. . . . Oh . . . send Nan to me.
ANISYA. Here she is. Nan, go to father.
Nan runs in. Anisya goes behind the corner of the house.
PETER. Go you. Oh . . . to Aunt Martha, tell her father wants her; say she’s to come, I want her.
NAN. All right.
PETER. Wait a bit. Tell her she’s to come quick. Tell her I’m dying. O-oh!
NAN. I’ll just get my shawl and be off. [Runs off ].
MATRYONA [winking] Now then, mind and look sharp, lass. Go into the hut, hunt about everywhere, like a dog that’s hunting for fleas: look under everything, and I’ll search him.
ANISYA [to Matryona] I feel a bit bolder, somehow, now you’re here. [Goes up to porch. To Peter] Hadn’t I better light the samovar? Here’s Mother Matryona come to see her son; you’ll have a cup of tea with her?
PETER. Well then, light it. [Anisya goes into the house. Matryona comes up to the porch].
PETER. How do you do?
MATRYONA [bowing] How d’you do, my benefactor; how d’you do, my precious . . . still ill, I see. And my old man, he’s that sorry! “Go,” says he, “see how he’s getting on.” He sends his respects to you. [Bows again].
PETER. I’m dying.
MATRYONA. Ah yes, Peter Ignatitch, now I look at you I see, as the saying has it, “Sickness lives where men live.” You’ve shriveled, shriveled, all to nothing, poor dear, now I come to look at you. Seems illness does not add to good looks.
PETER. My last hour has come.
MATRYONA. Oh well, Peter Ignatitch, it’s God’s will you know, you’ve had communion, and you’ll have unction, God willing. Your missus is a wise woman, the Lord be thanked; she’ll give you a good burial, and have prayers said for your soul, all most respectable! And my son, he’ll look after things meanwhile.