TIHON. The post’s late to-day!
[The POSTMAN pays in silence and goes out. The post drives off, the bells ringing.]
A VOICE FROM THE CORNER. One could rob the post in weather like this — easy as spitting.
MERIK. I’ve been alive thirty-five years and I haven’t robbed the post once…. [Pause] It’s gone now… too late, too late….
KUSMA. Do you want to smell the inside of a prison?
MERIK. People rob and don’t go to prison. And if I do go! [Suddenly] What else?
KUSMA. Do you mean that unfortunate?
MERIK. Who else?
KUSMA. The second reason, brothers, why he was ruined was because of his brother-in-law, his sister’s husband…. He took it into his head to stand surety at the bank for 30,000 roubles for his brother-in-law. The brother-in-law’s a thief…. The swindler knows which side his bread’s buttered and won’t budge an inch…. So he doesn’t pay up…. So our man had to pay up the whole thirty thousand. [Sighs] The fool is suffering for his folly. His wife’s got children now by the lawyer and the brother-in-law has bought an estate near Poltava, and our man goes round inns like a fool, and complains to the likes of us: “I’ve lost all faith, brothers! I can’t believe in anybody now!” It’s cowardly! Every man has his grief, a snake that sucks at his heart, and does that mean that he must drink? Take our village elder, for example. His wife plays about with the schoolmaster in broad daylight, and spends his money on drink, but the elder walks about smiling to himself. He’s just a little thinner…
TIHON. [Sighs] When God gives a man strength….
KUSMA. There’s all sorts of strength, that’s true…. Well? How much does it come to? [Pays] Take your pound of flesh! Goodbye, children! Goodnight and pleasant dreams! It’s time I hurried off. I’m bringing my lady a midwife from the hospital…. She must be getting wet with waiting, poor thing…. [Runs out. A pause.]
TIHON. Oh, you! Unhappy man, come and drink this! [Pours out.]
BORTSOV. [Comes up to the bar hesitatingly and drinks] That means I now owe you for two glasses.
TIHON. You don’t owe me anything? Just drink and drown your sorrows!
FEDYA. Drink mine, too, sir! Oh! [Throws down a five-copeck piece] If you drink, you die; if you don’t drink, you die. It’s good not to drink vodka, but by God you’re easier when you’ve got some! Vodka takes grief away…. It is hot!
BORTSOV. Boo! The heat!
MERIK. Dive it here! [Takes the medallion from TIHON and examines her portrait] Hm. Ran off after the wedding. What a woman!
A VOICE FROM THE CORNER. Pour him out another glass, Tihon. Let him drink mine, too.
MERIK. [Dashes the medallion to the ground] Curse her! [Goes quickly to his place and lies down, face to the wall. General excitement.]
BORTSOV. Here, what’s that? [Picks up the medallion] How dare you, you beast? What right have you? [Tearfully] Do you want me to kill you? You moujik! You boor!
TIHON. Don’t be angry, sir…. It isn’t glass, it isn’t broken…. Have another drink and go to sleep. [Pours out] Here I’ve been listening to you all, and when I ought to have locked up long ago. [Goes and looks door leading out.]
BORTSOV. [Drinks] How dare he? The fool! [to MERIK] Do you understand? You’re a fool, a donkey!
SAVVA. Children! If you please! Stop that talking! What’s the good of making a noise? Let people go to sleep.
TIHON. Lie down, lie down… be quiet! [Goes behind the counter and locks the till] It’s time to sleep.
FEDYA. It’s time! [Lies down] Pleasant dreams, brothers!
MERIK. [Gets up and spreads his short fur and coat the bench] Come on, lie down, sir.
TIHON. And where will you sleep.
MERIK. Oh, anywhere…. The floor will do…. [Spreads a coat on the floor] It’s all one to me [Puts the axe by him] It would be torture for him to sleep on the floor. He’s used to silk and down….
TIHON. [To BORTSOV] Lie down, your honour! You’ve looked at that portrait long enough. [Puts out a candle] Throw it away!
BORTSOV. [Swaying about] Where can I lie down?
TIHON. In the tramp’s place! Didn’t you hear him giving it up to you?
BORTSOV. [Going up to the vacant place] I’m a bit… drunk… after all that…. Is this it?… Do I lie down here? Eh?
TIHON. Yes, yes, lie down, don’t be afraid. [Stretches himself out on the counter.]
BORTSOV. [Lying down] I’m… drunk…. Everything’s going round…. [Opens the medallion] Haven’t you a little candle? [Pause] You’re a queer little woman Masha…. Looking at me out of the frame and laughing…. [Laughs] I’m drunk! And should you laugh at a man because he’s drunk? You look out, as Schastlivtsev says, and… love the drunkard.
FEDYA. How the wind howls. It’s dreary!
BORTSOV. [Laughs] What a woman…. Why do you keep on going round? I can’t catch you!
MERIK. He’s wandering. Looked too long at the portrait. [Laughs] What a business! Educated people go and invent all sorts of machines and medicines, but there hasn’t yet been a man wise enough to invent a medicine against the female sex…. They try to cure every sort of disease, and it never occurs to them that more people die of women than of disease…. Sly, stingy, cruel, brainless…. The motherin-law torments the bride and the bride makes things square by swindling the husband… and there’s no end to it….
TIHON. The women have ruffled his hair for him, and so he’s bristly.
MERIK. It isn’t only I…. From the beginning of the ages, since the world has been in existence, people have complained…. It’s not for nothing that in the songs and stories, the devil and the woman are put side by side…. Not for nothing! It’s half true, at any rate… [Pause] Here’s the gentleman playing the fool, but I had more sense, didn’t I, when I left my father and mother, and became a tramp?
FEDYA. Because of women?
MERIK. Just like the gentleman… I walked about like one of the damned, bewitched, blessing my stars… on fire day and night, until at last my eyes were opened… It wasn’t love, but just a fraud….
FEDYA. What did you do to her?
MERIK. Never you mind…. [Pause] Do you think I killed her?… I wouldn’t do it…. If you kill, you are sorry for it…. She can live and be happy! If only I’d never set eyes on you, or if I could only forget you, you viper’s brood! [A knocking at the door.]
TIHON. Whom have the devils brought…. Who’s there? [Knocking] Who knocks? [Gets up and goes to the door] Who knocks? Go away, we’ve locked up!
A VOICE. Please let me in, Tihon. The carriage-spring’s broken! Be a father to me and help me! If I only had a little string to tie it round with, we’d get there somehow or other.
TIHON. Who are you?
THE VOICE. My lady is going to Varsonofyev from the town…. It’s only five versts farther on…. Do be a good man and help!
TIHON. Go and tell the lady that if she pays ten roubles she can have her string and we’ll mend the spring.
THE VOICE. Have you gone mad, or what? Ten roubles! You mad dog! Profiting by our misfortunes!
TIHON. Just as you like…. You needn’t if you don’t want to.
THE VOICE. Very well, wait a bit. [Pause] She says, all right.
TIHON. Pleased to hear it!