MARY IVaNOVNA. Vasily Nikonorovich has repented, and has got his living back, and Tonya is at this very moment dancing and flirting with Styopa.
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. I am sorry to hear it, but it does not turn black into white, and it cannot change my life. Mary! You do not need me. Let me go! I have tried to share your life and to bring into it what for me const.i.tutes the whole of life; but it is impossible. It only results in torturing myself and you. I not only torment myself, but spoil the work I try to accomplish. Everybody, including that very Alexander Petrovich, has the right to tell me that I am a hypocrite; that I talk but do not act! That I preach the Gospel of poverty while I live in luxury, pretending that I have given up everything to my wife!
MARY IVaNOVNA. So you are ashamed of what people say? Really, can"t you rise above that?
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. It"s not that I am ashamed (though I am ashamed), but that I am spoiling G.o.d"s work.
MARY IVaNOVNA. You yourself often say that it fulfils itself despite man"s opposition; but that"s not the point. Tell me, what do you want of me?
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Haven"t I told you?
MARY IVaNOVNA. But, Nicholas, you know that that is impossible. Only think, Lyuba is now getting married; Vanya is entering the university; Missy and Katya are studying. How can I break all that off?
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Then what am I to do?
MARY IVaNOVNA. Do as you say one should do: have patience, love. Is it too hard for you? Only bear with us and do not take yourself from us!
Come, what is it that torments you?
Enter Vanya running.
VaNYA. Mamma, they are calling you!
MARY IVaNOVNA. Tell them I can"t come. Go, go!
VaNYA. Do come! [He runs off].
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. You don"t wish to see eye to eye--nor to understand me.
MARY IVaNOVNA. It is not that I don"t wish to, but that I can"t.
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. No, you don"t wish to, and we drift further and further apart. Only enter into my feelings; put yourself for a moment in my place, and you will understand. First, the whole life here is thoroughly depraved. You are vexed with the expression, but I can give no other name to a life built wholly on robbery; for the money you live on is taken from the land you have stolen from the peasants. Moreover, I see that this life is demoralising the children: "Whoso shall cause one of these little ones to stumble," and I see how they are perishing and becoming depraved before my very eyes. I cannot bear it when grown-up men dressed up in swallow-tail coats serve us as if they were slaves.
Every dinner we have is a torture to me.
MARY IVaNOVNA. But all this was so before. Is it not done by everyone--both here and abroad?
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. But _I_ can"t do it. Since I realised that we are all brothers, I cannot see it without suffering.
MARY IVaNOVNA. That is as you please. One can invent anything.
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [hotly] It"s just this want of understanding that is so terrible. Take for instance to-day! I spent this morning at Rzhanov"s lodging-house, among the outcasts there; and I saw an infant literally die of hunger; a boy suffering from alcoholism; and a consumptive charwoman rinsing clothes outside in the cold. Then I returned home, and a footman with a white tie opens the door for me. I see my son--a mere lad--ordering that footman to fetch him some water; and I see the army of servants who work for us. Then I go to visit Boris--a man who is sacrificing his life for truth"s sake. I see how he, a pure, strong, resolute man, is deliberately being goaded to lunacy and to destruction, that the Government may be rid of him! I know, and they know, that his heart is weak, and so they provoke him, and drag him to a ward for raving lunatics. It is too dreadful, too dreadful. And when I come home, I hear that the one member of our family who understood--not me but the truth--has thrown over both her betrothed to whom she had promised her love, and the truth, and is going to marry a lackey, a liar ...
MARY IVaNOVNA. How very Christian!
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Yes, it is wrong of me, and I am to blame, but I only want you to put yourself in my place. I mean to say that she has turned from the truth ...
MARY IVaNOVNA. You say, "from the truth"; but other people--the majority--say from "an error." You see Vasily Nikonorovich once thought he was in error, but now has come back to the Church.
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. That"s impossible ----
MARY IVaNOVNA. He has written to Lisa! She will show you the letter.
That sort of conversion is very unstable. So also in Tonya"s case; I won"t even speak of that fellow Alexander Petrovich, who simply considers it profitable!
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [getting angry] Well, no matter. I only ask _you_ to understand me. I still consider that truth is truth! All this hurts me very much. And here at home I see a Christmas-tree, a ball, and hundreds of roubles being spent while men are dying of hunger. I cannot live so.
Have pity on me, I am worried to death. Let me go! Good-bye.
MARY IVaNOVNA. If you go, I will go with you. Or if not with you, I will throw myself under the train you leave by; and let them all go to perdition--and Missy and Katya too. Oh my G.o.d, my G.o.d. What torture!
Why? What for? [Weeps].
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [at the door] Alexander Petrovich, go home! I am not going. [To his wife] Very well, I will stay. [Takes off his overcoat].
MARY IVaNOVNA [embracing him] We have not much longer to live. Don"t let us spoil everything after twenty-eight years of life together. Well, I"ll give no more parties; but do not punish me so.
Enter Vanya and Katya running.
VaNYA and KATYA. Mamma, be quick--come.
MARY IVaNOVNA. Coming, coming. So let us forgive one another! [Exit with Katya and Vanya].
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. A child, a regular child; or a cunning woman? No, a cunning child. Yes, yes. It seems Thou dost not wish me to be Thy servant in this Thy work. Thou wishest me to be humiliated, so that everyone may point his finger at me and say, "He preaches, but he does not perform." Well, let them! Thou knowest best what Thou requirest: submission, humility! Ah, if I could but rise to that height!
Enter Lisa.
LISA. Excuse me. I have brought you a letter from Vasily Nikonorovich.
It is addressed to me, but he asks me to tell you.
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Can it be really true?
LISA. Yes. Shall I read it?
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Please do.
LISA [reading] "I write to beg you to communicate this to Nicholas Ivanovich. I greatly regret the error which led me openly to stray from the Holy Orthodox Church, to which I rejoice to have now returned. I hope you and Nicholas Ivanovich will follow the same path. Please forgive me!"
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. They have tortured him into this, poor fellow. But still it is terrible.
LISA. I also came to tell you that the Princess is here. She came upstairs to me in a dreadfully excited state and is determined to see you. She has just been to see Boris. I think you had better not see her. What good can it do for her to see you?
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. No. Call her in. Evidently this is fated to be a day of dreadful torture.
LISA. Then I"ll go and call her. [Exit].
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [alone] Yes--could I but remember that life consists only in serving Thee; and that if Thou sendest a trial, it is because Thou holdest me capable of enduring it, and knowest that my strength is equal to it: else it would not be a trial.... Father, help me--help me to do Thy will.
Enter Princess.
PRINCESS. You receive me? You do me that honour? My respects to you. I don"t give you my hand, for I hate you and despise you.
NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. What has happened?