Table of Contents
Introduction
Persons of the Play
The First Act
The Second Act
The Third Act
The Fourth Act
Introduction
For the last twenty years Leonid Andreyev and Maxim Gorky have by turns occupied the centre of the stage of Russian literature. Prophetic vision is no longer required for an estimate of their permanent contribution to the intellectual and literary development of Russia. It represents the highest ideal expression of a period in Russian history that was pregnant with stirring and far-reaching events--the period of revolution and counter-revolution. It was a period when Russian society passed from mood to mood at an extremely rapid tempo: from energetic aggressiveness, exultation, high hope, and confident trust in the triumph of the people's cause to apathetic inaction, gloom, despair, frivolity, and religious mysticism. This important dramatic epoch in the national life of Russia Andreyev and Gorky wrote down with such force and passion that they became recognized at once as the leading exponents of their time.
Despite this close external association, their work differs essentially in character. In fact, it is scarcely possible to conceive of greater artistic contrasts. Gorky is plain, direct, broad, realistic, elemental. His art is native, not acquired. Civilization and what learning he obtained later through the reading of books have influenced, not the manner or method of his writing, but only its purpose and occasionally its subject matter. It is significant to watch the dismal failure Gorky makes of it whenever, in concession to the modern literary fashion, he attempts the mystical. Symbolism is foreign to him except in its broadest aspects. His characters, though hailing from a world but little known, and often extreme and extremely peculiar, are on the whole normal.
Andreyev, on the other hand, is a child of civilization, steeped in its culture, and while as rebellious against some of the things of civilization as Gorky, he reacts to them in quite a different way. He is wondrously sensitive to every development, quickly appropriates what is new, and always keeps in the vanguard. His art is the resultant of all that the past ages have given us, of the things that we have learned in our own day, and of what we are just now learning. With this art Andreyev succeeds in communicating ideas, thoughts, and feelings so fine, so tenuous, so indefinite as to appear to transcend human expression. He does not care whether the things he writes about are true, whether his characters are real. What he aims to give is a true impression. And to convey this impression he does not scorn to use mysticism, symbolism, or even plain realism. His favorite characters are degenerates, psychopaths, abnormal eccentrics, or just creatures of fancy corresponding to no reality. Frequently, however, the characters, whether real or unreal, are as such of merely secondary importance, the chief aim being the interpretation of an idea or set of ideas, and the characters functioning primarily only as a medium for the embodiment of those ideas.
In one respect Gorky and Andreyev are completely at one--in their bold aggressiveness. The emphatic tone, the attitude of attack, first introduced into Russian literature by Gorky, was soon adopted by most of his young contemporaries, and became the characteristic mark of the literature of the Revolution. By that token the literature of Young Russia of that day is as easily recognized as is the English literature of the Dryden and Pope epoch by its sententiousness. It contrasts sharply with the tone of passive resignation and hopelessness of the preceding period. Even Chekhov, the greatest representative of what may be called the period of despondence, was caught by the new spirit of optimism and activism, so that he reflected clearly the new influence in his later works. But while in Gorky the revolt is chiefly social--manifesting itself through the world of the submerged tenth, the disinherited masses, les misérables, who, becoming conscious of their wrongs, hurl defiance at their oppressors, make mock of their civilization, and threaten the very foundations of the old order--Andreyev transfers his rebellion to the higher regions of thought and philosophy, to problems that go beyond the merely better or worse social existence, and asks the larger, much more difficult questions concerning the general destiny of man, the meaning of life and the reason for death.
Social problems, it is true, also interest Andreyev. "The Red Laugh" is an attack on war through a portrayal of the ghastly horrors of the Russo-Japanese War; "Savva," one of the plays of this volume, is taken bodily (with a poet's license, of course) from the actual revolutionary life of Russia; "King Hunger" is the tragedy of the uprising of the hungry masses and the underworld. Indeed, of the works written during the conflict and for some time afterward, all centre more or less upon the social problems which then agitated Russia. But with Andreyev the treatment of all questions tends to assume a universal aspect. He envisages phenomena from a broad, cosmic point of view; he beholds things sub specie aeternitatis. The philosophical tendency of his mind, though amply displayed even in works like "Savva"--which is purely a character and social drama--manifests itself chiefly by his strong propensity for such subjects as those treated in "To the Stars," "The Life of Man," and "Anathema." In these plays Andreyev plunges into the deepest problems of existence, and seeks to posit once more and, if possible, to solve in accordance with the modern spirit and modern knowledge those questions over which the mightiest brains of man have labored for centuries: Whence? Whither? What is the significance of man's life? Why is death?
If Spinoza's dictum be true, that "a wise man's meditation is not of death but of life," then Andreyev is surely not a wise man. Some philosophers might have written their works even without a guarantee against immortality, though Schopenhauer, who exercised a influence on the young Andreyev, was of the opinion that "without death there would hardly be any philosophy"; but of Andreyev it is certain that the bulk of his works would not have been written, and could not be what they are, were it not for the fact of death. If there is one idea that can be said to dominate the author of "The Life of Man," it is the idea of death. Constantly he keeps asking: Why all this struggling, all this pain, all this misery in the world, if it must end in nothing? The suffering of the great mass of mankind makes life meaningless while it lasts, and death puts an end even to this life. Again and again Andreyev harks back to the one thought from which all his other thoughts seem to flow as from their fountain-head. Lazarus, in the story by that name, is but the embodiment of death. All who behold him, who look into his eyes, are never again the same as they were; indeed, most of them are utterly ruined. "The Seven Who Were Hanged" tells how differently different persons take death. Grim death lurks in the background of almost every work, casting a fearful gloom, mocking the life of man, laughing to scorn his joys and his sorrows, propounding, sphinx-like, the big riddle that no Oedipus will ever be able to solve.
For it is not merely the destructive power of death, not merely its negation of life, that terrifies our author. The pitchy darkness that stretches beyond, the impossibility of penetrating the veil that separates existence from non-existence--in a word, the riddle of the universe--is, to a mind constituted like Andreyev's, a source of perhaps even greater disquiet. Never was a man hungrier than he with "the insatiable hunger for Eternity"; never was a man more eager to pierce the mystery of life and catch a glimpse of the beyond while yet alive.
Combined with the perplexing darkness that so pitifully limits man's vision is the indifference of the forces that govern his destiny. The wrongs he suffers may cry aloud to heaven, but heaven does not hear him. Whether he writhe in agony or be prostrated in the dust (against all reason and justice), he has no appeal, societies, the bulk of mankind, may be plunged in misery--who or what cares? Man is surrounded by indifference as well as by darkness.
Often, when an idea has gained a powerful hold on Andreyev, he pursues it a long time, presenting it under various aspects, until at last it assumes its final form, rounded and completed, as it were, in some figure or symbol. As such it appears either as the leading theme of an entire story or drama, or as an important subordinate theme. Thus we have seen that the idea of death finds concrete expression in the character of Lazarus. The idea of loneliness, of the isolation of the individual from all other human beings, even though he be physically surrounded by large numbers, is embodied in the story of "The City." Similarly the conception of the mystery and the indifference by which man finds himself confronted is definitely set forth in the figure of Someone in Gray in "The Life of Man."
The riddle, the indifference--these are the two characteristics of human destiny that loom large in Andreyev's conception of it as set forth in that figure. Someone in Gray--who is he? No one knows. No definite name can be given him, for no one knows. He is mysterious in "The Life of Man," where he is Man's constant companion; he is mysterious in "Anathema," where he guards the gate leading from this finite world to eternity. And as Man's companion he looks on indifferently, apparently unconcerned whether Man meets with good or bad fortune. Man's prayers do not move him. Man's curses leave him calm.
It is Andreyev's gloomy philosophy, no doubt, that so often causes him to make his heroes lonely, so that loneliness is developed into a principle of human existence, in some cases, as in "The City," becoming the dominant influence over a man's life. Particularly the men whom life has treated senselessly and cruelly, whom it has dealt blow after blow until their spirits are crushed out--it is such men in particular who become lonely, seek isolation and retirement, and slink away into some hole to die alone. This is the significance of the saloon scene in "The Life of Man." The environment of the drunkards who are withdrawn from life, and therefore lonely themselves, accentuates the loneliness of Man in the last scene. It is his loneliness that Andreyev desired to bring into relief. His frequenting the saloon is but an immaterial detail, one of the means of emphasizing this idea. To remove all possible misunderstanding on this point, Andreyev wrote a variant of the last scene, "The Death of Man," in which, instead of dying in a saloon surrounded by drunkards, Man dies in his own house surrounded by his heirs. "The loneliness of the dying and unhappy man," Andreyev wrote in a prefatory note to this variant, "may just as fully be characterized by the presence of the Heirs."
However, for all the gloom of his works, Andreyev is not a pessimist. Under one of his pictures he has written: "Though it destroys individuals, the truth saves mankind." The misery in the world may be ever so great; the problems that force themselves upon man's mind may seem unanswerable; the happenings in the external world may fill his soul with utter darkness, so that he despairs of finding any meaning, any justification in life. And yet, though his reason deny it, his soul tells him: "The truth saves mankind." After all, Man is not a failure. For though misfortunes crowd upon him, he remains intact in soul, unbroken in spirit. He carries off the victory because he does not surrender. He dies as a superman, big in his defiance of destiny. This must be the meaning Andreyev attached to Man's life. We find an interpretation of it, as it were, in "Anathema," in which Someone sums up the fate of David--who lived an even sadder life than Man and died a more horrible death--in these words: "David has achieved immortality, and he lives immortal in the deathlessness of fire. David has achieved immortality, and he lives immortal in the deathlessness of light which is life."
Andreyev was born at Orel in 1871 and was graduated from the gymnasium there. According to his own testimony, he never seems to have been a promising student. "In the seventh form," he tells us, "I was always at the bottom of my class." He lost his father early, and often went hungry while studying law at the University of St. Petersburg. In the University of Moscow, to which he went next, he fared better. One of the means that he used to eke out a livelihood was portrait painting to order, and in this work he finally attained such proficiency that his price rose from $1.50 apiece to $6.00.
In 1897 he began to practise law, but he gave most of his time to reporting court cases for the "Courier," a Moscow newspaper, and later to writing feuilletons and stories. He tried only one civil case, and that one he lost. His work in the "Courier" attracted Gorky's attention, and the older writer zealously interested himself in Andreyev's behalf.
In 1902 his story named "The Abyss" appeared and created a sensation immediately. Even Countess Tolstoy joined in the dispute which raged over this story, attacking it as matter unfit for literature. But the verdict of Andreyev's generation was in his favor. Since then nearly every new work of his has been received as an important event in Russia and has sent the critics scurrying to his attack or defence. His first drama, "To the Stars," appeared while the Russians were engaged in fighting for liberty (1905), and, naturally enough, it reflects that struggle. "Savva" was published early the next year, and "The Life of Man" later in the same year. The production of "Savva" is prohibited in Russia. It has been played in Vienna and Berlin, and recently it was staged again in Berlin by "Die Freie Bühne," meeting with signal success.
A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PLAYS
By LEONID ANDREYEV
To the Stars (K Zviezdam), 1905;
Savva (Savva), 1906;
The Life of Man (Zhizn Chelovieka), 1906;
King Hunger (Tzar Golod), 1907;
The Black Masks (Chiorniya Maski), 1908;
The Days of Our Life (Dni Nashey Zhizni), 1908;
Anathema (Anatema), 1909;
Anfissa (Anfissa), 1909;
Gaudeamus (Gaudeamus), 1910;
The Ocean (Okean), 1911;
"Honor" ("Chest"), 1911;
The Pretty Sabine Women (Prekrasniya Sabinianki), 1911;
Professor Storitzyn (Professor Storitzyn), 1912;
Catherine (Yekaterina Ivanovna), 1913;
Thou Shalt Not Kill (Ne Ubi), 1914.
YEGOR IVANOVICH TROPININ, innkeeper in a monastic suburb. An elderly man of about fifty, with an important manner and a item, dignified way of speaking.
ANTON (Tony), anywhere from thirty-five to thirty-eight, bloated from drinking and always under the influence of alcohol. His face is bloodless, sad, and sleepy. He has a sparse beard, speaks slowly and painfully, and never laughs.
OLYMPIADA (Lipa), twenty-eight years old. She is fair and rather good-looking. There is a touch of monastic severity in her dress.
SAVVA, twenty-three, large, broad-shouldered, with a suggestion of the peasant in his looks. He walks with a slight stoop, elbows out, feet in. The motions of his hands are rounded and graceful, his palms being turned up as if he were carrying something. His features are large and rough-hewn, and his cheeks and chin are covered with a soft light down. When agitated or angry, he turns gray as dust, his movements become quick and agile, and his stoop disappears. He wears the blouse and boots of a workingman.
PELAGUEYA, a freckled, colorless woman, of about thirty, wearing the ordinary dress of her class. She is dirty and untidy.
SPERANSKY GRIGORY PETROVICH, an ex-seminarist; tall, very lean, with a pale, long face, and a tuft of dark hair on his chin. He has long, smooth hair parted in the middle and falling on each side of his face. He is dressed either in a long, dark overcoat or in a dark frock-coat.
FATHER KONDRATY, a friar, forty-two years old, ugly, narrow-chested, with swollen, animated eyes.
VASSYA, a novice, a strong and athletic youth of nineteen. He has a round, cheerful, smiling face, and curly, lustrous hair.
KING HEROD, a pilgrim, about fifty. He has a dry, emaciated face, black from sunburn and road dust. His gray, dishevelled hair and beard give him a savage appearance. He has only one arm, the left. He is as tall as Savva.
A FAT MONK.
A GRAY MONK.
A MAN IN PEASANT OVERCOAT. Monks, pilgrims, cripples, beggars, blind men and women, monstrosities.
The action takes place at the beginning of the twentieth
century in a rich monastery celebrated for its wonder-working ikon of the
Saviour. There is an interval of about two weeks between the first and
the last act.
The interior of a house in a monastic suburb. Two rooms, with a third seen back of them. They are old, ramshackle, and filthy. The first one is a sort of dining-room, large, with dirty, low ceiling and smeared wall-paper that in places has come loose from the wall. There are three little windows; the one giving on the yard reveals a shed, a wagon, and some household utensils. Cheap wooden furniture; a large, bare table. On the walls, which are dotted with flies, appear pictures of monks and views of the monastery. The second room, a parlor, is somewhat cleaner. It has window curtains of muslin, two flower-pots with dried geraniums, a sofa, a round table covered with a tablecloth, and shelves with dishes. The door to the left in the first room leads to the tavern. When open, it admits the sound of a man's doleful, monotonous singing.
It is noon of a hot and perfectly still summer's day. Now and then the clucking of hens is heard under the windows. The clock in the belfry of the monastery strikes every half-hour, a long, indistinct wheeze preceding the first stroke.
Pelagueya, who is pregnant, is scrubbing the floor. Seized with giddiness, she staggers to her feet and leans against the wall, staring before her with a vacant gaze.
PELAGUEYA
Oh, God! (She starts to scrub the floor again)
LIPA (enters, faint from heat)
How stifling! I don't know what to do with myself. My head seems full of pins and needles. (She sits down) Polya, say, Polya.
PELAGUEYA
What is it?
LIPA
Where's father?
PELAGUEYA
He's sleeping.
LIPA
Oh, I can't stand it. (She opens the window, then takes a turn round the room, moving aimlessly and, glancing into the tavern) Tony's sleeping too--behind the counter. It would be nice to go in, bathing, but it's too hot to walk to the river. Polya, why don't you speak? Say something.
PELAGUEYA
What?
LIPA
Scrubbing, scrubbing, all the time.
PELAGUEYA
Yes.
LIPA
And in a day from now the floors will be dirty again. I don't see what pleasure you get from working the way you do.
PELAGUEYA.
I have to.
LIPA
I just took a peep at the street. It's awful. Not a human being in sight, not even a dog. All is dead. And the monastery has such a queer look. It seems to be hanging in the air. You have the feeling that if you were to blow on it, it would begin to swing and fly away. Why are you so silent, Polya? Where is Savva? Have you seen him?
PELAGUEYA
He's in the pasture playing jackstones with the children.
LIPA
He's a funny fellow.
PELAGUEYA
I don't see anything funny about it. He ought to be working, that's what he ought to be doing, not playing like a baby. I don't like your Savva.
LIPA (lazily)
No, Polya, he is good.
PELAGUEYA
Good? I spoke to him and told him how hard the work was for me. "Well," he says, "if you want to be a horse, pull." What did he come here for? I wish he'd stayed where he was.
LIPA
He came home to see his folks. Why, it's ten years since he left. He was a mere boy then.
PELAGUEYA
A lot he cares for his folks. Yegor Ivanovich is just dying to get rid of him. The neighbors don't know what to make of him either. He dresses like a workingman and carries himself like a lord, doesn't speak to anybody and just rolls his eyes like a saint. I am afraid of his eyes.
LIPA
Nonsense. He has beautiful eyes.
PELAGUEYA
Can't he see that it's hard for me to be doing all the housework myself? A while ago he saw me carrying a pail full of water. I was straining with all my might. He didn't even say good morning; just, passed on. I have met a lot of people in my life, but never anybody whom I disliked so much.
LIPA
I'm so hot, everything seems to be turning round like wheels. Listen, Polya, if you don't want to work, don't. No one compels you to.
PELAGUEYA
If I won't work, who will? Will you?
LIPA
No, I won't. We'll hire a servant.
PELAGUEYA
Yes, of course, you have plenty of money.
LIPA
And what's the use of keeping it?
PELAGUEYA
I'll die soon and then you'll get a servant. I won't last much longer. I have had one miscarriage, and I guess a second child will be the end of me. I don't care. It's better than to live the way I do. Oh! (She clasps her waist)
LIPA
But for God's sake, who is asking you to? Stop working. Don't scrub.
PELAGUEYA
Yes, stop it, and all of you will be going about saying: "How dirty the house is!"
LIPA (weary from the heat and Pelagueya's talk)
Oh, I'm so tired of it!
PELAGUEYA
Don't you think I feel tired too? What are you complaining about anyhow? You are a lady. All you have to do is pray and read. I don't even get time to pray. Some day I'll drop into the next world all of a sudden just as I am, with my skirt tucked up under my belt: "Good morning! How d'you do!"
LIPA
You'll be scrubbing floors in the next world too.
PELAGUEYA
No, in the next world it's you who'll be scrubbing floors, and I'll sit with folded hands like a lady. In heaven we'll be the first ones, while you and your Savva, for your pride and your hard hearts--
LIPA
Now, Polya, am I not sorry for you?
YEGOR IVANOVICH TROPININ (enters, still sleepy, his beard turned to one side, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned; breathing heavily) Whew! Say, Polya, bring me some cider. Quick! (Pause) Who opened the window?
LIPA
I did.
YEGOR
What for?
LIPA
It's hot. The stove in the restaurant makes it so close here you can't breathe.
YEGOR
Shut it, shut it, I say. If it's too hot for you, you can go down into the cellar.
LIPA
But what do you want to have the window shut for?
YEGOR
Because. Shut it! You have been told to shut the window--then shut it! What are you waiting for? (Lipa, shrugging her shoulders, closes the window and is about to leave) Where are you going? The moment your father appears, you run away. Sit down!
LIPA
But you don't want me.
YEGOR
Never mind whether I want you or not--sit down! Oh, my! (He yawns and crosses himself) Where is Savva?
LIPA
I don't know.
YEGOR
Tell him I'll turn him out.
LIPA
Tell him so yourself.
YEGOR
Fool! (He yawns and crosses himself) Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners! What was it I was dreaming about just now?
LIPA
I don't know.
YEGOR
Who asked you? You stupid, how could you tell what I was dreaming? You've got brains, haven't you?
PELAGUEYA (handing him cider)
There.
YEGOR
There. Put it down and don't "there" me. (Takes the jug and drinks) What was I talking about? (Pelagueya finishes scrubbing the floor) Oh yes, about the Father Superior. A smart fellow he is. You'll have to go a long way to find another like him. He had the old coffin exchanged for a new one. The pilgrims chewed the old one to pieces, so he put a new one in its place. He put a new one in place of the old one. They'll chew this, one to pieces too, the fools! Anything you give them, the fools! Do you hear or don't you?
LIPA
I hear. What's so remarkable about it? A swindle, that's all.
YEGOR
What's remarkable about it is that, he didn't ask your advice. They chewed the old one to pieces, so he put a new one in its place exactly like it; Yes, just exactly like the one in which the saint lay before. Remember us in heaven where thou dwellest, O Saint! (He crosses himself and yawns) You can lose your teeth on this one too. They chewed the old one to pieces completely. Where are you off to? Sit down!
LIPA
I can't, it's so hot in here.
YEGOR
But I can. Sit down, you won't melt. (Pause) They chewed up the old one, so he put up a new one. Where is Savva?
PELAGUEYA
He's playing; jackstones with the children.
YEGOR
I'm not asking you. What time is it?
PELAGUEYA
It just struck two.
YEGOR
Tell him I'll turn him out. I won't stand it.
LIPA
Stand what? Be reasonable.
YEGOR
I won't stand it. Who is he anyway? Never at home in time for dinner. He comes and feeds like a dog by himself--knocks about at night and doesn't lock the gate. I went out yesterday and found the gate wide open. If we are robbed, who'll pay for it?
LIPA
There are no thieves here. What thieves have you ever seen in this place?
YEGOR
What thieves? A lot. When all people are asleep, he is knocking about. Who ever heard of such a thing?
LIPA
But if he doesn't want to sleep, what is he to do?
YEGOR
What, you too? He doesn't want to? Let him go to bed, and he'll sleep. No one wants to sleep, but once you lie down you fall asleep. He doesn't want to? I know him. Who asked him to come? He was making bank-notes over there--then why didn't he stay where he was and do what he pleased? What business has he here?
LIPA
What bank-notes?
YEGOR
What bank-notes? Not real ones. Nothing is done to you for making real bank-notes. Counterfeit bank-notes, that's what. Not the sort of thing you get patted on the head for, when you are caught, no sirree! It's very strict now. I'll go to the police captain and tell him: "It's like this--just search him."
LIPA
Oh, nonsense.
PELAGUEYA
You are the only, one who doesn't know it. Everybody else knows it.
LIPA
Oh, Lord!
YEGOR
Well, about the Lord we know better than you. You needn't appeal to Him. I want you to tell Savva that I am not afraid of him. He didn't strike the right person. I'll just make him skip. I'll turn him out. Let him go where he came from. The idea of my having to be responsible for his robberies. Who's ever heard of such a thing?
LIPA
You are not quite wide awake, father, that's what's the matter with you.
YEGOR
I am wide awake all right, and have been for a long time. What I'd like to know is, are you wide awake? Look out, Lipa, don't let it happen to you too.
LIPA
What?
YEGOR
It. (He yawns and crosses himself) If mother were to rise from her grave now and see her children, she would be delighted. Fine children, she would say. I have nursed you, and brought you up, and what's the result? Regular good-for-nothing scamps. Tony'll soon begin to drink again. I can see it on his face. Who's ever heard of such a thing? People will soon be coming here for the feast-day, and I'll have to work alone for the whole bunch. Polya, hand me that match from the floor--there. No, not there, you blind goose. There, you stupid.
PELAGUEYA (hunting for the match)
I don't see it.
YEGOR
I'll take you by the back of your neck and give you such a shaking that you'll see mighty quick. There it is, damn you!
LIPA (faint)
Oh, God, what a blistering heat!
YEGOR
There it is. Where are you crawling? Under the chair. There, damn you!
SAVVA (enters gayly, the pocket of his blouse full of jackstones) I won six pair.
YEGOR
Well, the idea!
SAVVA
I finished that rascal Misha, cleared him all up. What are you mumbling about there?
YEGOR
Nothing. Only I wish you'd address me a little more politely.
SAVVA (paying no attention to him)
Lipa, I won six pair.
LIPA
How can you play in such heat?
SAVVA
Wait, I am going to put the jackstones away. I have eighteen pair now. Misha, the little rascal, plays well. (He goes out)
YEGOR (rising)
I don't want to see him any more. Tell him to get out of here at once.
LIPA
All right, I will.
YEGOR
Don't say "all right," but do what your father tells you. A fine lot of brats--that's a sure thing! Yes, yes. (Goes) If mother saw them--
PELAGUEYA
He speaks of mother as if he weren't the one that drove her to an early grave. He talked her to death, the old scold! He just talks and talks, and nags and nags, and he doesn't know himself what he wants.
LIPA
To be with you is like being caught in the wheel of a machine. My head is spinning round and round.
PELAGUEYA
Then why don't you go away with your Savva? What are you waiting for?
LIPA
Look here, why are you angry with me?
PELAGUEYA
I am not angry. I am telling the truth. You don't want to marry. You are disgusted with all your beaux. Why don't you go into a convent?
LIPA
I won't go into a convent, but I will go away from here, soon enough, I think.
PELAGUEYA
Well, go! No one is keeping you. The road is wide open.
LIPA
Ah, Polya, you are angry and sulky with me. You don't know how I spend my nights thinking about you. At night I lie awake and think and think about you, and about all the people that are unhappy--all of them.
PELAGUEYA
What do you want to think about me for? You had better think about yourself.
LIPA
And no one knows it. Well, what's the use of talking? You couldn't understand anyhow. I am sorry for you, Polya. (Pelagueya laughs) What's the matter?
PELAGUEYA
If you are sorry for me, why don't you carry out that pail? The way I am, I shouldn't be lifting heavy things. Why don't you help me, if you are so sorry for me?
LIPA (her face darkening, then brightening again) Give it to me. (She picks up the pail and starts to carry it away)
PELAGUEYA (spitefully)
Hypocrite! Let go! Where are you going? (She carries out the pail and returns for the other things)
SAVVA (entering; to his sister)
Why is your face so red?
LIPA
It's hot.
[Pelagueya laughs.
SAVVA
Say, Pelagueya, has Kondraty inquired for me?
PELAGUEYA
Kondraty! What Kondraty?
SAVVA
Kondraty, the friar; he looks something like a sparrow.
PELAGUEYA
I didn't see any Kondraty. Like a sparrow! That's a funny way of putting it.
SAVVA
Tell Tony to come here, won't you?
PELAGUEYA
Tell him yourself.
SAVVA
Well, well!
PELAGUEYA (calls through the door before she goes out into the tavern) Anthony, Savva wants you.
LIPA
What do you want him for?
SAVVA
What a queer habit you have here of plying a person with questions all the time. Where, who, why, what for?
LIPA (slightly offended)
You needn't answer if you don't want to.
TONY (enters, speaking slowly and with difficulty)
Who wants me?
SAVVA
I am expecting Kondraty here--you know Kondraty, don't you? Send him in when he comes.
TONY
Who are you?
SAVVA
And send in two bottles of whiskey too, do you hear?
TONY
Maybe I do and maybe I don't. Maybe I'll send the whiskey and maybe I won't.
SAVVA
What a sceptic. You've grown silly, Tony.
LIPA
Leave him alone, Savva. He has got that from the seminary student, from Speransky. Anyhow, he is full of--
TONY (sitting down)
I didn't get it from anybody. I can understand everything myself. The blood has congealed in my heart.
SAVVA
That's from drink, Tony. Stop drinking.
TONY
The blood has congealed in my heart. You think I don't know what's what. A while ago you weren't here with us, and all of a sudden you came. Yes, I understand everything. I have visions.
SAVVA
What do you see? God?
TONY
There is no God.
SAVVA
How's that?
TONY
And no devil either. There's nothing, no people, no animals, nothing.
SAVVA
What is there then?
TONY
There are only faces, a whole lot of faces. It's faces, faces, faces. They are very funny, and I keep laughing all the time. I just sit still, and the faces come jumping and gliding past me, jumping and gliding. You've got a very funny face too, Savva. (Sadly) It's enough to make one die of laughter.
SAVVA (laughing gayly)
What kind of a face have I?
TONY
That's the kind of face you have. (Pointing his finger at him) She also has a face, and she. And father too. And then there are other faces. There are a lot of faces. I sit in the tavern and see everything. Nothing escapes me. You can't fool me. Some faces are small and some are large, and all of them glide and glide--Some are far away, and some are as close to me as if they wanted to kiss me or bite my nose. They have teeth.
SAVVA
All right, Tony, now you can go. We'll talk about the faces later. Your own face is funny enough.
TONY
Yes, of course. I, too, have a face.
SAVVA
All right, all right. Go now. Don't forget to send in the whiskey.
TONY
As in the daytime so at night. A lot of faces. (From the door) And in regards to whiskey, maybe I'll send it and maybe I won't. I can't tell yet.
SAVVA (to Lipa)
Has he been that way a long time?
LIPA
I don't know. I think so. He drinks an awful lot.
PELAGUEYA (going)
No wonder. You're enough to drive a man to drink. Cranks. (Exit)
LIPA
My, how stifling! I don't know what to do with myself. Say, Savva, why aren't you nicer to Polya? She is such a wretched creature.
SAVVA
A slavish soul.
LIPA
It isn't her fault if she's that way.
SAVVA (coldly)
Nor mine either.
LIPA
Oh, Savva, if you only knew the terrible life people lead here. The men drink, and beat their wives, and the women--
SAVVA
I know.
LIPA
You say it so calmly. I have been waiting very much to have a talk with you.
SAVVA
Go ahead.
LIPA
You'll soon be leaving us, I suppose.
SAVVA
Yes.
LIPA
Then I won't have any chance to talk to you. You are scarcely ever at home. This is the first time, pretty nearly. It seems so strange that you should enjoy playing with the children, you a grown man, big as a bear.
SAVVA (merrily)
No, Lipa, they play very well. Misha is very good at the game, and I have a hard time holding up my end of it. I lost him three pairs yesterday.
LIPA
Why, he is only ten years old.--
SAVVA
Well, what of it? The children are the only human beings here. They are the wisest part of the--
LIPA (with a smile)
And I? How about me?
SAVVA (looking at her)
You? Why, you are like the rest.
[A pause. Being offended, Lipa's languor disappears to some extent.
LIPA
Maybe I bore you.
SAVVA
No, you make no difference to me one way or another. I am never bored.
LIPA (with a constrained smile)
Thank you, I am glad of that at least. Were you in the monastery to-day? You go there often, don't you?
SAVVA
Yes, I was there. Why?
LIPA
I suppose you don't remember--I love our monastery. It is so beautiful. At times it looks so pensive. I like it because it's so old. Its age gives it a solemnity, a stern serenity and detachment.
SAVVA
Do you read many books?
LIPA (blushing)
I used to read a lot. You know I spent four winters in Moscow with Aunt Glasha. Why do you ask?
SAVVA
Never mind. Go on.
LIPA
Does what I say sound ridiculous?
SAVVA
No, go on.
LIPA
The monastery is really a remarkable place. There are nice spots there which no one ever visits, somewhere between the mute walls, where there is nothing but grass and fallen stones and a lot of old, old litter. I love to linger there, especially at twilight, or on hot sunny days like to-day. I close my eyes, and I seem to look far, far into the distant past--at those who built it and those who first prayed in it. There they walk along the path carrying bricks and singing something, so softly, so far away. (Closing her eyes) So softly, so softly.
SAVVA
I don't like the old. As to the building of the monastery, it was done by serfs, of course; and when they carried bricks they didn't sing, but quarrelled and cursed one another. That's more like it.
LIPA (opening her eyes)
Those are my dreams. You see, Savva, I am all alone here. I have nobody to talk to. Tell me--You won't be angry, will you?--Tell me, just me alone, why did you come here to us? It wasn't to pray. It wasn't for the feast-day. You don't look like a pilgrim.
SAVVA (frowning)
I don't like you to be so curious.
LIPA
How can you think I am? Do I look as if I were curious? You have been here for two weeks, and you ought to see that I am lonely. I am lonely, Savva. Your coming was to me like manna fallen from the sky. You are the first living human being that has come here from over there, from real life. In Moscow I lived very quietly, just reading my books; and here--you see the sort of people we have here.
SAVVA
Do you think it's different in other places?
LIPA
I don't know. That's what I should like to find out from you. You have seen so much. You have even been abroad.
SAVVA
Only for a short time.
LIPA
That makes no difference. You have met many cultured, wise, interesting people. You have lived with them. How do they live? What kind of people are they? Tell me all about it.
SAVVA
A mean, contemptible lot.
LIPA
Is that so? You don't say so!
SAVVA
They live just as you do here--a stupid, senseless existence. The only difference is in the language they speak. But that makes it still worse. The justification for cattle is that, they are without speech. But when the cattle become articulate, begin to speak, defend themselves and express ideas then the situation becomes intolerable, unmitigatedly repulsive. Their dwelling-places are different too--yes--but that's a small thing. I was in a city inhabited by a hundred thousand people. The windows in the house of that city are all small. Those living in them are all fond of light, but it never occurs to anyone that the windows might be made larger. And when a new house is built, they put in the same kind of windows, just as small, just as they have always been.
LIPA
The idea! I never would have thought it. But they can't all be like that. You must have met good people who knew how to live.
SAVVA
I don't know how to make you understand. Yes, I did meet, if not altogether good people, yet--The last people with whom I lived were a pretty good sort. They didn't accept life ready-made, but tried to make it over to suit themselves. But--
LIPA
Who were they--students?
SAVVA
No. Look here--how about your tongue--is it of the loose kind?
LIPA
Savva, you ought to be ashamed!
SAVVA
All right. Now then. You've read of people who make bombs--little bombs, you understand? Now if they see anybody who interferes with life, they take him off. They're called anarchists. But that isn't quite correct. (Contemptuously) Nice anarchists they are!
LIPA (starting back, awestruck)
What are you talking about? You can't possibly be in earnest. It isn't true. And you in it, too? Why, you look so simple and talk so simply, and suddenly--I was hot a moment ago, but now I am cold, (The rooster crows-under the window, calling the chickens to share some seed he has found)
SAVVA
There now--you're frightened. First you want me to tell you, and then--
LIPA
Don't mind me, Savva, it's nothing. It was so unexpected. I thought such people didn't really exist--that they were just a fiction of the imagination. And then, all of a sudden, to find you, my brother--You are not joking, Savva? Look me straight in the eye.
SAVVA
But why did you get frightened? They are not so terrible after all. In fact, they are very quiet, orderly people, and very deliberate. They meet and meet, and weigh and consider a long time, and then--bang!--a sparrow drops dead. The next minute there is another sparrow in its place, hopping about on the very same branch. Why are you looking at my hands?
LIPA
Oh, nothing. Give me your hand--no, your right hand.
SAVVA
Here.
LIPA
How heavy it is. Feel how cold mine are. Go on, tell me all about it. It's so interesting.
SAVVA
What's there to tell? They are a brave set of people, I must admit; but it is a bravery of the head, not of the hands. And their heads are partitioned off into little chambers; they are always careful not to do anything which is unnecessary or harmful. Now you can't clear a dense forest by cutting down one tree at a time, can you? That's what they do. While they chop at one end, it grows up at the other. You can't accomplish anything that way; it's labor lost. I proposed a scheme to them, something on a larger scale. They got frightened, wouldn't hear of it. A little weak-kneed they are. So I left them. Let them practise virtue. A narrow-minded bunch. They lack breadth of vision.
LIPA
You say it as calmly as if you were joking.
SAVVA
No, I am not joking.
LIPA
Aren't you afraid?
SAVVA
I? So far I haven't been, and I don't ever expect to be. What worse can happen to a man than to have been born? It's like asking a man who is drowning whether he is not afraid of getting wet. (Laughs)
LIPA
So that's the kind you are.
SAVVA
One thing I learned from them: respect for dynamite. It's a powerful instrument, dynamite is--nothing like it for a convincing argument.
LIPA
You are only twenty-three years old. You have no beard yet, not even a moustache.
SAVVA (feeling his face)
Yes, a measly growth; but what conclusions do you draw from that?
LIPA
Fear will come to you yet.
SAVVA
No. If I haven't been frightened so far by watching life, there's nothing else to fear. Life, yes. I embrace the earth with my eyes, the whole of it, the entire little planetoid, and I can find nothing more terrible on it than man and human life. And I am not afraid of man.
LIPA (scarcely listening to him; ecstatically)
Yes, that's the word. That's it. Savva, dear, I am not afraid of bodily suffering either. Burn me on a slow fire. Cut me to pieces. I won't cry. I'll laugh. I know I will. But there is another thing I am afraid of. I am afraid of people's suffering, of the misery from which they cannot escape. When in the stillness of the night, broken only by the striking of the hours, I think of how much suffering there is all around us--aimless, needless suffering; suffering one doesn't even know of--when I think of that, I am chilled with terror. I go down on my knees and pray. I pray to God, saying to Him: "Oh, Lord, if there has to be a victim, take me, but give the people joy, give them peace, give them forgetfulness. Oh, Lord, all powerful as Thou art--"
SAVVA
Yes.
LIPA
I have read about a man who was eaten by an eagle, and his flesh grew again overnight. If my body could turn into bread and joy for the people, I would consent to live in eternal torture in order to feed the unfortunate. There'll soon be a holiday here in the monastery--
SAVVA
I know.
LIPA
There is an ikon of the Saviour there with the touching inscription: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden--
SAVVA
And I will give you rest." I know.
LIPA
It is regarded as a wonder-working ikon. Go there on the feast-day. It's like a torrent pouring into the monastery, an ocean rolling toward its walls; and this whole ocean is made up entirely of human tears, of human sorrow and misery. Such monstrosities, such cripples. After witnessing one of those scenes, I walk about as in a dream. There are faces with such a depth of misery in them that one can never forget them as long as one lives. Why, Savva, I was a gay young thing before I saw all that. There is one man who comes here every year--they have nicknamed him King Herod--
SAVVA
He is here already. I've seen him.
LIPA
Have you?
SAVVA
Yes, he has got a tragic face.
LIPA
Long ago, when still a young man, he killed his son by accident, and from that day he keeps coming here. He has an awful face. And all of them are waiting for a miracle.
SAVVA
Yes. There is something worse than inescapable human suffering, however.
LIPA
What?
SAVVA (lightly)
Inescapable human stupidity.
LIPA
I don't know.
SAVVA
I do. Here you see only a small fragment of life, but if you could see and hear all of it--When I first read their newspapers, I laughed and thought it was a joke. I thought they were published in some asylum for the insane. But I found it was no joke. It was really serious, Lipa, really serious. And then my head began to ache with an intolerable pain. (He presses his hand to his forehead)
LIPA
Your head began to ache?
SAVVA
Yes. It's a peculiar pain. You don't know what it is like. Few people know what it is. And the pain continued until I resolved--
LIPA
What?
SAVVA
To annihilate everything.
LIPA
What are you saying?
SAVVA
Yes, yes, everything. All that's old.
LIPA (in amazement)
And man?
SAVVA
Man is to remain, of course. What is in his way is the stupidity that, piling up for thousands of years, has grown into a mountain. The modern sages want to build on this mountain, but that, of course, will lead to nothing but making the mountain still higher. It is the mountain itself that must be removed. It must be levelled to its foundation, down to the bare earth. Do you understand?
LIPA
No, I don't understand you. You talk so strangely.
SAVVA
Annihilate everything! The old houses, the old cities, the old literature, the old art. Do you know what art is?
LIPA
Yes, of course I know--pictures, statues. I went to the Tretyakov art gallery.
SAVVA
That's it--the Tretyakov, and other galleries that are bigger still. There are some good things in them, but it will be still better to have the old stuff out of the way. All the old dress must go. Man must be stripped bare and left naked on a naked earth! Then he will build up a new life. The earth must be denuded, Lipa; it must be stripped of its hideous old rags. It deserves to be arrayed in a king's mantle; but what have they done with it? They have dressed it in coarse fustian, in convict clothes. They've built cities, the idiots!
LIPA
But who will do it? Who's going to destroy everything?
SAVVA
I.
LIPA
You?
SAVVA
Yes, I. I'll begin, and then, when people get to understand what I am after, others will join in. The work will proceed merrily, Lipa. The sky will be hot. Yes. The only thing not worth destroying is science. That would be useless. Science is unchangeable, and if, you destroyed it to-day, it would rise up again the same as before.
LIPA
How much blood will have to be shed? Why, it's horrible!
SAVVA
No more than has been shed already--and there'll be rhyme and reason to it, at least. (Pause; the hens cluck in the yard; from the same direction comes Tony's sleepy voice: "Polya, father wants you. Where did you put his cap?")
LIPA
What a scheme! Are you not joking, Savva?
SAVVA
You make me sick with your "you are joking, you are joking."
LIPA
I am afraid of you, Savva. You are so serious about it.
SAVVA
Yes, there are many people who are afraid of me.
LIPA
If you would only smile a little.
SAVVA (looking at her with wide-open eyes and a frank face, and breaking abruptly into a clear, ringing laugh) Oh, you funny girl, what should I be smiling for? I'd rather laugh. (Both laugh) Are you afraid of tickling?
LIPA
Stop it! What a boy you are still!
SAVVA
All right. And Kondraty, isn't here yet. I wonder why. Do you think the devil has taken him? The devil is fond of monks, you know.
LIPA
What strange fancies you have. Why, now you are joking--
SAVVA (somewhat surprised)
They are not fancies.
LIPA
My fancies are different. You are a dear now, because you talk to me. In the evening I'll tell you all about myself. We'll take a walk together, and I'll tell you everything.
SAVVA
Very well, I'll listen. Why shouldn't I?
LIPA
Tell me, Savva, if I may ask--are you in love with a woman?
SAVVA
Ah, switched around to the subject of love after all--just like a woman! I hardly know what to say. I did love a girl, in a way, but she didn't stick it out.
LIPA
Stick out what?
SAVVA
My love, or perhaps myself. All I know is that one fine day she went away and left me.
LIPA (laughing)
And you?
SAVVA
Nothing. I remained alone.
LIPA
Have you any friends, comrades?
SAVVA
No.
LIPA
Any enemies? I mean is there anyone whom you particularly dislike, whom you hate?
SAVVA
Yes--God.
LIPA (incredulously)
What?
SAVVA
God, I say--the one whom you call your Saviour.
LIPA (shouting)
Don't dare speak that way! You've gone out of your mind!
SAVVA
Ah! I touched your sensitive spot, did I?
LIPA
Don't you dare!
SAVVA
I thought you were a gentle dove, but you have a tongue like a snake's. (He imitates the movements of a snake's tongue with his finger)
LIPA
Good Lord! How dare you, how can you speak like that of the Saviour? Why, one dares not look at him. Why have you come here?
[Kondraty appears at the door of the tavern, looks around, and enters quietly.
KONDRATY
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!
SAVVA
Amen! You're very late, my gracious lord!
KONDRATY
I did the will of him who sent me. I was picking young little cucumbers for the Father Superior. He has them made into a dainty dish which he loves dearly for an appetizer. My, what infernal heat! I was in pools of perspiration before I got through.
SAVVA (to Lipa)
You see, here is a monk. He likes a drink. His cussing vocabulary isn't bad. He is no fool, and as to women--
KONDRATY
Don't embarrass the young lady, Mr. Tropinin. In the presence of a lady--
SAVVA
And furthermore, he doesn't believe in God.
KONDRATY
He is joking.
LIPA
I don't like such jokes. What have you come here for?
KONDRATY
I am here by invitation.
SAVVA
I have some business with him.
LIPA (without looking at Savva)
What have you come here for?
SAVVA
For nothing that concerns you. You had better have a talk with him. He is a chap that possesses a great deal of curiosity. He's not a fool, either, but knows what's what.
LIPA (looking searchingly at Savva)
I know him well, I know him very well.
KONDRATY
To my regret I must admit it's true. I have the unenviable fortune of being known as a man who does not observe the outer forms of conduct. It is on account of that characteristic I was fired from my position as government clerk, and it's on that account I am now frequently condemned to live for weeks on nothing but bread and water. I cannot act in secret. I am open and above-board. In fact, I fairly cry aloud whatever I do. For example, the circumstances under which I met you, Mr. Tropinin, are such that I am ashamed to recall them.
SAVVA
Don't recall them then.
KONDRATY (to Lipa)
I was lying in a mud puddle in all my dignity, like a regular hog.
LIPA (disgusted)
All right.
KONDRATY
But I am not ashamed to speak of it; first, because many people saw it, and of course nobody took the trouble to get me out of it except Savva Yegorovich, and secondly, because I regard this as my cross.
LIPA
A fine cross!
KONDRATY
Every man, Miss Olympiada, has his cross. It isn't so very nice to be lying in a mud puddle. Dry ground is pleasanter every time. And do you know, I think half of the water in that puddle was my own tears, and my woeful lamentations made ripples on it--
SAVVA
That's not quite so, Kondraty. You were singing a song: "And we're baptized of him in Jordan"--to a very jolly tune at that.
KONDRATY
You don't say! What of it? So much the worse. It shows to what depths a man will descend.
SAVVA
Don't assume a melancholy air, father. You're quite a jovial fellow by nature, and the assumption of grief doesn't go well with your face, I assure you.
KONDRATY
True, Savva Yegorovich, I was a jolly fellow; but that was before I entered the monastery. As soon as I came here I took a tumble, so to speak; I lost my joviality and serenity and learned to know what real sorrow is.
[Tony enters and remains standing in the doorway gazing ecstatically at the monk.
SAVVA
Why so?
KONDRATY (stepping nearer and speaking in a lowered voice) There is no God here--there's only the devil. This is a terrible place to live in, on my word it is, Mr. Savva. I am a man with a large experience. It's no easy thing to frighten me. But I am afraid to walk in the hall at night.
SAVVA
What devil?
KONDRATY
The ordinary one. To you, educated people, he appears in a nobler aspect of course; but to us plain, simple people, he reveals himself as he really is.
SAVVA
With horns?
KONDRATY
How can I tell? I never saw the horns; but that's not the point, although I may say that his shadow clearly shows the horns. The thing is that we have no peace in our monastery; there is always such a noise and clatter there. Everything is quiet outside; but inside there are groans and gnashing of teeth. Some groan, some whine, and some complain about something, you can't tell what. When you pass the doors, you feel as if your soul were taking leave of the world behind every door. Suddenly something glides from around the corner.--and there's a shadow on the wall. Nothing at all--and yet there's a shadow on the wall. In other places it makes no difference. You pay no attention to such a trifle as a shadow; but here, Savva Yegorovich, they are alive, and you can almost hear them speak. On my word of honor! Our hall, you know, is so long that it seems never to end. You enter--nothing! You see a sort of black object moving in front of you, something like the figure of a man. Then it stretches out, grows larger and larger and wider and wider until it reaches across the ceiling, and then it's behind you! You keep on walking. Your senses become paralyzed. You lose all consciousness.
SAVVA (to Tony)
What are you staring at?
TONY
What a face!
KONDRATY
And God too is impotent here. Of course we have sacred relics and a wonder-working ikon; but, if you'll excuse me for saying so, they have no efficacy.
LIPA
What are you saying?
KONDRATY
None whatever. If you don't believe me, ask the other monks. They'll bear me out. We pray and pray, and beat our foreheads, and the result is nothing, absolutely nothing. If the image did nothing else than drive away the impure power! But it can't do even that. It hangs there as if it were none of its business, and as soon as night comes, the stir and the gliding and the flitting around the corners begin again. The abbot says we are cowards, poor in spirit, and that we ought to be ashamed. But why are the images ineffective? The monks in the monastery say--
LIPA
Well?
KONDRATY
But it's hard to believe it. It's impossible. They say that the devil stole the real image long ago--the one that could perform miracles--and hung up his own picture instead.
LIPA
Oh, God, what blasphemy! Why aren't you ashamed to believe such vile, horrid stuff? You who are wearing a monk's robe at that! You really ought to be lying in a puddle--it's the proper place for you.
SAVVA
Now, now, don't get mad. Don't mind her, Father Kondraty, she doesn't mean it. She is a good girl. But really, why don't you leave the monastery? Why do you want to be fooling about here with shadows and devils?
KONDRATY (shrugging his shoulders)
I would like to leave; but where am I to go? I dropped work long ago. I am not used to it any more. Here at least I don't have to worry about how to get a piece of bread. And as for the devil (cautiously winking to Savva as he turns to the window and fillips his neck with his fingers) I have a means against him.
SAVVA
Well, let's go out and have a talk. You, face, will you send us some whiskey?
TONY (gloomily)
He isn't telling the truth. There are no devils either. The devil couldn't have hung up his picture if there's no devil. It's impossible. He had better ask me.
SAVVA
All right, we'll speak about that later. Send us whiskey.
TONY (goes)
I won't send you any whiskey either.
SAVVA
What a stupid fellow! I tell you what, father. You go out into the garden through that door. I'll be, with you in a moment. Don't lose yourself. (He goes out after Tony)
KONDRATY
Good-bye, Miss Olympiada.
[Lipa doesn't answer. When Kondraty has left, she walks around the room a few times, agitated, waiting for Savva.
SAVVA (entering)
Well, what a fool!
LIPA (barring his way)
I know why you came here. I know! Don't you dare!
SAVVA
What's that?
LIPA
When I heard you talk, I thought it was just words, but now--Come to your senses! Think! You've gone crazy. What do you mean to do?
SAVVA
Let me go.
LIPA
I listened to you and laughed! Good Lord! I feel as if I had awakened from a terrible dream. Or is it all a dream? What was the monk here for? What for?
SAVVA
Now that will do. You have had your say; that's enough. Let me go.
LIPA
Don't you see you have gone crazy? Do you understand? You are out of your mind.
SAVVA
I'm sick of hearing you repeat that. Let's go.
LIPA
Savva; dear, darling Savva--No? Very well, you won't listen to me? Very well. You'll see, Savva, you'll see. You ought to have your hands and feet tied. And you will be bound, too. There are people who will do it. Oh, God! What does this mean? Stay! Stay! Savva!
SAVVA (going)
All right, all right.
LIPA (shouting)
I'll denounce you. Murderer! Ruffian! I'll denounce you.
SAVVA (turning round)
Oho! You had better be more careful. (Puts his hand on her shoulder and looks into her eyes) You had better be more careful, I say.
LIPA
You--(For about three seconds there is a struggle between the two pairs of eyes, after which Lipa turns aside, biting her lips) I am not afraid of you.
SAVVA
That's better. But don't shout. One should never shout. (Exit)
LIPA (alone)
What does this mean? What am I to do? (The hens cluck)
YEGOR TROPININ (in the door)
What's the matter? What's the row here--hey? I was gone just half an hour, and everything has gone topsy-turvy. Lipa, why did you let the chickens get into the raspberry bushes? Go and drive 'em away, damn you! I am talking to you--yes, to you! Go, or I'll go you, I'll go you, I'll--
CURTAIN
Within the enclosure of the monastery. In the rear, at the left, appear the monastery buildings, the refectory, monks' cells, parts of the church and the steeple, all connected by passageways with arched gates. Board-walks run in different directions in the court. At the right the corner of the steeple wall is seen slightly jutting out. Nestling against it is a small monastic cemetery surrounded by a light, grilled iron fence. Marble monuments and slabs of stone and iron are sunk deep into the earth. All are old and twisted. It is a long time since anyone was buried there. The cemetery contains also some wild rose-bushes and two or three rather small trees.
It is evening, after vespers. Long shadows are falling from the tower and the walls. The monastery and the steeple are bathed in the reddish light of the setting sun. Monks, novices and pilgrims pass along the board-walks. In the beginning of the act may be heard behind the scenes the driving of a village herd, the cracking of a herdsman's whip, the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, and dull cries. Toward the end of the act it grows much darker, and the movement in the yard ceases almost entirely.
Savva, Speransky, and the Young Friar are seated on a bench by the iron fence. Speransky is holding his hat on his knees, and now and then he strokes his long, straight hair, which is hanging in two mournful strands over his long, pale face. He holds his legs together speaks in a low, sad tone, and gesticulates with extended forefinger. The Friar, young, round-faced, and vigorous, pays no attention to the conversation, but is smiling continually, as if at his own thoughts.
SAVVA (preoccupied, looking aside)
Yes. What kind of work do you do here?
SPERANSKY
None at all, Mr. Savva. How can a man in my condition do any work? Once a man begins to doubt his own existence, the obligation to work naturally ceases to exist for him. But the deacon's wife does not understand it. She is a very stupid woman, utterly lacking in education, and, moreover, of an unlovely, cruel disposition. She insists on making me work. But you can imagine the sort of work I do under the circumstances. You see, the situation is this. I have a splendid appetite. That appetite began to develop while I was yet a student in the seminary. Now this deaconess, if you please, makes a fuss about every piece of bread I eat. She doesn't understand, the ignorant woman, the possibility of the non-existence of this piece of bread. If I had a real existence like the rest of you, I should feel very bad, but in my present condition her attacks don't affect me in the least. Nothing affects me, Mr. Savva, nothing in the wide world.
SAVVA (smiling at the Friar's unconscious joy, but still preoccupied) How long have you been in this condition?
SPERANSKY
It began in the seminary while I was studying philosophy. It is a dreadful condition, Mr. Savva. I have grown somewhat accustomed to it now, but at first it was unendurable. I tried to hang myself once, and they cut me down. Then I tried a second time, and they cut me down again. Then they turned me out of the seminary. "Go hang yourself in some other place, you madman," they said. As if there were any other place! As if all places were not the same!
THE FRIAR
Mr. Savva, let's go fishing to-morrow at the mill.
SAVVA
I don't like fishing. It bores me.
FRIAR
I'm sorry. Well then, let's go into the woods and knock down the dry branches of trees. It's fine sport to walk about in the forest and knock off the branches with a stick. And when you shout "Ho-ho-ho!" the echo from the ravine answers back "Ho-ho-ho!" Do you like swimming?
SAVVA
Yes, I like it. I am a good swimmer.
FRIAR
I like it too.
SPERANSKY (with a deep sigh)
Yes, it's a strange condition.
SAVVA (smiling at the Friar)
Eh? Well, how are you now?
SPERANSKY
When my uncle took me to his house, he made me promise I would never attempt suicide again. That was the only condition oh which he would consent to let me live with him. "All right," I said; "if we really exist, then I won't make any further attempt to hang myself."
SAVVA
Why do you want to know whether you exist or not? There is the sky. Look, how beautiful it is. There are the swallows and the sweet-scented grass. It's fine! (To the Friar) Fine, isn't it, Vassya?
FRIAR
Mr. Savva, do you like to tear up ant-hills?
SAVVA
I don't know. I never tried.
FRIAR
I like it. Do you like to fly kites?
SAVVA
It's a long time since I tried to. I used to like it very much.
SPERANSKY (patiently awaiting the end of their conversation)
Swallows! What good is their flying to me? Anyhow, maybe swallows don't exist either, and it's all a dream.
SAVVA
Suppose it is a dream. Dreams are very beautiful sometimes, you know.
SPERANSKY
I should like to wake up, but I can't. I wander around and wander around until I am weary and feeble, and when I rouse myself I find I am here, in the very same place. There is the monastery and the belfry, and the clock strikes the hour. And it's all like a dream, a fantasy. You close your eyes, and it does not exist. You open them, and it's there again. Sometimes I go out into the fields at night and close my eyes, and then it seems to me there is nothing at all existing. Suddenly the quail begin to call, and a wagon rolls down the road. Again a dream. For if you stopped up your ears, you wouldn't hear those sounds. When I die, everything will grow silent, and then it will be true. Only the dead know the truth, Mr. Savva.
FRIAR (smiling, cautiously waving his hands at a bird; in a whisper) It's time to go to bed, time to go to bed.
SAVVA (impatiently)
What dead? Listen, my dear sir. I have a plain, simple, peasant mind, and I don't understand those subtleties. What dead are you talking about?
SPERANSKY
About all the dead, every one without exception. That's why the faces of the dead are so serene. Whatever agonies a man may have suffered before his death, the moment he dies his face becomes serene. That's because he has learned the truth. I always come here to attend the funerals. It's astonishing. There was a woman buried here. She had died of grief because her husband was crushed under a locomotive. You can imagine what must have been going on in her mind before her death. It's too horrible to think of. Yet she lay there, in the coffin, absolutely serene and calm. That's because she had come to know that her grief was nothing but a dream, a mere phantom. I like the dead, Mr. Savva. I think the dead really exist.
SAVVA
I don't like the dead. (Impatiently) You are a very disagreeable fellow. Has anybody ever told you that?
SPERANSKY
Yes, I have, heard it before.
SAVVA
I would never have taken you out of the noose. What damn fool did it anyway?
SPERANSKY
The first time it was the Father Steward, the next time my classmates. I am very sorry you disapprove of me, Mr. Tropinin. As you are an educated man, I should have liked to show you a bit of writing I did while I was in the seminary. It's called "The Tramp of Death." It's a sort of story.
SAVVA
No, spare me, please. Altogether I wish you'd--
FRIAR. (rising)
There comes Father Kirill. I had better beat it.
SAVVA
Why?
FRIAR
He came across me in the forest the other day when I was-shouting "Ho! Ho!" "Ah," said he, "you forest sprite with goat's feet!" To-morrow after dinner, all right? (Walks away, sedately at first, but then with a sort of dancing step)
FAT MONK (approaches)
Well, young men, having a pleasant chat? Are you Mr. Tropinin's son?
SAVVA
I am the man.
FAT MONK
I have heard about you. A decent, respectable gentleman your father is. May I sit down? (He sits down) The sun has set, yet it's still hot. I wonder if we'll have a storm to-night. Well, young man, how do you like it here? How does this place compare with the metropolis?
SAVVA
It's a rich monastery.
FAT MONK
Yes, thank the Lord. It's celebrated all over Russia. There are many who come here even from Siberia. Its fame reaches far. There'll soon be a feast-day, and--
SPERANSKY
You'll work yourself sick, father. Services day and night.
FAT MONK
Yes, we must do our best for the monastery.
SAVVA
Not for the people?
FAT MONK
Yes, for the people too. For whom else? Last year a large number of epileptics were cured; quite a lot of them. One blind man had his eyesight restored, and two paralytics were made to walk. You'll see for yourself, young man, and then you won't smile. I have heard that you are an unbeliever.
SAVVA
You have heard correctly. I am an unbeliever.
FAT MONK
It's a shame, a shame. Of course, there are many unbelievers nowadays among the educated classes. But are they any happier on that account? I doubt it.
SAVVA
No, there are not so many. They think they are unbelievers because they don't go to church. As a matter of fact, they have greater faith than you. It's more deep-seated.
FAT MONK
Is that so?
SAVVA
Yes, yes. The form of their faith is, of course, more refined. They are cultured, you see.
FAT MONK
Of course, of course. People feel better, feel more confident and secure, if they believe.
SAVVA
They say the devil is choking the monks here every night.
FAT MONK (laughing)
Nonsense. (To the Gray Monk passing by) Father Vissarion, come here a moment. Sit down. Mr. Tropinin's son here says the devil chokes us every night. Have you heard about it? (The two monks laugh good-naturedly as they look at each other)
GRAY MONK
Some of the monks can't sleep well because they have overeaten, so they think they are being choked. Why, young man, the devil can't enter within our sacred precincts.
SAVVA
But suppose he does suddenly put in an appearance? What will, you do then?
FAT MONK
We'll get after him with the holy-water sprinkler, that's what we'll do. "Don't butt in where you have no business to, you black-faced booby!" (The monk laughs)
GRAY MONK
Here comes King Herod.
FAT MONK
Wait a while, Father Vissarion. (To Savva) You talk about faith and such things. There's a man for you--look at him--see how he walks. And yet he has chains on him weighing four hundred pounds. He doesn't walk, he dances. He visits us every summer, and I must say he is a very valuable guest. His example strengthens others in their faith. Herod! Ho, Herod!
KING HEROD
What do you want?
FAT MONK
Come here a minute. This gentleman doubts the existence of God. Talk to him.
KING HEROD
What's the matter with yourself? Are you so full of booze that you can't wag your own tongue?
FAT MONK
You heretic! What a heretic! (Both monks laugh)
KING HEROD (approaching)
What gentleman?
FAT MONK
This one.
KING HEROD (scrutinizing him)
He doubts? Let him doubt. It's none of my business.
SAVVA
Oh!
KING HEROD
Why, what did you think?
FAT MONK
Sit down, please.
KING HEROD
Never mind. I'd rather stand.
FAT MONK (to Savva, in a loud whisper)
He is doing that to wear himself out. Until he has reduced himself to absolute faintness he'll neither sleep nor eat. (Aloud) This gentleman is wondering at the kind of chains you have on your body.
KING HEROD
Chains? Just baby rattles. Put them on a horse and he too would carry them if he had the strength. I have a sad heart. (Looks at Savva) You know, I killed my own son. Yes, I did. Have they been telling you about me, these chatterboxes?
SAVVA
They have.
KING HEROD
Can you understand it?
SAVVA
Why not? Yes, I can.
KING HEROD
You lie--you can't. No one can understand it. Go through the whole world, search round the whole globe, ask everybody--no one will be able to tell you, no one will understand. And if anyone says he does, take it from me that he lies, lies just as you do. Why, you can't even see your own nose properly, yet you have the brazenness to say you understand. Go. You are a foolish boy, that's what you are.
SAVVA
And you are wise?
KING HEROD
I am wise. My sorrow has made me so. It is a great sorrow. There is none greater on earth. I killed my son with my own hand. Not the hand you are looking at, but the one which isn't here.
SAVVA
Where is it?
KING HEROD
I burnt it. I held it in the stove and let it burn up to my elbow.
SAVVA
Did that relieve you?
KING HEROD
No. Fire cannot destroy my grief. It burns with a heat that is greater than fire.
SAVVA
Fire, brother, destroys everything.
KING HEROD
No, young man, fire is weak. Spit on it and it is quenched.
SAVVA
What fire? It is possible to kindle such a conflagration that an ocean of water will not quench it.
KING HEROD
No, boy. Every fire goes out when its time comes. My grief is great, so great that when I look around me I say to myself: Good heavens, what has become of everything else that's large and great? Where has it all gone to? The forest is small, the house is small, the mountain is small, the whole earth is small, a mere poppy seed. You have to walk cautiously and look out, lest you reach the end and drop off.
FAT MONK (pleased)
Fine, King Herod, you are going it strong.
KING HEROD
Even the sun does not rise for me. For others it rises, but for me it doesn't. Others don't see the darkness by day, but I see it. It penetrates the light like dust. At first I seem to see a sort of light, but then--good heavens, the sky is dark, the earth is dark, all is like soot. Yonder is something vague and misty. I can't even make out what it is. Is it a human being, is it a bush? My grief is great, immense! (Grows pensive) If I cried, who would hear me? If I shouted, who would respond?
FAT MONK (to the Gray Monk)
The dogs in the village might.
KING HEROD (shaking his head)
O you people! You are looking at me as at a monstrosity--at my hair, my chains--because I killed my son and because I am like King Herod; but my soul you see not, and my grief you know not. You are as blind as earthworms. You wouldn't know if you were struck with a beam on the head. Say, you pot-belly, what are you shaking your paunch, for?
SAVVA
Why--the way he talks to you!
FAT MONK (reassuringly)
It's nothing. He treats us all like that. He upbraids us all.
KING HEROD
Yes, and I will continue to upbraid. Fellows like you are not fit to serve God. What you ought to do is to sit in a drinkshop amusing Satan. The devils use your belly to go sleigh-riding on at night.
FAT MONK (good-naturedly)
Well, well, God be with you. You had better speak about yourself; stick to that.
KING HEROD (to Savva)
You see? He wants to feast on my agony. Go ahead, feast all you want.
GRAY MONK
My, what a scold you are. Where do you get your vocabulary? He once told the Father Superior that if God were not immortal he, the Father Superior, would long ago have sold him piece by piece. But we tolerate him. He can do no harm in a monastery.
FAT MONK
He attracts people. Many come here for his sake. And what difference does it make to us? God sees our purity. Isn't that so, King Herod?
KING HEROD
Oh, shut up, you old dotard. Look at him; he can scarcely move his legs, old Harry with the evil eye. Keeps three women in the village; one is not enough for him. (The monks laugh good-naturedly) You see, you see? Whew! Look at their brazen, shameless eyes! Might as well spit on them!
SAVVA
Why do you come here?
KING HEROD
Not for them. Listen, young man. Have you a grief?
SAVVA
Perhaps I have. Why?
KING HEROD
Then listen to me. When you are in sorrow, when you are suffering, don't go to people. If you have a friend, don't go to him. It's more than you'll be able to stand. Better go to the wolves in the forest. They'll make short work of it, devour you at once, and there will be the end of it. I have seen many evil things, but I have never seen anything worse than man. No, never! They say men are created in His image, in His likeness. Why, you skunks, you have no image. If you had one, the tiniest excuse for one, you would crawl away on all fours and hide somewhere from sheer shame. You damned skunks! Laugh at them, cry before them, shout, at them. It doesn't make any difference. They go on licking their chops. King Herod--Damned skunks! And when King Herod--not I, but the real one with a golden crown--killed your children, where were you--hey?
FAT MONK
We weren't even in the world then, man.
KING HEROD
Then there were others like you. He killed. You accepted it. That's all. I have asked many the question: "What would you have done?" "Nothing," they always reply. "If he killed, what could be done about it?" Fine creatures! Haven't the manliness to stand up even for their children. They are worse than dogs, damn them!
FAT MONK
And what would you have done?
KING HEROD
I? I should have wrung his neck from off his royal gold crown--the confounded brute!
GRAY MONK
It says in the scripture: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
FAT MONK
That is to say, don't interfere with other people's business. Do you understand?
KING HEROD (to Savva in despair)
Just listen, listen to what they are saying.
SAVVA
I hear what they are saying.
KING HEROD
Just you wait, my precious! You'll get what's coming to you, and mighty quick. The devil will come and hurl you into the fiery pit. To hell, to gehenna, with you! How your fat will melt and run! Do you get the smell, monk?
FAT MONK
That's from the refectory.
KING HEROD
You are on the run, fast as your feet can carry you! Ah! but where to? Everywhere is hell, everywhere is fire. You refused to hearken unto me, my pet; now you shall hearken unto the fire. Won't I be glad, won't I rejoice! I'll take off my chains so that I can catch them and present them to the devil--first one, then the other. Here, take him. And the howl they'll set up, and the weeping and lamentation. "I am not guilty." Not guilty? Who, then, is--who? To gehenna with you! Burn, you damned hypocrites, until the second Advent. And then we'll build a new fire, then we'll build a new fire.
GRAY MONK
Isn't it time for us to go, Father Kirill?
FAT MONK
Yes, we had better be moving along. It's getting dark, and it's time to retire.
KING HEROD
Aha! You don't like to hear the truth. It isn't pleasant, is it?
FAT MONK
Hee-hee, brother, talk is cheap. A barking dog doesn't bite. Scold away, scold away. We are listening. God in heaven will decide who is to go to hell and who elsewhere. "The meek, shall inherit the earth," says the Gospel. Good-bye, young gentlemen.
GRAY MONK (to King Herod)
Let me give you a piece of advice, however. Talk, but don't talk too much. Don't go too far. We are only tolerating you because you are a pitiful creature and because you are foolish. But if you give your tongue too free a rein, we can stop it, you know. Yes, indeed.
KING HEROD
All right, try--try to stop me.
FAT MONK
What's the use, Father Vissarion? Let him talk. It doesn't do any harm. Listen, listen, young gentlemen. He is an interesting fellow. Good night.
[They go. The Fat Monk is heard laughing heartily.
KING HEROD (to Savva)
Fine specimens. I can't stand them.
SAVVA
I like you, uncle.
KING HEROD
Do you? So you don't like their kind either?
SAVVA
No, I don't.
KING HEROD
Well, I'll sit down for a while. My legs are swollen. Have you got a cigarette?
SAVVA (handing him a cigarette)
Do you smoke?
KING HEROD
Sometimes. Excuse me for having talked to you the way I did before. You are a good fellow. But why did you lie and say you understood? No one can understand it. Who is this with you?
SAVVA
Oh, he just happened along.
KING HEROD
Well, brother, feeling bad, down in the mouth?
SPERANSKY
Yes, I feel blue.
KING HEROD
Keep still, keep still, I don't want to listen. You are suffering? Keep still. I am a man too, brother, so I don't understand. I'll insult you if you don't look out. (Throws away the cigarette) No, I can't. As long as I keep standing or walking I manage somehow. The moment I sit down, it's hell. Oh! Ow-w! (Writhing in agony) I simply can't catch my breath. Oh, God, do you see my torture? Eh? Well, well, it's nothing. It's gone. Oh! Ow-w!
[The sky has become overcast with clouds. It turns dark quickly. Now and then there are flashes of lightning.
SAVVA (quietly)
One must try to stifle one's grief, old man. Fight it. Say to yourself firmly and resolutely: "I don't want it." And it will cease to be. You seem to be a good, strong man.
KING HEROD
No, friend, my grief is such that even death won't remove it. What is death? It is little, insignificant, and my grief is great. No, death won't end my grief. There was Cain. Even when he died, his sorrow remained.
SPERANSKY
The dead do not grieve. They are serene. They know the truth.
KING HEROD
But they don't tell it to anybody. What's the good of such truth? Here am I alive, and yet I know the truth. Here am I with my sorrow. You see what it is--there is no greater on earth. And yet if God spoke to me and said, "Yeremey, I will give you the whole earth if you give me your grief," I wouldn't give it away. I will not give it away, friend. It is sweeter to me than honey; it is stronger than the strongest drink. Through it I have learned the truth.
SAVVA
God?
KING HEROD
Christ--that's the one! He alone can understand the sorrow that is in me. He sees and understands. "Yes, Yeremey, I see how you suffer." That's all. "I see." And I answer Him: "Yes, O Lord, behold my sorrow!" That's all. No more is necessary.
SAVVA
What you value in Christ is His suffering for the people, is that it?
KING HEROD
You mean his crucifixion? No, brother, that suffering was a trifle. They crucified Him--what did that matter? The important point was that thereby He came to know the truth. As long as He walked the earth, He was--well--a man, rather a good man--talking here and there about this and that. When He met someone, He would talk to him about this and that, teach him, and tell him a few good things to put him on the right track. But when these same fellows carried Him off to the cross and went at Him with knouts, whips, and lashes, then His eyes were opened. "Aha!" He said, "so that's what it is!" And He prayed: "I cannot endure such suffering. I thought it would be a simple crucifixion; but, O Father in Heaven, what is this?" And the Father said to Him: "Never mind, never mind, Son! Know the truth, know what it is." And from then on, He fell to sorrowing, and has been sorrowing to this day.
SAVVA
Sorrowing?
KING HEROD
Yes, friend, he is sorrowing. (Pause. Lightning)
SPERANSKY
It looks like rain, and I am without rubbers and umbrella.
KING HEROD
And everywhere, wheresoever I go, wheresoever I turn, I see before me His pure visage. "Do you understand my suffering, O Lord?" "I understand, Yeremey, I understand everything. Go your way in peace." I am to Him like a transparent crystal with a tear inside. "You understand, Lord?" "I understand, Yeremey." "Well, and I understand you too." So we live together. He with me, I with Him. I am sorry for Him also. When I die, I will transmit my sorrow to Him. "Take it, Lord."
SAVVA
But after all, you are not quite right in running down the people the way you do. There are some good men also--very few--but there are some. Otherwise it wouldn't be of any use to live.
KING HEROD
No, friend, there are none. I don't want to fool you--there are none. You know, it was they who christened me with the name of King Herod.
SAVVA
Who?
KING HEROD
Why, your people. There is no beast more cruel than man. I killed my boy, so I am King Herod to them. Damn them, it never enters their minds how terrible it is for me to be burdened with such a nick-name. Herod! If they only called me so out of spite! But not at all.
SAVVA
What is your real name?
KING HEROD
Yeremey. That's my name--Yeremey. But they call me Herod, carefully adding King, so that there may be no mistake. Look, there comes another monk, a plague on him. Say, did you ever see His countenance?
SAVVA
I did.
KING HEROD
And did you see His eyes? No? Then look, try to see them--Where is he off to, the bat? To the village to his women.
KONDRATY (enters)
Peace be with you, honest folks. Good evening, Savva. To what lucky chance do I owe this meeting?
KING HEROD
Look, monk, the devil's tail is sticking out of your pocket.
KONDRATY
It isn't the devil's tail, it's a radish. You're very clever, but you didn't hit it right that time.
KING HEROD (spitting in disgust)
I can't bear to look at them. They turn my stomach. Good-bye, friend. Remember what I told you. When you are in sorrow, don't go to people.
SAVVA
All right, uncle, I understand.
KING HEROD
Rather go to the forest to the wolves. (Goes out; his voice is heard out of the darkness) Oh, Lord, do you see?
KONDRATY
A narrow-minded fool. Killed his son and puts on airs. You can't get by him. He won't let you alone. It's something to be proud of, isn't it, to have killed one's own son? A great thing.
SPERANSKY (with a sigh)
No, Father Kondraty, you are mistaken. He is a happy man. If his son were brought to life this moment, he would instantly kill him. He wouldn't give him five minutes to live. But of course when he dies, he'll know the truth.
KONDRATY
That's what I said, you fool. If it were a cat he killed, he might have some reason to be proud--but his own son! What are you thinking about, Savva Yegorovich?
SAVVA
I am waiting. I should like to know how soon this gentleman will go. The devil brought him, I think. Now, here comes someone else. (Peers into the darkness)
LIPA (approaching. She stops and hesitates)
Is that you, Savva?
SAVVA
Yes, and is that you? What do you want? I don't like people to follow me everywhere I go, sister.
LIPA
The gate to this place is open. Everybody has a right to come in. Mr. Speransky, Tony has been asking for you. He wants the seminarist, he says.
SAVVA
There, go together--a jolly pair. Good-bye, sir, good-bye.
SPERANSKY
Good-bye. I hope I'll see you soon again, Mr. Savva, and have another talk.
SAVVA
No, don't try, please. Abandon the hope. Good-bye.
LIPA
How rude you are, Savva. Come, Mr. Speransky. They have business of their own to attend to.
SPERANSKY
Still I haven't given up hope. Good-bye. (Goes out)
SAVVA
Just grabbed me and stuck--the devil take him!
KONDRATY (laughing)
Yes, he is a sticker from the word go. If he likes you, you can't shake him off. He'll follow you everywhere. We call him the "shadow"--partly, I suppose, because he is so thin. He has taken a fancy to you, so you'll have a time of it. He'll stick to you like a leech.
SAVVA
I am not in the habit of wasting a lot of words. I'll give him the slip without much ceremony.
KONDRATY
They have, even tried beating him, but it doesn't do any good. He is known here for miles around. He is a character.
[A pause. Lightning. Every now and then is heard the roll of distant thunder.
SAVVA
Why did you tell me to meet you here in this public place where everyone may come? They fell on me like a swarm of fleas--monks and all sorts of imbeciles. I'd rather have spoken to you in the woods, where we could be let alone.
KONDRATY
I did it to escape suspicion. If I went with you to the woods they'd say: "What has a God-fearing man like Kondraty got to do with such a fellow?" I hope you pardon! "Why is he so thick with him?" I purposely timed my coming so that they'd see us together with others.
SAVVA (looking fixedly at him)
Well?
KONDRATY (turning away his eyes and shrugging his shoulders) I can't.
SAVVA
You are afraid?
KONDRATY
To tell the truth, I am.
SAVVA
You're no good, old chap.
KONDRATY
Perhaps not. You have a right to draw your own conclusions. (Pause)
SAVVA
But what are you afraid of, you booby? The machine is not dangerous. It won't hurt you. All you have to do is to put it in the right place, set it off, and then you can go to the village to your mistresses.
KONDRATY
That's not the point.
SAVVA
What then? Are you afraid of being caught? But I told you, if anything should happen, I'll take the guilt on myself. Don't you believe me?
KONDRATY
Why, of course I believe you.
SAVVA
What then? Do you fear God?
KONDRATY
Yes, I do.
SAVVA
But you don't believe in God--you believe in the devil.
KONDRATY
Who knows? Maybe some day I'll suddenly discover that He does exist. In that case, Mr. Savva, I thank you, but I'd rather not. Why should I? I live a nice, quiet existence. Of course, it's all a humbug, an imposition. But what business is it of mine? The people want to believe--let them. It wasn't I who invented God.
SAVVA
Look here. You know I could have done it myself. All I need have done was to take a bomb and throw it into the procession. That's all. But that would mean the killing of many people, which at the present juncture would serve no useful purpose. I therefore ask you to do it. If you refuse, then the blood will rest on you. You understand?
KONDRATY
Why on me? I am not going to throw the bomb. And then, what have I got to do with them--I mean the people that get killed? What concern are they of mine? There are plenty of people in the world. You can't kill them all, no matter how many bombs you throw.
SAVVA
Aren't you sorry for them?
KONDRATY
If I were to be sorry for everybody, I should have no sympathy left for myself.
SAVVA
That's right. You are a bright man. You have a good mind. I have already told you so. And yet you hesitate. You are clever, and yet you are afraid to smash a piece of wood.
KONDRATY
If it is nothing but a piece of wood, then why go to so much trouble about it? The point is, it is not a piece of wood, it is an image.
SAVVA
For me it is a piece of wood. For the people it is a sacred object. That is why I want to destroy it. Imagine how they'll open their mouths and stare. Ah, brother, if you were not a coward, I would tell you some things.
KONDRATY
Go ahead and talk. It's no sin to listen. I am not a coward either. I am simply careful.
SAVVA
This would only be the beginning, brother.
KONDRATY
A good beginning, I won't deny it. And what will be the end?
SAVVA
The earth stripped naked, a tabula rasa, do you understand? And on this naked earth, naked man, naked as his mother bore him. No breeches on him, no orders, no pockets, nothing. Imagine men without pockets. Queer, isn't it? Yes indeed, brother, the ikon is only the beginning.
KONDRATY
Oh, they'll make new ones.
SAVVA
But they won't be the same as before. And they'll never forget this much--that dynamite is mightier than their God, and that man is mightier than dynamite. Look at them; see them yonder praying and kneeling, not daring to raise their heads and look you straight in the face, mean slaves that they are! Then comes a real man, and smash goes the whole humbug. Done for!
KONDRATY
Really!
SAVVA
And when a dozen of their idols have gone the same way, the slaves will begin to understand that the kingdom of their God is at an end, and that the kingdom of man has come. Lots of them will drop from sheer terror. Some will lose their wits, and others will throw themselves into the fire. They'll say that Antichrist has come. Think of it, Kondraty!
KONDRATY
And aren't you sorry for them?
SAVVA
Sorry for them? Why, they built a prison for me, and I am to be sorry for them. They put me in a torture chamber, and I am to be sorry for them. Bah!
KONDRATY
Who are you to be above pity?
SAVVA
I? I am a man who have been born. And having been born, I began to look about. I saw churches and penitentiaries. I saw universities and houses of prostitution. I saw factories and picture galleries. I saw palaces and filthy dens. I calculated the number of prisons there are to each gallery, and I resolved that the whole edifice must go, the whole of it must be overturned, annihilated. And we are going to do it. Our day of reckoning has come. It is time.
KONDRATY
Who are "we"?
SAVVA
I, you Kondraty, and others.
KONDRATY
The people are stupid. They won't understand.
SAVVA
When the conflagration rages all around them, they will understand. Fire is a good teacher, old boy. Have you ever heard of Raphael?
KONDRATY
No, I haven't.
SAVVA
Well, when we are through with God, we'll go for fellows like him. There are lots of them--Titian, Shakespeare, Byron. We'll make a nice pile of the whole lot and pour oil over it. Then we'll burn their cities.
KONDRATY
Now, now you are joking. How is that possible? How can you burn the cities?
SAVVA
No, why should I be joking? All the cities. Look here, what are their cities? Graves, stone graves. And if you don't stop those fools, if you let them go on making more, they will cover the whole earth with stone, and then all will suffocate--all.
KONDRATY
The poor people will have a hard time of it.
SAVVA
All will be poor then. What is it that makes a man rich? His having a house and money, and the fact that he has surrounded himself with a fence. But when there are no houses, no money, and no fences--
KONDRATY
That's so. And there won't be any legal papers either, no stocks, no bonds, no title-deeds. They will all have been burnt up.
SAVVA
No, there will be no legal papers. It's work then--you'll have to go to work even if you are a nobleman.
KONDRATY (laughing)
It's funny. All will be naked as when coming out of a bath.
SAVVA
Are you a peasant, Kondraty?
KONDRATY
Yes, I am a peasant, sure enough.
SAVVA
I am a peasant also. We have nothing to lose, brother. We can't fare worse than we do now.
KONDRATY
How could it be worse? But a great many people will perish, Mr. Tropinin.
SAVVA
It makes no difference. There'll be enough left. It is the good-for-nothings that will perish, the fools to whom this life is like a shell to a crab. Those who believe will perish, because their faith will be taken away from them. Those who love the old will perish, because everything will be taken away from them. The weak, the sick, those who love quietness. There will be no quietness in the world, brother. There will remain only the free and the brave, those with young and eager souls and clear eyes that can embrace the whole universe.
KONDRATY
Like yours? I am afraid of your eyes, Savva Yegorovich, especially in the dark.
SAVVA
Yes, like mine. And emancipated from everything, naked, armed only with their reason, they will deliberate; discuss, talk things over, and build up a new life, a good life, Kondraty, where every man may breathe freely.
KONDRATY
It's interesting. But men are sly creatures. Something of the old will be left over. They'll hide it, or try some other trick, and then behold! back they slide to the old again, everything just as it was, just as of old. What then?
SAVVA
Just as of old? (Gloomily) Then they will have to be wiped clean off the face of the earth. Let there be no living human being on earth. Enough of it!
KONDRATY (shaking his head)
But--
SAVVA (putting his hand on his shoulder)
Believe me, monk, I have been in many cities and in many lands, Nowhere did I see a free man. I saw only slaves. I saw the cages in which they live, the beds on which they are born and die; I saw their hatreds and their loves, their sins and their good works. And I saw also their amusements, their pitiful attempts to bring dead joy back to life again. And everything that I saw bore the stamp of stupidity and unreason. He that is born wise turns stupid in their midst; he that is born cheerful hangs himself from boredom and sticks out his tongue at them. Amidst the flowers of the beautiful earth--you have no idea how beautiful the earth is, monk--they have erected insane asylums. And what are they doing with their children? I have never yet seen parents that do not deserve capital punishment; first because they begot children, and secondly because, having begot them, they did not immediately commit suicide.
KONDRATY
Good heavens, how you talk! Hearing you, one hardly knows what to think.
SAVVA
And how they lie, how they lie, monk! They don't kill the truth--no, they kick her and bruise her daily, and smear her clean face with their dirt and filth so that no one may recognize her, so that the children may not love her, and so that she may have no refuge. In all the world--yes, monk, in all the world--there is no place for truth. (Sinks into meditation. Pause)
KONDRATY
Is there no other way--without fire? It's terrible, Savva Yegorovich. Consider what it means! It's the end of the world.
SAVVA
No, it can't be helped, partner. It must be. The end of the world must come too. They were treated with medicine, and it did no good. They were treated with iron, and it did no good. Now they must be treated with fire--fire!
[Pause. Lightning flashes. The thunder has ceased. Somewhere outside a watchman can be heard striking his iron rod.
KONDRATY
And there'll be no drinkshops either?
SAVVA (pensively)
No, nothing.
KONDRATY
They'll start drinkshops again all right. Can't get along without them, you know. (A prolonged pause) Ye-es. What are you thinking about, Savva Yegorovich?
SAVVA
Nothing. (Draws a light breath, cheerfully) Well, Kondraty, shall we begin?
KONDRATY (swaying his head to and fro)
It's a mighty hard problem you have put up to me. It's a poser.
SAVVA
Never mind, don't get shaky now. You are a sensible man; you know it can't be helped; there is nothing else to do. Would I be doing it myself, if it were not necessary? You can see that, can't you?
KONDRATY (heaving a sigh)
Ye-es, hm! Why, Mr. Tropinin--why, my dear fellow--don't I know, don't I understand it all? It's a rotten, cursed life! Ah, Mr. Savva, Mr. Savva--look here. If I were to tell anyone that I am a good man, they'd laugh and say: "What are you lying for, you drunkard?" Kondraty a good man! It sounds like a joke even to myself. And yet I swear to you, by God, I am a good man! I don't know how it happened the way it did, why I am what I am now. I lived and lived, and suddenly! How it came about, what the reason of it is, I don't know.
SAVVA
And you are still afraid?
KONDRATY
What am I now? I am neither a candle for God nor a poker for the devil. Sometimes when I think matters over--ah, Mr. Savva, do you think I have no conscience? Don't I understand? I understand everything but--I am not really afraid of the devil either. I am just playing the fool. The devil--nonsense! If you were in the place of us in there, you would understand. Not long ago, when I was drunk, I cried: "Get out, devil--out of my way--am a desperate man!" I don't care for anything. I don't care if I die. I am ready. You have worked at me, Mr. Savva, until I have grown quite soft. (Wipes his eyes with his sleeves)
SAVVA
Why should you die? I don't want to die either. We are going to live for some time to come, we are. How old are you?
KONDRATY
Forty-two.
SAVVA
Just the right age.
KONDRATY
I am sorry for the ikon. They say it appeared miraculously in the river, and that's how it came to be here.
SAVVA
Nonsense. Don't waste your feelings. It's supposed to be a wonder-working ikon and hasn't one miracle to its credit. Why, it makes one feel like a fool just to say it.
KONDRATY
They say it has been replaced by the devil, so that it isn't the real one.
SAVVA
So much the better. And yet you crack your heads in front of it and fool the people about it. There is no use wasting words, my friend. It's agreed then.
KONDRATY
You have to go now. The gate will soon be closed. And all of a sudden--
SAVVA
What "all of a sudden"?
KONDRATY
And all of a sudden I'll be going to the ikon, and it will strike me down with lightning and thunder. Won't it?
SAVVA (laughing)
Don't be afraid. It won't strike you. That's what everybody thinks. They are all afraid they'll be struck by lightning and thunder. But it won't happen. Believe me, a man may blow up the ikon and no lightning will strike him. Do you need money?
KONDRATY
Have you got any?
SAVVA
I have.
KONDRATY (suspiciously)
Where did you get it?
SAVVA
What business is that of yours? Suppose I killed a rich man, or cut somebody's throat--are you going to report me to the police?
KONDRATY (reassured)
What are you thinking of, Savva Yegorovich? That's your concern. As to your offer, of course, money always comes in handy. It will enable me to leave the monastery. I'll tell you in confidence, I have long been nursing a scheme--it's my dream--to settle somewhere along the road and start an inn. I like company. I am a talkative chap myself. I know I'll succeed. It doesn't hurt a host to have a drink now and then. The guests like it. With a jolly host you'll spend every penny you have, and your pants besides, and you won't notice it. I know by personal experience.
SAVVA
Why not? You can start an inn if you want to.
KONDRATY
And besides, I am still in the full vigor of manhood. Instead of sinning here, I'd rather get legally married.
SAVVA
Don't forget to invite me to the wedding. I'll act as your godfather.
KONDRATY
You are too young. As to the money--when shall it be, before or after?
SAVVA
Judas got his before.
KONDRATY (offended)
There now, when you should be doing your best to persuade me, you call me Judas. It isn't pleasant. The idea of calling a living man Judas!
SAVVA
Judas was a fool. He hanged himself. You are going to start an inn.
KONDRATY
Again? If that's what you think of me--
SAVVA (slapping his shoulders)
Well, well, uncle, don't you see I'm joking? Judas betrayed a man, and you are not going to betray anything but lumber. Is that right, old man? Speransky and Tony appear, the latter walking very unsteadily.
KONDRATY
There--brought by the devil! With us carrying on this kind of conversation, and they--
SAVVA
It's agreed then?
KONDRATY
Oh, you're too much for me.
SPERANSKY (bowing)
Good evening once more, Mr. Savva Tropinin. Mr. Anthony and myself have just been at the other end, in the cemetery. A woman was buried there to-day, so we wanted to have a look.
SAVVA
To see if she hadn't crawled out of her grave? What are you dragging him along with you for? Tony, go to bed, you can't stand on your feet.
TONY
I won't go.
SPERANSKY
Tony is very excited to-day. He sees all kinds of faces.
SAVVA
Funny faces?
TONY
Yes, funny. What else can you expect? (Sadly) Your face, Savva, is very, very funny.
SAVVA
All right, go along with you! Take him home. What are you dragging him about with you for?
SPERANSKY
Good-bye. Come along, Mr. Anthony.
[Speransky goes out. Tony follows him, looking back at Savva, and stumbling as he goes along. They disappear in the dark.
KONDRATY
It's time for us also to be going. Have you got that money at hand?
SAVVA
Yes, I have. Now listen. Sunday is the feast-day. You are to take the machine Saturday morning and plant it at night at half past eleven, four days from now. I'll show you how to do it and everything else that's necessary. Four days more. I am sick of staying in this place.
KONDRATY
And suppose I betray you?
SAVVA (darkly)
Then I'd kill you.
KONDRATY
Good heavens!
SAVVA
Now I am going to kill you if you merely try to back out. You know too much, brother.
KONDRATY
You are joking.
SAVVA
Maybe I am joking. I am such a jolly fellow. I like to laugh.
KONDRATY
When you first came here, you were gay. Tell me, Mr. Savva (looking around cautiously), did you ever kill a man, a real live man?
SAVVA
I did. I cut the throat of that rich business man I told you about.
KONDRATY (waving his hand)
Now I see that you are joking. Well, good-bye, I am going. Don't you hang around here either. The gate will soon be closed. Oh, my--I am never afraid--but just as soon as I begin to think of the hall, it's awful. There are shadows there now. Good night.
SAVVA
Good night.
[Kondraty disappears in the dark. Lightning. Savva remains leaning on the railing to stare at the white tombstones that are momentarily revealed by the flashes of lightning.
SAVVA (to the graves)
Well, you dead ones, are you going to turn over in your graves or not? For some reason I don't feel very cheerful--oh, ye dead--I don't feel the least bit cheerful. (Lightning)
CURTAIN
A festively decorated room with three windows to the street. One window is open, but the curtain is drawn. An open door, painted dark, leads into the room seen in the first act.
It is night and dark. Through the windows can be heard the continuous tramp of the pilgrims on their way to the monastery for the next day's celebration. Some are barefoot; some wear boots or bast shoes. Their steps are quick and eager, or slow and weary. They walk singly or in groups of two or three, the majority in silence, though now and then suppressed, indistinct talking may be heard. Starting from somewhere far off to the left, the sound of the footsteps and the talking, muffled at first, approaches and grows louder, until at times it seems to fill the whole room. Then it dies away in the distance again. The impression is that of some tremendous movement, elemental and irrepressible.
At the table, lighted only by a flickering stump of a tallow candle, sit Speransky and Tony. The latter is very drunk. Cucumbers, herring, and bottles of whiskey are on the table. The rest of the room is entirely dark. Occasionally the wind blows the white curtain at the window and sets the candle flame tossing.
Tony and Speransky talk in whispers. A prolonged pause follows the rise of the curtain.
TONY (bending over to Speransky, mysteriously)
So you say it is possible we do not exist, eh?
SPERANSKY (in the same manner)
As I have already stated, it is doubtful, extremely doubtful. There is very good reason to suppose that we really do not exist--that we don't exist at all.
TONY
And you are not, and I am not.
SPERANSKY
And you are not, and I am not. No one is. (Pause)
TONY (looking around, mysteriously)
Where are we then?
SPERANSKY
We?
TONY
Yes, we.
SPERANSKY
That's something no one can tell. No one knows, Anthony.
TONY
No one?
SPERANSKY
No one.
TONY (glancing around)
Doesn't Savva know?
SPERANSKY
No, Savva doesn't know either.
TONY
Savva knows everything.
SPERANSKY
But even he doesn't know that.
TONY (threatening with his finger)
Keep still, keep still! (Both look around and are silent)
TONY (mysteriously)
Where are they going, eh?
SPERANSKY
To the elevation of the ikon. To-morrow is a feast-day--the day of raising the ikon.
TONY
No, I mean where are they really going--really--don't you understand?
SPERANSKY
I do. It isn't known. No one knows, Anthony.
TONY
Hush! (Makes a funny grimace, closes his mouth with his hand and leans on it)
SPERANSKY (in a whisper)
What's the matter?
TONY
Keep quiet, keep quiet. Listen. (Both are listening)
TONY (in whisper)
Those are faces.
SPERANSKY
Yes?
TONY
It's faces that are going. A lot of faces--can't you see them?
SPERANSKY (staring)
No, I can't.
TONY
But I can. There they are, laughing. Why aren't you laughing, eh?
SPERANSKY
I feel very despondent.
TONY
Laugh. You must laugh. Everybody is laughing. Hush, hush! (Pause) Listen, nobody exists, nobody--do you understand? There is no God, there is no man, there are no animals. Here is the table--it doesn't exist. Here is the candle--it doesn't exist. The only things that exist are faces--you understand? Keep quiet, keep quiet. I am very much afraid.
SPERANSKY
What are you afraid of?
TONY (bending near to Speransky)
That I'll die of laughter.
SPERANSKY
Really?
TONY (shaking his head affirmatively)
Yes, that I'll die of laughter. I am afraid that some day I'll catch sight of a face which will send me off roaring with laughter; and I'll roar and roar until I die. Keep quiet. I know.
SPERANSKY
You never laugh
TONY
I am always laughing, but you don't see it. It's nothing. The only thing I am afraid is that I'll die. I'll come across a face one of these days which will start me off in a fit of laughter, and I'll laugh and laugh and laugh and won't be able to stop. Yes, it's coming, it's coming. (Wipes his chest and neck)
SPERANSKY
The dead know everything.
TONY (mysteriously, with awe)
I am afraid of Savva's face. It's a very funny face. One could die laughing over it. The point is that you can't stop laughing--that's the principal thing. You laugh and laugh and laugh. Is there nobody here?
SPERANSKY
Apparently no.
TONY
Keep quiet, keep quiet, I know. Keep quiet. (Pause; the tramp of the pilgrim's footsteps grows louder, as if they were walking in the very room itself) Are they going?
SPERANSKY
Yes, they are going. (Pause)
TONY
I like you. Sing me that song of yours. I'll listen.
SPERANSKY
With your permission, Anthony. (Sings in an undertone, almost in a whisper, a dismal, long-drawn-out tune somewhat resembling a litany)
Life's a sham, 'tis false, untrue, Death alone is true, aye, true.
(With increasing caution and pedantry, shaking his finger as if imparting a secret)
All things tumble, vanish, break, Death is sure to overtake Outcast, tramp, and tiniest fly Unperceived by naked eye.
TONY
What?
SPERANSKY
Unperceived by naked eye, Wheedling, coaxing, courting, wooing, Death weds all to their undoing And the myth of life is ended.
That's all, Anthony.
TONY
Keep still, keep still. You have sung your song--now keep quiet.
[Lipa enters, opens the window, removes the flowers, and looks out into the street. Then she lights the lamp.
TONY
Who is it? Is that you, Lipa? Lipa, eh, Lipa, where are they going?
LIPA
They are coming here for the feast-day. You had better go to bed, Tony, or father will see you and scold you.
SPERANSKY
Big crowds, aren't they?
LIPA
Yes. But it's so dark, you can't see. Why are you so pale, Mr. Speransky? It is positively painful to look at you.
SPERANSKY
That's how I feel, Miss Lipa.
[A cautious knock is heard at the window.
LIPA (opening the window)
Who is there?
TONY (to Speransky)
Keep quiet, keep quiet.
KING FRIAR (thrusting his smiling face through the window) Is Savva Yegorovich in? I wanted to ask him to come with me to the woods.
LIPA
No. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Vassya? To-morrow is a big feast-day in your monastery and you--
YOUNG FRIAR (smiling)
There are plenty of people in the monastery without me. Please tell Mr. Savva that I have gone to the ravine to catch fireflies. Ask him to call out: "Ho, ho!"
LIPA
What do you want fireflies for?
YOUNG FRIAR
Why, to scare the monks with. I'll put two fireflies next to each other like eyes, and they'll think it's, the devil. Tell him, please, to call: "Ho, ho, ho!" (He disappears in the darkness)
LIPA (shouting after him)
He can't come to-day. (To Speransky) Gone already--ran off.
SPERANSKY
They buried three in the cemetery to-day, Miss Olympiada.
LIPA
Have you seen Savva?
SPERANSKY
No, I am sorry to say I haven't. I say, they buried three people to-day. One old man--perhaps you knew him--Peter Khvorostov?
LIPA
Yes, I knew him. So he's dead?
SPERANSKY
Yes, and two children. The women wept a great deal.
LIPA
What did they die of?
SPERANSKY
I am sorry, but I don't know. It didn't interest me. Some children's disease, I suppose. When children die, Miss Olympiada, they turn all blue and look as if they wanted to cry. The faces of grown people are tranquil, but children's faces are not. Why is that so?
LIPA
I don't know--I've never noticed it.
SPERANSKY
It's a very interesting phenomenon.
LIPA
There's father now. I told you to go to bed. Now I've got to listen to your brawling. I'll get out.
(Exit. Enter Yegor Tropinin)
YEGOR
Who lighted the lamp?
SPERANSKY
Good evening, Mr. Tropinin.
YEGOR
Good evening. Who lighted the lamp?
SPERANSKY
Miss Olympiada.
YEGOR (blowing it out)
Learned it from Savva. (To Tony) And you, what's the matter with you? How long, how long, for Christ's sake? How long am I to stand all this from you, you good-for-nothing loafers? Eh? Where did you get the whiskey, eh?
TONY
At the bar.
YEGOR
It wasn't put there for you, was it?
TONY
You have a very funny face, father.
YEGOR
Give me the whiskey.
TONY
I won't.
YEGOR
Give here!
TONY
I won't.
YEGOR (slaps his face)
Give it to me, I say.
TONY (falls on the sofa, still holding on to the bottle)
I won't.
YEGOR (sitting down, calmly)
All right, swill until you bust, devil. What was I saying? That fool put it out of my head. Oh yes, the pilgrims are going, it strong this time. It's been a bad year for the crops. That's another reason, I suppose. There's no grub, they have nothing to eat, and so they'll pray. If God listened to every fool's prayer, we'd have a fine time of it. If he listened to every fool, what chance would the wise man have? A fool remains a fool. That's why he is called a fool.
SPERANSKY
That's correct.
YEGOR
I should say it is correct. Father Parfeny is a smart man. He flim-flams them all right. He put up a new coffin--did you hear that? The old one has all been eaten away by the pilgrims, so he put a new one into its place. It was old, so he put a new one instead. They'll eat that one away. No matter what you give them--Tony, are you drinking again?
TONY
I am.
YEGOR
I am! I am! I'll hand you out another one in a moment and we'll see what you say then.
[Enter Savva, looking very gay and lively. He stoops less than usual, talks rapidly, and looks sharp and straight, but his gaze does not rest long on the same person or object.
SAVVA
Ah, the philosophers! Father! A worthy assemblage. Why do you keep it so dark here, like some hell-hole with a lot of rats in it? A philosopher has to have light. The dark is good only for going through people's pockets. Where is the lamp? Oh, here it is. (He lights the lamp)
YEGOR (ironically)
Perhaps you'll open the windows too?
SAVVA
Quite right. I'll open the windows also. (Opens them) My, how they keep pouring in!
SPERANSKY
A whole army.
SAVVA
And all of them will die in time and acquire peace. And then they'll know the truth, for it never comes except in the society of worms. Have I got the essence of your optimistic philosophy down right, my thin, lean friend?
SPERANSKY (with a sigh)
You are always joking.
SAVVA.
And you are always moping. Look here now. What with the poor, scanty fare the deacon's wife doles out to you and your constant grieving, you will soon die, and then your face will assume an expression of perfect peace. A peaked nose, and all around, stretching in every direction, a vast expanse of peace. Can't you get some comfort out of that? Isn't it a consolation to you? Think of it, a tiny island of nose lapped in an ocean of peace.
SPERANSKY (dejectedly)
You are still joking.
SAVVA
The idea! Who would joke about death? No, when you die, I'll follow your funeral and proclaim to all: "Behold, here is a man who has come to know the truth." Oh no, I'll rather hang you up as a banner of truth. And, the more your skin and flesh decompose and crumble, the more will the truth come out. It will be a most instructive object lesson, highly educative. Tony, why are you staring at me?
TONY (sadly)
You have a very funny face.
YEGOR
What are they talking about?
SAVVA
Father, what's the matter with your face? Have you sooted it? It looks as black as Satan's.
YEGOR (quickly putting his hand to his face)
Where?
SPERANSKY
They are just making fun. There is nothing on your face, Mr. Tropinin.
YEGOR
The fool! Satan? You are Satan yourself, God forgive me!
SAVVA (making a terrible face and holding up his fingers in the shape of horns) I am the devil.
YEGOR
By God, you are the very devil himself!
SAVVA (glancing round the room)
Isn't the devil going to get any dinner to-day? I have had all I want of sinners. I am surfeited with them. I should like to have something more appetizing now.
YEGOR
Where were you knocking about at the regular dinner hour? You'll have to do without dinner now.
SAVVA
I was with the children, father, with the children. They told me stories. They tell stories splendidly, and they were all about devils, witches, and the dead--your specialty, philosopher. They trembled with fear as they told them. That's why we stayed so long. They were afraid to go home. Misha was the only one who wasn't scared. He is a brick. He's afraid of nothing.
SPERANSKY (indifferently)
What of it? He'll die too.
SAVVA
My dear sir, don't be so funereal. You are like an undertakers' trust. Don't be forever croaking: "Die, die, die." Here, take my father, for instance. He'll soon die; but look at his face, how pleasant and cheerful it is.
YEGOR
Satan! You're the devil incarnate!
SPERANSKY
But since we don't know--
SAVVA
My good friend, life is such an interesting business. You understand--life. Come, let's have a game of jackstones to-morrow. I'll provide the jacks, first-class jacks. (Enter Lipa, unnoticed) And then you should take gymnastic exercises. I mean it seriously. See how sunken your chest is. You'll choke of consumption in a year or so. The deaconess will be glad, but it will create consternation among the dead. Seriously now. I have taken gymnastic exercises. Look. (He lifts a heavy chair easily by the leg) There, you see!
LIPA (laughing aloud)
Ha, ha, ha!
SAVVA (putting the chair down, with a touch of embarrassment)
What's the matter? I didn't know you were here.
LIPA
You, ought to join the circus as an acrobat.
SAVVA (glumly)
Don't talk nonsense.
LIPA
Are you offended?
SAVVA (suddenly bursting into a good-natured, merry laugh) Oh, a trifle! All right, the circus, why not? We'll both join it, Speransky and I. Not as acrobats though, but as clowns. How about it? Can you swallow hot junk? No? Well, I'll teach you. As for you, Lipa, won't you please let me have something to eat? I haven't had anything since this morning.
YEGOR
A regular Satan, a regular Satan! Hasn't had anything to eat! Who has ever heard of eating at this hour of the night? Who has ever seen such a thing?
SAVVA
I'll give you a chance to see it now. It's very interesting. Wait, I'll teach you also how to swallow hot junk. I'll make you an expert. You'll be a wonder.
YEGOR
Me? Fool, you can't teach me anything any more. Tony, give me the whiskey.
TONY
I won't.
YEGOR
The devil take you all! Brought up and fed a lot of--(Exit)
LIPA (handing him milk and dark bread)
You seem to be happy to-night?
SAVVA
Yes, I am, and you are happy too.
LIPA (laughing)
I am.
SAVVA
And I am happy. (He drinks the milk with avidity; the footsteps in the street grow louder, filing the room with their sound, and then die away again) What a treading and a tramping!
LIPA (looking out of the window)
The weather will be fine to-morrow. As long as I can remember the sun has always been shining brightly that way.
SAVVA
Hm, yes. That's good.
LIPA
And when they carry the ikon, it sparkles all over with the precious stones like fire. Only His face remains gloomy. All the gems don't give him any pleasure. He is sad and gloomy like the people's woe.
SAVVA (coolly)
Hm, yes. Is that so?
LIPA
Just think how many tears have fallen upon Him, how many sighs and groans He has heard! That alone is enough to make the ikon holy for all who love and sympathize with the people and understand their soul. Why, they have nobody except Christ, all those unfortunate, miserable people. When I was a little girl, I was always waiting for a miracle--
SAVVA
It would be interesting.
LIPA
But now I understand that He Himself is waiting for a miracle from the people. He is waiting for the people to stop fighting, hating, and destroying each other.
SAVVA
Well, what of it?
LIPA (fixing her gaze upon him)
Nothing. To-morrow you'll see for yourself when they carry Him in the procession. You'll see what effect the mere consciousness that He is there with them has upon them, how it transforms them, what it does to them. The whole year round they live a dog's life, in filth, quarrelling with each other, suffering. On that day all the ugliness seems to vanish. It is an awful and a joyous day when suddenly you cast away from yourself all that is superfluous and when you feel so clearly your nearness to all the unfortunates that are and ever were, and your nearness to God.
SAVVA (abruptly)
What time is it?
SPERANSKY
The clock has just struck a quarter past eleven, if I am not mistaken.
LIPA
It's still early.
SAVVA
Early for what?
LIPA
Nothing. It's still early, that's all.
SAVVA (suspiciously)
What do you mean?
LIPA (defiantly)
What I mean.
SAVVA
Why did you say it's still early?
LIPA (paling)
Because it's only a little after eleven; but when it's twelve--
SAVVA (jumping up and going to her quickly; fixing her with his stare, he speaks slowly, pronouncing every word separately and distinctly) So? Is that it? When it's twelve--(He turns to Speransky without removing his eyes from Lipa) Listen, you go home.
LIPA (frightened)
No, stay, Mr. Speransky. Please stay, I beg you.
SAVVA
If you don't go at once, I'll throw you out of the window. Well?
SPERANSKY
Excuse me, I never had the faintest idea--I was here with Mr. Anthony Tropinin. I am going instantly. Where is my hat? I put it here somewhere--
SAVVA
There's your hat. (Throws it to him)
LIPA (feebly)
Stay here awhile longer, Mr. Speransky. Sit down.
SPERANSKY
No, it's late. I must go to bed. Good night, Miss Olympiada. Good night, Mr. Tropinin. Your brother is asleep already, I believe. You ought to take him to bed. I'm going, I'm going. (Exit)
SAVVA (speaking in a quiet, calm tone; his movements are heavy and slow, as if his body had suddenly stiffened) You know it?
LIPA
I do.
SAVVA
You know all?
LIPA
All.
SAVVA
Did the monk tell you?
LIPA
He did.
SAVVA
Well?
LIPA (drawing back a little, and raising her hand for protection)-Well, nothing will happen. There'll be no blowing up. You understand, Savva, there'll be no explosion.
[Pause. Footsteps are heard in the street, and indistinct talking. Savva turns around. Stooping more than usually, he takes a turn around the room with peculiar slowness.
SAVVA
Well?
LIPA
Then you had better believe me, brother. Believe me.
SAVVA
Yes?
LIPA
Why that was--I don't know what it was--it was a piece of madness. Think it over.
SAVVA
Is it really true?
LIPA
Yes, it's true. It's all over. You can't help it any more. There is nothing for you to do.
SAVVA
Tell me how it happened. (Sits down deliberately, his eyes fixed on Lipa)
LIPA
I guessed a little something long ago--that day when you spoke to me--only I didn't know exactly what it was. And I saw the little machine too. I have another key to the trunk.
SAVVA
Evidently you have been cut out for a spy. Go on!
LIPA
I am not afraid of insults.
SAVVA
Never mind, never mind--go on.
LIPA
Then I saw that you had frequent talks with that fellow--Kondraty. Yesterday I looked in the trunk again, and the machine wasn't there. So I understood.
SAVVA
You say you have another key?
LIPA
Yes. The trunk is mine, you know. Well, and to-day--
SAVVA
When to-day?
LIPA
Toward evening--I couldn't find Kondraty anywhere--I told him that I knew all. He got very much frightened and told me the rest.
SAVVA
A worthy pair--spy and traitor.
LIPA
If you are going to insult me, I won't say another word.
SAVVA
Never mind, never mind--go on.
LIPA
He was going to tell the Father Superior, but I didn't let him. I didn't want to ruin you.
SAVVA
No?
LIPA
When it was, all over, I understood what a crazy scheme it was--so crazy that I simply can't think of it as real. It must have been a nightmare. It's quite impossible. And I began to feel sorry for you--
SAVVA
Yes.
LIPA
I am sorry for you now too. (With tears) Savva, darling, you are my brother. I have rocked your cradle. My dear angel, what idea is this you have got into your mind? Why, it's terrible--it's madness. I understand how hard it must be for you to see how people live, and so you have resolved on a desperate deed. You have always been good and kind, and so I can understand you. Don't you think it's hard for me to see this life? Don't you think I suffer myself? Give me your hand.
SAVVA (pushing her hand away)
He told you he would go to the Superior?
LIPA
But I didn't let him.
SAVVA
Has he got the machine?
LIPA
He'll give it back to you to-morrow. He was afraid to give it to me. Savva dear, don't look at me like that. I know it's unpleasant for you, but you have a lot of common sense. You can't help seeing that what you wanted to do was an absurdity, a piece of lunacy, a vagary that can come to one only in one's dreams at night. Don't I understand that life is hard? Am I not suffering from it myself? I understand even your comrades, the anarchists. It's not right to kill anybody; but still I understand them. They kill the bad.
SAVVA
They are not my comrades. I have no comrades.
LIPA
Aren't you an anarchist?
SAVVA
No.
LIPA
What are you then?
TONY (raising his head)
They are going, they are going. Do you hear?
SAVVA (quietly, but ominously)
They are going.
LIPA
There, you see. Who is going? Think of it. It's human misery that's going. And you wanted to take away from them their last hope, their last consolation. And to what purpose? In the name of what? In the name of some wild, ghastly dream about a "naked earth." (Peers with terror into the darkness of the room) A naked earth! It's terrible to think of it. A naked earth! How could a man, a human being, ever conceive such an idea? A naked earth! Nothing, nothing! Everything laid bare, everything annihilated. Everything that people worked for through all the years; everything they have created with so much toil, with so much pain. Unhappy people! There is among you a man who says that all this must be burned, must be consumed with fire.
SAVVA
You remember my words to perfection.
LIPA
You awakened me, Savva. When you told me all that, my eyes were suddenly opened, and I began to love everything. Do you understand? I began to love it all. These walls--formerly I didn't notice them; now I am sorry for them--so sorry, I could cry. And the books and everything--each brick, each piece of wood to which man has applied his labor. Let's admit that it's poor stuff. Who says it's good? But that's why I love it--for its defects, its imperfections, its crooked lines, its unfulfilled hopes. For the labor and the tears. And all who hear you talking, Savva, will feel as I do, and will begin to love all that is old and dear and human.
SAVVA
I have nothing to do with you.
LIPA
Nothing to do with us? With whom then have you to do? No, Savva, you don't love anyone. You love only yourself and your dreams. He who loves men will not take away from them all they have. He will not regard his own wishes more than their lives. Destroy everything! Destroy Golgotha! Consider: (with terror) destroy Golgotha! The brightest, the most glorious hope that ever was on earth! All right, you don't believe in Christ. But if you have a single drop of nobility in your nature, you must respect and honor His noble memory. He was also unhappy. He was crucified--crucified, Savva. You are silent? Have you nothing to say?
SAVVA
Nothing.
LIPA
I thought--I thought--if you succeeded in carrying out your plot--I thought I'd kill you--that I'd poison you like some noxious beast.
SAVVA
And if I don't succeed--
LIPA
You are still hoping?
SAVVA
And if I don't succeed, I'll kill you.
LIPA (advancing a step toward him)
Kill me! Kill me! Give me a chance to suffer for the sake of Christ. For the sake of Christ and for the sake of the people.
SAVVA
Yes. I'll kill you.
LIPA
Do you suppose I didn't think of it? Do you suppose I didn't think of it? Oh, Lord, to suffer for Thee! Is there higher happiness than that?
SAVVA (with a contemptuous gesture, pointing at Lipa)
And that's a human being! That's one counted among the best! That's the kind in which they take pride! Ah me, how poor you are in good people!
LIPA
Insult! Mock! That's the way it has always been. They have always heaped insults upon us before they killed us.
SAVVA
No, I don't mean to insult you. How can I insult you? You are simply a silly woman. There have been many such in the past. There are many such to-day. You are simply a foolish, insignificant creature. You are even innocent, like all insignificant persons. And if I mean to kill you, there is no reason to be proud of it. Don't think you are an object specially worthy of my indignation. No, it would merely make matters a little easier for me. When I was chopping wood, and the axe in my raised arm struck the threshold instead of the log of wood, the jar was not so hard as if someone had arrested the motion of my arm. A raised hand must fall on something.
LIPA
And to think that this beast is my brother!
SAVVA
Whose cradle you rocked and whose diapers you changed. Yes. But to me it doesn't seem in the least strange that you are my sister, or that this bundle there is my brother. No, Tony! They are going. (Tony turns his head and stares stupidly without making any answer) And it doesn't seem in the least strange to me that any insignificant chit and piece of nothingness calling itself my brother or my sister should go to the chemist's and buy a nickel's worth of arsenic on finding out who I am. You see, they have even attempted to poison me. The girl who left me tried to do it, but she lost her nerve. The point is that my sisters and brothers, among other things, have the characteristic of being cowards.
LIPA
I would have done it.
SAVVA
I don't doubt it. You are a little hysterical, and hysterical people are determined, unless they happen to burst into tears first.
LIPA
I hysterical? All right, have it your way, have it your way. And who are you, Savva?
SAVVA
That doesn't interest me.
LIPA
They are going, they are going. And they will find what they need. And that is the work of an hysterical woman. Do you hear how many of them there are? And if they found out--if I were to open the window this minute and cry out: "This man here has tried to destroy your Christ"--If you want it, I'll do it this instant. You need only say so. Shall I? (She takes a step toward the window in a frenzy of rage) Shall I?
SAVVA
Yes, it's a good way of escaping the crown of thorns. Go ahead, shout. But look out, don't knock Tony down.
LIPA (turning back)
I am sorry for you. You are beaten, and one doesn't like to kick a man who is down. But remember, remember, Savva, there are thousands, thousands of them coming in, and each one is your death!
SAVVA (smiling)
The tramp of death.
LIPA
Remember that each one of these would consider himself happy in killing you, in crushing you like a reptile. Each one of these is your death. Why, they beat a simple thief to death, a horse thief. What would they not do to you! You who wanted to steal their God.
SAVVA
Quite true. That's property too.
LIPA
You still have the brazenness to joke? Who gave you the right to do such a thing? Who gave you power over people? How dare you meddle with what to them is right? How dare you interfere with their life?
SAVVA
Who gave me the right? You gave it to me. Who gave me the power? You gave it to me. And I will cling to it with grim determination. Try to take it from me. You gave it to me--you with your malice, your ignorance, your stupidity! You with your wretched impotence! Right! Power! They have turned the earth into a sewer, an outrage, an abode of slaves. They worry each other, they torture each other, and they ask: "Who dares to take us by the throat?" I! Do you understand? I! (Rises)
LIPA
You are a mere man like everybody else.
SAVVA
I am the avenger! Behind me follow in pursuit all those whom you stifled and crushed. Ah, they have been pursuing their wicked trade in all quietness, thinking that no one would discover them--thinking that they would get away with it in the end. They have been lying, grovelling, and sneaking. They have been cringing and abusing themselves before their altars and their impotent God, saying: "There is nothing to be afraid of--we are among ourselves." Then comes a man who says: "An accounting--I want an accounting! What have you done? Out with it. Give me an accounting. Go on now! Don't try to cheat, for I know you. I demand an account for each and every single item. I will not condone a single drop of blood, I will not absolve you from a single tear."
LIPA
But to destroy all. Think of it!
SAVVA
What could you do with them? What would you do? Try to persuade the oxen to turn away from their bovine path? Catch each one by his horns and pull him away? Would you put on a frock-coat and read a lecture? Haven't they had plenty to teach them? As if words and thoughts had any significance to them! Thought--pure, unhappy thought! They have perverted it. They have taught it to cheat and defraud. They have made it a saleable commodity to be bought at auction in the market. No, sister, life is short and I am not going to waste it in arguments with oxen. The way to deal with them is by fire. That's what they require--fire! Let them remember long the day on which Savva Tropinin came to the earth!
LIPA
But what do you want? What do you want?
SAVVA
What do I want? To free the earth, to free mankind, to sweep the whole two-legged, chattering tribe out of existence. Man--the man of to-day--is wise. He has come to his senses. He is ripe for liberty. But the past eats away his soul like a canker. It imprisons him within the iron circle of things already accomplished, within the iron circle of facts. I want to demolish the facts--that's what I want to do: demolish all facts! To sweep away all the accumulated rubbish--literature, art, God. They have perverted mankind. They have immortalized stupidity. I want to do away with everything behind man, so that there is nothing to see when he looks back. I want to take him by the scruff of his neck and turn his face toward the future.
LIPA
Look here, Savva. You are not immortal, and the two-legged animal has arms also.
SAVVA
Do you think I don't know that every one of these stupid asses would be glad to kill me? But it won't happen, it won't happen. The time has come for my arrival, and I have arrived. Prepare yourselves. The time has come. You little insignificant thing there--you thought that by stealing one little possibility away from me you could rob me of all? Oh no--I am as rich as ever.
LIPA
I am your sister, but oh! how glad I am that you are not immortal.
SAVVA
I see that you are a thoroughgoing anarchist. They too think that all is done if one man is killed. But if they kill me, hang me, break me on the wheel, there will come another purer than I. Where there's an itch, there is always somebody to scratch it! Yes, sister! If not I, then someone else, and (clenching his fist) it will fare ill with your world.
LIPA
You are a terrible man. I thought you would be crushed by your failure, but you are like Satan. The fall has only made you blacker.
SAVVA
Yes, Lipa, only a sparrow can fly straight up from the ground. A large bird must descend to adjust and spread its wings for its upward flight.
LIPA
Aren't you sorry for the children? Think of the number of children that will have to perish.
SAVVA
What children? Oh yes, Misha. (Tenderly) Misha is a fine boy, that's true. When he grows up, he will show you no mercy. Yes, the children--You are beginning to be afraid of them, and you have good reason for it. Never mind. It's true that I love children. (With pride) And they love me. But they don't care for you.
LIPA
I don't play jackstones with them.
SAVVA
How silly you are, sister. But I like to play with them.
LIPA
Then go ahead and play.
SAVVA
Well, I will play.
LIPA
When you talk like that I have the feeling once more that it has all been a dream--all that we were saying just now. Is it really true that you want to kill me?
SAVVA
Yes, if it must be done. But perhaps it won't be necessary.
LIPA
You are joking!
SAVVA
Every one of you will have it that I am joking. You keep constantly telling me so. You seem to have utterly lost the sense for what is serious.
LIPA
No, it's not a dream. They are going.
SAVVA
Yes, they are going. (Both listen)
LIPA
You still seem to believe. What do you believe?
SAVVA
I believe in my destiny. (The hour begins to strike in the belfry of the monastery) Twelve.
LIPA (counting)
Seven--eight--and to think that this is the hour when it should have happened--the very idea of it--(A muffled report as of a powerful explosion is heard) What was that?
SAVVA
Yes, what was it?
[Both rush to the window, waking Tony, who moves his head sleepily. The tread of the footsteps in the street stops momentarily. Then all begin to run. Frightened cries are heard, weeping, loud, abrupt ejaculations of "What's the matter?" "Oh, Lord!" "Fire, fire!" "No, something has fallen down!" "Let's run!" The word "monastery" is frequently heard.
TONY
They are running! Where are they running to? Why is nobody here?
PELAGUEYA (entering the room, half dressed)
Oh, Lord! Oh, heavens! Is it possible the monastery is on fire! Good gracious! Heavens! And you here, you drunken sot! You monster!
TONY
Oho! They are running? Faces, mugs, eh?
[The bell begins to toll the alarm. Then the strokes follow each other in more rapid succession; hasty, disquieting, uneven, they blend with the noise of the street and seem to creep through the window.
PELAGUEYA (crying)
Good God, I don't know where to turn.
[She runs out. The cries in the street grow louder. Someone yells in one prolonged note "Oh-oh-oh!" until the sound is drowned in the general noise, excitement, and ringing.
LIPA (moving away from the window, very pale, stupefied) What does it mean? It cannot be. It is impossible. Tony, Tony, get up. Tony, brother, what does it mean? Tony!
TONY (reassuringly)
It's nothing. They are all faces.
SAVVA (leaving the window, calm and stern, but also pale) Well, sister?
LIPA (flinging herself about the room)
I want to run with the rest. I'll run. Where is my scarf? Where is my scarf? My God, My God! Where is my scarf?
SAVVA
Your scarf? There it is. But I won't give it to you. Sit down; you have nothing to do there.
LIPA
Let me have it.
SAVVA
No, sit down, sit down. It's too late now anyway.
LIPA
Too late?
SAVVA
Yes, too late. Don't you hear the noise the crowd is making and the way they are running and pushing?
LIPA
I'll run, I'll run.
SAVVA
Keep still--sit down. (Forces her to sit down) Tony, did you hear? They've exploded God.
TONY (looking at Savva's face in terror)
Savva, don't make me laugh. Turn your face away.
[Savva smiles and walks around the room with buoyant step, without his usual stoop.
LIPA (faintly)
Savva.
SAVVA
What is it? Speak louder.
LIPA
Is it, really true?
SAVVA
It's true.
LIPA
And doesn't He really exist?
SAVVA
He does not.
[Lipa begins to cry, at first low, then more and more loudly. The sound of the ringing bells and the noise of the crowd continue to swell. The rolling and clatter of wagons is also heard.
SAVVA
They are running. My, how they are running! (Lipa says something, but her words are inaudible) Louder. I can't hear you. My, how they are ringing.
LIPA (aloud)
Kill, me, Savva.
SAVVA
Why? You'll die anyhow.
LIPA
I can't wait. I'll kill myself.
SAVVA
Go ahead, kill yourself, kill yourself quick!
[Lipa cries, burying her head in the armchair Tony, his face distorted with fear, looks at Savva, holding both his hands in readiness at his mouth. Loud peals of the bell. The disquieting sound blends with the loud tone of Savva's speech.
SAVVA (shouting)
Ah! They are ringing. Ring on! Ring on! Soon the whole earth will ring. I hear! I hear! I see your cities burning! I see the flames. I hear the crackling. I see the houses tumbling on your heads. There is no place to run to. No refuge! No refuge! Fire everywhere. The churches are burning. The factories are burning. The boilers are bursting. An end to all slavish toil!
TONY (trembling with fear)
Savva, shut up, or I am going to laugh.
SAVVA (unheeding)
The time has come! The time has come! Do you hear? The earth is casting you out. There is no place for you on earth. No! He is coming! I see him! He is coming, the free man! He is being born in the flames! He himself is fire and resolution! An end to the earth of slaves!
TONY
Savva, shut up!
SAVVA (bending down to Tony)
Be prepared! He is coming! Do you hear his tread? He is coming! He is coming!
CURTAIN
Near the monastery. A broad road crosses the stage obliquely. On the far side of the road is the river, beyond which opens a wide prospect of the surrounding country--meadows, woods, and villages, with the crosses of the churches burning in the sun. In the distance, at the right, where the mountain projects over a glistening bend of the river, is seen a part of the walls and the towers of the monastery. On the near side of the road is a hilly elevation covered with trampled grass. It is between five and six in the morning. The sun is out. The mist over the meadow is scattering slowly.
Now and then a pilgrim or group of pilgrims may be seen hurrying by on their way to the monastery. Wagons carrying cripples and other monstrosities pass along the road. The noise of thousands may be heard from the monastery. The crowd is evidently moved by some joyous emotion. No individual voices are heard, but it is as if one could feel the singing of the blind, the cries, and the quick, glad snatches of conversation. The general effect is that of an elemental force. The noise decreases at regular intervals, like a wave, and then the singing of the blind becomes distinctly audible.
Lipa and the Young Friar appear on the near side of the road: Lipa is sitting on the hillock, dressed as she was the night before, but her head is covered with a white scarf carelessly tied. She is exhausted with joy and almost dropping off to sleep. The Friar stands near her. On his face there is a troubled, vacant look. His movements are irresolute and aimless. He tries to smile, but his smile is twisted and pitiful. He is like a child who feels hurt without knowing the cause.
LIPA (untying her scarf)
Heavens, but this is splendid! I should like to die here. I can't get enough of it. Oh, it's splendid, it's splendid!
FRIAR (looking around)
Yes, it is splendid. But I can't stand it in there. I can't. They push and jostle and press and jam. They crushed the life out of one woman, absolutely crushed her. She had a child with her. I couldn't look at it. I--I'll go to the woods.
LIPA
How splendid! Oh, Lord!
FRIAR (looking dejectedly into the distance)
I'll go to the woods.
LIPA
And to think that only yesterday everything was just as usual. There was nothing of all this, no miracle, nothing. There was only Savva--I can't believe it was yesterday. It seems to me a whole year has passed, a century. Oh, Lord!
FRIAR (his face clouding)
Why did he do it? Why?
LIPA
Can't you guess, Vassya?
FRIAR (waving his hand)
I asked him to come to the woods with me. He should have come.
LIPA
Did he tell you anything?
FRIAR (waving his hand)
He should have come. Yes, he should have come.
LIPA
Ah, Vassya, Vassya, on account of your woods you missed one of the greatest events that ever happened--so great, in fact, that no man remembers the like of it. Ah, Vassya, how can you be speaking about anything else when right now, right here--right here--a miracle has happened. Do you understand? A miracle! The very mention of it fills one with awe. A miracle! Oh, God! Where were you, Vassya, when the explosion occurred? In the woods?
FRIAR
Yes, in the woods. I didn't hear the explosion. I only heard the ringing of the alarm bell.
LIPA
Well?
FRIAR
Nothing. I ran back and found the gate open and everybody crying like mad. And the ikon--
LIPA
Well, well? Did you see?
FRIAR
Yes, it was in the same place as before. And all around--(Growing animated) You know the iron grating over there--you know it, don't you? It was twisted like a rope. It's funny to look at. It looks like something soft. I touched it, and it wasn't soft, of course. What power! It must have been something tremendous.
LIPA
Well, and what about the ikon--the ikon?
FRIAR
What about it? Nothing. It's there in its place, and our people are praying to it.
LIPA
Oh, Lord! And the glass is whole too?
FRIAR
The glass is whole too.
LIPA
That's what they told me, but I can't believe it yet. Forgive me, O Lord! Well, what are they doing? They are overjoyed, I suppose.
FRIAR
Yes, they are overjoyed. They act as if they were drunk. You can't make out what they are saying. A miracle, a miracle. Father Kirill keeps grunting like a pig "Oui, oui, oui." They put cold compresses on his head. He is fat, and he may pass out any moment. No, I can't stand it here. Come, let us go. I'll take you home, Miss Olympiada.
LIPA
No, Vassya dear, I'll go in there.
FRIAR
Don't go, for heaven's sake. They'll crush you, as they did that woman. They are all like drunk. They are carrying on and shouting like mad, with their eyes wide open. Listen. Can't you hear them?
LIPA
You are still a boy, Vassya. You don't understand. Why, it's a miracle. All their lives these people have been waiting for a miracle. Perhaps they had already begun to despair, and now--O Lord! It's enough to make you mad with joy. Yesterday, when I heard the cry of "a miracle," I thought: "No, it's impossible. How could it happen?" But then I saw them crying, crossing themselves, and going down on their knees. And the ringing of the alarm bell stopped.
FRIAR
Oh, it was Afanassy who rang. He's terribly strong, a regular giant.
LIPA
And the only thing heard was "A miracle, a miracle!" No one spoke, and yet one kept hearing "A miracle, a miracle," as if the whole earth had become articulate. And even now, when I close my eyes, I hear "A miracle, a miracle!" (She closes her eyes and listens with an ecstatic smile) How splendid!
FRIAR
I am sorry for Mr. Savva. Listen to the noise they are making.
LIPA
Oh, don't talk about him. He'll have to answer to God. Are they going to sing "Christ is arisen" instead of the usual hymn when they carry the ikon in the procession to-day? Vassya, do you hear? I am asking you a question.
FRIAR
Yes, they say that they are. Go home, Miss Olympiada, won't you?
LIPA
You can go, if you like.
FRIAR
But how can I leave you alone? They'll come tearing down here soon. For heaven's sake, there is Mr. Savva!
[Savva comes in hatless. His face is dark and stormy. There are lines under his eyes. He looks sideways with a steady stare. Frequently he glances around and seems to be listening to something. His gait is heavy, but quick. Noticing Lipa and the Friar, he turns and walks toward them. At his approach Lipa rises and turns away.
SAVVA
Have you seen Kondraty?
FRIAR
No, he is in the monastery.
[Savva remains standing in silence. The noise in the monastery has subsided and the sad, pitiful singing of the blind is heard.
FRIAR
Mr. Savva.
SAVVA
Have you got a cigarette?
FRIAR
No, I don't smoke. (Plaintively) Come to the woods, Mr. Savva. (Savva remains immovable and silent) They'll kill you, Mr. Tropinin. Come to the woods--please come! (Savva looks fixedly at him, then silently turns and walks away) Mr. Tropinin, on my word you had better come with me to the woods.
LIPA
Leave him alone. He is like Cain. He can't find a place on the earth. Everybody is rejoicing, and he--
FRIAR
His face is black. I am sorry for him.
LIPA
He is black all through. You had better keep away from him, Vassya. You don't know whom you are pitying. You are too young. I am his sister. I love him, but if he is killed, it will be a benefit to the whole world. You don't know what he wanted to do. The very thought of it is terrible. He is a madman, Vassya, a fearful lunatic. Or else he is--I don't know what.
FRIAR (waving his hand)
You needn't tell me all that. I know. Of course I know. Don't I see? But I am sorry for him all the same, and I am disgusted too. Why did he do it? Why? What stupid things people will do! Oh, my!
LIPA
I have only one hope--that he has understood at last. But if--
FRIAR
Well, what's the "if"?
LIPA
Oh, nothing, but--When he came here, it was as if a cloud had passed across the sun.
FRIAR
There you go also! You should be happy--Why don't you rejoice? Don't be "iffing" and "butting."
[A crowd begins to collect gradually. Two wagons with cripples stop on the road. A paralytic has been sitting for some time under a tree, crying and blowing his nose and wiping it with his sleeve. A Man in Peasant Overcoat appears from the direction of the monastery.
MAN IN OVERCOAT (officiously)
We must get the cripples over to Him, to the ikon--we must get them over there. What's the matter, women, are you asleep? Come on, move along. You'll get your rest over there. What's the matter with you, gran'pa? Why aren't you moving along? You ought to be there with your legs. Go on, old man, go on.
PARALYTIC (crying)
I can't walk.
MAN IN OVERCOAT (fussily)
Oh, that's it? That's what's the matter with you, eh? Come, I'll give you a lift. Get up.
PARALYTIC
I can't.
PASSER-BY
Won't his legs work? What you want to do is to put him on his feet, and then he'll hop away by himself. Isn't that right, old man?
MAN IN OVERCOAT
You take hold of him on that side, and I'll take this one. Well, old man, get a move on you. You won't have to suffer long now.
PASSER-BY
There he goes hop, hop. That's right. Go it, go it, old man, and you won't get left. (He goes away)
FRIAR (smiling happily)
They started him going all right. Clever, isn't it? He is galloping away at a great rate too. Good-bye, old gran'pa.
LIPA (crying)
Lord! Lord!
FRIAR (pained)
What's the matter? Don't cry, for pity's sake. What are you crying for? There is no cause for crying.
LIPA
No cause do you say, Vassya? I am crying for joy. Why aren't you glad, Vassya? Don't you believe in the miracle?
FRIAR
Yes, I do. But I can't bear to see all this. They all behave like drunks, and shout and make a noise. You can't understand what they are talking about. They crushed that woman. (With pain and disgust) They squeezed the life out of her. Oh, Lord, I simply can't! And the whole business. Father Kirill keeps grunting "Oui, oui, oui." (Laughs sadly) Why is he grunting?
LIPA (sternly)
You learned that from Savva.
FRIAR
No, I didn't. Tell me, why is he grunting? (Laughs sadly) Why?
[Yegor Tropinin enters dressed in holiday attire, his beard and hair combed. He looks extremely solemn and stern.
YEGOR
Why are you here, eh? And in that kind of dress? You're a fine sight.
LIPA
I had no time to get dressed.
YEGOR
But you found time to get here. What you have no business to do you have time for, but what you should do you have no time for. Go home and get dressed. It isn't proper. Who has ever seen such a thing?
LIPA
Oh, papa!
YEGOR
There is nothing to "oh" about. It's all right, papa is papa, but you see I am properly dressed. I dressed and then went out. That's the right way to do. Yes. It's a pleasure to look at myself sideways. I dressed as was proper, yes. On a day like this you ought to give a hand at the counter. Tony has disappeared, and Polya can't do all the work herself. You needn't be making such a face now.
MERCHANT (passing by)
Congratulate you on the miracle, Mr. Tropinin!
YEGOR
Thank you, brother, the same to you. Wait, I'll go with you. You are a goose, Olympiada. You have always been a goose, and you have remained a goose to this day.
MERCHANT
You'll have a fine trade now.
YEGOR
If it please the Lord! Why are you so late? Have you been sleeping? You keep sleeping, all of you, all the time. (They go out)
FRIAR
I scattered all the fireflies I caught on the road when I ran last night. And now the crowd has trampled them down. I wish I had left them in the woods. Listen to the way they are shouting. I wonder what's the matter. They must have squeezed somebody to death again.
LIPA (closing her eyes)
When you talk, Vassya, your words seem to pass by me. I hear and I don't hear. I think I should like to stay this way all my life without moving from the spot. I should like to remain forever with my eyes shut, listening to what is going on within me. Oh, Lord! What happiness! Do you understand, Vassya?
FRIAR
Yes, I understand.
LIPA
No. Do you understand what it is that has happened to-day? Why, it means that God has said--God Himself has said: "Wait and do not fear. You are miserable. Never mind, it's nothing, it's only temporary. You must wait. Nothing has to be destroyed. You must work and wait." Oh, it will come, Vassya, it will come. I feel it now, I know it.
FRIAR
What will come?
LIPA
Life, Vassya, real life will come. Oh, mercy! I still feel like crying for joy. Don't be afraid.
[Speransky and Tony enter, the latter very gloomy, glancing sideways and sighing. In a queer way he sometimes recalls Savva his gait and look.
SPERANSKY
Good morning, Miss Olympiada. Good morning, Vassya. What an extraordinary event, if we are to believe what people say.
LIPA
Believe, Mr. Speransky, believe.
SPERANSKY
You judge in a very simple offhand manner. If, however, you take into consideration the fact that it is highly probable that nothing exists, that even we ourselves do not exist--
TONY
Keep quiet.
SPERANSKY
Why? There is no miracle for me, Miss Olympiada. If at this moment, for example, everything on this earth were suddenly to be suspended in the air, I shouldn't regard it as a miracle.
LIPA
As what then? You're a very peculiar man.
SPERANSKY
I should look on it simply as a change. It was first one thing and then it became another. If you wish, I'll admit that for me the very fact that things are as they are is in itself a miracle. All are glad and rejoicing but I sit and think: "Time is blinking his eyes now, and there is a change. The old people are dead, and in their places appear the young. And they are apparently glad and rejoicing too."
TONY
Where is Savva?
LIPA
Why do you want him?
SPERANSKY
He has been looking for Mr. Savva ever so long. We have looked everywhere, but have not been able to find him.
FRIAR
He was here awhile ago.
TONY
Where did he go?
FRIAR
To the monastery, I think.
TONY (pulling Speransky)
Come.
SPERANSKY
Good-bye, Miss Olympiada. How they are shouting over there! The time will come when they will all be silent. (They go off)
FRIAR (disturbed)
Why are they looking for Mr. Savva?
LIPA
I don't know.
FRIAR
I don't like that seminarist. Always nosing about where there are dead around. What does he want? He is a dreadfully disagreeable fellow. Never misses a funeral. He smells death miles away.
LIPA
He is an unhappy creature.
FRIAR
Unhappy? Why is he unhappy? Even the dogs in the village are afraid of him. You don't believe it? It's so, upon my word! They bark at him, and then slink away behind the gate.
LIPA
What does all this matter anyway, Vassya? It's of no account, mere trifles. To-day they are going to sing: "Christ is arisen from the dead. Death has conquered death." Do you understand? "Death has conquered death."
FRIAR
I understand. I understand. But why does he say "All will become silent" and that sort of stuff? I don't like it, I don't like it. They have crushed a woman to death--perhaps others too. (Shaking his head) I don't like it. In the woods everything is so quiet and nice, and here--I'd prefer that no miracle had happened. I'd rather have things nice and pleasant. What's the use of it? What's the use of the miracle? There is no need of a miracle.
LIPA
What are you talking about, Vassya?
FRIAR
Savva Tropinin! The idea. It shouldn't have been done. There was no need of it. He said he'd go with me to the woods and then--I liked him a lot, but now I am afraid of him. Why did he do it? Why? My, what a fearful crowd! More cripples coming, and more and more.
LIPA
What is the matter, Vassya? What are you so excited about?
FRIAR
Everything was so nice and fine. Oh, my! Why don't you go home, Miss Olympiada? Do go, please. You have seen all there is to be seen. It's enough. What can you gain by staying here? Come, I'll go with you. Oh, God, there comes Mr. Savva again!
LIPA
Where?
FRIAR
There he is. For heaven's sake!
SAVVA (enters and sits down)
Has Kondraty been here?
FRIAR
No, Mr. Savva.
[Pause. Again the piteous singing of the blind can be heard.
SAVVA
Got a cigarette, Vassya?
FRIAR
No, I haven't. I don't smoke.
LIPA (harshly)
What are you waiting for, Savva? Go away. You are not wanted here. Look at yourself. You are a terrible sight. Your face is black.
SAVVA
I didn't sleep all last night. That's why it's black.
LIPA
What are you waiting for?
SAVVA
For an explanation.
LIPA
You don't believe in the miracle?
SAVVA (smiling)
Vassya, do you believe in the miracle?
FRIAR
Yes, of course I do, Mr. Savva.
SAVVA
Wait. You'll find out. What are they doing down there? They have already crushed three to death.
FRIAR Three?
SAVVA
And they'll kill many more. And they all keep shouting: "A miracle, a miracle!" At last it has come. They have got what they have been waiting for at last.
LIPA
And it's you, Savva, who gave them the miracle. It's you who are to be thanked for it.
SAVVA (gloomily)
Well, Vassya, the monks are glad, aren't they? Tell me, don't be afraid.
FRIAR
They are very glad, Mr. Savva. They are crying.
SAVVA (looking at him)
Crying? Why are they crying?
FRIAR
I don't know. I suppose for joy. Father Kirill grunts like a pig "Oui, oui, oui." They all act as if they were drunk.
SAVVA (rising, agitated)
As if they were drunk? What does that mean? Perhaps they really are drunk.
FRIAR
Oh no, Mr. Tropinin. It's all on account of the miracle. They are mad with joy. Father Kirill keeps grunting "Oui, oui, oui." He vows that if he remains alive he'll swear off liquor and live as a hermit.
SAVVA (eyeing him)
Well?
FRIAR
That's all.
SAVVA
What do they say?
FRIAR
They say they'll do penance and stop sinning. They hug each other and behave as if they were drunk.
SAVVA (walking up and down, stroking his forehead with his hand) Yes, hm. So that's the way! Yes.
LIPA (following him with her eyes)
Go away from here, Savva. You are not wanted here.
SAVVA
What?
LIPA (reluctantly)
They may recognize you and then--Why don't you put on a hat at least? You look like--
FRIAR
Yes, go--please go--dear Mr. Savva. Why, they--why, they might kill you!
SAVVA (in a sudden outburst of anger)
Leave me alone! No one will kill me. It's bosh! (Pause. Sits down) I wish I could get a drink of water or something. I am very thirsty. Isn't there a pool or something of the kind around here?
FRIAR (looking in terror at Savva)
No, it's all dried up.
SAVVA (frowning)
Sorry.
FRIAR
Oh, that woman there has a jug of water. (Gleefully) I'll go and ask her for it. (Runs)
LIPA
You ought not to have that water. Go away from here, Savva, go away. Look what gladness there is all around you. Everybody, everything rejoices. The earth is glad. The sun is glad. You are the only one who is not--you alone. I still can't forget that you are my brother. Go. But wherever you go, bear with you the memory of this day always. Remember that the same fate awaits you everywhere. The earth will not surrender her God to you; the people will not surrender to you that whereby they live and breathe. Yesterday I still feared you. To-day I regard you with pity. You are pitiful, Savva! Go! Why are you laughing?
SAVVA (smiling)
Isn't it a little premature, sister, for you to be delivering my funeral oration?
LIPA
Aren't you frightened yet?
SAVVA
Why should I be frightened? At your tricks and jugglery? I am used to the lies and frauds, Lipa. You can't frighten me with them. I still have a lot of stupid confidence left. It will help. It will come in handy the next time.
LIPA
Savva!
FRIAR (bringing the jug of water)
I had the hardest time getting it from her. She was like flint. She said she needed it herself. She was a hard case.
SAVVA
Thank you, boy. (Drinks with avidity) Fine! (Drinks the last drop) That was fine water. Take it back and tell the woman her water was fine and that there is none like it in all the world.
FRIAR (merrily)
All right, I'll tell her. (Goes off)
LIPA (in a whisper)
You are the enemy of the human race.
SAVVA (smacking his lips)
Very well, very well. Just wait. We'll hear what Kondraty has to say. The blackguard! I'll give it to him!
LIPA (with emphasis, but still in a whisper as before)
You are the enemy of the human race! You are the enemy of the human race!
SAVVA
Louder! No one hears you. It's a spicy bit of information.
LIPA
Go away from here.
[The Friar returns.
SAVVA (looking into the distance with narrowed eyes)
It's nice out there, isn't it, Vassya? Whose woods are they? Vazykin's? Have I ever been there with you?
FRIAR (gleefully)
Yes, they're Vazykin's. I was there yesterday, Mr. Savva. I caught a whole handful of fireflies, but as I ran--(He grows sorrowful at the memory) My, how they are shouting! What are they up to anyway? Did you say they killed three, Mr. Tropinin? Was that what you said?
SAVVA (coolly)
Yes, three.
FRIAR
What are they pushing and jostling for anyhow? He'll be carried in the procession and they can all see Him.
SAVVA
When will they carry Him?
FRIAR (looking up)
It won't be long now.
LIPA
They'll sing "Christ is Arisen" to-day.
SAVVA (smiling)
Is that so? Didn't I arrange a feast-day for them though?
[Tony and Speransky appear.
FRIAR
Are these fellows here too? For goodness' sake, what do they want? What are they looking for? I don't like it. Mr. Tropinin, come; let's go away from here.
SAVVA
Why?
FRIAR
They are coming this way, Speransky--
SAVVA
Aha! The "Tramp of Death" is approaching.
[Lipa looks at him in astonishment. The Friar presses his hand to his bosom in a state of agitation.
FRIAR (plaintively)
What are you saying? Oh, God! Why did you say that? You mustn't do it. This is no tramp of death, nothing of the kind.
SAVVA
It's a kind of story he has written--Good morning, good morning. What can I do for you?
SPERANSKY
Mr. Anthony Tropinin is looking for you, Mr. Savva.
SAVVA
What do you want?
TONY (very sadly, hiding a little behind Speransky)
Nothing.
FRIAR (listening attentively and then speaking with passion) What are you running around for then, and whom are you hunting? If you want nothing, do nothing. But you are running around and hunting, hunting. It isn't nice, I tell you!
TONY (after a passing glance at the Friar he fixes his gaze on Savva) Savva.
SAVVA (irritated)
What do you want?
[Tony makes no answer, but hides behind Speransky, looking over his shoulder. In the course of what follows he keeps steadily looking at Savva. His lips and eyebrows twitch, and at times he presses both his hands hard against his mouth.
SPERANSKY
The crowd is in a state of great agitation, Miss Olympiada. They broke the old gate opening on the other side of the woods and rushed in. The Father Superior came out and asked them to behave. They shout so you can't hear anything at all. Many are rolling on the ground in convulsions. I suppose they are sick. It's very strange, quite unusual in fact.
LIPA
Will they carry Him out soon? I must go. (Rises)
SPERANSKY
They say it'll be soon now. One wagon with cripples in it was upset--cripples without hands or feet. They are lying on the ground crying. It's all so strange.
FRIAR
What? Did you see it yourself?
[Kondraty appears on the road coming from the monastery. He is walking in the company of two pilgrims, who are listening attentively to him. Catching sight of Savva, Kondraty says something to his companions, who remain standing where they are while he goes up to Savva.
SAVVA
Aha!
KONDRATY (clean, spruce, beaming)
Good morning, Miss Olympiada. Good morning to you too, Mr. Savva Tropinin.
SAVVA
Good morning, good morning. You have come after all? You were not afraid?
KONDRATY (calmly)
Why should I be afraid? You won't kill me, I suppose, and if you should, it would be sweet to die at your hands.
SAVVA
What bravery! And how clean you are! You are positively painful to look at. You didn't make quite so smart an appearance when you lay wallowing in the puddle. You were a little the worse for the mud, and so on.
KONDRATY (shrugging his shoulders and speaking with dignity) It's no use recalling that incident now. It's quite out of place. Mr. Tropinin, it's time for you to have done with your spite and malice, high time.
SAVVA
Well?
KONDRATY
That's all. There is no "well" about it. You have had your shot. Be satisfied.
SAVVA
Are congratulations upon the miracle in order?
KONDRATY
Yes, Mr. Tropinin, upon the miracle--the miracle, indeed. (He weeps with a bland air, wiping his face with his handkerchief) God granted that I should live to see the day.
SAVVA (rising and advancing a step toward the monk; peremptorily) Enough now! Stop your hocus-pocus. You have played your trick. Now stop, or I'll knock all that jugglery out of you. Do you hear?
FRIAR
Mr. Savva, good Mr. Savva, please don't.
KONDRATY (drawing back a little)
Not so loud, not so loud. We are not in the forest where you can kill rich merchants and get away with it. There are people here.
SAVVA (lowering his voice)
Well, tell me all about it. Come on.
KONDRATY
What's the use of going away? I can tell you everything right here. I have no secrets. It's you who have secrets. I am all here.
SAVVA
You'll lie if you tell it here.
KONDRATY (heatedly, with tears)
Shame, Mr. Tropinin! Shame! Shame! Why do you insult me? Is it because you saw me lying in the puddle? It's a sin, a shame!
SAVVA (perplexed)
What's the matter with you?
KONDRATY
Do you think I am going to lie on a day like this? Miss Olympiada, you at least ought to know--Good God! Good God! Why, Christ has just arisen! Do you understand?
[The crowd increases. Some cast glances at the group with the two monks before they pass on.
LIPA (excitedly)
Father Kondraty--
KONDRATY (beating his breast)
Do you understand? I have lived all my life like a scoundrel, so why, why did God do this with me? Do you understand, Miss Olympiada? Do you understand? Eh?
SAVVA (perplexed)
Talk sense. Stop blubbering.
KONDRATY (waving his hand)
I am not angry with you. I bear you no grudge. Who are you that I should bear any resentment against you?
SAVVA
Talk sense.
KONDRATY
I'll tell Miss Olympiada. I won't speak to you. You knew me as a drunkard, Miss Olympiada, a mean, worthless creature. Now listen. (To Speransky) And you, young man, may listen also. It will teach you a lesson. It will show you how God works His will unseen.
LIPA
I see, Father Kondraty. Forgive me.
KONDRATY
God will forgive you. Who am I to forgive you? So that's the way it was, Miss Olympiada. I followed your advice and went to the Father Superior with the infernal machine. It was indeed an infernal machine! And I told him everything, just the way I felt, with a perfect candor and purity of heart.
SPERANSKY (guessing)
Is that how it happened? What a remarkable event!
FRIAR (quietly)
Keep quiet. What are you butting in for?
KONDRATY
Ye-es. The Father Superior turned pale. "You scamp," he said, "do you know with whom you have had dealings?" "I do," I said, trembling all over. Well, they called together the whole brotherhood and discussed the matter in secret. And then the Father Superior said to me: "It's this way, Kondraty," he said. "God has chosen you as the instrument of His sacred will. Yes. (Weeps) God has chosen you as the instrument--"
LIPA
Well? Go on.
KONDRATY
Ye-es, hm. "Go," he said, "and put down the machine as you were told to do, and set it going according to the directions. Carry out the devil's plot in full. I and the other brothers will sing a hymn quietly as we carry the ikon away. Yes, that's what we'll do. We'll carry the ikon away. And thus the devil will be made a fool of."
SAVVA
Ah!
LIPA (astonished)
But, Father Kondraty, how can that be?
[Savva laughs heartily.
KONDRATY
Patience, patience, Miss Olympiada. "And when," said the Father Superior, "the devil's plot shall have been carried out, then we'll put the ikon--the dear, precious ikon--back in His place." Well, I won't attempt to describe the scene that took place when we carried the ikon away. It's beyond my power. The brothers sobbed and wept. Not one of them was able to sing. The little candles burned with tiny little flames. And then when we carried Him out to the gate, and when we began to think and remembered--who is now in His sacred place--we lay around the ikon, our faces on the ground, and cried and wept bitter, bitter tears, tears of pity and contrition. "O Thou, our own, our precious idol, have mercy on us, return to Thy place." (Lipa cries; the Friar wipes his eyes with his fist) And then--bang! went the machine, and the sulphurous smoke spread all around so that it was impossible to breathe. (In a whisper) And then many beheld the devil in the smoke, and they were so terrified that they lost consciousness. It was horrible! And then, as we carried Him back, all of one accord, as though we had agreed beforehand, began to sing "Christ is arisen." That's how it happened.
SAVVA
You hear, Lipa? But what's the matter with you? Why are you all crying?
FRIAR
It makes one feel so sorry, Mr. Savva.
SAVVA
Why, they fooled you, they played a trick on you. Or else you are all lying, lying with your tears.
[Kondraty makes a gesture of indifference.
LIPA (shaking her head, weeping)
No, Savva, you don't understand. Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!
KONDRATY
You have no God, that's the reason you don't understand; You have only reason, and pride, and malice. That's why you don't understand. Ah, Mr. Savva, you wanted to ruin me too. And I tell you as a Christian--it would have been better if you had never been born.
SAVVA
Oh, fiddlesticks! Whom do you think you can hoodwink? Do you think I have turned blind?
KONDRATY (turning away with a wave of his hand)
You can shout as much as you like.
FRIAR
Mr. Savva, you mustn't shout, you mustn't. We have already attracted the attention of the crowd. They are looking at us.
SAVVA (laying his hand on Kondraty's shoulder and speaking in a low voice) Look here, I understand. Of course, in the presence of people--but you understand, don't you, Kondraty? You are a clever man, a very bright man. You understand that all this is nonsense. Just consider, brother, consider a moment. Didn't they carry the ikon away? Then where is the miracle?
KONDRATY (twisting himself free from Savva's grasp, shaking his head and speaking aloud) Then you don't understand? No, you don't understand. What of it?
SAVVA (in a whisper)
Listen, remember our talk.
KONDRATY (aloud)
Don't whisper to me. I have nothing to hide from anybody. How do you think miracles happen anyhow? Say, you are a smart man too, and yet you can't comprehend a simple matter like this. Why, it's all your work, all your doing, isn't it? You gave me the machine. You planned the explosion. Your orders have been carried out. And yet the ikon is untouched; it's whole. That's all I have to say. It's the plain, simple statement of fact. Yet you come here with your arguments and try to get away from those facts by mere reasoning.
LIPA (looking around in a paroxysm of excitement)
How simple it is! And how terrible! O Lord, O Lord! And to think that it was I who did it, I, with my own hands! O my God! (She falls on her knees, turning her eyes toward heaven)
SAVVA (looking at her savagely, then at Kondraty)
Well!
KONDRATY (drawing back in fright)
Why are you staying here? Why haven't you left already?
SAVVA (shouting)
What a ---- fool you are!
KONDRATY (paling)
Lower, lower, I say. Don't talk like that, or I'll shout.
SAVVA (turning quickly toward Speransky)
What are you staring at with your mouth wide open? You are a philosopher. You, you are a philosopher. Can you understand the stupidity of these people? They think it's a miracle. (Laughs) They think it's a miracle.
SPERANSKY (stepping back)
Excuse me, Mr. Tropinin, but from their point of view--I don't know.
SAVVA
You don't know?
SPERANSKY
Who does know? (Cries out, in despair) The dead alone, Mr. Savva, the dead alone.
KONDRATY
Ah! You are cornered--Antichrist!
LIPA (in terror)
Antichrist?
[Hearing the cry, the two pilgrims who were with Kondraty approach. They are gradually joined by others, among whom is the Man in Peasant Overcoat.
FIRST PILGRIM
What is it, father? Has he revealed himself?
KONDRATY
Look at him, look at him!
SAVVA
Vassya, you dear, fine boy--Vassya, what is the matter with them? Hear what they are saying. Hear the nonsense they are talking. You good, nice boy!
FRIAR (drawing back)
Mr. Savva, don't, don't. Go away from here. Leave this place.
SAVVA
Vassya, Vassya, you, you--
FRIAR (crying)
But I don't know. I don't know anything. I am afraid.
LIPA (ecstatically)
Antichrist! Antichrist!
SECOND PILGRIM
Hear! Hear!
KONDRATY
Ah! You are cornered. Here is your money--take it! It has burned holes in my pockets, your accursed money. Here, take it, take it, you brood of Antichrist! (Throws the money at him)
SAVVA (raising his fist as if to deal a blow) I'll teach you--
FIRST PILGRIM
Boys, don't be afraid. Here boys, here!
SAVVA (pressing his head between his hands)
Oh, it hurts, it hurts! Darkness is closing in.
KONDRATY
It's beginning to get you, is it? That's right, that's right.
LIPA
Antichrist!
TONY (shouting)
Savva, Savva!
SAVVA (sinking for a moment into profound, terrible meditation; then he straightens himself suddenly and seems to grow in stature; he cries out with a wild joy as if speaking above the heads of all to reach somebody far off) I am right! Therefore I am right! It was all necessary! All! All! (He stands as if petrified in an upward-striving posture)
KONDRATY
Boys, it's he who did it. That's the fellow.
MAN IN OVERCOAT (pushing himself forward, officiously)
What's the matter, boys? Aha! He is caught! Which one? This one? Come on with you! (Takes hold of Savva by the sleeve)
SAVVA (shaking him off with such violence that the man falls down) Get away from me!
VOICES
Don't let him go!
KONDRATY
Hold him!
FRIAR (crying)
Run, Mr. Savva, run.
[During the following scene Lipa prays. Speransky looks on with keen curiosity, while Tony stares over his shoulder. All the voices become blended into one raging, frightened, savage roar.
CROWD
Get at him from that side! Yes, go yourself! You have a stick! Oh, hang it, there isn't a single stone around! Hold him, hold him, he'll escape!
MAN IN OVERCOAT (getting to his feet again and assuming the leadership) Surround him, boys, surround him! Block the way to the river! Don't let him run away! Well, now, get a move on you!
CROWD
Go yourself--I've tried once! Push that way! Get hold of him! Grab him! Aha!
KONDRATY (shouting at the top of his voice)
Beat him! Beat the Antichrist! Beat him!
SAVVA (the danger brings him back to his senses. He looks around, takes in the path to the river with a quick glance, and gray as dust with rage, he makes for it with a single abrupt movement) Get out of the way, you monsters!
CROWD
He is getting away! He is getting away! Hold him! Boys, he is getting away! He is getting away!
[As Savva advances, the crowd falls back in a semicircle, tumbling against one another. Kondraty begins to make the sign of the cross at Savva and continues to do so throughout the remaining scene.
SAVVA (advancing)
Get out of the way! Get out of the way! So you're scared now, you dogs? You've pulled in your tails? Get out of the way! Go on!
CROWD
He is getting away.
[King Herod issues from the crowd, and plants himself in front of Savva so as to obstruct his way. There is a terrible look on his face. Savva comes up close to him and stops.
SAVVA
Well?
[A brief pause. The conversation is carried on in a sort of undertone, almost calmly.
KING HEROD
Is that you?
SAVVA
Is that you? Let me go.
KING HEROD
A man?
SAVVA
Yes, let me go.
KING HEROD
Did you want the Saviour? Christ?
SAVVA
They fooled you.
KING HEROD
People may fool, Christ never. What's your name?
SAVVA
Savva. Get out of my way, I tell you.
KING HEROD
Surrender Thy servant Savva. Hold!
[He strikes a heavy, swinging blow with his left fist whence Savva did not expect an attack. Savva sinks on one knee. The crowd rushes at him and tramples him down.
CROWD
Beat him! Aha! So! He is turning back! Beat him!
FRIAR
What does this mean? Oh! Oh! Oh! (He clutches his head with both hands, cries, and runs away)
SAVVA (fighting desperately, he appears for a moment looking fierce and terrible) Let go--Ho-o-o! (He sinks back again)
CROWD
That's the way. One, two--Ah! Strike! Got him? Not yet! Got him? What are you waiting for? Strike! Done!
A VOICE
He's still moving.
CROWD
Strike!
MAN IN OVERCOAT
Peter, got a knife? Finish him with your knife. Cut his throat.
PETER
No, I'd rather do it with my heel. One! Two!
KONDRATY (cursing him)
Lord Jesus Christ! Lord Jesus Christ!
[Loud cries are heard from the background: "They are carrying Him! They are carrying Him!" The mob begins to disperse and thins out quickly.
CROWD
They are carrying Him! Yes, it's enough. It's done. No, let me at him--once more. There! I gave him one good one in his face. They are carrying Him! They are carrying Him!
KING HEROD
Enough, enough. A grand feast for you, you accursed beasts!
CROWD
I tell you, they are carrying Him! Lie there, you! Oh my, am I going to be late? Enough now. Are you sorry for him, eh? Is it your head? One more! Come on!
[They run away so that Savva's mangled body becomes visible.
MAN IN OVERCOAT
It ought to be taken away from here. It isn't right to leave it here on the road. It's dirty. Boys! Say, boys!
[He goes off following the rest, but is met by the procession pouring in upon the stage. There is a great din and humming of talk. Speransky and Tony approach the body cautiously, bend over it on their knees, one on each side, and stare at it eagerly.
SPERANSKY
Dead! His eyes are gone.
TONY
Shut up! (He bursts into a groaning laugh, pressing his hands hard to his mouth)
SPERANSKY
But his face is calm. Look, Mr. Anthony. It's because now he knows the truth.
TONY
Shut up! (Bursts out laughing) What a funny face he has!
[He laughs behind his hand. Then his laugh bursts through his fingers, so to speak, grows in intensity, becomes irresistible, and passes into a whine. The crowd begins to fill the stage, concealing the body, Speransky, and Tony. The bells are rung in the monastery as at Easter, and at the same time the singing of thousands of voices is heard.
CROWD
"Christ is risen from the dead. He has conquered death with death and given life to those lain in their graves. Christ--"
LIPA (flinging herself into the crowd)
"Christ is risen!"
[The crowd continues to pour in, filling the entire stage. Gaping mouths and round, wide-open eyes are seen everywhere. Shrill shrieks are uttered by the crazed epileptics. A momentary outcry is heard: "Somebody crushed!" Tony's laughter dies away somewhere. The triumphant hymn rises, spreads, passes into a titanic roar that drowns every other sound. The bells continue to ring.
CROWD (shouting at their utmost power)
"Christ is risen from the dead. He has conquered death with death and given life to those lain in their graves. Christ is risen--"
CURTAIN
THE END.
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