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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Storm, by Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Storm
+
+Author: Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
+Translator: Constance Garnett
+
+Release Date: May 12, 2013 [EBook #7991]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, S.R.Ellison and the DP Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STORM
+
+By Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
+
+Translated By Constance Garnett
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Up to the years of the Crimean War Russia was always a strange, uncouth
+riddle to the European consciousness. It would be an interesting study to
+trace back through the last three centuries the evidence of the historical
+documents that our forefathers have left us when they were brought face to
+face, through missions, embassies, travel, and commerce, with the
+fantastic life, as it seemed to them, led by the Muscovite. But in any
+chance record we may pick up, from the reports of a seventeenth century
+embassy down to the narrative of an early nineteenth century traveller,
+the note always insisted on is that of all the outlandish civilisations,
+queer manners and customs of Europeans, the Russian's were the queerest
+and those standing furthest removed from the other nations'. And this
+sentiment has prevailed to-day, side by side with the better understanding
+we have gained of Russia. Nor can this conception, generally held among
+us, which is a half truth, be removed by personal contact or mere
+objective study; for example, of the innumerable memoirs published on the
+Crimean war, it is rare to find one that gives us any real insight into
+the nature of the Russian. And the conception itself can only be amended
+and enlarged by the study of the Russian mind as it expresses itself in
+its own literature. The mind of the great artist, of whatever race he
+springs, cannot lie. From the works of Thackeray and George Eliot in
+England and Turgenev and Tolstoi in Russia, a critic penetrates into the
+secret places of the national life, where all the clever objective
+pictures of foreign critics must lead him astray. Ostrovsky's drama, "The
+Storm," here translated for the English reader, is a good instance of this
+truth. It is a revelation of the old-fashioned Muscovite life _from the
+inside_, and Ostrovsky thereby brings us in closer relation to that
+primitive life than was in the power of Tolstoi or Goncharov, or even
+Gogol to bring us. These great writers have given us admirable pictures of
+the people's life as it appeared to them at the angle of the educated
+Westernised Russian mind; but here in "The Storm" is the atmosphere of the
+little Russian town, with its primitive inhabitants, merchants, and
+workpeople, an atmosphere untouched, unadulterated by the _ideas_ of any
+outside European influence. It is the Russia of Peter the Great and
+Catherine's time, the Russian patriarchal family life that has existed for
+hundreds of years through all the towns and villages of Great Russia, that
+lingers indeed to-day in out-of-the-way corners of the Empire, though now
+invaded and much broken up by modern influences. It is, in fact, the very
+Muscovite life that so puzzled our forefathers, and that no doubt will
+seem strange to many English readers. But the special triumph of "The
+Storm" is that although it is a realistic picture of old-fashioned Russian
+patriarchal life, it is one of the deepest and simplest psychological
+analyses of the Russian soul ever made. It is a very deep though a very
+narrow analysis. Katerina, the heroine, to the English will seem weak, and
+crushed through her weakness; but to a Russian she typifies revolt,
+freedom, a refusal to be bound by the cruelty of life. And her attitude,
+despairing though it seems to us, is indeed the revolt of the spirit in a
+land where Tolstoi's doctrine of non-resistance is the logical outcome of
+centuries of serfdom in a people's history. The merchant Dikoy, the bully,
+the soft characterless lover Boris, the idealistic religious Katerina,
+Kuligin the artisan, and Madame Kabanova, the tyrannical mother, all these
+are true national types, true Russians of the changing ages, and the
+counterparts of these people may be met to-day, if the reader takes up
+Tehehov's tales. English people no doubt will find it difficult to believe
+that Madame Kabanova could so have crushed Katerina's life, as Ostrovsky
+depicts. Nothing indeed is so antagonistic to English individualism and
+independence as is the passivity of some of the characters in "The Storm."
+But the English reader's very difficulty in this respect should give him a
+clue to much that has puzzled Europeans, should help him to penetrate into
+the strangeness of Russian political life, the strangeness of her love of
+despotism. Only in the country that produces such types of weakness and
+tyranny is possible the fettering of freedom of thought and act that we
+have in Russia to-day. Ostrovsky's striking analysis of this fatalism in
+the Russian soul will help the reader to understand the unending struggle
+in Russia between the enlightened Europeanised intelligence of the few,
+and the apathy of the vast majority of Russians who are disinclined to
+rebel against the crystallised conditions of their lives. Whatever may be
+strange and puzzling in "The Storm" to the English mind, there is no doubt
+that the Russians hail the picture as essentially true. The violence of
+such characters as Madame Kabanova and Dikoy may be weakened to-day
+everywhere by the gradual undermining of the patriarchal family system now
+in progress throughout Russia, but the picture is in essentials a
+criticism of the national life. On this point the Russian critic
+Dobroliubov, criticising "The Storm," says: "The need for justice, for
+respect for personal rights, this is the cry ... that rises up to the ear
+of every attentive reader. Well, can we deny the wide application of this
+need in Russia? Can we fail to recognise that such a dramatic background
+corresponds with the true condition of Russian society? Take history,
+think of our life, look about you, everywhere you will find justification
+of our words. This is not the place to launch out into historical
+investigation; it is enough to point out that our history up to the most
+recent times has not fostered among us the development of a respect for
+equity, has not created any solid guarantees for personal rights, and has
+left a wide field to arbitrary tyranny and caprice." This criticism of
+Dobroliubov's was written in 1860, the date of the play; but we have only
+to look back at the internal history of Russia for the last thirty years
+to see that it too "has not created any solid guarantees for personal
+rights, and has left a wide field to arbitrary tyranny and caprice." And
+here is Ostrovsky's peculiar merit, that he has in his various dramas
+penetrated deeper than any other of the great Russian authors into one of
+the most fundamental qualities of the Russian nature--its innate tendency
+to arbitrary power, oppression, despotism. Nobody has drawn so powerfully,
+so truly, so incisively as he, the type of the 'samodour' or 'bully,' a
+type that plays a leading part in every strata of Russian life. From
+Turgenev we learn more of the reverse side of the Russian character, its
+lack of will, tendency to weakness, dreaminess and passivity: and it is
+this aspect that the English find it so hard to understand, when they
+compare the characters in the great Russian novels with their own idea of
+Russia's formidable power. The people and the nation do not seem to
+correspond. But the riddle may be read in the coexistence of Russia's
+internal weakness and misery along with her huge force, and the immense
+rôle she fills as a civilising power. In "The Storm" we have all the
+contradictory elements: a life strongly organised, yet weak within;
+strength and passivity, despotism and fatalism side by side.
+
+The author of "The Storm," Alexander Ostrovsky (born in Moscow 1823, died
+1886), is acknowledged to be the greatest of the Russian dramatists. He
+has been called "a specialist in the natural history of the Russian
+merchant," and his birth, upbringing, family connections and vocations
+gave him exceptional facilities for penetrating into the life of that
+class which he was the first to put into Russian literature. His best
+period was from 1850 to 1860, but all his work received prompt and
+universal recognition from his countrymen. In 1859 Dobroliubov's famous
+article, "The Realm of Darkness," appeared, analysing the contents of all
+Ostrovsky's dramas, and on the publication of "The Storm" in 1860, it was
+followed by another article from the same critic, "A Ray of Light in the
+Realm of Darkness." These articles were practically a brief for the case
+of the Liberals, or party of Progress, against the official and Slavophil
+party. Ostrovsky's dramas in general are marked by intense sombreness,
+biting humour and merciless realism. "The Storm" is the most poetical of
+his works, but all his leading plays still hold the stage.
+
+"The Storm" will repay a minute examination by all who recognise that in
+England to-day we have a stage without art, truth to life, or national
+significance. There is not a superfluous line in the play: all is drama,
+natural, simple, deep. There is no _falsity_, no forced situations, no
+sensational effects, none of the shallow or flashy caricatures of daily
+life that our heterogeneous public demands. All the reproach that lives
+for us in the word _theatrical_ is worlds removed from "The Storm." The
+people who like 'farcical comedy' and social melodrama, and 'musical
+sketches' will find "The Storm" deep, forbidding and gloomy. The critic
+will find it an abiding analysis of a people's temperament. The reader
+will find it literature.
+
+E. G. _November_, 1898.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORM
+
+
+
+DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
+
+
+SAVIL PROKOFIEVITCH DIKOY, _a merchant, and personage of importance in the
+town_.
+
+BORIS GRIGORIEVITCH, _his nephew, a young man of good education_.
+
+MARFA IGNATIEVNA KABANOVA, _a rich merchant's widow_.
+
+TIHON IVANITCH KABANOV, _her son_.
+
+KATERINA, _his wife_.
+
+VARVARA, _sister of Tihon_.
+
+KULIGIN, _a man of artisan class, a self-taught watchmaker, engaged in
+trying to discover the secret of perpetual motion_.
+
+VANIA KUDRIASH, _a young man, clerk to Dikoy_.
+
+SHAPKIN, _an artisan_.
+
+FEKLUSHA, _a pilgrim woman_.
+
+GLASHA, _a maid servant in the Kabanovs' house_.
+
+AN OLD LADY _of seventy, half mad, with_ TWO FOOTMEN.
+
+TOWNSPEOPLE _of both sexes_.
+
+
+_The action takes place in the town of Kalinov, on the banks of the Volga,
+in summertime. There is an interval of ten days between the 3rd and 4th
+acts. All the characters except Boris are dressed in old Russian national
+dress._
+
+
+
+
+ACT I
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+
+A public garden on the steep bank of the Volga; beyond the Volga, a view
+of the country. On the stage two benches and a few bushes.
+
+KULIGIN (_sitting on a bench, looking towards the river_).
+
+KUDRIASH and SHAPKIN (_walking up and down_).
+
+
+KULIGIN (_singing_).
+"Amidst the level dales, upon a sloping hillside,"... (_ceases singing_)
+Wonderful, one really must say it's wonderful! Kudriash! Do you know, I've
+looked upon the Volga every day these fifty years and I can never get
+tired of looking upon it.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+How's that?
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's a marvellous view! Lovely! It sets my heart rejoicing.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+It's not bad.
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's exquisite! And you say "not bad"! You are tired of it, or you don't
+feel the beauty there is in nature.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Come, there's no use talking to you! You're a genuine antique, we all
+know, a chemical genius.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Mechanical, a self-taught mechanician.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+It's all one.
+
+[_Silence._
+
+KULIGIN (_pointing away_).
+Look, Kudriash, who's that waving his arms about over there?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+There? Oh, that's Dikoy pitching into his nephew.
+
+KULIGIN.
+A queer place to do it!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+All places are alike to him. He's not afraid of any one! Boris Grigoritch
+is in his clutches now, so he is always bullying him.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Yes, you wouldn't find another bully like our worthy Saviol Prokofitch in
+a hurry! He pulls a man up for nothing at all.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+He is a stiff customer.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Old Dame Kabanova's a good hand at that too!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Yes, but she at least does it all under pretence of morality; he's like a
+wild beast broken loose!
+
+SHAPKIN.
+There's no one to bring him to his senses, so he rages about as he likes!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+There are too few lads of my stamp or we'd have broken him of it.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Why, what would you have done?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+We'd have given him a good scare.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+How'd you do that?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Why, four or five of us would have had a few words with him, face to face,
+in some back street, and he'd soon have been as soft as silk. And he'd
+never have let on to a soul about the lesson we'd given him; he'd just
+have walked off and taken care to look behind him.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+I see he'd some reason for wanting to get you sent for a soldier.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+He wanted to, right enough, but he didn't do it. No, he won't get rid of
+me; he's an inkling that I'd make him pay too dear for it. You're afraid
+of him, but I know how to talk to him.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Oh, I daresay!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+What do you mean by that? I am reckoned a tough one to deal with. Why do
+you suppose he keeps me on? Because he can't do without me, to be sure.
+Well, then, I've no need to be afraid of him; let him be afraid of me.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Why, doesn't he swear at you?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Swear at me! Of course; he can't breathe without that. But I don't give
+way to him: if he says one word, I say ten; he curses and goes off. No,
+I'm not going to lick the dust for him.
+
+KULIGIN.
+What, follow his example! You'd do better to bear it in patience.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Come, I say, if you're so wise, teach him good manners first and then
+we'll learn! It's a pity his daughters are all children, there's not one
+grown-up girl among them.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+What if there were?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+I should treat him as he deserves if there were. I'm a devil of a fellow
+among the girls!
+
+[_Dikoy and Boris advance. Kuligin takes off his hat._
+
+SHAPKIN (_to Kudriash_).
+Let us move off; he'll pick a quarrel with us, very likely.
+
+[_They move off a little._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II.
+
+The Same, DIKOY and BORIS.
+
+
+DIKOY.
+Did you come here to loaf about in idleness? eh? Lazy good for nothing
+fellow, confound you!
+
+BORIS.
+It's a holiday; what could I be doing at home?
+
+DIKOY.
+You'd find work to do if you wanted to. I've said it once, and I've said
+it twice, "don't dare to let me come across you"; you're incorrigible!
+Isn't there room enough for you? Go where one will, there you are! Damn
+you! Why do you stand there like a post? Do you hear what's said to you?
+
+BORIS.
+I'm listening,--what more am I to do?
+
+DIKOY (_looking at Boris_).
+Get away with you! I won't talk to a Jesuit like you. (_Going_) To come
+forcing himself on me here!
+
+[_Spits and exit_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+
+KULIGIN, BORIS, KUDRIASH, and SHAPKIN.
+
+
+KULIGIN.
+What have you to do with him, sir? We can't make it out. What can induce
+you to live with him and put up with his abuse?
+
+BORIS.
+A poor inducement, Kuligin! I'm not free.
+
+KULIGIN.
+But how are you not free, allow me to ask you. If you can tell us, sir,
+do.
+
+BORIS.
+Why not? You knew our grandmother, Anfisa Mihalovna?
+
+KULIGIN.
+To be sure I did!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+I should think we did!
+
+BORIS.
+She quarrelled with my father you know because he married into a noble
+family. It was owing to that that my father and mother lived in Moscow. My
+mother used to tell me that she could hardly endure life for three days
+together with my father's relations, it all seemed so rough and coarse to
+her.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Well it might! you have to be used to it from the first, sir, to be able
+to bear it.
+
+BORIS.
+Our parents brought us up well in Moscow, they spared no expense. They
+sent me to the Commercial Academy, and my sister to a boarding school, but
+they both died suddenly of cholera. We were left orphans, my sister and I.
+Then we heard that our grandmother was dead here, and had left a will that
+our uncle was to pay us a fair share of her fortune, when we came of age,
+only upon one condition.
+
+KULIGIN.
+And what was that, sir?
+
+BORIS.
+If we showed a proper respect for his authority.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Then there's no doubt, sir, you'll never see your fortune.
+
+BORIS.
+No, but that's not all, Kuligin! First he finds fault with us to his
+heart's content, and ends none the less with giving us nothing, or some
+tiny dole. And then he'll go making out that it's a great favour, and that
+he ought not to have done even that.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+That's just the way the merchants go on among us. Besides, if you were
+ever so respectful to him, who's to hinder him from saying you're
+disrespectful?
+
+BORIS.
+To be sure. And indeed he sometimes will say: I've children of my own, why
+should I give money away to outsiders? Am I to wrong my own like that?
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's plain, sir, you're not in luck's way.
+
+BORIS.
+If it were only me, I wouldn't care! I'd throw it all up and go away. But
+I'm sorry for my sister. He did write for her to come too, but mother's
+relations wouldn't let her, they wrote she wasn't well. It frightens me to
+think what the life here would be for her.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Of course. The master's no decent manners at all.
+
+KULIGIN.
+In what capacity do you live with him, sir; what arrangement has he made
+with you?
+
+BORIS.
+Why, none whatever; "you live with me," he says, "and do what you're told,
+and your pay shall be what I give you," that's to say, in a year's time
+he'll settle up with me as he thinks fit.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+That's just his way. Not one of us dare as much as hint at a salary, or he
+storms till he's black in the face. "How do you know," he'll say, "what I
+have in my mind to do? Do you suppose you can see into my heart? Maybe, I
+shall be so disposed as to give you five thousand." It's no use talking to
+him! Only you may be pretty sure he's never been disposed that way in his
+life.
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's a hard case, sir! You must try and get the right side of him somehow.
+
+BORIS.
+But the point is, Kuligin, that it's impossible. Why, even his own
+children can never do anything to please him; so it's hardly likely I
+could!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Who could please him, when his whole life's spent in bullying people?
+Especially where money's at stake; no accounts are ever settled without
+storms of abuse. Often people are glad to go short of their due, if only
+he'll let them off quietly. Woe to us if anyone vexes him in the morning!
+He falls foul of everyone all day long.
+
+BORIS.
+Every morning my aunt entreats us with tears in her eyes: "Don't anger
+him, friends! Dear boys, don't anger him!"
+
+KUDRIASH.
+But you can never avoid it! If he goes to the bazaar, it's all up! He
+scolds all the peasants. Even if they ask him less than cost price they
+never get off without abuse. And then he's upset for the whole day.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+He's a bully--there's no other word for him.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+A bully? I should think he is!
+
+BORIS.
+And what's fatal is if some man offends him, whom he daren't be rude to.
+Then all his household have to look out for themselves!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Bless my soul! That was a joke though. Didn't that hussar let him have it
+on the Volga, at the ferry! Oh, a lovely shindy he kicked up afterwards,
+too.
+
+BORIS.
+Ah, and didn't his family suffer for it! Why, for a fortnight after we
+were all hiding away in the attics and cupboards.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Surely that's not the folk coming back from vespers?
+
+[_Several persons pass in the background_.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Come on, Shapkin, let's get a drink! It's no good stopping here.
+
+[_They bow and exeunt_.
+
+BORIS.
+Oh, Kuligin, it's awfully hard here for me who've not been used to it.
+Everyone seems to look with unfriendly eyes at me, as though I were not
+wanted here, as though I were in their way. I don't understand the ways
+here. I know this is truly Russia, my own country, but still I can't get
+used to it.
+
+KULIGIN.
+And you never will get used to it, sir.
+
+BORIS.
+Why?
+
+KULIGIN.
+They're a coarse lot, sir, in our town, a coarse lot! Among the working
+people, sir, you'll find nothing but brutality and squalid poverty. And
+we've no chance, sir, of ever finding our way out of it. For by honest
+labour we can never earn more than a crust of bread. And everyone with
+money, sir, tries all he can to get a poor man under his thumb, so as to
+make more money again out of his working for nothing. Do you know the
+answer your uncle, Saviol Prokofitch, made to the provost? The peasants
+were always coming to the provost with complaints that your uncle never
+paid one of them fairly according to agreement. The provost said to him at
+last: "Look here," says he, "Saviol Prokofitch, you must pay the peasants
+what's fairly owing to them! Every day they come to me with some
+complaint!" Your uncle slapped the provost on the shoulder, and says he:
+"It's not worth while, your Worship, for you and me to waste our breath
+over such petty details! I have to do with numbers of peasants in the
+course of the year; you can understand, if I pay them a paltry farthing
+short, every man of them, it mounts up to thousands, and a capital thing
+too for me!" Think of that, sir! And the way they treat one another too,
+sir! They injure each other's trade all they can, and that not so much
+from self-interest, as from envy. They are always at feud with one
+another. They entertain in their grand mansions drunken attorneys' clerks,
+wretched creatures, sir, that hardly look like human beings. And they, for
+a small tip, will cover sheets of stamped paper with malicious quibbling
+attacks on their neighbours. And then there's a lawsuit commences between
+them, sir, and no end to the worry and fret. They bring it before the
+court here, and go off to the chief town, and there everyone in court is
+on the look-out for them and they clap their hands with glee when they see
+them. Words do not take long, but deeds are not soon done. They are
+dragged from court to court, they are worn out with delays; but they are
+positively delighted at that; it's just that they want. "I've lost a lot
+of money," one will say, "but it's cost him a pretty penny too!" I did try
+to put it all into verse....
+
+BORIS.
+Why, do you make verse?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Yes, sir, in the old-fashioned style. I have read Lomonosov and Derzhavin.
+Lomonosov was a deep thinker, an investigator of nature.... And he was
+one of us plain working folk too.
+
+BORIS.
+You should write. That would be interesting.
+
+KULIGIN.
+How could I, sir! They'd tear me to pieces, they'd skin me alive. Even as
+it is, sir, I have had to pay for my chattering; but I can't help it, I
+love to speak my mind freely. I meant to say something about their family
+life, sir, but we'll talk of that some other time. There's plenty to tell
+about that too.
+
+[_Enter Feklusha and another woman_.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+De-lightful, my clear, de-lightful! Divinely beautiful! But what's the use
+of talking! You live in the Promised Land, simply! And the merchant gentry
+are all a devout people, and famed for many a virtue! liberality and much
+almsgiving! I am well content, my good soul, full to the brim of content!
+For their liberality to us will their abundance be greatly increased,
+especially in the house of Kabanova.
+
+[_Exeunt_.
+
+BORIS.
+Kabanova?
+
+KULIGIN.
+A fanatical hypocrite, sir. She gives to the poor, but her own household
+she worries to death. (_Silence_.) All I want, sir, is to find out the
+secret of perpetual motion!
+
+BORIS.
+Why, what would you do?
+
+KULIGIN.
+How can you ask, sir! Why, the English offer millions for it. I should use
+all the money for public purposes,--we want to provide work for the
+working people. Here they have hands to work, and no work to do.
+
+BORIS.
+And you hope to discover perpetual motion?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Not a doubt, I shall, sir! I have only to scrape up enough money for
+models. Good-bye, sir!
+
+[_Exit_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+
+BORIS (_alone_).
+I haven't the heart to disillusion him! What a good fellow! He dreams and
+is happy. But I, it seems, must waste my youth in this wretched hole. I
+was utterly crushed before, and now this madness creeping into my mind! So
+suitable! Me give myself up to tender sentiments! Trampled upon,
+broken-spirited, and as if that's not enough, in my idiocy I must needs
+fall in love! And of all people in the world! With a woman, whom I may
+never have the luck to speak a word to. (_Silence_.) But for all that, I
+can't get her out of my head, try as I will. Here she is! Coming with her
+husband, oh! and the mother-in-law with them! Ah, what a fool I am! I must
+snatch a look at her round the corner, and then home again.
+
+[_Exit. From the opposite side, enter Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, Katerina and
+Varvara_.]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+MADAME KABANOVA, KABANOV, KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+If you care to listen to your mother, you'll do as I have told you,
+directly you get there.
+
+KABANOV.
+How could I possibly disobey you, mother!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Young folks show little respect to their elders, nowadays.
+
+VARVARA (_to herself_).
+Not respect you, my dear? That's likely!
+
+KABANOV.
+I think, mamma, I never depart a hairsbreadth from your will.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I might believe you, my son, if I hadn't seen with my own eyes and heard
+with my own ears how little reverence parents receive nowadays from
+children! They might at least remember all the sufferings a mother has to
+put up with for her children.
+
+KABANOV.
+Mamma, I....
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+If the mother that bore you does at times say a word that wounds your
+pride surely you might put up with it! Hey, what do you think?
+
+KABANOV.
+But, mamma, when have I not put up with anything from you?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+The mother's old, and foolish, to be sure; you young people must not be
+too exacting with us old fools.
+
+KABANOV (_sighs, aside_).
+Oh, merciful Heavens! (_To his mother_) We should never dare think such a
+thing for a moment, mamma!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+It's out of love that parents are severe with you, out of love they scold
+even--they're always thinking how to train you in the right way. To be
+sure, that's not in favour nowadays. And children go about among folks
+proclaiming that their mother's a scold, that their mother won't let them
+stir, that she's the plague of their life. And if--Lord save us--some word
+of hers doesn't please her daughter-in-law, then it's the talk all over
+the place, that the mother-in-law worries her to death.
+
+KABANOV.
+You don't mean that anyone talks about you, mamma?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I haven't heard so, my son, I haven't; I don't want to tell a lie about
+it. If I had, indeed, I shouldn't be talking to you like this, my dear.
+(_Sighs_) Ah, sin is a heavy burden! Sin is never far off! Something said
+goes to the heart, and there, one sins, one gets angry. No, my son, say
+what you like about me, there's no forbidding anyone to talk; if they
+don't dare before one's face, they'll do it behind one's back.
+
+KABANOV.
+May my tongue wither up and...
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Hush, hush, don't swear! It's a sin! I've seen plain enough for a long
+time past that your wife's dearer to you than your mother. Ever since you
+were married, I don't see the same love for me that I did in you.
+
+KABANOV.
+In what way do you see me changed, mamma?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+In everything, my son! When a mother doesn't see a thing with her eyes,
+her heart's so sensitive she can feel it with her heart. Or maybe it's
+your wife sets you against me, I can't say.
+
+KABANOV.
+Oh no, mamma! how can you say so, really?
+
+KATERINA.
+I look upon you as I would on my own mother, and indeed Tihon loves you
+too.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+You might hold your tongue, I should think, till you're asked a question.
+You've no need to defend him, young madam, I'm not going to hurt him, no
+fear! He's my son too, let me tell you; don't you forget it! What do you
+want to fire up and display your feelings before folks for! That we may
+see you love your husband? We know that, we know that, you show off before
+everyone.
+
+VARVARA (_to herself_).
+A nice place she's pitched on to read us a sermon!
+
+KATERINA.
+You have no need to say that of me, mamma. I am just the same before
+people, as I am by myself. I make no show of anything.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+And I'd no intention of speaking about you at all, but it happened to come
+up.
+
+KATERINA.
+Even so, why need you attack me?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+My, what a stuck-up thing she is! Here she's in a huff directly!
+
+KATERINA.
+No one likes to put up with unjust blame.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I know, I know my words are not to your liking, but that can't be helped.
+I'm not a stranger to you, it makes my heart grieve to see you. I've seen
+for a long time past that you want your own way. Well, well, you've only
+to wait a bit, you'll have it all your own way when I'm dead and gone.
+Then to be sure you can do as you please, there'll be no elders then to
+look after you. And, maybe, you will think of me then.
+
+KABANOV.
+But we pray God night and day for you, mamma, that God may grant you
+health, and every blessing and success in all you do.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, give over, please. I daresay you did love your mother, while you
+were a bachelor. But you've no thoughts for me now you've a young wife.
+
+KABANOV.
+The one doesn't hinder the other. A wife is something different, but for
+my mother I have a reverence quite apart.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Then would you give up your wife rather than your mother? No, that I'll
+never believe.
+
+KABANOV.
+But why should I give up either? I love both.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Oh, I daresay, I daresay, you may talk away! I see plain enough that I'm a
+hindrance to you.
+
+KABANOV.
+You must think as you please, it's for you to decide in everything. Only I
+can't comprehend why I was ever born into the world so unlucky as not to
+be able to please you anyhow.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+What do you mean by whimpering like a sick child! A pretty husband, upon
+my word! You should just see yourself! Do you suppose your wife will fear
+you after that?
+
+KABANOV.
+Why should she fear me? I'm content, if she loves me.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Why should she fear you! Why should she fear you! What do you mean? Why,
+you must be crazy! If she doesn't fear you, she's not likely to fear me. A
+pretty state of confusion there would be in the house! Why, you're living
+with her in lawful wedlock, aren't you? Or does the law count for nothing
+to your thinking? If you do harbour such fools' notions in your brain, you
+shouldn't talk so before her anyway, nor before your sister, that's a girl
+still. She'll have to be married too; and if she catches up your silly
+talk it's her husband will thank us afterwards for the lessons we've
+taught her. You see how little sense you've got, and yet you want to be
+independent and live as you like.
+
+KABANOV.
+But indeed, mamma, I don't want to be independent. How ever could I be
+independent!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+So, to your thinking then, kindness is all that's needed with a wife?
+Mustn't even scold her then, or threaten her?
+
+KABANOV.
+But, indeed, mamma....
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_hotly_).
+Wait till she sets up a lover.... Hey! But I daresay that's no
+consequence either, to your thinking? Hey? Come, speak?
+
+KABANOV.
+But, mercy on us, mamma....
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_perfectly coolly_).
+Fool! (_Sighs_) What's the use of talking to a fool! it's simply a sin!
+(_Silence_) I'm going home.
+
+KABANOV.
+We'll come directly too; we'll only take one or two more turns on the
+parade.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Very well; do as you like, only mind you don't keep me waiting! You know I
+don't like that.
+
+KABANOV.
+Oh no, mamma! God forbid!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Mind you don't then!
+
+[_Goes_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+The Same, except MME. KABANOVA.
+
+
+KABANOV.
+There, you see how I always catch it from mamma on your account! A nice
+sort of life I lead!
+
+KATERINA.
+Is it my fault?
+
+KABANOV.
+I don't know whose fault it is.
+
+VARVARA.
+Is it likely you would know?
+
+KABANOV.
+She used to keep on at me, "You must get a wife, you must get a wife, I'm
+longing to see you a married man." And now she worries my life out, and
+gives me no peace--all on your account.
+
+VARVARA.
+Well, it's not her fault! Mother attacks her, and you too. And then you
+say you love your wife. It makes me sick to look at you. (_Turns away_.)
+
+KABANOV.
+Talk away! What am I to do?
+
+VARVARA.
+Mind your own business--hold your tongue, if you can't do anything better.
+Why do you stand there shilly-shallying? I can see by your face what's in
+your mind.
+
+KABANOV.
+Why, what?
+
+VARVARA.
+What?--Why, that you want to go in and have a drink with Saviol
+Prokofitch. Eh? isn't that it?
+
+KABANOV.
+You've hit it, old girl.
+
+KATERINA.
+Come back quickly, Tihon dear, or mamma will be scolding again.
+
+VARVARA.
+Yes, indeed, you must look sharp, or you'll know what to expect.
+
+KABANOV.
+I should think I do!
+
+VARVARA.
+We've no great desire to get into a row for your sake either.
+
+KABANOV.
+I'll fly. Wait for me!
+
+[_Goes_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VII
+
+KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+KATERINA.
+So you are sorry for me, Varia?
+
+VARVARA (_looking away_).
+Of course, I am.
+
+KATERINA.
+Then you love me, don't you? (_Kisses her warmly._)
+
+VARVARA.
+Love you? Of course.
+
+KATERINA.
+Thank you! you are so sweet, I love you dearly. (_Silence_) Do you know
+what I'm thinking?
+
+VARVARA.
+What?
+
+KATERINA.
+What a pity people can't fly!
+
+VARVARA.
+I don't know what you mean.
+
+KATERINA.
+What a pity people can't fly like birds. Do you know I sometimes fancy I'm
+a bird. When one stands on a high hill, one feels a longing to fly. One
+would take a little run, throw up one's arms, and fly away! Couldn't we
+try it now? (_Makes as though she would run._)
+
+VARVARA.
+What will you make up next?
+
+KATERINA (_sighs_).
+How I used to love play and frolic! But in your house I'm growing old and
+spiritless.
+
+VARVARA.
+Do you suppose I don't see it?
+
+KATERINA.
+How different I used to be! I lived without a care in my heart, as free as
+a bird. Mother adored me, dressed me up like a doll, and never forced me
+to work; I could do just as I liked. Do you know how I passed my days as a
+girl? I'll tell you. I used to get up early; if it was summer I used to go
+to the spring, and bathe, and bring back water with me, and water all the
+flowers in the house, every one of them. Then mother and I used to go to
+church, and all the pilgrim women--our house was simply full of pilgrims
+and holy women. We used to come back from church, and sit down to some
+work, often embroidery in gold on velvet, while the pilgrim women would
+tell us where they had been, what they had seen, and the different ways of
+living in the world, or else they would sing songs. And so the time would
+pass till dinner. Then the older women lay down for a nap, while I would
+run about in the garden. Then evensong, and in the evening, stories and
+singing again. Ah, those were happy days!
+
+VARVARA.
+But it's pretty much the same with us, if you come to that.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, but here one feels somehow in a cage. And how passionately I loved
+being in church! It was like stepping into Paradise, and I saw no one and
+had no thought of time and did not hear when the service was over. It was
+just as if it were all in one second. Mother used to say that often
+everyone looked at me and wondered what had come over me! And you know, on
+a sunny day, such a column of light streamed down from the golden cupola,
+and a sort of mist moving in the light, like smoke, and at times I seemed
+to see angels flying and singing in that bright light. And sometimes, dear
+girl, I would get up at night--we had lamps always burning all over our
+house,--and fall down in some corner and pray till morning. Or I would go
+out into the garden early in the morning, when the sun was just rising,
+fall on my knees and pray and weep, and not know myself what I prayed and
+wept for; and so they would find me sometimes. And what I was praying for
+then, what I besought God for--I couldn't say. I wanted nothing, I had
+enough of everything. And what dreams I used to have, dear Varia, what
+lovely dreams! Golden temples or gardens of some wonderful sort, and
+voices of unseen spirits singing, and the sweet scent of cypress and
+mountains and trees, not such as we always see, but as they are painted in
+the holy pictures. And sometimes I seemed to be flying, simply flying in
+the air. I dream sometimes now, but not often, and never dreams like
+those.
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, what then?
+
+KATERINA (_after a pause_).
+I shall die soon.
+
+VARVARA.
+What nonsense!
+
+KATERINA.
+No, I know I shall die. Oh, dear girl, something not good is happening
+with me, something strange. It has never been like this with me before.
+There is something in me so incomprehensible. As though I were beginning
+to live again, or ... I don't know what.
+
+VARVARA.
+What is the matter with you?
+
+KATERINA (_taking her hand_).
+I'll tell you, Varia; some dreadful sin is coming upon me! I have such a
+terror in my heart, such terror! As though I am standing on the edge of a
+precipice and someone is pushing me in, and I have nothing to cling to.
+
+[_Clutches her head in her hand._]
+
+VARVARA.
+What's wrong with you? You can't be well.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, I am well.... It would be better if I were ill, it's worse as it is.
+A dream keeps creeping into my mind, and I cannot get away from it. I try
+to think--I can't collect my thoughts, I try to pray--but I can't get free
+by prayer. My lips murmur the words but my heart is far away; as though
+the evil one were whispering in my ear, and always of such wicked things.
+And such thoughts rise up within me, that I'm ashamed of myself. What is
+wrong with me? There's some trouble, something before me! At night I do
+not sleep, Varia, a sort of murmur haunts me; someone seems speaking so
+tenderly to me, as it were cooing to me like a dove. And now I never
+dream, Varia, those old dreams, of trees and mountains in Paradise; but
+it's as though someone were clasping me passionately--so passionately and
+leading me, and I follow him, I follow.
+
+VARVARA.
+Well?
+
+KATERINA.
+But what things I am saying to you, a young girl like you.
+
+VARVARA (_looking about her_).
+You can tell me! I'm worse than you.
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh what am I to tell you? I'm ashamed.
+
+VARVARA.
+You've no need! Tell away.
+
+KATERINA.
+I am stifling, stifling at home, I should like to run away. And the fancy
+comes to me that if I were my own mistress, I would float down the Volga
+now, in a boat, to the singing of songs, or I would drive right away
+clasped close....
+
+VARVARA.
+But not with your husband.
+
+KATERINA.
+How do you know that?
+
+VARVARA.
+As if I didn't know!
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, Varia, there is sin in my heart! Alas, how often I have wept, I have
+done everything I can think of! I can't get free from this sin. I can't
+escape. Varia, it is wicked, it is a fearful sin--I love someone else!
+
+VARVARA.
+I'm not likely to be hard upon you! I've sins enough of my own.
+
+KATERINA.
+What am I to do? I'm at the end of my strength, where can I find help. I'm
+so wretched, I shall do something dreadful.
+
+VARVARA.
+Mercy on us! what is coming to you! Come, wait a bit, brother's going away
+to-morrow, we'll think of something; maybe, you'll be able to see each
+other.
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no, that must not be! What are you saying! God forbid!
+
+VARVARA.
+Why are you frightened?
+
+KATERINA.
+If I were once to see and speak with him, I should run away from home, I
+would not go back home for anything in the world.
+
+VARVARA.
+Oh well, wait a little, and then we shall see.
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no, don't talk to me, I don't want to hear!
+
+VARVARA.
+Why wear yourself out for nothing? You may die of grieving, do you suppose
+they'll be sorry for you? Come, wait a bit. Why, what's the good of making
+yourself miserable?
+
+[_Enter the Old Lady with a stick and two footmen in three-cornered hats
+behind her._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VIII
+
+The same and the OLD LADY.
+
+
+OLD LADY.
+Hey, my pretty charmers? What are you doing here? Waiting for young
+fellows, waiting for your beaus? Are your hearts merry? Merry are they?
+Are you pleased and proud of your beauty? That's where beauty leads to.
+(_Points to the Volga_) Yes, yes, to the bottomless pit! (_Varvara
+smiles._) What, laughing? Let not your heart rejoice! (_Knocks with her
+stick_) You will burn all of you in a fire unquenchable. You will boil in
+the lake of flaming pitch. (_Going_) That is whither beauty leads you!
+
+[_Goes._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IX
+
+KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, how she frightened me! I'm trembling all over, as if she were
+foretelling something for me.
+
+VARVARA.
+Her curse fall on her own head, the old witch!
+
+KATERINA.
+What was it she said, eh? what did she say?
+
+VARVARA.
+It was all rubbish. It's silly to listen to her raving. She foretells evil
+like that to everyone. She was a sinner all her life from her youth up.
+You should hear the stories they tell about her. So now she's afraid of
+death. And she must try and frighten others with what she dreads herself.
+Why even the little street boys hide away from her; she shakes her stick
+at them and growls (_mimicking_) "you'll all burn in fire unquenchable!"
+
+KATERINA (_shrinking_).
+Ah, ah, stop! I can't bear it!
+
+VARVARA.
+There's nothing to be frightened of! An old fool....
+
+KATERINA.
+I am afraid, terribly afraid! I seem to see her all the while before us.
+[_Silence._
+
+VARVARA (_looking round_).
+I say, brother doesn't come, and yonder there's a storm coming up.
+
+KATERINA (_in terror_).
+A storm! Let us run home! Make haste!
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, are you crazy? How can you show yourself at home without my brother?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, let us go home! Never mind him!
+
+VARVARA.
+But why are you so awfully frightened? The storm's a long way off yet.
+
+KATERINA.
+If it's so far off, we'll wait then a little, if you like; but really it
+would be better to go. Yes, we'd better go home.
+
+VARVARA.
+But if anything were to happen, you know, you'd be no safer at home.
+
+KATERINA.
+No, but still, it's better there, it's quieter; at home one can turn to
+the holy pictures and pray to God!
+
+VARVARA.
+I didn't know you were so afraid of a thunderstorm. I'm not afraid, you
+see.
+
+KATERINA.
+Don't talk of not being afraid! Everyone must be afraid. What is dreadful
+is not it's killing you, but that death may overtake you all of a sudden,
+just as you are, with all your sins, with all your erring thoughts. I have
+no fear of death, but when I think that I shall be brought all at once
+before the face of God just as I am here, with you, after this
+talk,--that's what is awful! What I had in my heart! What wickedness!
+fearful to think of! (_Thunder._) Ah!
+
+[_Enter Kabanov._
+
+VARVARA.
+Here comes my brother. (_To Kabanov_) Hurry up!
+
+[_Thunder._
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah! Make haste! Make haste!
+
+
+
+
+ACT II
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+A room in the house of the Kabanovs.
+
+GLASHA (_packing up clothes in a bundle_).
+
+_Enter_ FEKLUSHA.
+
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Dear girl, always at work! What are you doing, my dear?
+
+GLASHA.
+I'm getting the master's things ready for his journey.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Is he going away then--the light of our eyes?
+
+GLASHA.
+Yes.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Is he going to be away long, my dear?
+
+GLASHA.
+No, not long.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Well, God speed him on his way! And say, will the young mistress do a wail
+for his going or not?
+
+GLASHA.
+That I can't say, really.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+But she does wail at times, I suppose?
+
+GLASHA.
+Never heard of her doing it.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Well now, my dear, if there's one thing I love, it's to hear a wail well
+done! (_Silence._) And mind you keep a sharp look out, my girl, on the
+beggar woman below, that she don't lay her hands on anything.
+
+GLASHA.
+Who's to tell the rights and wrongs of it with you begging pilgrims, you
+all speak ill of one another. Why can't you live and let live? I should
+have thought you wandering women get plenty in our house all of you, and
+yet you must always be quarrelling and nagging at each other. Aren't you
+afraid of such sin?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+One can't be without sin, my good girl; we live in the world. I'll tell
+you what, my dear; you, simple folk, are tempted of one devil, but we
+pilgrim folk are beset, one with six, another with twelve devils; and here
+we have to struggle against all at once. It's a hard fight, my dear, a
+hard fight!
+
+GLASHA.
+Why is it you have such a lot?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Ah, my good girl, that comes of the hatred the evil one has for us,
+because we lead a life of such holiness. But I can't say, my dear, that
+I'm one to gossip; that's not a sin of mine. One failing I have, truly; I
+know myself what it is. I love dainty eating. Well, well, the Lord in His
+mercy provides according to my weakness.
+
+GLASHA.
+And have you travelled far in your wanderings, Feklusha?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+No, my dear, owing to my weakness, I've never gone far away; but many a
+thing I've heard. They do say, my dear, there are countries where there
+are no Tsars of the true faith, but Sultans rule the lands. In one land
+there is the Sultan Mahnoot the Turk on the throne--and in another the
+Sultan Mahnoot the Persian. And they rule, my good girl, over all men, and
+whatever they decree it's always unrighteous. And they cannot, my dear,
+judge righteously in any one thing, such is the ban laid upon them. We
+have a just law, but they, my dear, an unjust law. Everything that is one
+way in our land is the very opposite in theirs. And all the judges with
+them, in their countries, are unjust too, so that, do you know, my girl,
+they even write in their petitions: "judge me, unjust judge!" And there is
+a country too where all the men have the heads of dogs.
+
+GLASHA.
+How do they come to have dogs' heads?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+For their infidelity. I am going off on my rounds among the merchant
+gentry, my dear, to see if there won't be some alms for poverty. Good-bye
+for the present!
+
+GLASHA.
+Good-bye! (_Exit Feklusha_.) Only fancy that there are lands like that!
+There's no end to the marvels in the world. And here we sit at home and
+know nothing. A good thing it is to be sure, that there are pious folk;
+from time to time one hears what is being done in the light of day; if it
+weren't for them, we should live and die in our foolishness.
+
+_Enter Katerina and Varvara_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+VARVARA (_to Glasha_).
+Carry the bundles down to the chaise, the horses are at the door. (_To
+Katerina_) You were married off young, and you never had any fun when you
+were a girl; and so your heart is restless still.
+
+[_Glasha goes out._
+
+KATERINA.
+And it always will be.
+
+VARVARA.
+Why?
+
+KATERINA.
+I have been like that from my birth up, full of fire! I was only six years
+old, when do you know what I did? They offended me somehow at home,--it
+was in the evening and quite dark--I ran away to the Volga, and got into a
+boat, and pushed it off from the bank. They found me next morning, ten
+miles down the river.
+
+VARVARA.
+Really! And were there any men in love with you, as a girl?
+
+KATERINA.
+Of course there were!
+
+VARVARA.
+Well? And didn't you care for anyone?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, I only laughed at them.
+
+VARVARA.
+And you know, Katia, you don't love Tihon.
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh, yes, I do! I'm dreadfully sorry for him.
+
+VARVARA.
+Oh, no, you don't. If you're sorry for him you don't love him. And indeed
+you've no great reason to, I must own. And it's no good your being so
+close with me! I noticed a long while ago, that you were fond of some one.
+
+KATERINA (_with dismay_).
+How did you notice it?
+
+VARVARA.
+How absurd you are! I'm not a baby! Well, I'll tell you the first sign I
+knew by; directly you see him, your whole face is transformed. (_Katerina
+drops her eyes._) And that's not all....
+
+KATERINA (_still looking down_).
+Well, whom then?
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, you know, what's the use of telling his name?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, tell it! Tell his name!
+
+VARVARA.
+Boris Grigoritch.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, yes, Varia! Only mind, Varia, for pity's sake....
+
+VARVARA.
+What nonsense! _You'd_ better mind, and not betray yourself in any way.
+
+KATERINA.
+I can't deceive, I don't know how to conceal anything.
+
+VARVARA.
+But there's no doing without deceit; think where you're living! Our whole
+house rests on it! I wasn't fond of lying either, but I learnt the trick,
+when I had to. I was out walking yesterday, and so I saw him and had a few
+minutes talk with him.
+
+KATERINA (_after a short silence, looking down_).
+Well?
+
+VARVARA.
+He sent greetings to you. He was sorry, he said, that he never meets you.
+
+KATERINA (_her head still more bent down_).
+As if we could meet! And what would be the use....
+
+VARVARA.
+He is so sad and unhappy....
+
+KATERINA.
+Don't speak to me of him, for goodness' sake, don't speak of him! I don't
+want to know him even. I will love my husband: Tisha, my dear one, no one
+shall ever take your place! I did not want to think of him, you tempt me.
+
+VARVARA.
+All right, don't think of him; no one compels you to.
+
+KATERINA.
+You have no mercy on me! You say: don't think of him, and you mention him
+yourself! Do you suppose I want to think of him; but what can I do, when I
+can't get him out of my mind? Whatever I try to think, he seems always
+standing before my eyes. And I try to be different, and I can't. Do you
+know, last night, the evil one tempted me again. I was almost walking
+straight out of the house.
+
+VARVARA.
+You are such a fantastical creature, God bless you! What I think is: one
+should do what one likes, only be sure it's kept dark!
+
+KATERINA.
+I don't like that. What good can come of it! I had much better bear it as
+long as I can bear it.
+
+VARVARA.
+And when you can't bear it, what will you do?
+
+KATERINA.
+What shall I do?
+
+VARVARA.
+Yes, what will you do?
+
+KATERINA.
+Whatever I long to do, I will do.
+
+VARVARA.
+Just try; why they'd torment you to death.
+
+KATERINA.
+What do I care! I should go away, and that would be the end of it.
+
+VARVARA.
+Where would you go? You are a married woman.
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, Varia, you don't know me! I pray, of course, it may never come to
+that! But if I am too miserable here, they would not keep me by any force
+on earth. I should throw myself out of the window, I should drown myself
+in the Volga. If I will not to live here, then I would not, they might cut
+me to pieces! (_Silence._)
+
+VARVARA.
+Do you know what, Katia! When Tihon's gone, let's sleep in the garden, in
+the summerhouse.
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh, why, Varia?
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, isn't it just the same to you?
+
+KATERINA.
+I'm timid of sleeping in a place I'm not used to.
+
+VARVARA.
+Timid, nonsense! Glasha will be with us.
+
+KATERINA.
+Still one feels nervous, somehow! But perhaps I will.
+
+VARVARA.
+I wouldn't have asked you, only mamma wouldn't let me alone, and I must.
+
+KATERINA (_looking at her_).
+What for?
+
+VARVARA.(_laughing_).
+We'll tell our fortunes together there.
+
+KATERINA.
+You must be joking.
+
+VARVARA.
+To be sure, I am joking; did you think I meant it?
+
+[_Silence_.
+
+KATERINA.
+Where can Tihon be?
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, do you want him?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, I only wondered, he has to start so soon.
+
+VARVARA.
+He's sitting locked up with mamma. She's nagging away at him now.
+
+KATERINA.
+What for?
+
+VARVARA.
+For nothing at all, teaching him to mind what he's about. He'll be a
+fortnight away out of her sight! Only fancy! She has an uneasy inkling all
+the time that he'll enjoy himself when he's his own master. And so she's
+busy now laying all sorts of injunctions upon him, each more imperative
+than the last, and then she'll take him up to the holy picture and make
+him swear solemnly that he'll do everything exactly and precisely
+according to her bidding.
+
+KATERINA.
+And so even when he's free he'll be as good as bound.
+
+VARVARA.
+Bound! Oh, will he! As soon as he gets away, he'll start drinking, you may
+be sure. He says nothing now, but all the while he's only thinking how to
+get away as soon as possible.
+
+[_Enter Mme. Kabanova and Kabanov_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+The Same with KABANOV and MADAME KABANOVA.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Now do you remember everything I've told you? Mind you do remember it!
+Keep it in your heart!
+
+KABANOV.
+Yes, mamma.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, now everything is ready. The horses are at the door. You've only to
+say good-bye and be off in God's name.
+
+KABANOV.
+Yes, mamma, it's time I was off.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well?
+
+KABANOV.
+What do you desire?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Why are you standing about? Don't you know the way to do things? Lay your
+commands upon your wife, exhort her how she is to live in your absence.
+
+[_Katerina looks on the ground_.
+
+KABANOV.
+But she knows quite well without that.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+The way you talk! Come, come, give your commands, that I may hear what
+commands you lay upon her! And then when you come back, you can ask if she
+has performed everything exactly.
+
+KABANOV (_standing opposite Katerina_).
+Obey mamma, Katia.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Tell her not to be saucy to her mother-in-law.
+
+KABANOV.
+Don't be saucy!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+To revere her mother-in-law as her own mother.
+
+KABANOV.
+Revere mamma, Katia, as your own mother.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Not to sit with her hands in her lap like a fine lady.
+
+KABANOV.
+Do some work while I am away!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Not to go staring out of window!
+
+KABANOV.
+But, mamma, whenever has she....
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, come!
+
+KABANOV.
+Don't look out of window!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Not to stare at young fellows while you are away!
+
+KABANOV.
+But that is too much, mamma, for mercy's sake!
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_severely_).
+Enough of this nonsense! It's your duty to do what your mother tells you.
+(_With a smile_) It's always as well when it's forbidden.
+
+KABANOV (_in great confusion_).
+Don't look at young men! [_Katerina looks sternly at him_.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, now you can talk by yourselves a little, if you want to. Come,
+Varvara! [_They go out_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+KABANOV and KATERINA (_she stands as though turned to stone_).
+
+
+KABANOV.
+Katia! (_Silence_.) Katia, you're not angry with me?
+
+KATERINA (_after a protracted silence--shakes her head_).
+No!
+
+KABANOV.
+But why are you like this? Come, forgive me!
+
+KATERINA (_still in the same position, slightly shaking her head_).
+Peace be with you! (_Hiding her face in her hands_) She has hurt me!
+
+KABANOV.
+If you take everything to heart so, you'll soon fall into a decline. Why
+listen to her! You know she must talk! Well then, let her talk, and you
+let it go in at one ear and out at the other. Come, good-bye, Katia!
+
+KATERINA (_falling on her husband's neck_).
+Tisha, don't go away! For God's sake, don't go away! Dear one, I implore
+you!
+
+KABANOV.
+I must, Katia. When mamma sends me, how can I not go?
+
+KATERINA.
+Well, take me with you, do take me!
+
+KABANOV (_freeing himself from her embrace_).
+But it's impossible!
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh, why, Tisha, impossible?
+
+KABANOV.
+Much fun there would be in going with you! You've worried me out of my
+life here between you! No sooner have I a hope of escaping than you want
+to fasten yourself upon me.
+
+KATERINA.
+Why, can it be that you are tired of me?
+
+KABANOV.
+No, I'm not tired of you; but to get out of this slavery a man would run
+away from the loveliest woman in the world! Just consider for a minute; I
+may not be good for much; but I'm a man anyway; and living all my life as
+you see, one's glad to run away from one's wife even. Why, when I think
+now, that for two whole weeks there'll be no storm hanging over me, no
+fetters on my legs,--do you suppose I can think of my wife?
+
+KATERINA.
+How can I care for you, when you say things like that?
+
+KABANOV.
+Say things? Why, what things am I to say? God knows what it is you're
+afraid of! You won't be alone, you know, you'll be with mamma.
+
+KATERINA.
+Don't speak of her, don't torture my heart! Ah, how wretched I am, how
+wretched! (_Weeps_.) Where can I go? Whom can I cling to? Merciful
+Heavens, I am lost!
+
+KABANOV.
+Come, be quiet!
+
+KATERINA (_goes up to her husband and draws him to her_).
+Tisha, dear one, if you would stay, if you would take me with you, how I
+would love you, how I would cherish you, my dear one!
+
+KABANOV.
+I can't make you out, Katia! Often there's no getting a word out of you,
+to say nothing of a kiss, and now you come coaxing up to me of your own
+accord.
+
+KATERINA.
+Tisha, what are you leaving me to? There'll be trouble when you're away!
+There'll be trouble!
+
+KABANOV.
+Now, come, I can't, so it's no use.
+
+KATERINA.
+Well, here then! Take from me some dreadful vow....
+
+KABANOV.
+What vow?
+
+KATERINA.
+A vow that I will not dare while you're away on any ground whatever to
+speak with any outsider, nor see anyone,--that I will not even dare to
+think of anyone but you.
+
+KABANOV.
+But what's this for?
+
+KATERINA.
+Set my heart at rest, do this for me!
+
+KABANOV.
+But one can never answer for oneself like that, anything may come into
+one's head.
+
+KATERINA (_falling on her knees_).
+May I never look upon my father nor my mother! May I die impenitent,
+if I...
+
+KABANOV (_pulling her up_).
+Hush! Nonsense! What wickedness is this! I won't hear you!
+
+[_Voice of Mme. Kabanova heard without, "It's time to start, Tihon!" Enter
+Mme. Kabanova, Varvara and Glasha._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+The same.
+
+MME. KABANOVA, VARVARA and GLASHA.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, Tihon, it's time now! Set off on your way in God's name! (_sits
+down_). Sit down, all of you! (_All sit down. Silence_.) Now, good-bye!
+(_Gets up and all get up_.)
+
+KABANOV (_going up to his mother_).
+Good-bye, mamma!
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_with a wave of her hand points him to the ground_).
+At my feet! At my feet! (_Kabanov bows down to her feet, then kisses his
+mother_.) Say good-bye to your wife.
+
+KABANOV.
+Good-bye, Katia! [_Katerina falls on his neck_.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+What do you want to hang on his neck like that for, shameless hussy! It's
+not a lover you're parting from! He's your husband--your head! Don't you
+know how to behave? Bow down at his feet!     [_Katerina bows down to his
+feet_.
+
+KABANOV.
+Good-bye, sister (_kisses Varvara_). Good-bye! Glasha (_kisses Glasha_).
+Good-bye, mamma! (_bows down to the ground_).
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Good-bye! Long farewells mean foolish tears.
+[_Kabanov goes out, after him Katerina, Varvara, and Glasha_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_alone_).
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+The way young folks behave! It makes one laugh really to see them! If they
+weren't my own, I could laugh till I split. They don't know the way to do
+anything properly. Can't even take leave with decorum. A lucky thing it is
+for them that they have elder folk, who will keep their house together as
+long as they're living. And yet, the silly fools, they long to be their
+own masters, though when they do have their own way, they get in a mess
+directly to the scandal and amusement of all worthy folk. One here and
+there, to be sure, will be sorry for them, but for the most part they'll
+all laugh. No one can help laughing either; they'll invite guests, and not
+know how they should sit, and what's more, as likely as not, they leave
+out some one of their relations. It's simply comical. But the old order's
+passing away. There are some houses one doesn't care to go into. If you do
+cross the threshold, all you can do is to spit, and get away as quick as
+may be. What will happen when the old people are dead, how the world will
+go on, I really can't think. I'm thankful anyway, that I shall see nothing
+of it.
+
+[_Enter Katerina and Varvara._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VII
+
+MME. KABANOVA, KATERINA, and VARVARA.
+
+
+You make a boast of loving your husband so much; I see now how much your
+love's worth. Any other good wife, on seeing her husband off, would wail
+for a good hour and a half, lying on the steps; but one can see you're not
+much upset.
+
+KATERINA.
+There's no reason to be! Besides, I don't know how to wail. Why make the
+people laugh!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+No great art is needed. If you loved him you would have learnt to do it.
+If you can't wail properly, you should wail a little, if only for example.
+It is always more decorous; or else one sees it is all words with you.
+Well, I'm going to pray to God; do not interrupt me.
+
+VARVARA.
+I'm going out.
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_caressingly_).
+I've nothing against it! Go and enjoy yourself till your time comes.
+You'll have sitting indoors enough later on! [_Exeunt Mme. Kabanova and
+Varvara._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VIII
+
+
+KATERINA (_alone, dreamily_).
+Well, now, peace reigns in our house! Ah, the dreariness. If only there
+were children! That's the saddest thing! I have no children; I should sit
+with them and amuse them all day. I love talking to little children--they
+are angels, really. (_Silence._) If I had died when I was little, it would
+have been better. I should have looked down on to the earth from Heaven
+and been delighted with everything. I should have flown unseen wherever I
+liked. I would have floated into the country and fluttered from flower to
+flower, like a butterfly. (_Sinks into a reverie_) I know what I will do;
+I will begin some piece of work, as an offering to God. I will go to the
+bazaar, and buy some stuff and make some clothes to give to the poor. They
+will remember me in their prayers. And so I'll sit sewing with Varvara,
+and we shall not notice how the time passes; and soon Tisha will be back.
+
+[_Enter Varvara_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IX
+
+KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+VARVARA (_putting a kerchief on her head before the looking-glass_).
+I am just going out for a walk now; Glasha's putting our beds in the
+summer house now, mamma's consented to let us sleep there. Mamma always
+keeps the little gate in the garden behind the raspberries locked up and
+hides the key. I've taken it and put another one in its place for her, so
+she won't notice it. Here, see, maybe, it will be wanted (_gives the
+key_). If I see him, I shall tell him to come to the little gate.
+
+KATERINA (_with horror, pushing away the key_).
+What for! what for! No! no!
+
+VARVARA.
+If you don't want it, I do; take it, it won't bite you!
+
+KATERINA.
+But what are you plotting, wicked girl? It's impossible! Do you know what
+you're doing? It's dreadful, dreadful!
+
+VARVARA.
+Well, well--Least said is soonest mended; and I've no time to stay either.
+It's time for my walk.
+
+[_Goes._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE X
+
+
+KATERINA (_alone, holding the key in her hand_).
+The things she thinks of doing! Ah, she's a mad girl, really mad! Here is
+ruin! Here it is! Fling it away, fling it far away, drop it into the
+river, that it may never be found. It burns the hand like fire. (_Musing_)
+This is how we women come to ruin. How can anyone be happy in bondage? One
+may be driven to anything. Many a one is glad if she gets the chance; she
+flings herself headlong. But how can they, without thinking, without
+reflecting! Easy is the path that leads to misfortune! And then tears and
+anguish all your life: your bondage is bitterer than ever. (_Silence_) But
+bitter is a life of bondage, ah, how bitter! Who does not weep in it! Most
+of all, we women. Here am I now! I am fretting away my life, and I see no
+loophole of light and hope before me! And I never shall see it, that's
+certain! It'll be worse as it goes on. And now this wickedness too has
+come upon me. (_Muses_) If it were not for my mother-in-law! ... She is
+crushing me.... She has made the house hateful to me.... I loathe the
+very walls because of her. (_Looks dreamily at the key_) Throw it away? Of
+course, I must throw it away. And how came it into my hands? For my
+temptation, for my undoing. (_Listens_) Ah, someone is coming. How my
+heart is beating! (_hides the key in her pocket_) No! ... No one! ... Why
+was I so frightened? And I have put away the key.... Well, that's a sign
+it is to be! Fate itself, it seems, wills it! And where is the sin if I do
+look at him just once, from a distance. Even if I speak to him, still
+there's no harm in that! But what I said to Tihon ... why, he would not
+have it himself. And maybe, such a chance will not come again all my life
+long. Then I may well weep to myself--that there was a chance and I had
+not sense to seize it. But why talk, why cheat myself? If I die for it, I
+must see him. Whom am I trying to deceive.... Throw away the key! No, for
+nothing in the whole world! It is mine now.... Come what may, I will see
+Boris! Ah, night! come quickly!
+
+
+
+
+ACT III
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+The Street. The gates of the Kabanovs' house, a garden seat before the
+gates.
+
+MME. KABANOVA and FEKLUSHA (_sitting on the bench_).
+
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+The end of the world is at hand, ma'am, by every sign and token, Marfa
+Ignatievna, the end of the world is at hand. It's peace and paradise still
+here in your town, but in other towns it's simply Sodom, ma'am: the noise,
+the bustle, the incessant traffic! The people keep running, one one way,
+and one another.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+We've no need to hurry, my dear, we live without haste.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+No, ma'am; there is peace and quietness in this town, because there are
+many people, you for instance, adorned with virtues, as with flowers;
+that's why everything is done decorously and tranquilly. Why, what is the
+meaning of all that haste and bustle, ma'am? It is vanity, to be sure! In
+Moscow now: the folk run to and fro; there's no knowing for why. It is all
+vanity. It is a people, full of vanity, ma'am, and so it runs to and fro.
+Each one fancies he's hurrying on business; he hastens, poor fellow,
+doesn't recognise people; it seems to him that someone is beckoning him;
+but when he gets to the place, sure enough it's empty, there's nothing
+there, it's only a dream. And he is downcast and disappointed. And another
+one fancies that he's overtaking someone he knows. Anyone looking on can
+see in a trice that there's no one; but it seems to him in his vanity and
+delusion that he's overtaking someone. Vanity, to be sure, is like a fog
+about them. Here among you on a fine evening like this, it's not often
+anyone even comes out to sit at his gate; but in Moscow now there's
+walking and playing, and a fearful racket going on in the street; a
+continual roar. And what's more, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, they've
+harnessed a fiery serpent to drive: all, look you, for the sake of more
+speed.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I have heard tell of it, my dear.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+But I, ma'am, have seen it with my own eyes; no doubt, others, in
+blindness and vanity, see nothing, so it seems a machine to them, but I
+saw it doing like this _(spreading out her fingers)_ with its paws. And a
+roar, too, that folks of righteous life hear for what it is.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+You can call it anything you like, call it a machine, if you will; the
+people is foolish and will believe anything. But as for me you might load
+me with gold, I wouldn't drive with such a thing.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+The very idea, ma'am! The Lord preserve us from such a thing. And let me
+tell you too, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, a vision I had in Moscow. I went
+out early in the morning, it was just dawn, and on a high, very high
+house, on the roof, I saw someone standing, with a black face. You
+understand whom I mean. And he kept moving his hands, as though he were
+scattering something, but nothing fell. Then I divined that he was the
+enemy sowing tares, and the people in their blindness see it not, and
+gather them up. And that is why they run to and fro so, and the women
+among them are all so thin, and never get plump and comfortable, but
+always look as if they had lost something, or were looking for something,
+and that careworn they are, you feel sorry for them.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Anything is possible, my dear, in our times, one can't be surprised at
+anything.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Hard times they are, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, very hard. Already the time
+has begun diminishing.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+How is that? diminishing, my dear?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+We, of course--how should we observe it in our blindness and vanity? but
+wise people have observed that time has grown shorter with us. Once the
+summer and the winter dragged on endlessly, you got tired of looking for
+the end of them, but now, before one's time to look about one, they've
+flown. The days and the hours still seem the same, of course; but the time
+keeps growing shorter and shorter, for our sins. That's what the learned
+folk say about it.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+And worse than that will be, my dear.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+I only trust we shan't live to see it.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Maybe, we shall.    [_Enter Dikoy._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+The Same and DIKOY.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+What brings you abroad so late, old friend?
+
+DIKOY.
+Why, who's to hinder me being out, I should like to know?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Who wants to hinder you, indeed!
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, then what's the use of talking? Whose control am I under, hey? What
+next will you say? What the devil....
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Now then, keep a little check on your tongue! You'd better look out for
+someone else to talk to! I won't let you off so easily as some do! Go your
+way wherever you're going. Come indoors, Feklusha.
+
+[_Gets up._
+
+DIKOY.
+Wait a bit, old friend, wait a bit! Don't be angry. You're in no hurry to
+get home; your home's not many miles away. Here it is!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+If you've come on business, don't shout at me, but speak out plainly.
+
+DIKOY.
+I've no business, but I'm drunk, that's what it is!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, would you have me praise you for that, hey?
+
+DIKOY.
+Needn't praise or blame. Only I'm drunk, and that's all about it. I can't
+get over it till I've slept it off.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, go and have a sleep then.
+
+DIKOY.
+Where am I to go?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Home, of course, where else?
+
+DIKOY.
+But if I don't want to go home.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Why not, allow me to ask you?
+
+DIKOY.
+Because I've a row going on there.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Why, who is there to quarrel with? You're the only quarrelsome one there,
+you know.
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, what if I am quarrelsome, hey? What of it, hey?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Oh, nothing. Only there's no great glory in doing battle all your life
+with women, that's all.
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, I suppose they ought to obey me! Or am I to obey them, hey?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I really wonder at you; with all the crowd of folks in your house, not a
+single one can do anything to your liking.
+
+DIKOY.
+That's so!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, what do you want of me?
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, talk me out of my temper. You're the only person in the whole town
+who knows how to talk to me.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Go in, Feklusha, and order a little something to be served. _(Feklusha
+goes.)_ Let's go indoors.
+
+DIKOY.
+No, I'm not going indoors, I'm worse indoors!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+How have they put you into such a rage?
+
+DIKOY.
+I've been so all day since the morning.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I suppose they've been asking for money.
+
+DIKOY.
+As if they were in league together, damn them. One after another the whole
+day long they've been at me.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+No doubt you'll have to give it them, or they wouldn't persist.
+
+DIKOY.
+I know that; but what would you have me do, since I've a temper like that?
+Why, I know that I must pay, still I can't do it with a good will. You're
+a friend of mine, and I've to pay you something, and you come and ask me
+for it, I'm bound to swear at you! Pay I will, if pay I must, but I must
+swear too. For you've only to hint at money to me, and I feel hot all over
+in a minute; red-hot all over, and that's all about it. And to be sure at
+such times, I'd swear at anyone for nothing at all.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+You've no one over you, and so you think you can do as you like.
+
+DIKOY.
+No, you hold your tongue! Listen to me! I'll tell you the sort of troubles
+that happen to me. I had fasted and all ready for sacrament in Lent, and
+then the evil one thrusts a wretched peasant under my nose. He had come
+for money,--for wood he had supplied us. And for my sins he must needs
+show himself at a time like that! I fell into sin, of course, I pitched
+into him, pitched into him finely, I did, all but thrashed him. There you
+have it, my temper! Afterwards I asked his pardon, bowed down at his feet,
+upon my word I did. It's the truth I'm telling you, I bowed down at a
+peasant's feet. That's what my temper brings me to: on the spot there, in
+the mud I bowed down at his feet; before everyone, I did.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+But what do you work yourself up into a rage on purpose for? That's not
+right, my friend!
+
+DIKOY.
+On purpose? How d'you mean?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I've seen you, I know all about it. When you see that people are going to
+ask you for anything, you go and pick a quarrel purposely with one of your
+household, so as to work yourself into a rage. For you know that when
+you're in a rage, no one dare come near you. That's a pretty thing!
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, what of it? Who likes parting with his property?
+
+[_Glasha comes in._
+
+GLASHA.
+Marfa Ignatievna, lunch is served!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, old friend, come in! Have a taste of what God has sent us!
+
+DIKOY.
+Much obliged.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Pray walk in. _(Ushers Dikoy in front and follows him in. Glasha, folding
+her arms, stands at the gates.)_
+
+GLASHA.
+If that isn't Boris Grigoritch coming. Sure now he's not after his uncle?
+Or may be, just out for a stroll--to be sure, out for a stroll, he must
+be. [_Enter Boris._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+GLASHA, BORIS, later KULIGIN.
+
+
+BORIS.
+Isn't my uncle inside?
+
+GLASHA.
+Yes. Do you want him?
+
+BORIS.
+They sent me from home to find out where he was. But since he's with you
+let him stop there; no one wants him. At home they're pleased and happy
+that he's out.
+
+GLASHA.
+Our good lady out to marry him, she'd soon make him mind what he's about.
+But I mustn't stop here gossiping with you! Good-bye.  [_Exit._
+
+BORIS.
+Ah, merciful Heavens! For one glimpse of her! I can't go into the house.
+No one calls anywhere uninvited in this place. What a life! We are living
+in the same town, almost next door; yet we barely see each other once a
+week, and then only in church, or in the street,--and that's all! When a
+woman's married here she might as well be buried,--it's all the same.
+_(Silence.)_ If only I had never seen her; it would have been better for
+me! I can only see her by snatches, and before people,--who are all eyes,
+staring at one. It's simply heartrending. And yet there's no mastering
+oneself. If I go out for a walk, I always find myself here at the gate.
+And what use is there in coming here? There's never any chance of seeing
+her, and what's more, it may give rise to gossip and do her harm. Well,
+it's a fine town, certainly!
+
+[_He is going, Kuligin comes, meeting him._
+
+KULIGIN.
+Well, sir? out for a walk?
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, it's very pleasant out now.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Very pleasant it is, sir, walking now. The stillness, the sweet air, the
+scent of flowers from the far side of the Volga, the clear sky--
+
+The space aloft, filled full of stars,
+Stars numberless, space limitless.
+
+Shall we go to the parade, there's not a soul there.
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, come along.
+
+KULIGIN
+That's our town all over, sir! Here they've made a parade, but they don't
+walk there. They only walk out on fête days, and then they only make a
+show of being out for a walk. They really come out to show off their best
+clothes. You never meet anyone but maybe a drunken attorney's clerk
+reeling home from the tavern. The poor have no time, sir, to walk out;
+they must work and worry day and night. Three hours' sleep is all they get
+out of the twenty-four. But what are the rich about? You'd wonder why they
+shouldn't walk about and enjoy the fresh air. But not a bit of it! They've
+all had their gates, sir, locked up long ago, and their dogs let loose.
+... Do you suppose they are at work at their business, or praying to God?
+No, sir! And it's not for fear of thieves they lock themselves up; it's
+that folks shouldn't see the way they ill-treat their household, and bully
+their families. And the tears that flow behind those bolts, unseen,
+unheard of! But there's no need to tell you that, sir! You can judge of it
+for yourself. And the sordid sodden vice within those barred gates, sir!
+And all hidden and buried--no one sees or knows anything of it, God alone
+beholds it! Stare at me as you like, say they, in the street and among
+folk, but you've nothing to do with my family; that's what I have locks
+for, and bolts and bars and savage dogs. The family's something apart,
+secret! We know all about such secrets!--secrets, sir, that make one man
+merry, perhaps, while the rest are weeping and wailing. Much secrecy about
+it! Everyone knows! Robbing their orphans, kinsfolk, nephews, beating
+their dependents till they're too cowed to hint at what goes on within
+doors,--there's no great secret in that! But that's enough of them! Do you
+know, sir, who do go for walks here? The young fellows and girls. They
+steal an hour or two from sleep and walk out in couples. There's a couple
+over there!
+
+[_Kudriash and Varvara are seen. They kiss._
+
+BORIS.
+They are kissing.
+
+KULIGIN.
+We don't think much of that.
+
+[_Kudriash goes off, and Varvara goes towards her own gate and beckons
+Boris, he goes up to her._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+BORIS, KULIGIN and VARVARA.
+
+
+KULIGIN.
+I'll go to the parade, sir. I'm in your way. I'll wait for you there.
+
+BORIS.
+Very well, I'll come directly.
+
+VARVARA (_hiding her face in her kerchief_).
+Do you know the hollow behind the Kabanovs' garden?
+
+BORIS.
+Yes.
+
+VARVARA.
+You come there a little later on.
+
+BORIS.
+What for?
+
+VARVARA.
+How stupid you are! Come; then you'll see what for. Well, you'd better
+make haste now, since that person's waiting for you. (_Boris goes_.)
+There, he didn't know me! Well, now let him wonder, I know very well that
+Katerina won't hold out, she'll run out to see him. [_Goes in at the gate.
+Curtain_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+The scene changes.
+
+A hollow dell covered with bushes; at the top of it the Kabanovs' garden
+and a gate; a path leading down from it.
+
+(_Kudriash enters with a, guitar_.)
+
+
+KUDRIASH.
+No one. What is she up to? Well, I'll sit and wait for her. (_Seats
+himself on a stone_) This is slow; I'll sing a song (_sings_).
+
+As the Don Cossack, the Cossack, leads his horse to drink,
+The brave young man, he stands at the gate,
+At the gate he stands, and ponders in his heart,
+In his heart he ponders, how he will slay his wife.
+And the wife, the wife besought him,
+Falling down at his swift feet;
+Master, friend of my heart, I pray thee,
+Strike me not, slay me not in the evening!
+But kill me, slay me after midnight!
+Let my little children be asleep,
+My little children, and all my good neighbours.    [_Enter Boris_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+KUDRIASH and BORIS.
+
+
+KUDRIASH (_stops singing_). Hullo! Such a sober, staid person as you, out
+on the spree too?
+
+BORIS.
+Kudriash, is that you?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+It is, Boris Grigoritch.
+
+BORIS.
+What are you here for?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+What for? I suppose because I want to be here, Boris Grigoritch, since I
+am here. I shouldn't have come if I hadn't wanted to. Where is fortune
+taking you?
+
+BORIS (_looking carefully at the scene around him_).
+Look here, Kudriash, I've got to stop here, and I've no doubt it's all the
+same to you, so you might go and sit in some other place.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+No, Boris Grigoritch, you're here, I perceive, for the first time, but
+this is a place where I have often sat, and this little path has been
+trodden by my feet. I like you, sir, and am ready to do you any service;
+but you'll kindly refrain from meeting me in this path at night, lest evil
+come of it. Fair words are better than gold.
+
+BORIS.
+What is the matter with you, Vania?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Vania, indeed! I know my name's Vania. But you go on your way, that's all
+about it. Find a girl to your liking, and walk out with her to your
+heart's content, and no one will say a word to you. But don't meddle with
+other fellows' girls! That's not the way we do things here, or the fellows
+will break your legs for you. For my girl ... Well, I don't know what I
+wouldn't do! I'd cut your throat!
+
+BORIS.
+You're angry for no reason; I've not the slightest idea of robbing you of
+her. I shouldn't have come here if I hadn't been told to.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Who told you to?
+
+BORIS.
+I couldn't make out, it was dark. A girl stopped me in the street and said
+I was to come just here, behind the Kabanovs' garden, where there is a
+little path.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Who could that be?
+
+BORIS.
+Listen, Kudriash. Could I speak to you openly, you wouldn't gossip?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+You needn't be afraid of that! I'm as safe as the grave.
+
+BORIS.
+I know nothing of your habits and ways of doing things here; but the fact
+is ...
+
+KUDRIASH.
+You're in love.
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, Kudriash.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Oh, well, that's all right. We're free enough in that way. The girls amuse
+themselves as they like, and the father and mother have nothing to say to
+it. It's only the wives are kept shut up.
+
+BORIS.
+That's just what's so sad.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+You don't mean to say you're in love with a married woman?
+
+BORIS.
+She is married, Kudriash.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Ah, Boris Grigoritch, you must drop that!
+
+BORIS.
+It's easy to say drop it! I daresay it's all the same to you, you'll throw
+up one and pick up another easily enough! But I can't do like that! If
+once I love ...
+
+KUDRIASH.
+That's as much as to say you're ready to ruin the poor thing completely,
+Boris Grigoritch!
+
+BORIS.
+God forbid! God forbid! No, Kudriash, how can you! I ready to ruin her! I
+only want to see her, to speak to her, I ask for nothing more.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+You can't answer for yourself like that, sir! And just think what sort of
+people you have to deal with here. You know them yourself. They'd be the
+death of her, they'd torment her into the grave.
+
+BORIS.
+Ah, don't say that, Kudriash, please don't frighten me!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+But does she care for you?
+
+BORIS.
+I don't know.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Have you ever met then?
+
+BORIS.
+I have only once been in their house with my uncle. And I see her in
+church, and pass her sometimes on the parade. Ah, Kudriash, how she prays,
+if you could see her! the angelic smile on her face! her face seems to
+shed light.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Oh, then it's the young wife of Kabanov.
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, Kudriash.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Oh, so that's it! Well, I humbly congratulate you!
+
+BORIS.
+What for?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Well, things look promising for you, since she's sent you word to come
+here.
+
+BORIS.
+Can it be she sent word?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Why, who else could it be?
+
+BORIS.
+No, you're making fun of me! It can't be so. (_Clutches his head_.)
+
+KUDRIASH.
+What's the matter?
+
+BORIS.
+I shall go mad with joy.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+What next! I can't see anything to go mad about! You look out that you
+don't make a mess of things and get her into trouble! Her husband's a
+fool, we all know, but her mother-in-law is terrible.
+
+[_Varvara comes out of the gate._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VII
+
+The Same and VARVARA, afterwards KATERINA.
+
+
+VARVARA (_at the gate, sings_).
+"Beyond the river, the swift river,
+My Vania's walking, dear Vania's walking" ...
+
+KUDRIASH (_going on with the song_).
+"Going to the fair." (_Whistles._)
+
+VARVARA (_comes down the path and, hiding her face in her kerchief, goes
+up to Boris_).
+You wait a bit, lad. You've something to wait for. (_To Kudriash_) Let's
+go to the Volga.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Why have you been so long? Kept me waiting again! You know I don't like
+it! (_Varvara puts one arm round him and they walk away._)
+
+BORIS.
+It's like a dream! This night, and singing and trysts! They're walking,
+their arms round each other. It is so new for me, so sweet! Here I am
+waiting for something. And what I am waiting for--I know not and cannot
+picture to myself; only my heart is throbbing and every nerve is
+quivering. I cannot think even what to say to her, I can hardly breathe,
+my knees are shaking! My stupid heart is in my mouth, I can't quiet it.
+Here she comes. (_Katerina slowly comes down the path, wrapt in a large
+white kerchief, her eyes fixed on the ground. Silence._) Is it you?
+Katerina Petrovna? (_Silence._) How can I ever thank you,--I don't know.
+(_Silence._) If you only knew, Katerina Petrovna, how I love you!
+
+[_Tries to take her hand._
+
+KATERINA (_with terror, but not raising her eyes_).
+Do not touch me, do not touch me! Alas, alas!
+
+BORIS.
+Do not be angry!
+
+KATERINA.
+Go away from me, go away, unhappy man! Do you know that never by any
+prayer can I be free of this sin, never again! Like a stone it will lie on
+my soul, like a stone.
+
+BORIS.
+Do not send me away!
+
+KATERINA.
+Why did you come? Why did you come for my undoing? I am a wife, you know,
+I must live with my husband, till I lie in the grave....
+
+BORIS.
+You told me yourself to come ...
+
+KATERINA.
+Till the grave; do you understand?
+
+BORIS.
+Better if I had never seen you.
+
+KATERINA (_with great emotion_).
+You see what I am preparing for myself? What is the only place left for
+me?
+
+BORIS.
+Calm yourself. (_Takes her hand_) Sit down!
+
+KATERINA.
+Why do you wish for my ruin?
+
+BORIS.
+How can I wish to injure you, when I love you more than anything in the
+world, more than myself?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no! You have been the undoing of me.
+
+BORIS.
+Am I such a wicked wretch?
+
+KATERINA (_shaking her head_).
+I am lost, lost, lost!
+
+BORIS.
+God forbid! I'd rather perish myself!
+
+KATERINA.
+Have I not forsaken my home, and come out to you in the night?
+
+BORIS.
+You came of your own free will.
+
+KATERINA.
+I have no will. If I had had any will left of my own, I would not have
+come to you. (_Lifts her eyes and looks at Boris. A short silence_.) Your
+will is upon me now, don't you see that? [_Sinks on his neck_.
+
+BORIS (_puts his arms about Katerina_).
+My life!
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, if death would come quickly now!
+
+BORIS.
+Why die when life is so sweet for us?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, life is not for me! I know it is not for me!
+
+BORIS.
+Don't say such things, please, don't torture me.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, you are happy, you are free as the air, but I! ...
+
+BORIS.
+No one shall know of our love. Do you think I have no feeling for you?
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah! Why feel for me, it's no one's fault. I have come to this of myself.
+Don't think of me! Anyone may know, anyone may see what I do! (_Takes
+Boris in her arms_.) Since I have not feared to do wrong for you, am I
+likely to fear the judgment of men? They do say, it will be better for
+one, if one has to suffer here on earth for any sin.
+
+BORIS.
+Come, why think of that, when we are happy now!
+
+KATERINA.
+Why, truly! I shall have long years to weep enough hereafter.
+
+BORIS.
+And I was so frightened, I thought you would send me away.
+
+KATERINA (_smiling_).
+Send you away! How could I? Not with my heart. If you had not come, think
+I should have gone to you myself.
+
+BORIS.
+I never even guessed you loved me.
+
+KATERINA.
+I have loved you for so long. It's as though, for my sins, you came here
+to torment me. Directly I saw you I ceased to belong to myself. From the
+first moment, I believe, if you had beckoned to me, I would have followed
+you; to the ends of the earth I would have followed you, and never looked
+back.
+
+BORIS.
+Has your husband gone away for long?
+
+KATERINA.
+For a fortnight.
+
+BORIS.
+O, then we will be happy! that is a long time.
+
+KATERINA.
+We will be happy. And then ... (_sinks into dreamy musing_). If they lock
+me up, that will be my death! And if they don't lock me up, I will find
+some way to see you again! [_Enter Kudriash and Varvara_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VIII
+
+The Same, with KUDRIASH and VARVARA.
+
+
+VARVARA.
+Well, have you made friends? (_Katerina hides her face on Boris's
+breast_).
+
+BORIS.
+Yes.
+
+VARVARA.
+You might go and walk about a bit and let us rest. When it's time to go
+in, Vania will shout. (_Boris and Katerina go away, Kudriash and Varvara
+sit down on the stone_.)
+
+KUDRIASH.
+This is a first-rate plan, getting out at the garden gate. It's fine and
+convenient for us.
+
+VARVARA.
+It's all my doing.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+There's no one like you for such things. But what if your mother catches
+you?
+
+VARVARA.
+Oh! How could she? It would never enter her head!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+But if by ill luck, it were to?
+
+VARVARA.
+Her first sleep is sound; in the early morning now, there is more chance
+of her being awake.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+But there's never any knowing! Some evil spirit might rouse her up.
+
+VARVARA.
+Well, even then! Our gate into the yard is locked on the inside, the
+garden side; she would knock and knock and then go away. And in the
+morning we'd declare we'd been sound asleep and heard nothing. Besides,
+Glasha's on the lookout; the faintest sound, she'd let us know in a
+minute. One can't do anything without some risk! No, indeed! the only
+thing is to mind what one's about and not get into a scrape. (_Kudriash
+strikes a few cords on the guitar. Varvara leans on the shoulder of
+Kudriash who plays softly, paying no attention to her. Varvara yawning_)
+How could we find out what time it is?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+It's one o'clock.
+
+VARVARA.
+How do you know?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+A watchman struck one blow on his board just now.
+
+VARVARA (_yawning_).
+It's late. Shout to them! We'll get out earlier tomorrow, so as to have
+longer.
+
+KUDRIASH (_gives a whistle and then sings loudly_)
+
+They're all going home!
+They're all going home!
+But I won't go home!
+
+BORIS (_behind the scenes_).
+I hear!
+
+VARVARA (_gets up_).
+Well, good-bye! (_yawns, then gives a cool kiss to Kudriash, as if he were
+an old and very intimate friend_). To-morrow mind you come earlier!
+(_Looks in the direction in which Boris and Katerina went away_) You've
+said good-bye enough, you're not parting for ever, you'll see each other
+to-morrow (_yawns and stretches, Katerina hurries in, followed by Boris_).
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IX
+
+KUDRIASH, VARVARA, BORIS and KATERINA.
+
+
+KATERINA.
+Come, let us go now, let us go! (_They go up the path, Katerina turns
+round_). Good-bye!
+
+BORIS.
+Till to-morrow.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, to-morrow! Tell me what you dream to-night!
+
+[_The girls reach the gate_.
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, yes.
+
+KUDRIASH (_sings and plays guitar_)
+Come out, lassie, while you may
+Till the glow of setting day!
+Ai-lalee, while you may,
+Till the glow of setting day!
+
+VARVARA (_at the gate_).
+Aye, my laddie, while I may,
+Till the glow of break of day!
+Ai-lalee, while I may,
+Till the glow of break of day!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+When the sun has risen fair
+And I may not linger mair.
+[_Exit singing._
+
+
+
+
+ACT IV
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+In the foreground a narrow arcade running round an old building which has
+begun to fall into decay; bushes and grass about it; in the background the
+banks of the Volga and view beyond it.
+
+(_Several Persons of both Sexes approach the Arcade._)
+
+
+FIRST.
+It's spotting with rain, seems as though it might be a storm coming on.
+
+SECOND.
+Look, it's gathering yonder.
+
+FIRST.
+A good thing we've somewhere to take shelter.
+
+[_They all go under the arches._
+
+A WOMAN.
+What a lot of folks out on the parade, too! To-day being a holiday,
+everyone's out walking. The merchants' ladies all pranked out in their
+best.
+
+FIRST.
+They'll stand up somewhere out of the rain.
+
+SECOND.
+Look, at the people hurrying this way now!
+
+FIRST (_staring round at the walls_).
+I say, old fellow, it must have been covered with paintings once, do you
+know. One can make them out even now, here and there.
+
+SECOND.
+To be sure! Of course the walls were covered with paintings. Now it's all
+been let go to rack and ruin, and the old place is falling to pieces.
+There's been nothing done to it since the fire. But to be sure you don't
+remember that fire, it will be forty years ago.
+
+FIRST.
+Whatever's this picture here, old fellow? It's not easy to make out what
+it's about.
+
+SECOND.
+That's a picture of the torments of hell.
+
+FIRST.
+Oh! so that's what it is!
+
+SECOND.
+And there's folks of all sorts and conditions going down into the fire,
+see?
+
+FIRST.
+To be sure, yes, I understand it now.
+
+SECOND.
+Of every sort and rank.
+
+FIRST.
+And niggers too?
+
+SECOND.
+Yes, niggers too.
+
+FIRST.
+And I say, old fellow, what's this?
+
+SECOND.
+That's the Lithuanian invasion. A battle, d'ye see? Our men fighting with
+the men of Lithuania.
+
+FIRST.
+Who were these Lithuanians?
+
+SECOND.
+Can't say. Lithuanians, to be sure.
+
+FIRST.
+But they do say, you know, they fell down on us from heaven.
+
+SECOND.
+I can't tell about that, I daresay they did.
+
+A WOMAN.
+What ignorance! Why, everyone knows the Lithuanians fell from heaven. Well
+to be sure! and it was in memory of the battle with them that these mounds
+were made.
+
+FIRST.
+There, old fellow! That's so, you see!
+
+[_Enter Dikoy and Kuligin, his head bare. All the bystanders bow and
+assume a respectful air on seeing Dikoy._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+The Same, DIKOY and KULIGIN.
+
+
+DIKOY.
+Ugh, I'm wet through. (_To Kuligin_) Get away from me! Let me alone!
+(_Angrily_) Fool of a man!
+
+KULIGIN.
+Saviol Prokofitch, it would be conferring a benefit, your worship, on all
+the residents in the town.
+
+DIKOY.
+Go along! A mighty benefit! Who wants such a benefit?
+
+KULIGIN.
+And on you, indeed, your worship, Saviol Prokofitch. To be set up, for
+instance, on the parade in the open space. And as for expense,--the
+expense would be trifling: a stone column (_indicates the size of each
+thing by gestures_), a copper disc, round like this, and a pivot, an
+upright pivot (_shows, gesticulating_) of the simplest description. I will
+put it all up and carve the figures on the face myself too. And, your
+worship, when you are pleased to take a walk, or any other people are out
+walking, you will go up to it, and see at once what o'clock it is. As it
+is, it's a fine position and a fine view and all, but, as it were, it
+wants something. And we have visitors too, your worship, who come here to
+see our views, and it will always be an ornament,--a pleasant object for
+the eye to rest on.
+
+DIKOY.
+But why on earth do you come pestering me with every sort of idiocy? It's
+possible, don't you see, that I don't want to talk to you. You ought first
+to ascertain whether I am disposed to listen to you or not, you dolt. What
+am I to you? ... am I your equal, eh? Damn the fellow! A mighty clever
+idea he's hit upon! And then up he must come and straightway start holding
+forth upon it.
+
+KULIGIN.
+If I were about my own business, I should be to blame certainly. But I am
+speaking in the public interest, your worship. And it's no great matter
+spending about a pound on a public object! More than that would not be
+needed, sir.
+
+DIKOY.
+I daresay you'd like to pocket the money; who knows anything of you?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Seeing that I want to give my services for nothing, your worship, how
+could I pocket anything? And everyone knows me here; no one can say any
+harm of me.
+
+DIKOY.
+They may know you, for all I care, but I don't want to know you.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Why insult an honest man, sir?
+
+DIKOY.
+Am I to account to you for what I say or do? Let me tell you I allow no
+one to criticise my actions--no, not folks of far more consequence than
+you. I shall think of you as I choose to think of you. Others may say
+you're an honest man, but I look upon you as a brigand, and that's all
+about it. You seem anxious to hear my opinion, so here it is! I say you're
+a brigand, and nothing else! Do you want to have the law of me, hey? Very
+well then, let me tell you you're a worm. If I choose, I spare you; if I
+choose, I can trample you under foot!
+
+KULIGIN.
+So be it, Saviol Prokofitch! I am only a poor man, sir, it costs little to
+be rude to me. But let me remind you, your honour, virtue is honourable
+even in rags!
+
+DIKOY.
+None of your insolence now! Mind that!
+
+KULIGIN.
+I am not being insolent to you in any way, sir, and I merely addressed you
+because I thought you might have a mind to do something for the town
+sometime. You have a great deal of power, your worship, if only you had
+the wish to do some good. Now, for instance, we've storms so often, and
+yet we don't put up lightning conductors.
+
+DIKOY (_haughtily_).
+It's all vanity!
+
+KULIGIN.
+How can it be vanity when experiments have been made.
+
+DIKOY.
+What sort of lightning conductors are you talking about?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Steel ones.
+
+DIKOY (_wrathfully_).
+Well, and what then?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Steel rods.
+
+DIKOY (_getting more and more furious_).
+I hear they're steel rods, you viper, but what of it? Granted they're
+steel rods! Well, what of it?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Nothing.
+
+DIKOY.
+And what is the cause of a storm to your notions, hey? Come, speak up!
+
+KULIGIN.
+Electricity.
+
+DIKOY (_stamping_).
+'Lectricity he says! Ah, a brigand you are and no mistake! a storm is sent
+as a chastisement to make us feel our sins, and you want with rods and
+tackle of one sort and another, God forgive you, to ward it off! What, are
+you a Tartar or what? Are you a Tartar? Speak up! A Tartar, hey?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Saviol Prokofitch, your honour, Derzhavin said:
+
+In body, I languish in the dust,
+In mind, I command the tempest.
+
+DIKOY.
+For such words you ought to be led off to the police captain, he'd give it
+to you! Just listen, worthy citizens, what the fellow is saying!
+
+KULIGIN.
+There's no help for it, I must submit! But when I have made my fortune,
+then you'll see how I'll talk!
+
+[_With a wave of his hand goes out._
+
+DIKOY.
+What! are you going to steal a fortune? Stop him! The false scoundrel! How
+ever is one to treat such people! I don't know. (_Turning to the crowd_)
+And you, damned rascals, you're enough to make anyone swear! Here I'd no
+wish to lose my temper, and he must needs go and put me out, as if it were
+on purpose. Curse the fellow! (_angrily_) Has the rain given over, eh?
+
+FIRST.
+I fancy it has.
+
+DIKOY.
+You fancy! go and see, you fool. Tell me, you fancy, indeed!
+
+FIRST (_going outside the arches_).
+It has left off!
+
+[_Dikoy goes out and all follow him. The scene is empty for a little
+while. Varvara runs quickly in under the arcade and, hiding herself, peeps
+out._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+VARVARA and later BORIS.
+
+
+VARVARA.
+I believe it's he! (_Boris advances from the background of the scene_.)
+Sss-sss! (_Boris looks round_.) Come here. (_She beckons, Boris goes up to
+her_.) What are we to do with Katerina? For mercy's sake tell me!
+
+BORIS.
+Why, what is it?
+
+VARVARA.
+It's terrible, that's all. Her husband has come back, do you know that? We
+didn't expect him, but he's here.
+
+BORIS.
+No, I didn't know it.
+
+VARVARA.
+She's simply beside herself.
+
+BORIS.
+It seems as if I had only lived for these ten short days that he has been
+away. And now not to see her!
+
+VARVARA.
+Oh, I've no patience with you! I've something to tell you! She's shaking
+all over, as if she were in a fever. She's so pale, she wanders about the
+house, as though she were looking for something. Her eyes are wild, she's
+like a mad thing! She began crying long ago in the morning, she simply
+sobs. Merciful Heavens, what am I to do with her?
+
+BORIS.
+But perhaps this will pass off.
+
+VARVARA.
+I doubt it. She daren't raise her eyes to her husband. Mamma's begun to
+notice it, and she follows her about and keeps a suspicious eye upon her.
+She looks daggers at her; and that makes her worse than ever. It makes one
+wretched to see her. And I'm afraid too.
+
+BORIS.
+What are you afraid of?
+
+VARVARA.
+You don't know her. She's a strange creature. One never knows what to
+expect from her! She will do things ...
+
+BORIS.
+My God! What's to be done? You must talk to her thoroughly. Can't you
+manage to soothe her?
+
+VARVARA.
+I've tried. She doesn't even hear. Better leave her alone.
+
+BORIS.
+Well, what do you suppose she may do?
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, simply this: fling herself down at her husband's feet, and tell him
+everything. That's what I'm afraid of.
+
+BORIS (_with horror_).
+Could she possibly!
+
+VARVARA.
+She may do anything.
+
+BORIS.
+Where is she now?
+
+VARVARA.
+At this moment she's out on the parade with her husband, and my mother's
+with them too. You go and meet them, if you like. But no, you'd better not
+go, or she'll very likely lose her head completely. (_A peal of thunder in
+the distance_) Isn't that thunder? _(Looks out)_ Yes, it's raining too.
+And here are people coming this way. Get somewhere out of sight, and I'll
+stand here where I can be seen, so that they won't notice anything.
+_(Enter several persons of both sexes and different classes.)_
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+VARVARA and various persons, and later, MME. KABANOVA, KABANOV, KATERINA
+and KULIGIN.
+
+
+FIRST.
+The good lady seems awfully frightened by the way she's hurrying for
+shelter.
+
+A WOMAN.
+No use seeking shelter! If it's written in the book of fate, there's no
+escaping!
+
+KATERINA _(running in)._
+Ah, Varvara! _(Seizes her hand and holds it tight.)_
+
+VARVARA.
+Come, be quiet!
+
+KATERINA.
+It will be my death!
+
+VARVARA.
+Come, come! Pull yourself together!
+
+KATERINA.
+No! I can't. I can do nothing. My heart aches so.
+
+MME. KABANOVA _(entering)._
+Let me tell you, one should live so as to be always ready for anything.
+You would not be in such terror then.
+
+KABANOV.
+But what sins in special has she to frighten her, mamma? Her sins are no
+more than all of us have to repent; being afraid of storms is a matter of
+temperament.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+How do you know, pray? The heart of another is darkness.
+
+KABANOV _(jestingly)._
+Oh well, maybe, something very wicked while I was away; certainly when
+I've been here she never did anything bad.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Maybe, when you were away, then.
+
+KABANOV _(jesting)._
+Katia, my girl, you'd better repent, if you've been sinful in any way. You
+can't have secrets from me, you know; no, you naughty girl, I know all
+about it.
+
+KATERINA _(looks him straight in the face)._
+Dear Tihon!
+
+VARVARA.
+Come, why do you keep teazing her? Can't you see she's not well?
+
+[_Boris steps out of the crowd and bows to the Kabanovs._
+
+KATERINA (_shrieks_).
+Ah!
+
+KABANOV.
+What are you frightened of? Did you think it was a stranger? This is a
+friend! Is your uncle quite well?
+
+BORIS.
+Quite, thank you.
+
+KATERINA (_to Varvara_).
+What more does he want of me? ... Isn't it enough that I am in torture
+like this.
+
+[_Leans against Varvara, sobs._
+
+VARVARA (_aloud, so that her mother should hear_).
+We're simply tired out, and don't know what to do with her; and now
+outsiders must come up too!
+
+[_Gives Boris a sign and he walks away to the entrance of the arcade._
+
+KULIGIN (coming into the middle of the scene and addressing the crowd).
+Why, what are you afraid of, I should like to know! every blade of grass,
+every flower is rejoicing now, while we try to get away and are as
+frightened as if it were a disaster! The storm kill us indeed! It's not a
+storm to be dreaded, it's a blessing! Yes, a blessing! Everything's
+dreadful to you. If the Northern Lights shine in the heavens--you ought to
+admire and marvel at "the dawn breaking in the land of midnight!" But you
+are in terror, and imagine it means war or flood. If a comet comes--I
+can't take my eyes from it! a thing so beautiful! the stars we have looked
+upon to our hearts' content, they are always with us, but that is
+something new; well, one must gaze and admire! But you're afraid even to
+look at the sky, and all in a tremble! You make a bogey out of everything.
+Ah, what a people! I'm not afraid, you see. Come, sir, let's go on!
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, let us go! it's more terrible here! [_Goes._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+The Same, without BORIS and KULIGIN.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, that's a pretty sermon he gave us! Something worth hearing, and no
+mistake! What have the times come to, when such as he turn teacher! If an
+old man talks so, what can we expect from the young ones!
+
+A WOMAN.
+The whole sky's overcast. It's covered up all over, as it were, with a
+cap.
+
+FIRST.
+Eh, mate, see how the storm cloud is rolling into a ball, as though there
+were something alive turning round in it. And see how it's creeping up
+towards us, creeping like a live thing!
+
+SECOND.
+Mark my words, that storm's not coming up for nothing. It's the truth I
+tell you; I know. It'll strike someone dead, or set fire to a house;
+you'll see, look what an extraordinary colour!
+
+KATERINA _(listening)._
+What are they saying? They say someone will be struck dead.
+
+KABANOV.
+You know what stuff they talk, any nonsense that comes into their heads.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Don't you criticise your elders! They know better than you. Old people
+have forewarnings of all sorts. Old people don't talk at random.
+
+KATERINA _(to her husband)._
+Dear Tihon, I know who will be struck dead.
+
+VARVARA _(to Katerina, softly)._
+If only you would hold your tongue!
+
+KABANOV.
+How do you know?
+
+KATERINA.
+It will strike me. Pray for me, then.
+
+[_Enter Old Lady with footmen. Katerina with a shriek hides her face._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+The Same and the OLD LADY.
+
+
+THE OLD LADY.
+Why hide your face? It's no use hiding! One can see you're afraid. You've
+no wish to die! She wants to live! To be sure she does!--look what a
+beauty! Ha, ha, ha! Beauty! Better pray to God to take away your beauty!
+It's beauty that is our ruin! Ruin to yourself, a snare to others, so
+rejoice in your beauty if you will! Many, many, you lead into sin! Giddy
+fellows fight duels over you, slash each other with swords for your sake.
+And you are glad! Old men, honourable men, forget that they must die,
+tempted by beauty! And who has to answer for all. Better go down into the
+abyss with your beauty! Yes, quick, quick. _(Katerina hides herself.)_
+Where will you hide away, foolish one! There's no escaping God! _(A clap
+of thunder.)_ All of you will burn in fire unquenchable! [_Exit._
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, I am dying!
+
+VARVARA.
+Why do you torture yourself like this! Stand on one side and pray; you
+will feel better.
+
+KATERINA _(goes to the wall and drops on her knees, then jumps up quickly,
+seeing the picture on the wall)._
+Ah! Hell! Hell! The fire unquenchable! _(Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, and
+Varvara surround her.)_ My heart is torn! I can bear it no longer! Mother!
+Tihon! I have sinned against God and against you! Did I not swear to you I
+would not set eyes on anyone when you were away! You remember! you
+remember! And do you know what I have done in my sinfulness? The first
+night I went out of the house....
+
+KABANOV _(in despair, in tears, pulls at her sleeve)._
+You mustn't, you mustn't! don't! What are you saying? Mother is here!
+
+MME. KABANOVA _(severely)._
+Come, come, speak, now you have begun.
+
+KATERINA.
+And every night the same.... _(Sobs, Kabanov tries to embrace her)._
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Let her be! With whom?
+
+VARVARA.
+She's raving, she doesn't know what she is saying.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+You be quiet! So this is the meaning of it! Well, with whom?
+
+KATERINA.
+With Boris Grigoritch. _(A clap of thunder.)_ Ah!
+
+[_Falls unconscious in her husband's arms._
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, son! You see what freedom leads to! I told you so, but you wouldn't
+heed me. See what you've brought on yourself!
+
+
+
+
+ACT V
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+Scene same as Act I. Twilight.
+
+KULIGIN (_sitting on a bench_).
+
+KABANOV (_walking along the parade_).
+
+
+KULIGIN (_sings_).
+"In dark of night are hid the skies
+In sleep now all have closed their eyes."
+
+(_seeing Kabanov_) Good-evening, sir, are you walking far?
+
+KABANOV.
+No, I am going home. You have heard talk, I expect, about us? The whole
+household's upside down.
+
+KULIGIN.
+I have heard so, sir, yes, I have heard so.
+
+KABANOV.
+I went away to Moscow, you know. Mamma sent me off with a sermon, oh, such
+a sermon, but as soon as I was well away, I went in for enjoying myself. I
+was glad to have escaped into freedom. And I was drinking all the journey,
+and in Moscow too I kept it up, and had a jolly time--as you may fancy! Of
+course I'd to get in fun enough to last me the whole year. I never once
+thought about home. Though, if I had thought of it, I never should have
+dreamed of what was going on here. You've heard about it?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Yes, sir.
+
+KABANOV.
+I'm a miserable man now! And so, for nothing, my life's spoiled, for
+nothing I have done.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Your mother is terribly hard.
+
+KABANOV.
+Yes, indeed, she's the cause of it all. And what am I suffering for, tell
+me that? Here I've just come from Dikoy's, and well, we drank a bit; I
+thought it would drown care; but it has only made me worse, Kuligin! Ah,
+the wrong my wife has done me! It couldn't be worse....
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's a difficult business, sir. It's difficult to judge between you.
+
+KABANOV.
+No; nothing could be worse than what she's done! It wouldn't be much to
+kill her for it. There's mamma keeps saying: she ought to be buried alive
+to punish her! But I love her, I can't bear to lay a finger on her. I did
+give her a blow or two, but that was at mamma's bidding. It makes one
+wretched to see her, do you understand that, Kuligin. Mamma's just
+tormenting her to death, while she wanders about like a shadow, and makes
+no resistance. She only weeps, and she's wasting away like wax. It's
+simply breaking my heart to see her.
+
+KULIGIN.
+You must make it up somehow, sir! You ought to forgive her, and never
+refer to it again. You are not without sin yourself, I daresay!
+
+KABANOV.
+I should think not!
+
+KULIGIN.
+And you must never reproach her even when you're drunk! She would be a
+good wife to you yet, sir, better than any--believe me.
+
+KABANOV.
+But understand me, Kuligin; I'd never say a word, but mamma ... do you
+suppose one can get over her!...
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's time you were guided, sir, by your own good sense, sir.
+
+KABANOV.
+My own good sense! I've got none, I'm told, and so I'm to live by other
+people's! I declare I'll drink away whatever sense I have left, and then
+mamma can look after me as much as she likes, when I'm crazy.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Ah sir! there's a world of troubles! But, Boris Grigoritch, sir, what of
+him?
+
+KABANOV.
+Oh, he, the scoundrel, is being sent off to Tiahta, to the Chinese. His
+uncle's sending him off to a merchant he knows there. He's to be there
+three years.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Well, what does he say to it, sir?
+
+KABANOV.
+Oh, he's wretched too; he weeps. His uncle and I, we set upon him not long
+ago, we swore at him--he didn't say a word. He seems like a wild thing. Do
+what you like to me, says he, only don't torment her! He's sorry for her
+too.
+
+KULIGIN.
+He's a good fellow, sir.
+
+KABANOV.
+He's packed up and ready, and the horses are ordered. He's so wretched,
+it's awful! I can see he wants to say good-bye to her. But that's too
+much! I can't have it. He's been an enemy to me, you know, Kuligin! He
+ought to be thrashed within an inch of his life to teach him ...
+
+KULIGIN.
+We must forgive our enemies, sir!
+
+KABANOV.
+You go and tell that to mamma, and see what she'll say to it. So, brother
+Kuligin, all our family is now split up and divided. We're not like
+relations but enemies to one another. Mamma kept nagging and nagging at
+Varvara; she couldn't stand it, and she soon made an end of it--she's
+simply gone away.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Where has she gone?
+
+KABANOV.
+No one knows. They do say she's run off with Vania Kudriash, and he can't
+be found anywhere either. It's all mamma's doing. I'll tell you frankly,
+Kuligin: she had started bullying her and locking her up. "Don't shut me
+up," she said, "or it will be the worse," and so it has turned out. What
+am I to do, tell me that! Tell me how I am to live now! My home is made
+loathsome to me, I'm put to shame before everyone, if I set about anything
+my hands drop listless and dejected. Here I'm on my way home now. Shall I
+find any happiness there, do you suppose? [_Enter Glasha._
+
+GLASHA.
+Master, Tihon Ivanitch!
+
+KABANOV.
+What is it now?
+
+GLASHA.
+There's something wrong at home, sir!
+
+KABANOV.
+Mercy on us! It's one thing on top of another! Tell me, what is it?
+
+GLASHA.
+Why, your good lady....
+
+KABANOV.
+Well, what? Is she dead?
+
+GLASHA.
+No, sir, she has disappeared; we can't find her anywhere.
+
+KABANOV.
+Kuligin! we must run and search for her. Do you know what I am afraid of?
+That she may be driven in her misery to lay hands on herself! She grieves
+and grieves,--ah, God! It rends my heart to see her. What were you
+thinking of? Has she been gone long?
+
+GLASHA.
+No, sir, not long! It's we're to blame, of course; we didn't keep an eye
+on her every minute. Though it's true, to be sure, the most watchful will
+be caught napping sooner or later.
+
+KABANOV.
+Well, don't stand there doing nothing; bestir yourself! _(Exit Glasha.)_
+And let us go too, Kuligin!
+
+[_They go. The stage is empty for a little while. From the opposite side,
+Katerina enters and walks slowly about the stage._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+KATERINA alone.
+
+[_Throughout the whole monologue and in the following scenes she speaks
+slowly and disconnectedly, repeating words dreamily and, as it were, in a
+state of forgetfulness._
+
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no, nowhere! What is he doing, my poor boy, now? All I want is to say
+good-bye to him, and then ... and then death. Why did I lead him into
+trouble. It's made it no better for me! I should have suffered alone!
+But I have ruined myself, ruined him, brought dishonour on
+myself,--everlasting disgrace on him--yes,--dishonour on myself, and on
+him everlasting disgrace. (_Silence_.) If I could remember what it was he
+said. How he felt for me? What were the words he said? (_Clutches at her
+head_) I can't remember, I have forgotten everything. The nights, oh, the
+nights are a weariness to me! All lie down to sleep, I too lie down; it is
+well with all of them, but I lie as in my grave. It is fearful in the
+darkness! There is a sound of singing as at some burial; but so soft,
+almost out of hearing, far away, far from me.... How one longs for the
+light! But I can't bear to get up--the same people again, the same talk,
+the same torture. Why do they look at me so? Why is it they don't kill one
+nowadays? Why don't they? In old days, they say, they used to kill women.
+If they would take me and throw me into the Volga, I would be glad. "If we
+kill you," they say, "your sin is taken from you; you must live, and
+suffer for your sin." But I have suffered for it already! Am I to suffer
+much longer? What have I to live for now, what for? I care for nothing,
+nothing is sweet to me, the light of day is not sweet to me! And still
+death does not come. One calls upon death and death comes not. Whatever I
+look upon, whatever I hear, it is nothing but aching here _(touching her
+heart)._ If I could be with him, there might perhaps be still some joy for
+me.... Nay, it's all the same, my soul is lost now. How sick I am with
+longing for him! If I cannot see thee, hear me at least from far away!
+Wild winds, bear my grief and longing to him! My God! I am weary, I am
+weary! _(goes to the river bank and cries loudly at the top of her voice)_
+My sweet, my heart, my soul, I love you! Answer! [_Falls a-weeping. Enter
+Boris._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+KATERINA and BORIS.
+
+
+BORIS (_not seeing Katerina_).
+My God! It's her voice! Where is she? _(Looks round.)_
+
+KATERINA _(runs to him and falls on his neck)._
+At last I see you again! _(Weeps on his bosom. Silence.)_
+
+BORIS.
+We are weeping together, God has brought us together.
+
+KATERINA.
+You have not forgotten me?
+
+BORIS.
+Me forget you? Don't!
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh no, oh no! You're not angry?
+
+BORIS.
+How could I be angry?
+
+KATERINA.
+Forgive me, anyway! I did not mean to harm you; but I was not free myself.
+I did not know what I was doing, what I was saying.
+
+BORIS.
+Oh don't! how can you! how can you!
+
+KATERINA.
+Well, how is it with you? how are you now?
+
+BORIS.
+I am going away.
+
+KATERINA.
+Where are you going?
+
+BORIS.
+Far away, Katia, to Siberia.
+
+KATERINA.
+Take me with you, away from here!
+
+BORIS.
+I cannot, Katia. I am not going of my own free will; my uncle is sending
+me, he has the horses waiting for me already; I only begged for a minute,
+I wanted to take a last farewell of the spot where we used to see each
+other.
+
+KATERINA.
+Go and God be with you! Don't grieve over me. At first your heart will be
+heavy perhaps, poor boy, and then you will begin to forget.
+
+BORIS.
+Why talk of me! I am free at least; how about you? what of your husband's
+mother?
+
+KATERINA.
+She tortures me, she locks me up. She tells everyone and tells my husband:
+"don't trust her, she's sly and deceitful." They all follow me about all
+day long and laugh at me before my face. At every word they reproach me
+with you.
+
+BORIS.
+And your husband?
+
+KATERINA.
+One minute he's kind, one minute he's angry, but he's drinking all the
+while. He is loathsome to me, loathsome; his kindness is worse than his
+blows.
+
+BORIS.
+You are wretched, Katia?
+
+KATERINA.
+So wretched, so wretched, that it were better to die!
+
+BORIS.
+Who could have dreamed that we should have to suffer such anguish for our
+love! I'd better have run away then!
+
+KATERINA.
+It was an evil day for me when I saw you. Joy I have known little of, but
+of sorrow, of sorrow, how much! And how much is still before me! But why
+think of what is to be! I am seeing you now, that they cannot take away
+from me; and I care for nothing more. All I wanted was to see you. Now my
+heart is much easier; as though a load had been taken off me. I kept
+thinking you were angry with me, that you were cursing me....
+
+BORIS.
+How can you! How can you!
+
+KATERINA.
+No, that's not what I mean; that's not what I wanted to say! I was sick
+with longing for you, that's it; and now, I have seen you....
+
+BORIS.
+They must not come upon us here!
+
+KATERINA.
+Stay a minute! Stay a minute! Something I meant to say to you! I've
+forgotten! Something I had to say! Everything is in confusion in my head,
+I can remember nothing.
+
+BORIS.
+It's time I went, Katia!
+
+KATERINA.
+Wait a minute, a minute!
+
+BORIS.
+Come, what did you want to say?
+
+KATERINA.
+I will tell you directly. _(Thinking a moment.)_ Yes! As you travel along
+the highroads, do not miss over one beggar, give to everyone, and bid them
+pray for my sinful soul.
+
+BORIS.
+Ah, if these people knew what it is to me to part from you! My God! God
+grant they may one day know such bitterness as I know now. Farewell,
+Katia! _(embraces her and tries to go away)._ Miscreants! monsters! Ah, if
+I were strong!
+
+KATERINA.
+Stay, stay! Let me look at you for the last time _(gazes into his face)._
+Now all's over with me. The end is come for me. Now, God be with thee. Go,
+go quickly!
+
+BORIS _(moves away a few steps and stands still)._
+Katia, I feel a dread of something! You have something fearful in your
+mind? I shall be in torture as I go, thinking of you.
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no! Go in God's name! (_Boris is about to go up to her._) No, no,
+enough.
+
+BORIS (_sobbing_).
+God be with thee! There's only one thing to pray God for, that she may
+soon be dead, that she may not be tortured long! Farewell!
+
+KATERINA.
+Farewell!
+
+[_Boris goes out. Katerina follows him with her eyes and stands for some
+time, lost in thought._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+
+KATERINA (_alone_).
+Where am I going now? Home? No, home or the grave--it's the same. Yes,
+home or the grave! ... the grave! Better the grave.... A little grave
+under a tree ... how sweet.... The sunshine warms it, the sweet rain
+falls on it ... in the spring the grass grows on it, soft and sweet grass
+... the birds will fly in the tree and sing, and bring up their little
+ones, and flowers will bloom; golden, red and blue ... all sorts of
+flowers, (_dreamily_) all sorts of flowers ... how still! how sweet! My
+heart's as it were lighter! But of life I don't want to think! Live again!
+No, no, no use ... life is not good! ... And people are hateful to me, and
+the house is hateful, and the walls are hateful! I will not go there! No,
+no, I will not go! If I go to them, they'll come and talk, and what do I
+want with that? Ah, it has grown dark! And there is singing again
+somewhere! What are they singing? I can't make out.... To die now....
+What are they singing? It is just the same whether death comes, or of
+myself ... but live I cannot! A sin to die so! ... they won't pray for me!
+If anyone loves me he will pray ... they will fold my arms crossed in the
+grave! Oh yes.... I remember. But when they catch me, and take me home by
+force.... Ah, quickly, quickly! _(Goes to the river bank. Aloud)_ My dear
+one! My sweet! Farewell!  [_Exit._
+
+[_Enter Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, Kuligin and workmen with torches._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+MME. KABANOVA, KABANOV and KULIGIN.
+
+
+KULIGIN.
+They say she was seen here.
+
+KABANOV.
+Is it certain?
+
+KULIGIN.
+They say they saw her.
+
+KABANOV.
+Thank God, if she has been seen alive.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+And you in such a fright already and crying over it! There's no need.
+She's not worth fretting about! Don't worry yourself, we shall have our
+hands full with her for many a long year yet.
+
+KABANOV.
+Who would have dreamed of her coming here! A place so frequented. No one
+would ever think of hiding here.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+That's just her way! The shameless hussy! She wants to keep up her
+character, it seems!
+
+[_A crowd with torches collects, coming in from different directions._
+
+ONE OF THE CROWD.
+Well, is she found?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+It seems not. She seems to have vanished into the earth.
+
+SEVERAL VOICES.
+How strange! It's a queer thing. And where could she hide?
+
+ONE OF THE CROWD.
+Oh, she'll be found!
+
+A SECOND.
+Of course she'll be found!
+
+A THIRD.
+To be sure, she'll come back of herself.
+
+[_A voice behind the scene: "Hi, boat there!"_
+
+KULIGIN _(from the bank)._
+Who's calling? What is it?
+
+[_The voice: "A woman's thrown herself into the water!" Kuligin and
+several men after him run out._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+MME. KABANOVA, and KABANOV and Crowd.
+
+
+KABANOV.
+Merciful Heavens, it is she! _(tries to run off. Mme. Kabanova holds his
+arm)_ Mamma, let me go! I will save her! or I too ... What can I do
+without her!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I'm not going to let you go, and don't you suppose it! Kill yourself on
+her account; she's worth that, isn't she? As if she'd not brought disgrace
+enough on us already, to plot to do a thing like this too!
+
+KABANOV.
+Let me go!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+There are plenty to help without you. I'll curse you if you go.
+
+KABANOV _(falling on his knees)._
+Oh, to look upon her at least!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+They'll pull her out--you'll look upon her, right enough.
+
+KABANOV (_gets up. To the crowd_).
+Well, my lads, do you see anything?
+
+ONE OF THE CROWD.
+It's dark down below, there's nothing in sight.
+
+[_A noise behind the scene._
+
+A SECOND.
+They seemed to be shouting something, but I couldn't make out what.
+
+THE FIRST.
+That's Kuligin's voice.
+
+THE SECOND.
+They're coming along the bank with torches.
+
+THE FIRST.
+They're coming this way, and they're carrying her.
+
+[_Several people come back._
+
+ONE OF THOSE WHO HAVE COME BACK.
+That Kuligin's a brave fellow! It was close here in a deep pool, near the
+bank; with the torchlight we could see a long way off in the water; he saw
+her dress and pulled her out.
+
+KABANOV.
+Alive?
+
+THE MAN.
+How could she be alive? She had thrown herself from the height; the bank
+is steep there, and she must have fallen upon the anchor, she was so
+injured, poor thing! But she looks as though she were alive! Only one
+little wound on the temple, and one single stain of blood on it.
+
+[_Kabanov runs across the scene, meets Kuligin with the crowd, carrying in
+Katerina._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VII
+
+The Same and KULIGIN.
+
+
+KULIGIN.
+Here is your Katerina. You may do what you like with her. Her body is
+here, take it; but her soul is not yours now; she is before a Judge more
+merciful than you are, now!
+
+[_Lays her on the ground and exit._
+
+KABANOV _(rushes to Katerina)._
+Katia! Katia!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Hush! It's a sin even to weep for her!
+
+KABANOV.
+Mother, you have murdered her! you! you! you!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+What do you mean? Think what you're saying! You forget whom you're
+speaking to!
+
+KABANOV.
+You have murdered her! you! you!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, I'll talk to you at home. (_Bows low to the assembled people_) I
+thank you, good people, for your services! [_All bow low._
+
+KABANOV.
+It is well with you, Katia! But why am I left to live and suffer!
+[_Falls on his wife's body._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Storm, by Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Storm, by Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
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+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
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+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Storm, by Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Storm
+
+Author: Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
+Translator: Constance Garnett
+
+Release Date: May 12, 2013 [EBook #7991]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, S.R.Ellison and the DP Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE STORM
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Translated By Constance Garnett
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>THE STORM</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> <b>ACT I</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> SCENE I </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> SCENE II. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> SCENE III </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> SCENE IV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> SCENE V </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> SCENE VI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> SCENE VII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> SCENE VIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> SCENE IX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> <b>ACT II</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> SCENE I </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> SCENE II </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> SCENE III </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> SCENE IV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> SCENE V </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> SCENE VI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> SCENE VII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> SCENE VIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> SCENE IX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> SCENE X </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> <b>ACT III</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> SCENE I </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> SCENE II </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> SCENE III </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> SCENE IV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> SCENE V </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> SCENE VI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> SCENE VII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> SCENE VIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> SCENE IX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> <b>ACT IV</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> SCENE I </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> SCENE II </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> SCENE III </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> SCENE IV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> SCENE V </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> SCENE VI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> <b>ACT V</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> SCENE I </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> SCENE II </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> SCENE III </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> SCENE IV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> SCENE V </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> SCENE VI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> SCENE VII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      INTRODUCTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Up to the years of the Crimean War Russia was always a strange, uncouth
+      riddle to the European consciousness. It would be an interesting study to
+      trace back through the last three centuries the evidence of the historical
+      documents that our forefathers have left us when they were brought face to
+      face, through missions, embassies, travel, and commerce, with the
+      fantastic life, as it seemed to them, led by the Muscovite. But in any
+      chance record we may pick up, from the reports of a seventeenth century
+      embassy down to the narrative of an early nineteenth century traveller,
+      the note always insisted on is that of all the outlandish civilisations,
+      queer manners and customs of Europeans, the Russian's were the queerest
+      and those standing furthest removed from the other nations'. And this
+      sentiment has prevailed to-day, side by side with the better understanding
+      we have gained of Russia. Nor can this conception, generally held among
+      us, which is a half truth, be removed by personal contact or mere
+      objective study; for example, of the innumerable memoirs published on the
+      Crimean war, it is rare to find one that gives us any real insight into
+      the nature of the Russian. And the conception itself can only be amended
+      and enlarged by the study of the Russian mind as it expresses itself in
+      its own literature. The mind of the great artist, of whatever race he
+      springs, cannot lie. From the works of Thackeray and George Eliot in
+      England and Turgenev and Tolstoi in Russia, a critic penetrates into the
+      secret places of the national life, where all the clever objective
+      pictures of foreign critics must lead him astray. Ostrovsky's drama, "The
+      Storm," here translated for the English reader, is a good instance of this
+      truth. It is a revelation of the old-fashioned Muscovite life <i>from the
+      inside</i>, and Ostrovsky thereby brings us in closer relation to that
+      primitive life than was in the power of Tolstoi or Goncharov, or even
+      Gogol to bring us. These great writers have given us admirable pictures of
+      the people's life as it appeared to them at the angle of the educated
+      Westernised Russian mind; but here in "The Storm" is the atmosphere of the
+      little Russian town, with its primitive inhabitants, merchants, and
+      workpeople, an atmosphere untouched, unadulterated by the <i>ideas</i> of
+      any outside European influence. It is the Russia of Peter the Great and
+      Catherine's time, the Russian patriarchal family life that has existed for
+      hundreds of years through all the towns and villages of Great Russia, that
+      lingers indeed to-day in out-of-the-way corners of the Empire, though now
+      invaded and much broken up by modern influences. It is, in fact, the very
+      Muscovite life that so puzzled our forefathers, and that no doubt will
+      seem strange to many English readers. But the special triumph of "The
+      Storm" is that although it is a realistic picture of old-fashioned Russian
+      patriarchal life, it is one of the deepest and simplest psychological
+      analyses of the Russian soul ever made. It is a very deep though a very
+      narrow analysis. Katerina, the heroine, to the English will seem weak, and
+      crushed through her weakness; but to a Russian she typifies revolt,
+      freedom, a refusal to be bound by the cruelty of life. And her attitude,
+      despairing though it seems to us, is indeed the revolt of the spirit in a
+      land where Tolstoi's doctrine of non-resistance is the logical outcome of
+      centuries of serfdom in a people's history. The merchant Dikoy, the bully,
+      the soft characterless lover Boris, the idealistic religious Katerina,
+      Kuligin the artisan, and Madame Kabanova, the tyrannical mother, all these
+      are true national types, true Russians of the changing ages, and the
+      counterparts of these people may be met to-day, if the reader takes up
+      Tehehov's tales. English people no doubt will find it difficult to believe
+      that Madame Kabanova could so have crushed Katerina's life, as Ostrovsky
+      depicts. Nothing indeed is so antagonistic to English individualism and
+      independence as is the passivity of some of the characters in "The Storm."
+      But the English reader's very difficulty in this respect should give him a
+      clue to much that has puzzled Europeans, should help him to penetrate into
+      the strangeness of Russian political life, the strangeness of her love of
+      despotism. Only in the country that produces such types of weakness and
+      tyranny is possible the fettering of freedom of thought and act that we
+      have in Russia to-day. Ostrovsky's striking analysis of this fatalism in
+      the Russian soul will help the reader to understand the unending struggle
+      in Russia between the enlightened Europeanised intelligence of the few,
+      and the apathy of the vast majority of Russians who are disinclined to
+      rebel against the crystallised conditions of their lives. Whatever may be
+      strange and puzzling in "The Storm" to the English mind, there is no doubt
+      that the Russians hail the picture as essentially true. The violence of
+      such characters as Madame Kabanova and Dikoy may be weakened to-day
+      everywhere by the gradual undermining of the patriarchal family system now
+      in progress throughout Russia, but the picture is in essentials a
+      criticism of the national life. On this point the Russian critic
+      Dobroliubov, criticising "The Storm," says: "The need for justice, for
+      respect for personal rights, this is the cry ... that rises up to the ear
+      of every attentive reader. Well, can we deny the wide application of this
+      need in Russia? Can we fail to recognise that such a dramatic background
+      corresponds with the true condition of Russian society? Take history,
+      think of our life, look about you, everywhere you will find justification
+      of our words. This is not the place to launch out into historical
+      investigation; it is enough to point out that our history up to the most
+      recent times has not fostered among us the development of a respect for
+      equity, has not created any solid guarantees for personal rights, and has
+      left a wide field to arbitrary tyranny and caprice." This criticism of
+      Dobroliubov's was written in 1860, the date of the play; but we have only
+      to look back at the internal history of Russia for the last thirty years
+      to see that it too "has not created any solid guarantees for personal
+      rights, and has left a wide field to arbitrary tyranny and caprice." And
+      here is Ostrovsky's peculiar merit, that he has in his various dramas
+      penetrated deeper than any other of the great Russian authors into one of
+      the most fundamental qualities of the Russian nature&mdash;its innate
+      tendency to arbitrary power, oppression, despotism. Nobody has drawn so
+      powerfully, so truly, so incisively as he, the type of the 'samodour' or
+      'bully,' a type that plays a leading part in every strata of Russian life.
+      From Turgenev we learn more of the reverse side of the Russian character,
+      its lack of will, tendency to weakness, dreaminess and passivity: and it
+      is this aspect that the English find it so hard to understand, when they
+      compare the characters in the great Russian novels with their own idea of
+      Russia's formidable power. The people and the nation do not seem to
+      correspond. But the riddle may be read in the coexistence of Russia's
+      internal weakness and misery along with her huge force, and the immense
+      rôle she fills as a civilising power. In "The Storm" we have all the
+      contradictory elements: a life strongly organised, yet weak within;
+      strength and passivity, despotism and fatalism side by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The author of "The Storm," Alexander Ostrovsky (born in Moscow 1823, died
+      1886), is acknowledged to be the greatest of the Russian dramatists. He
+      has been called "a specialist in the natural history of the Russian
+      merchant," and his birth, upbringing, family connections and vocations
+      gave him exceptional facilities for penetrating into the life of that
+      class which he was the first to put into Russian literature. His best
+      period was from 1850 to 1860, but all his work received prompt and
+      universal recognition from his countrymen. In 1859 Dobroliubov's famous
+      article, "The Realm of Darkness," appeared, analysing the contents of all
+      Ostrovsky's dramas, and on the publication of "The Storm" in 1860, it was
+      followed by another article from the same critic, "A Ray of Light in the
+      Realm of Darkness." These articles were practically a brief for the case
+      of the Liberals, or party of Progress, against the official and Slavophil
+      party. Ostrovsky's dramas in general are marked by intense sombreness,
+      biting humour and merciless realism. "The Storm" is the most poetical of
+      his works, but all his leading plays still hold the stage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Storm" will repay a minute examination by all who recognise that in
+      England to-day we have a stage without art, truth to life, or national
+      significance. There is not a superfluous line in the play: all is drama,
+      natural, simple, deep. There is no <i>falsity</i>, no forced situations,
+      no sensational effects, none of the shallow or flashy caricatures of daily
+      life that our heterogeneous public demands. All the reproach that lives
+      for us in the word <i>theatrical</i> is worlds removed from "The Storm."
+      The people who like 'farcical comedy' and social melodrama, and 'musical
+      sketches' will find "The Storm" deep, forbidding and gloomy. The critic
+      will find it an abiding analysis of a people's temperament. The reader
+      will find it literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E. G. <i>November</i>, 1898.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE STORM
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      SAVIL PROKOFIEVITCH DIKOY, <i>a merchant, and personage of importance in
+      the town</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS GRIGORIEVITCH, <i>his nephew, a young man of good education</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MARFA IGNATIEVNA KABANOVA, <i>a rich merchant's widow</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TIHON IVANITCH KABANOV, <i>her son</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA, <i>his wife</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA, <i>sister of Tihon</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN, <i>a man of artisan class, a self-taught watchmaker, engaged in
+      trying to discover the secret of perpetual motion</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VANIA KUDRIASH, <i>a young man, clerk to Dikoy</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN, <i>an artisan</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA, <i>a pilgrim woman</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA, <i>a maid servant in the Kabanovs' house</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AN OLD LADY <i>of seventy, half mad, with</i> TWO FOOTMEN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOWNSPEOPLE <i>of both sexes</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>The action takes place in the town of Kalinov, on the banks of the
+      Volga, in summertime. There is an interval of ten days between the 3rd and
+      4th acts. All the characters except Boris are dressed in old Russian
+      national dress.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ACT I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A public garden on the steep bank of the Volga; beyond the Volga, a view
+      of the country. On the stage two benches and a few bushes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN (<i>sitting on a bench, looking towards the river</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH and SHAPKIN (<i>walking up and down</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN (<i>singing</i>). "Amidst the level dales, upon a sloping
+      hillside,"... (<i>ceases singing</i>) Wonderful, one really must say it's
+      wonderful! Kudriash! Do you know, I've looked upon the Volga every day
+      these fifty years and I can never get tired of looking upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. How's that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. It's a marvellous view! Lovely! It sets my heart rejoicing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. It's not bad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. It's exquisite! And you say "not bad"! You are tired of it, or
+      you don't feel the beauty there is in nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Come, there's no use talking to you! You're a genuine antique,
+      we all know, a chemical genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Mechanical, a self-taught mechanician.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. It's all one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Silence.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN (<i>pointing away</i>). Look, Kudriash, who's that waving his arms
+      about over there?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. There? Oh, that's Dikoy pitching into his nephew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. A queer place to do it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. All places are alike to him. He's not afraid of any one! Boris
+      Grigoritch is in his clutches now, so he is always bullying him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. Yes, you wouldn't find another bully like our worthy Saviol
+      Prokofitch in a hurry! He pulls a man up for nothing at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. He is a stiff customer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. Old Dame Kabanova's a good hand at that too!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Yes, but she at least does it all under pretence of morality;
+      he's like a wild beast broken loose!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. There's no one to bring him to his senses, so he rages about as
+      he likes!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. There are too few lads of my stamp or we'd have broken him of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. Why, what would you have done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. We'd have given him a good scare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. How'd you do that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Why, four or five of us would have had a few words with him,
+      face to face, in some back street, and he'd soon have been as soft as
+      silk. And he'd never have let on to a soul about the lesson we'd given
+      him; he'd just have walked off and taken care to look behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. I see he'd some reason for wanting to get you sent for a soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. He wanted to, right enough, but he didn't do it. No, he won't
+      get rid of me; he's an inkling that I'd make him pay too dear for it.
+      You're afraid of him, but I know how to talk to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. Oh, I daresay!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. What do you mean by that? I am reckoned a tough one to deal
+      with. Why do you suppose he keeps me on? Because he can't do without me,
+      to be sure. Well, then, I've no need to be afraid of him; let him be
+      afraid of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. Why, doesn't he swear at you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Swear at me! Of course; he can't breathe without that. But I
+      don't give way to him: if he says one word, I say ten; he curses and goes
+      off. No, I'm not going to lick the dust for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. What, follow his example! You'd do better to bear it in patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Come, I say, if you're so wise, teach him good manners first and
+      then we'll learn! It's a pity his daughters are all children, there's not
+      one grown-up girl among them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. What if there were?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. I should treat him as he deserves if there were. I'm a devil of
+      a fellow among the girls!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Dikoy and Boris advance. Kuligin takes off his hat.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN (<i>to Kudriash</i>). Let us move off; he'll pick a quarrel with
+      us, very likely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>They move off a little.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE II.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same, DIKOY and BORIS.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Did you come here to loaf about in idleness? eh? Lazy good for
+      nothing fellow, confound you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. It's a holiday; what could I be doing at home?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. You'd find work to do if you wanted to. I've said it once, and I've
+      said it twice, "don't dare to let me come across you"; you're
+      incorrigible! Isn't there room enough for you? Go where one will, there
+      you are! Damn you! Why do you stand there like a post? Do you hear what's
+      said to you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. I'm listening,&mdash;what more am I to do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY (<i>looking at Boris</i>). Get away with you! I won't talk to a
+      Jesuit like you. (<i>Going</i>) To come forcing himself on me here!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Spits and exit</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN, BORIS, KUDRIASH, and SHAPKIN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. What have you to do with him, sir? We can't make it out. What can
+      induce you to live with him and put up with his abuse?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. A poor inducement, Kuligin! I'm not free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. But how are you not free, allow me to ask you. If you can tell
+      us, sir, do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Why not? You knew our grandmother, Anfisa Mihalovna?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. To be sure I did!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. I should think we did!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. She quarrelled with my father you know because he married into a
+      noble family. It was owing to that that my father and mother lived in
+      Moscow. My mother used to tell me that she could hardly endure life for
+      three days together with my father's relations, it all seemed so rough and
+      coarse to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Well it might! you have to be used to it from the first, sir, to
+      be able to bear it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Our parents brought us up well in Moscow, they spared no expense.
+      They sent me to the Commercial Academy, and my sister to a boarding
+      school, but they both died suddenly of cholera. We were left orphans, my
+      sister and I. Then we heard that our grandmother was dead here, and had
+      left a will that our uncle was to pay us a fair share of her fortune, when
+      we came of age, only upon one condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. And what was that, sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. If we showed a proper respect for his authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Then there's no doubt, sir, you'll never see your fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. No, but that's not all, Kuligin! First he finds fault with us to
+      his heart's content, and ends none the less with giving us nothing, or
+      some tiny dole. And then he'll go making out that it's a great favour, and
+      that he ought not to have done even that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. That's just the way the merchants go on among us. Besides, if
+      you were ever so respectful to him, who's to hinder him from saying you're
+      disrespectful?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. To be sure. And indeed he sometimes will say: I've children of my
+      own, why should I give money away to outsiders? Am I to wrong my own like
+      that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. It's plain, sir, you're not in luck's way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. If it were only me, I wouldn't care! I'd throw it all up and go
+      away. But I'm sorry for my sister. He did write for her to come too, but
+      mother's relations wouldn't let her, they wrote she wasn't well. It
+      frightens me to think what the life here would be for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Of course. The master's no decent manners at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. In what capacity do you live with him, sir; what arrangement has
+      he made with you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Why, none whatever; "you live with me," he says, "and do what
+      you're told, and your pay shall be what I give you," that's to say, in a
+      year's time he'll settle up with me as he thinks fit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. That's just his way. Not one of us dare as much as hint at a
+      salary, or he storms till he's black in the face. "How do you know," he'll
+      say, "what I have in my mind to do? Do you suppose you can see into my
+      heart? Maybe, I shall be so disposed as to give you five thousand." It's
+      no use talking to him! Only you may be pretty sure he's never been
+      disposed that way in his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. It's a hard case, sir! You must try and get the right side of him
+      somehow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. But the point is, Kuligin, that it's impossible. Why, even his own
+      children can never do anything to please him; so it's hardly likely I
+      could!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Who could please him, when his whole life's spent in bullying
+      people? Especially where money's at stake; no accounts are ever settled
+      without storms of abuse. Often people are glad to go short of their due,
+      if only he'll let them off quietly. Woe to us if anyone vexes him in the
+      morning! He falls foul of everyone all day long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Every morning my aunt entreats us with tears in her eyes: "Don't
+      anger him, friends! Dear boys, don't anger him!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. But you can never avoid it! If he goes to the bazaar, it's all
+      up! He scolds all the peasants. Even if they ask him less than cost price
+      they never get off without abuse. And then he's upset for the whole day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHAPKIN. He's a bully&mdash;there's no other word for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. A bully? I should think he is!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. And what's fatal is if some man offends him, whom he daren't be
+      rude to. Then all his household have to look out for themselves!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Bless my soul! That was a joke though. Didn't that hussar let
+      him have it on the Volga, at the ferry! Oh, a lovely shindy he kicked up
+      afterwards, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Ah, and didn't his family suffer for it! Why, for a fortnight after
+      we were all hiding away in the attics and cupboards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Surely that's not the folk coming back from vespers?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Several persons pass in the background</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Come on, Shapkin, let's get a drink! It's no good stopping here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>They bow and exeunt</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Oh, Kuligin, it's awfully hard here for me who've not been used to
+      it. Everyone seems to look with unfriendly eyes at me, as though I were
+      not wanted here, as though I were in their way. I don't understand the
+      ways here. I know this is truly Russia, my own country, but still I can't
+      get used to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. And you never will get used to it, sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Why?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. They're a coarse lot, sir, in our town, a coarse lot! Among the
+      working people, sir, you'll find nothing but brutality and squalid
+      poverty. And we've no chance, sir, of ever finding our way out of it. For
+      by honest labour we can never earn more than a crust of bread. And
+      everyone with money, sir, tries all he can to get a poor man under his
+      thumb, so as to make more money again out of his working for nothing. Do
+      you know the answer your uncle, Saviol Prokofitch, made to the provost?
+      The peasants were always coming to the provost with complaints that your
+      uncle never paid one of them fairly according to agreement. The provost
+      said to him at last: "Look here," says he, "Saviol Prokofitch, you must
+      pay the peasants what's fairly owing to them! Every day they come to me
+      with some complaint!" Your uncle slapped the provost on the shoulder, and
+      says he: "It's not worth while, your Worship, for you and me to waste our
+      breath over such petty details! I have to do with numbers of peasants in
+      the course of the year; you can understand, if I pay them a paltry
+      farthing short, every man of them, it mounts up to thousands, and a
+      capital thing too for me!" Think of that, sir! And the way they treat one
+      another too, sir! They injure each other's trade all they can, and that
+      not so much from self-interest, as from envy. They are always at feud with
+      one another. They entertain in their grand mansions drunken attorneys'
+      clerks, wretched creatures, sir, that hardly look like human beings. And
+      they, for a small tip, will cover sheets of stamped paper with malicious
+      quibbling attacks on their neighbours. And then there's a lawsuit
+      commences between them, sir, and no end to the worry and fret. They bring
+      it before the court here, and go off to the chief town, and there everyone
+      in court is on the look-out for them and they clap their hands with glee
+      when they see them. Words do not take long, but deeds are not soon done.
+      They are dragged from court to court, they are worn out with delays; but
+      they are positively delighted at that; it's just that they want. "I've
+      lost a lot of money," one will say, "but it's cost him a pretty penny
+      too!" I did try to put it all into verse....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Why, do you make verse?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Yes, sir, in the old-fashioned style. I have read Lomonosov and
+      Derzhavin. Lomonosov was a deep thinker, an investigator of nature.... And
+      he was one of us plain working folk too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. You should write. That would be interesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. How could I, sir! They'd tear me to pieces, they'd skin me alive.
+      Even as it is, sir, I have had to pay for my chattering; but I can't help
+      it, I love to speak my mind freely. I meant to say something about their
+      family life, sir, but we'll talk of that some other time. There's plenty
+      to tell about that too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Enter Feklusha and another woman</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. De-lightful, my clear, de-lightful! Divinely beautiful! But
+      what's the use of talking! You live in the Promised Land, simply! And the
+      merchant gentry are all a devout people, and famed for many a virtue!
+      liberality and much almsgiving! I am well content, my good soul, full to
+      the brim of content! For their liberality to us will their abundance be
+      greatly increased, especially in the house of Kabanova.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Exeunt</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Kabanova?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. A fanatical hypocrite, sir. She gives to the poor, but her own
+      household she worries to death. (<i>Silence</i>.) All I want, sir, is to
+      find out the secret of perpetual motion!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Why, what would you do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. How can you ask, sir! Why, the English offer millions for it. I
+      should use all the money for public purposes,&mdash;we want to provide
+      work for the working people. Here they have hands to work, and no work to
+      do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. And you hope to discover perpetual motion?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Not a doubt, I shall, sir! I have only to scrape up enough money
+      for models. Good-bye, sir!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Exit</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      BORIS (<i>alone</i>). I haven't the heart to disillusion him! What a good
+      fellow! He dreams and is happy. But I, it seems, must waste my youth in
+      this wretched hole. I was utterly crushed before, and now this madness
+      creeping into my mind! So suitable! Me give myself up to tender
+      sentiments! Trampled upon, broken-spirited, and as if that's not enough,
+      in my idiocy I must needs fall in love! And of all people in the world!
+      With a woman, whom I may never have the luck to speak a word to. (<i>Silence</i>.)
+      But for all that, I can't get her out of my head, try as I will. Here she
+      is! Coming with her husband, oh! and the mother-in-law with them! Ah, what
+      a fool I am! I must snatch a look at her round the corner, and then home
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Exit. From the opposite side, enter Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, Katerina
+      and Varvara</i>.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MADAME KABANOVA, KABANOV, KATERINA and VARVARA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. If you care to listen to your mother, you'll do as I have
+      told you, directly you get there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. How could I possibly disobey you, mother!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Young folks show little respect to their elders, nowadays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>to herself</i>). Not respect you, my dear? That's likely!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. I think, mamma, I never depart a hairsbreadth from your will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. I might believe you, my son, if I hadn't seen with my own
+      eyes and heard with my own ears how little reverence parents receive
+      nowadays from children! They might at least remember all the sufferings a
+      mother has to put up with for her children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Mamma, I....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. If the mother that bore you does at times say a word that
+      wounds your pride surely you might put up with it! Hey, what do you think?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But, mamma, when have I not put up with anything from you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. The mother's old, and foolish, to be sure; you young people
+      must not be too exacting with us old fools.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV (<i>sighs, aside</i>). Oh, merciful Heavens! (<i>To his mother</i>)
+      We should never dare think such a thing for a moment, mamma!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. It's out of love that parents are severe with you, out of
+      love they scold even&mdash;they're always thinking how to train you in the
+      right way. To be sure, that's not in favour nowadays. And children go
+      about among folks proclaiming that their mother's a scold, that their
+      mother won't let them stir, that she's the plague of their life. And if&mdash;Lord
+      save us&mdash;some word of hers doesn't please her daughter-in-law, then
+      it's the talk all over the place, that the mother-in-law worries her to
+      death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. You don't mean that anyone talks about you, mamma?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. I haven't heard so, my son, I haven't; I don't want to tell
+      a lie about it. If I had, indeed, I shouldn't be talking to you like this,
+      my dear. (<i>Sighs</i>) Ah, sin is a heavy burden! Sin is never far off!
+      Something said goes to the heart, and there, one sins, one gets angry. No,
+      my son, say what you like about me, there's no forbidding anyone to talk;
+      if they don't dare before one's face, they'll do it behind one's back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. May my tongue wither up and...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Hush, hush, don't swear! It's a sin! I've seen plain enough
+      for a long time past that your wife's dearer to you than your mother. Ever
+      since you were married, I don't see the same love for me that I did in
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. In what way do you see me changed, mamma?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. In everything, my son! When a mother doesn't see a thing
+      with her eyes, her heart's so sensitive she can feel it with her heart. Or
+      maybe it's your wife sets you against me, I can't say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Oh no, mamma! how can you say so, really?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I look upon you as I would on my own mother, and indeed Tihon
+      loves you too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. You might hold your tongue, I should think, till you're
+      asked a question. You've no need to defend him, young madam, I'm not going
+      to hurt him, no fear! He's my son too, let me tell you; don't you forget
+      it! What do you want to fire up and display your feelings before folks
+      for! That we may see you love your husband? We know that, we know that,
+      you show off before everyone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>to herself</i>). A nice place she's pitched on to read us a
+      sermon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. You have no need to say that of me, mamma. I am just the same
+      before people, as I am by myself. I make no show of anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. And I'd no intention of speaking about you at all, but it
+      happened to come up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Even so, why need you attack me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. My, what a stuck-up thing she is! Here she's in a huff
+      directly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No one likes to put up with unjust blame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. I know, I know my words are not to your liking, but that
+      can't be helped. I'm not a stranger to you, it makes my heart grieve to
+      see you. I've seen for a long time past that you want your own way. Well,
+      well, you've only to wait a bit, you'll have it all your own way when I'm
+      dead and gone. Then to be sure you can do as you please, there'll be no
+      elders then to look after you. And, maybe, you will think of me then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But we pray God night and day for you, mamma, that God may grant
+      you health, and every blessing and success in all you do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Come, give over, please. I daresay you did love your
+      mother, while you were a bachelor. But you've no thoughts for me now
+      you've a young wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. The one doesn't hinder the other. A wife is something different,
+      but for my mother I have a reverence quite apart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Then would you give up your wife rather than your mother?
+      No, that I'll never believe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But why should I give up either? I love both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Oh, I daresay, I daresay, you may talk away! I see plain
+      enough that I'm a hindrance to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. You must think as you please, it's for you to decide in
+      everything. Only I can't comprehend why I was ever born into the world so
+      unlucky as not to be able to please you anyhow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. What do you mean by whimpering like a sick child! A pretty
+      husband, upon my word! You should just see yourself! Do you suppose your
+      wife will fear you after that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Why should she fear me? I'm content, if she loves me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Why should she fear you! Why should she fear you! What do
+      you mean? Why, you must be crazy! If she doesn't fear you, she's not
+      likely to fear me. A pretty state of confusion there would be in the
+      house! Why, you're living with her in lawful wedlock, aren't you? Or does
+      the law count for nothing to your thinking? If you do harbour such fools'
+      notions in your brain, you shouldn't talk so before her anyway, nor before
+      your sister, that's a girl still. She'll have to be married too; and if
+      she catches up your silly talk it's her husband will thank us afterwards
+      for the lessons we've taught her. You see how little sense you've got, and
+      yet you want to be independent and live as you like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But indeed, mamma, I don't want to be independent. How ever could
+      I be independent!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. So, to your thinking then, kindness is all that's needed
+      with a wife? Mustn't even scold her then, or threaten her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But, indeed, mamma....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA (<i>hotly</i>). Wait till she sets up a lover.... Hey! But I
+      daresay that's no consequence either, to your thinking? Hey? Come, speak?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But, mercy on us, mamma....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA (<i>perfectly coolly</i>). Fool! (<i>Sighs</i>) What's the
+      use of talking to a fool! it's simply a sin! (<i>Silence</i>) I'm going
+      home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. We'll come directly too; we'll only take one or two more turns on
+      the parade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Very well; do as you like, only mind you don't keep me
+      waiting! You know I don't like that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Oh no, mamma! God forbid!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Mind you don't then!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Goes</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same, except MME. KABANOVA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. There, you see how I always catch it from mamma on your account!
+      A nice sort of life I lead!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Is it my fault?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. I don't know whose fault it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Is it likely you would know?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. She used to keep on at me, "You must get a wife, you must get a
+      wife, I'm longing to see you a married man." And now she worries my life
+      out, and gives me no peace&mdash;all on your account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Well, it's not her fault! Mother attacks her, and you too. And
+      then you say you love your wife. It makes me sick to look at you. (<i>Turns
+      away</i>.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Talk away! What am I to do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Mind your own business&mdash;hold your tongue, if you can't do
+      anything better. Why do you stand there shilly-shallying? I can see by
+      your face what's in your mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Why, what?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. What?&mdash;Why, that you want to go in and have a drink with
+      Saviol Prokofitch. Eh? isn't that it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. You've hit it, old girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Come back quickly, Tihon dear, or mamma will be scolding again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Yes, indeed, you must look sharp, or you'll know what to expect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. I should think I do!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. We've no great desire to get into a row for your sake either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. I'll fly. Wait for me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Goes</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      KATERINA and VARVARA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. So you are sorry for me, Varia?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>looking away</i>). Of course, I am.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Then you love me, don't you? (<i>Kisses her warmly.</i>)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Love you? Of course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Thank you! you are so sweet, I love you dearly. (<i>Silence</i>)
+      Do you know what I'm thinking?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. What?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. What a pity people can't fly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. I don't know what you mean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. What a pity people can't fly like birds. Do you know I sometimes
+      fancy I'm a bird. When one stands on a high hill, one feels a longing to
+      fly. One would take a little run, throw up one's arms, and fly away!
+      Couldn't we try it now? (<i>Makes as though she would run.</i>)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. What will you make up next?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>sighs</i>). How I used to love play and frolic! But in your
+      house I'm growing old and spiritless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Do you suppose I don't see it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. How different I used to be! I lived without a care in my heart,
+      as free as a bird. Mother adored me, dressed me up like a doll, and never
+      forced me to work; I could do just as I liked. Do you know how I passed my
+      days as a girl? I'll tell you. I used to get up early; if it was summer I
+      used to go to the spring, and bathe, and bring back water with me, and
+      water all the flowers in the house, every one of them. Then mother and I
+      used to go to church, and all the pilgrim women&mdash;our house was simply
+      full of pilgrims and holy women. We used to come back from church, and sit
+      down to some work, often embroidery in gold on velvet, while the pilgrim
+      women would tell us where they had been, what they had seen, and the
+      different ways of living in the world, or else they would sing songs. And
+      so the time would pass till dinner. Then the older women lay down for a
+      nap, while I would run about in the garden. Then evensong, and in the
+      evening, stories and singing again. Ah, those were happy days!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. But it's pretty much the same with us, if you come to that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Yes, but here one feels somehow in a cage. And how passionately
+      I loved being in church! It was like stepping into Paradise, and I saw no
+      one and had no thought of time and did not hear when the service was over.
+      It was just as if it were all in one second. Mother used to say that often
+      everyone looked at me and wondered what had come over me! And you know, on
+      a sunny day, such a column of light streamed down from the golden cupola,
+      and a sort of mist moving in the light, like smoke, and at times I seemed
+      to see angels flying and singing in that bright light. And sometimes, dear
+      girl, I would get up at night&mdash;we had lamps always burning all over
+      our house,&mdash;and fall down in some corner and pray till morning. Or I
+      would go out into the garden early in the morning, when the sun was just
+      rising, fall on my knees and pray and weep, and not know myself what I
+      prayed and wept for; and so they would find me sometimes. And what I was
+      praying for then, what I besought God for&mdash;I couldn't say. I wanted
+      nothing, I had enough of everything. And what dreams I used to have, dear
+      Varia, what lovely dreams! Golden temples or gardens of some wonderful
+      sort, and voices of unseen spirits singing, and the sweet scent of cypress
+      and mountains and trees, not such as we always see, but as they are
+      painted in the holy pictures. And sometimes I seemed to be flying, simply
+      flying in the air. I dream sometimes now, but not often, and never dreams
+      like those.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why, what then?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>after a pause</i>). I shall die soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. What nonsense!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, I know I shall die. Oh, dear girl, something not good is
+      happening with me, something strange. It has never been like this with me
+      before. There is something in me so incomprehensible. As though I were
+      beginning to live again, or ... I don't know what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. What is the matter with you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>taking her hand</i>). I'll tell you, Varia; some dreadful sin
+      is coming upon me! I have such a terror in my heart, such terror! As
+      though I am standing on the edge of a precipice and someone is pushing me
+      in, and I have nothing to cling to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Clutches her head in her hand.</i>]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. What's wrong with you? You can't be well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Yes, I am well.... It would be better if I were ill, it's worse
+      as it is. A dream keeps creeping into my mind, and I cannot get away from
+      it. I try to think&mdash;I can't collect my thoughts, I try to pray&mdash;but
+      I can't get free by prayer. My lips murmur the words but my heart is far
+      away; as though the evil one were whispering in my ear, and always of such
+      wicked things. And such thoughts rise up within me, that I'm ashamed of
+      myself. What is wrong with me? There's some trouble, something before me!
+      At night I do not sleep, Varia, a sort of murmur haunts me; someone seems
+      speaking so tenderly to me, as it were cooing to me like a dove. And now I
+      never dream, Varia, those old dreams, of trees and mountains in Paradise;
+      but it's as though someone were clasping me passionately&mdash;so
+      passionately and leading me, and I follow him, I follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Well?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. But what things I am saying to you, a young girl like you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>looking about her</i>). You can tell me! I'm worse than you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Oh what am I to tell you? I'm ashamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. You've no need! Tell away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I am stifling, stifling at home, I should like to run away. And
+      the fancy comes to me that if I were my own mistress, I would float down
+      the Volga now, in a boat, to the singing of songs, or I would drive right
+      away clasped close....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. But not with your husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. How do you know that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. As if I didn't know!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Ah, Varia, there is sin in my heart! Alas, how often I have
+      wept, I have done everything I can think of! I can't get free from this
+      sin. I can't escape. Varia, it is wicked, it is a fearful sin&mdash;I love
+      someone else!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. I'm not likely to be hard upon you! I've sins enough of my own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. What am I to do? I'm at the end of my strength, where can I find
+      help. I'm so wretched, I shall do something dreadful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Mercy on us! what is coming to you! Come, wait a bit, brother's
+      going away to-morrow, we'll think of something; maybe, you'll be able to
+      see each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, no, that must not be! What are you saying! God forbid!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why are you frightened?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. If I were once to see and speak with him, I should run away from
+      home, I would not go back home for anything in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Oh well, wait a little, and then we shall see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, no, don't talk to me, I don't want to hear!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why wear yourself out for nothing? You may die of grieving, do
+      you suppose they'll be sorry for you? Come, wait a bit. Why, what's the
+      good of making yourself miserable?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Enter the Old Lady with a stick and two footmen in three-cornered hats
+      behind her.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The same and the OLD LADY.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      OLD LADY. Hey, my pretty charmers? What are you doing here? Waiting for
+      young fellows, waiting for your beaus? Are your hearts merry? Merry are
+      they? Are you pleased and proud of your beauty? That's where beauty leads
+      to. (<i>Points to the Volga</i>) Yes, yes, to the bottomless pit! (<i>Varvara
+      smiles.</i>) What, laughing? Let not your heart rejoice! (<i>Knocks with
+      her stick</i>) You will burn all of you in a fire unquenchable. You will
+      boil in the lake of flaming pitch. (<i>Going</i>) That is whither beauty
+      leads you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Goes.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE IX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      KATERINA and VARVARA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Ah, how she frightened me! I'm trembling all over, as if she
+      were foretelling something for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Her curse fall on her own head, the old witch!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. What was it she said, eh? what did she say?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. It was all rubbish. It's silly to listen to her raving. She
+      foretells evil like that to everyone. She was a sinner all her life from
+      her youth up. You should hear the stories they tell about her. So now
+      she's afraid of death. And she must try and frighten others with what she
+      dreads herself. Why even the little street boys hide away from her; she
+      shakes her stick at them and growls (<i>mimicking</i>) "you'll all burn in
+      fire unquenchable!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>shrinking</i>). Ah, ah, stop! I can't bear it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. There's nothing to be frightened of! An old fool....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I am afraid, terribly afraid! I seem to see her all the while
+      before us. [<i>Silence.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>looking round</i>). I say, brother doesn't come, and yonder
+      there's a storm coming up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>in terror</i>). A storm! Let us run home! Make haste!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why, are you crazy? How can you show yourself at home without my
+      brother?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, let us go home! Never mind him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. But why are you so awfully frightened? The storm's a long way off
+      yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. If it's so far off, we'll wait then a little, if you like; but
+      really it would be better to go. Yes, we'd better go home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. But if anything were to happen, you know, you'd be no safer at
+      home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, but still, it's better there, it's quieter; at home one can
+      turn to the holy pictures and pray to God!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. I didn't know you were so afraid of a thunderstorm. I'm not
+      afraid, you see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Don't talk of not being afraid! Everyone must be afraid. What is
+      dreadful is not it's killing you, but that death may overtake you all of a
+      sudden, just as you are, with all your sins, with all your erring
+      thoughts. I have no fear of death, but when I think that I shall be
+      brought all at once before the face of God just as I am here, with you,
+      after this talk,&mdash;that's what is awful! What I had in my heart! What
+      wickedness! fearful to think of! (<i>Thunder.</i>) Ah!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Enter Kabanov.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Here comes my brother. (<i>To Kabanov</i>) Hurry up!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Thunder.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Ah! Make haste! Make haste!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ACT II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE I
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A room in the house of the Kabanovs.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA (<i>packing up clothes in a bundle</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Enter</i> FEKLUSHA.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. Dear girl, always at work! What are you doing, my dear?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. I'm getting the master's things ready for his journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. Is he going away then&mdash;the light of our eyes?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Yes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. Is he going to be away long, my dear?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. No, not long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. Well, God speed him on his way! And say, will the young mistress
+      do a wail for his going or not?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. That I can't say, really.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. But she does wail at times, I suppose?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Never heard of her doing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. Well now, my dear, if there's one thing I love, it's to hear a
+      wail well done! (<i>Silence.</i>) And mind you keep a sharp look out, my
+      girl, on the beggar woman below, that she don't lay her hands on anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Who's to tell the rights and wrongs of it with you begging
+      pilgrims, you all speak ill of one another. Why can't you live and let
+      live? I should have thought you wandering women get plenty in our house
+      all of you, and yet you must always be quarrelling and nagging at each
+      other. Aren't you afraid of such sin?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. One can't be without sin, my good girl; we live in the world.
+      I'll tell you what, my dear; you, simple folk, are tempted of one devil,
+      but we pilgrim folk are beset, one with six, another with twelve devils;
+      and here we have to struggle against all at once. It's a hard fight, my
+      dear, a hard fight!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Why is it you have such a lot?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. Ah, my good girl, that comes of the hatred the evil one has for
+      us, because we lead a life of such holiness. But I can't say, my dear,
+      that I'm one to gossip; that's not a sin of mine. One failing I have,
+      truly; I know myself what it is. I love dainty eating. Well, well, the
+      Lord in His mercy provides according to my weakness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. And have you travelled far in your wanderings, Feklusha?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. No, my dear, owing to my weakness, I've never gone far away; but
+      many a thing I've heard. They do say, my dear, there are countries where
+      there are no Tsars of the true faith, but Sultans rule the lands. In one
+      land there is the Sultan Mahnoot the Turk on the throne&mdash;and in
+      another the Sultan Mahnoot the Persian. And they rule, my good girl, over
+      all men, and whatever they decree it's always unrighteous. And they
+      cannot, my dear, judge righteously in any one thing, such is the ban laid
+      upon them. We have a just law, but they, my dear, an unjust law.
+      Everything that is one way in our land is the very opposite in theirs. And
+      all the judges with them, in their countries, are unjust too, so that, do
+      you know, my girl, they even write in their petitions: "judge me, unjust
+      judge!" And there is a country too where all the men have the heads of
+      dogs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. How do they come to have dogs' heads?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. For their infidelity. I am going off on my rounds among the
+      merchant gentry, my dear, to see if there won't be some alms for poverty.
+      Good-bye for the present!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Good-bye! (<i>Exit Feklusha</i>.) Only fancy that there are lands
+      like that! There's no end to the marvels in the world. And here we sit at
+      home and know nothing. A good thing it is to be sure, that there are pious
+      folk; from time to time one hears what is being done in the light of day;
+      if it weren't for them, we should live and die in our foolishness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Enter Katerina and Varvara</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE II
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      KATERINA and VARVARA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>to Glasha</i>). Carry the bundles down to the chaise, the
+      horses are at the door. (<i>To Katerina</i>) You were married off young,
+      and you never had any fun when you were a girl; and so your heart is
+      restless still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Glasha goes out.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. And it always will be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I have been like that from my birth up, full of fire! I was only
+      six years old, when do you know what I did? They offended me somehow at
+      home,&mdash;it was in the evening and quite dark&mdash;I ran away to the
+      Volga, and got into a boat, and pushed it off from the bank. They found me
+      next morning, ten miles down the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Really! And were there any men in love with you, as a girl?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Of course there were!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Well? And didn't you care for anyone?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, I only laughed at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. And you know, Katia, you don't love Tihon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Oh, yes, I do! I'm dreadfully sorry for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Oh, no, you don't. If you're sorry for him you don't love him.
+      And indeed you've no great reason to, I must own. And it's no good your
+      being so close with me! I noticed a long while ago, that you were fond of
+      some one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>with dismay</i>). How did you notice it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. How absurd you are! I'm not a baby! Well, I'll tell you the first
+      sign I knew by; directly you see him, your whole face is transformed. (<i>Katerina
+      drops her eyes.</i>) And that's not all....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>still looking down</i>). Well, whom then?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why, you know, what's the use of telling his name?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, tell it! Tell his name!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Boris Grigoritch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Yes, yes, Varia! Only mind, Varia, for pity's sake....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. What nonsense! <i>You'd</i> better mind, and not betray yourself
+      in any way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I can't deceive, I don't know how to conceal anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. But there's no doing without deceit; think where you're living!
+      Our whole house rests on it! I wasn't fond of lying either, but I learnt
+      the trick, when I had to. I was out walking yesterday, and so I saw him
+      and had a few minutes talk with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>after a short silence, looking down</i>). Well?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. He sent greetings to you. He was sorry, he said, that he never
+      meets you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>her head still more bent down</i>). As if we could meet! And
+      what would be the use....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. He is so sad and unhappy....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Don't speak to me of him, for goodness' sake, don't speak of
+      him! I don't want to know him even. I will love my husband: Tisha, my dear
+      one, no one shall ever take your place! I did not want to think of him,
+      you tempt me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. All right, don't think of him; no one compels you to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. You have no mercy on me! You say: don't think of him, and you
+      mention him yourself! Do you suppose I want to think of him; but what can
+      I do, when I can't get him out of my mind? Whatever I try to think, he
+      seems always standing before my eyes. And I try to be different, and I
+      can't. Do you know, last night, the evil one tempted me again. I was
+      almost walking straight out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. You are such a fantastical creature, God bless you! What I think
+      is: one should do what one likes, only be sure it's kept dark!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I don't like that. What good can come of it! I had much better
+      bear it as long as I can bear it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. And when you can't bear it, what will you do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. What shall I do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Yes, what will you do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Whatever I long to do, I will do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Just try; why they'd torment you to death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. What do I care! I should go away, and that would be the end of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Where would you go? You are a married woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Ah, Varia, you don't know me! I pray, of course, it may never
+      come to that! But if I am too miserable here, they would not keep me by
+      any force on earth. I should throw myself out of the window, I should
+      drown myself in the Volga. If I will not to live here, then I would not,
+      they might cut me to pieces! (<i>Silence.</i>)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Do you know what, Katia! When Tihon's gone, let's sleep in the
+      garden, in the summerhouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Oh, why, Varia?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why, isn't it just the same to you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I'm timid of sleeping in a place I'm not used to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Timid, nonsense! Glasha will be with us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Still one feels nervous, somehow! But perhaps I will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. I wouldn't have asked you, only mamma wouldn't let me alone, and
+      I must.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>looking at her</i>). What for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA.(<i>laughing</i>). We'll tell our fortunes together there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. You must be joking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. To be sure, I am joking; did you think I meant it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Silence</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Where can Tihon be?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why, do you want him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, I only wondered, he has to start so soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. He's sitting locked up with mamma. She's nagging away at him now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. What for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. For nothing at all, teaching him to mind what he's about. He'll
+      be a fortnight away out of her sight! Only fancy! She has an uneasy
+      inkling all the time that he'll enjoy himself when he's his own master.
+      And so she's busy now laying all sorts of injunctions upon him, each more
+      imperative than the last, and then she'll take him up to the holy picture
+      and make him swear solemnly that he'll do everything exactly and precisely
+      according to her bidding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. And so even when he's free he'll be as good as bound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Bound! Oh, will he! As soon as he gets away, he'll start
+      drinking, you may be sure. He says nothing now, but all the while he's
+      only thinking how to get away as soon as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Enter Mme. Kabanova and Kabanov</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE III
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same with KABANOV and MADAME KABANOVA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Now do you remember everything I've told you? Mind you do
+      remember it! Keep it in your heart!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Yes, mamma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Well, now everything is ready. The horses are at the door.
+      You've only to say good-bye and be off in God's name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Yes, mamma, it's time I was off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Well?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. What do you desire?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Why are you standing about? Don't you know the way to do
+      things? Lay your commands upon your wife, exhort her how she is to live in
+      your absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Katerina looks on the ground</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But she knows quite well without that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. The way you talk! Come, come, give your commands, that I
+      may hear what commands you lay upon her! And then when you come back, you
+      can ask if she has performed everything exactly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV (<i>standing opposite Katerina</i>). Obey mamma, Katia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Tell her not to be saucy to her mother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Don't be saucy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. To revere her mother-in-law as her own mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Revere mamma, Katia, as your own mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Not to sit with her hands in her lap like a fine lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Do some work while I am away!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Not to go staring out of window!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But, mamma, whenever has she....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Come, come!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Don't look out of window!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Not to stare at young fellows while you are away!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But that is too much, mamma, for mercy's sake!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA (<i>severely</i>). Enough of this nonsense! It's your duty
+      to do what your mother tells you. (<i>With a smile</i>) It's always as
+      well when it's forbidden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV (<i>in great confusion</i>). Don't look at young men! [<i>Katerina
+      looks sternly at him</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Well, now you can talk by yourselves a little, if you want
+      to. Come, Varvara! [<i>They go out</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE IV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      KABANOV and KATERINA (<i>she stands as though turned to stone</i>).
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Katia! (<i>Silence</i>.) Katia, you're not angry with me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>after a protracted silence&mdash;shakes her head</i>). No!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But why are you like this? Come, forgive me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>still in the same position, slightly shaking her head</i>).
+      Peace be with you! (<i>Hiding her face in her hands</i>) She has hurt me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. If you take everything to heart so, you'll soon fall into a
+      decline. Why listen to her! You know she must talk! Well then, let her
+      talk, and you let it go in at one ear and out at the other. Come,
+      good-bye, Katia!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>falling on her husband's neck</i>). Tisha, don't go away! For
+      God's sake, don't go away! Dear one, I implore you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. I must, Katia. When mamma sends me, how can I not go?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Well, take me with you, do take me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV (<i>freeing himself from her embrace</i>). But it's impossible!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Oh, why, Tisha, impossible?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Much fun there would be in going with you! You've worried me out
+      of my life here between you! No sooner have I a hope of escaping than you
+      want to fasten yourself upon me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Why, can it be that you are tired of me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. No, I'm not tired of you; but to get out of this slavery a man
+      would run away from the loveliest woman in the world! Just consider for a
+      minute; I may not be good for much; but I'm a man anyway; and living all
+      my life as you see, one's glad to run away from one's wife even. Why, when
+      I think now, that for two whole weeks there'll be no storm hanging over
+      me, no fetters on my legs,&mdash;do you suppose I can think of my wife?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. How can I care for you, when you say things like that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Say things? Why, what things am I to say? God knows what it is
+      you're afraid of! You won't be alone, you know, you'll be with mamma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Don't speak of her, don't torture my heart! Ah, how wretched I
+      am, how wretched! (<i>Weeps</i>.) Where can I go? Whom can I cling to?
+      Merciful Heavens, I am lost!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Come, be quiet!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>goes up to her husband and draws him to her</i>). Tisha, dear
+      one, if you would stay, if you would take me with you, how I would love
+      you, how I would cherish you, my dear one!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. I can't make you out, Katia! Often there's no getting a word out
+      of you, to say nothing of a kiss, and now you come coaxing up to me of
+      your own accord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Tisha, what are you leaving me to? There'll be trouble when
+      you're away! There'll be trouble!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Now, come, I can't, so it's no use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Well, here then! Take from me some dreadful vow....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. What vow?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. A vow that I will not dare while you're away on any ground
+      whatever to speak with any outsider, nor see anyone,&mdash;that I will not
+      even dare to think of anyone but you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But what's this for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Set my heart at rest, do this for me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But one can never answer for oneself like that, anything may come
+      into one's head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>falling on her knees</i>). May I never look upon my father
+      nor my mother! May I die impenitent, if I...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV (<i>pulling her up</i>). Hush! Nonsense! What wickedness is this!
+      I won't hear you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Voice of Mme. Kabanova heard without, "It's time to start, Tihon!"
+      Enter Mme. Kabanova, Varvara and Glasha.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The same.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA, VARVARA and GLASHA.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Come, Tihon, it's time now! Set off on your way in God's
+      name! (<i>sits down</i>). Sit down, all of you! (<i>All sit down. Silence</i>.)
+      Now, good-bye! (<i>Gets up and all get up</i>.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV (<i>going up to his mother</i>). Good-bye, mamma!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA (<i>with a wave of her hand points him to the ground</i>).
+      At my feet! At my feet! (<i>Kabanov bows down to her feet, then kisses his
+      mother</i>.) Say good-bye to your wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Good-bye, Katia! [<i>Katerina falls on his neck</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. What do you want to hang on his neck like that for,
+      shameless hussy! It's not a lover you're parting from! He's your husband&mdash;your
+      head! Don't you know how to behave? Bow down at his feet! [<i>Katerina
+      bows down to his feet</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Good-bye, sister (<i>kisses Varvara</i>). Good-bye! Glasha (<i>kisses
+      Glasha</i>). Good-bye, mamma! (<i>bows down to the ground</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Good-bye! Long farewells mean foolish tears. [<i>Kabanov
+      goes out, after him Katerina, Varvara, and Glasha</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MME. KABANOVA (<i>alone</i>).
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. The way young folks behave! It makes one laugh really to
+      see them! If they weren't my own, I could laugh till I split. They don't
+      know the way to do anything properly. Can't even take leave with decorum.
+      A lucky thing it is for them that they have elder folk, who will keep
+      their house together as long as they're living. And yet, the silly fools,
+      they long to be their own masters, though when they do have their own way,
+      they get in a mess directly to the scandal and amusement of all worthy
+      folk. One here and there, to be sure, will be sorry for them, but for the
+      most part they'll all laugh. No one can help laughing either; they'll
+      invite guests, and not know how they should sit, and what's more, as
+      likely as not, they leave out some one of their relations. It's simply
+      comical. But the old order's passing away. There are some houses one
+      doesn't care to go into. If you do cross the threshold, all you can do is
+      to spit, and get away as quick as may be. What will happen when the old
+      people are dead, how the world will go on, I really can't think. I'm
+      thankful anyway, that I shall see nothing of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Enter Katerina and Varvara.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MME. KABANOVA, KATERINA, and VARVARA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      You make a boast of loving your husband so much; I see now how much your
+      love's worth. Any other good wife, on seeing her husband off, would wail
+      for a good hour and a half, lying on the steps; but one can see you're not
+      much upset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. There's no reason to be! Besides, I don't know how to wail. Why
+      make the people laugh!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. No great art is needed. If you loved him you would have
+      learnt to do it. If you can't wail properly, you should wail a little, if
+      only for example. It is always more decorous; or else one sees it is all
+      words with you. Well, I'm going to pray to God; do not interrupt me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. I'm going out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA (<i>caressingly</i>). I've nothing against it! Go and enjoy
+      yourself till your time comes. You'll have sitting indoors enough later
+      on! [<i>Exeunt Mme. Kabanova and Varvara.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>alone, dreamily</i>). Well, now, peace reigns in our house!
+      Ah, the dreariness. If only there were children! That's the saddest thing!
+      I have no children; I should sit with them and amuse them all day. I love
+      talking to little children&mdash;they are angels, really. (<i>Silence.</i>)
+      If I had died when I was little, it would have been better. I should have
+      looked down on to the earth from Heaven and been delighted with
+      everything. I should have flown unseen wherever I liked. I would have
+      floated into the country and fluttered from flower to flower, like a
+      butterfly. (<i>Sinks into a reverie</i>) I know what I will do; I will
+      begin some piece of work, as an offering to God. I will go to the bazaar,
+      and buy some stuff and make some clothes to give to the poor. They will
+      remember me in their prayers. And so I'll sit sewing with Varvara, and we
+      shall not notice how the time passes; and soon Tisha will be back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Enter Varvara</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE IX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      KATERINA and VARVARA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>putting a kerchief on her head before the looking-glass</i>).
+      I am just going out for a walk now; Glasha's putting our beds in the
+      summer house now, mamma's consented to let us sleep there. Mamma always
+      keeps the little gate in the garden behind the raspberries locked up and
+      hides the key. I've taken it and put another one in its place for her, so
+      she won't notice it. Here, see, maybe, it will be wanted (<i>gives the key</i>).
+      If I see him, I shall tell him to come to the little gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>with horror, pushing away the key</i>). What for! what for!
+      No! no!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. If you don't want it, I do; take it, it won't bite you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. But what are you plotting, wicked girl? It's impossible! Do you
+      know what you're doing? It's dreadful, dreadful!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Well, well&mdash;Least said is soonest mended; and I've no time
+      to stay either. It's time for my walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Goes.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>alone, holding the key in her hand</i>). The things she
+      thinks of doing! Ah, she's a mad girl, really mad! Here is ruin! Here it
+      is! Fling it away, fling it far away, drop it into the river, that it may
+      never be found. It burns the hand like fire. (<i>Musing</i>) This is how
+      we women come to ruin. How can anyone be happy in bondage? One may be
+      driven to anything. Many a one is glad if she gets the chance; she flings
+      herself headlong. But how can they, without thinking, without reflecting!
+      Easy is the path that leads to misfortune! And then tears and anguish all
+      your life: your bondage is bitterer than ever. (<i>Silence</i>) But bitter
+      is a life of bondage, ah, how bitter! Who does not weep in it! Most of
+      all, we women. Here am I now! I am fretting away my life, and I see no
+      loophole of light and hope before me! And I never shall see it, that's
+      certain! It'll be worse as it goes on. And now this wickedness too has
+      come upon me. (<i>Muses</i>) If it were not for my mother-in-law! ... She
+      is crushing me.... She has made the house hateful to me.... I loathe the
+      very walls because of her. (<i>Looks dreamily at the key</i>) Throw it
+      away? Of course, I must throw it away. And how came it into my hands? For
+      my temptation, for my undoing. (<i>Listens</i>) Ah, someone is coming. How
+      my heart is beating! (<i>hides the key in her pocket</i>) No! ... No one!
+      ... Why was I so frightened? And I have put away the key.... Well, that's
+      a sign it is to be! Fate itself, it seems, wills it! And where is the sin
+      if I do look at him just once, from a distance. Even if I speak to him,
+      still there's no harm in that! But what I said to Tihon ... why, he would
+      not have it himself. And maybe, such a chance will not come again all my
+      life long. Then I may well weep to myself&mdash;that there was a chance
+      and I had not sense to seize it. But why talk, why cheat myself? If I die
+      for it, I must see him. Whom am I trying to deceive.... Throw away the
+      key! No, for nothing in the whole world! It is mine now.... Come what may,
+      I will see Boris! Ah, night! come quickly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ACT III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Street. The gates of the Kabanovs' house, a garden seat before the
+      gates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA and FEKLUSHA (<i>sitting on the bench</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. The end of the world is at hand, ma'am, by every sign and token,
+      Marfa Ignatievna, the end of the world is at hand. It's peace and paradise
+      still here in your town, but in other towns it's simply Sodom, ma'am: the
+      noise, the bustle, the incessant traffic! The people keep running, one one
+      way, and one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. We've no need to hurry, my dear, we live without haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. No, ma'am; there is peace and quietness in this town, because
+      there are many people, you for instance, adorned with virtues, as with
+      flowers; that's why everything is done decorously and tranquilly. Why,
+      what is the meaning of all that haste and bustle, ma'am? It is vanity, to
+      be sure! In Moscow now: the folk run to and fro; there's no knowing for
+      why. It is all vanity. It is a people, full of vanity, ma'am, and so it
+      runs to and fro. Each one fancies he's hurrying on business; he hastens,
+      poor fellow, doesn't recognise people; it seems to him that someone is
+      beckoning him; but when he gets to the place, sure enough it's empty,
+      there's nothing there, it's only a dream. And he is downcast and
+      disappointed. And another one fancies that he's overtaking someone he
+      knows. Anyone looking on can see in a trice that there's no one; but it
+      seems to him in his vanity and delusion that he's overtaking someone.
+      Vanity, to be sure, is like a fog about them. Here among you on a fine
+      evening like this, it's not often anyone even comes out to sit at his
+      gate; but in Moscow now there's walking and playing, and a fearful racket
+      going on in the street; a continual roar. And what's more, Marfa
+      Ignatievna, ma'am, they've harnessed a fiery serpent to drive: all, look
+      you, for the sake of more speed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. I have heard tell of it, my dear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. But I, ma'am, have seen it with my own eyes; no doubt, others,
+      in blindness and vanity, see nothing, so it seems a machine to them, but I
+      saw it doing like this <i>(spreading out her fingers)</i> with its paws.
+      And a roar, too, that folks of righteous life hear for what it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. You can call it anything you like, call it a machine, if
+      you will; the people is foolish and will believe anything. But as for me
+      you might load me with gold, I wouldn't drive with such a thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. The very idea, ma'am! The Lord preserve us from such a thing.
+      And let me tell you too, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, a vision I had in
+      Moscow. I went out early in the morning, it was just dawn, and on a high,
+      very high house, on the roof, I saw someone standing, with a black face.
+      You understand whom I mean. And he kept moving his hands, as though he
+      were scattering something, but nothing fell. Then I divined that he was
+      the enemy sowing tares, and the people in their blindness see it not, and
+      gather them up. And that is why they run to and fro so, and the women
+      among them are all so thin, and never get plump and comfortable, but
+      always look as if they had lost something, or were looking for something,
+      and that careworn they are, you feel sorry for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Anything is possible, my dear, in our times, one can't be
+      surprised at anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. Hard times they are, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, very hard. Already
+      the time has begun diminishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. How is that? diminishing, my dear?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. We, of course&mdash;how should we observe it in our blindness
+      and vanity? but wise people have observed that time has grown shorter with
+      us. Once the summer and the winter dragged on endlessly, you got tired of
+      looking for the end of them, but now, before one's time to look about one,
+      they've flown. The days and the hours still seem the same, of course; but
+      the time keeps growing shorter and shorter, for our sins. That's what the
+      learned folk say about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. And worse than that will be, my dear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEKLUSHA. I only trust we shan't live to see it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Maybe, we shall. [<i>Enter Dikoy.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE II
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same and DIKOY.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. What brings you abroad so late, old friend?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Why, who's to hinder me being out, I should like to know?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Who wants to hinder you, indeed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Well, then what's the use of talking? Whose control am I under,
+      hey? What next will you say? What the devil....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Now then, keep a little check on your tongue! You'd better
+      look out for someone else to talk to! I won't let you off so easily as
+      some do! Go your way wherever you're going. Come indoors, Feklusha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Gets up.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Wait a bit, old friend, wait a bit! Don't be angry. You're in no
+      hurry to get home; your home's not many miles away. Here it is!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. If you've come on business, don't shout at me, but speak
+      out plainly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. I've no business, but I'm drunk, that's what it is!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Well, would you have me praise you for that, hey?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Needn't praise or blame. Only I'm drunk, and that's all about it. I
+      can't get over it till I've slept it off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Well, go and have a sleep then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Where am I to go?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Home, of course, where else?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. But if I don't want to go home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Why not, allow me to ask you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Because I've a row going on there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Why, who is there to quarrel with? You're the only
+      quarrelsome one there, you know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Well, what if I am quarrelsome, hey? What of it, hey?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Oh, nothing. Only there's no great glory in doing battle
+      all your life with women, that's all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Well, I suppose they ought to obey me! Or am I to obey them, hey?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. I really wonder at you; with all the crowd of folks in your
+      house, not a single one can do anything to your liking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. That's so!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Come, what do you want of me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Well, talk me out of my temper. You're the only person in the whole
+      town who knows how to talk to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Go in, Feklusha, and order a little something to be served.
+      <i>(Feklusha goes.)</i> Let's go indoors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. No, I'm not going indoors, I'm worse indoors!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. How have they put you into such a rage?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. I've been so all day since the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. I suppose they've been asking for money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. As if they were in league together, damn them. One after another
+      the whole day long they've been at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. No doubt you'll have to give it them, or they wouldn't
+      persist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. I know that; but what would you have me do, since I've a temper
+      like that? Why, I know that I must pay, still I can't do it with a good
+      will. You're a friend of mine, and I've to pay you something, and you come
+      and ask me for it, I'm bound to swear at you! Pay I will, if pay I must,
+      but I must swear too. For you've only to hint at money to me, and I feel
+      hot all over in a minute; red-hot all over, and that's all about it. And
+      to be sure at such times, I'd swear at anyone for nothing at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. You've no one over you, and so you think you can do as you
+      like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. No, you hold your tongue! Listen to me! I'll tell you the sort of
+      troubles that happen to me. I had fasted and all ready for sacrament in
+      Lent, and then the evil one thrusts a wretched peasant under my nose. He
+      had come for money,&mdash;for wood he had supplied us. And for my sins he
+      must needs show himself at a time like that! I fell into sin, of course, I
+      pitched into him, pitched into him finely, I did, all but thrashed him.
+      There you have it, my temper! Afterwards I asked his pardon, bowed down at
+      his feet, upon my word I did. It's the truth I'm telling you, I bowed down
+      at a peasant's feet. That's what my temper brings me to: on the spot
+      there, in the mud I bowed down at his feet; before everyone, I did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. But what do you work yourself up into a rage on purpose
+      for? That's not right, my friend!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. On purpose? How d'you mean?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. I've seen you, I know all about it. When you see that
+      people are going to ask you for anything, you go and pick a quarrel
+      purposely with one of your household, so as to work yourself into a rage.
+      For you know that when you're in a rage, no one dare come near you. That's
+      a pretty thing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Well, what of it? Who likes parting with his property?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Glasha comes in.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Marfa Ignatievna, lunch is served!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Well, old friend, come in! Have a taste of what God has
+      sent us!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Much obliged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Pray walk in. <i>(Ushers Dikoy in front and follows him in.
+      Glasha, folding her arms, stands at the gates.)</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. If that isn't Boris Grigoritch coming. Sure now he's not after his
+      uncle? Or may be, just out for a stroll&mdash;to be sure, out for a
+      stroll, he must be. [<i>Enter Boris.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE III
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      GLASHA, BORIS, later KULIGIN.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Isn't my uncle inside?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Yes. Do you want him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. They sent me from home to find out where he was. But since he's
+      with you let him stop there; no one wants him. At home they're pleased and
+      happy that he's out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Our good lady out to marry him, she'd soon make him mind what he's
+      about. But I mustn't stop here gossiping with you! Good-bye. [<i>Exit.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Ah, merciful Heavens! For one glimpse of her! I can't go into the
+      house. No one calls anywhere uninvited in this place. What a life! We are
+      living in the same town, almost next door; yet we barely see each other
+      once a week, and then only in church, or in the street,&mdash;and that's
+      all! When a woman's married here she might as well be buried,&mdash;it's
+      all the same. <i>(Silence.)</i> If only I had never seen her; it would
+      have been better for me! I can only see her by snatches, and before
+      people,&mdash;who are all eyes, staring at one. It's simply heartrending.
+      And yet there's no mastering oneself. If I go out for a walk, I always
+      find myself here at the gate. And what use is there in coming here?
+      There's never any chance of seeing her, and what's more, it may give rise
+      to gossip and do her harm. Well, it's a fine town, certainly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>He is going, Kuligin comes, meeting him.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Well, sir? out for a walk?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Yes, it's very pleasant out now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Very pleasant it is, sir, walking now. The stillness, the sweet
+      air, the scent of flowers from the far side of the Volga, the clear sky&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The space aloft, filled full of stars, Stars numberless, space limitless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shall we go to the parade, there's not a soul there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Yes, come along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN That's our town all over, sir! Here they've made a parade, but
+      they don't walk there. They only walk out on fête days, and then they only
+      make a show of being out for a walk. They really come out to show off
+      their best clothes. You never meet anyone but maybe a drunken attorney's
+      clerk reeling home from the tavern. The poor have no time, sir, to walk
+      out; they must work and worry day and night. Three hours' sleep is all
+      they get out of the twenty-four. But what are the rich about? You'd wonder
+      why they shouldn't walk about and enjoy the fresh air. But not a bit of
+      it! They've all had their gates, sir, locked up long ago, and their dogs
+      let loose. ... Do you suppose they are at work at their business, or
+      praying to God? No, sir! And it's not for fear of thieves they lock
+      themselves up; it's that folks shouldn't see the way they ill-treat their
+      household, and bully their families. And the tears that flow behind those
+      bolts, unseen, unheard of! But there's no need to tell you that, sir! You
+      can judge of it for yourself. And the sordid sodden vice within those
+      barred gates, sir! And all hidden and buried&mdash;no one sees or knows
+      anything of it, God alone beholds it! Stare at me as you like, say they,
+      in the street and among folk, but you've nothing to do with my family;
+      that's what I have locks for, and bolts and bars and savage dogs. The
+      family's something apart, secret! We know all about such secrets!&mdash;secrets,
+      sir, that make one man merry, perhaps, while the rest are weeping and
+      wailing. Much secrecy about it! Everyone knows! Robbing their orphans,
+      kinsfolk, nephews, beating their dependents till they're too cowed to hint
+      at what goes on within doors,&mdash;there's no great secret in that! But
+      that's enough of them! Do you know, sir, who do go for walks here? The
+      young fellows and girls. They steal an hour or two from sleep and walk out
+      in couples. There's a couple over there!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Kudriash and Varvara are seen. They kiss.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. They are kissing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. We don't think much of that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Kudriash goes off, and Varvara goes towards her own gate and beckons
+      Boris, he goes up to her.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE IV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BORIS, KULIGIN and VARVARA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. I'll go to the parade, sir. I'm in your way. I'll wait for you
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Very well, I'll come directly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>hiding her face in her kerchief</i>). Do you know the hollow
+      behind the Kabanovs' garden?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Yes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. You come there a little later on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. What for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. How stupid you are! Come; then you'll see what for. Well, you'd
+      better make haste now, since that person's waiting for you. (<i>Boris goes</i>.)
+      There, he didn't know me! Well, now let him wonder, I know very well that
+      Katerina won't hold out, she'll run out to see him. [<i>Goes in at the
+      gate. Curtain</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The scene changes.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      A hollow dell covered with bushes; at the top of it the Kabanovs' garden
+      and a gate; a path leading down from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (<i>Kudriash enters with a, guitar</i>.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. No one. What is she up to? Well, I'll sit and wait for her. (<i>Seats
+      himself on a stone</i>) This is slow; I'll sing a song (<i>sings</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the Don Cossack, the Cossack, leads his horse to drink, The brave young
+      man, he stands at the gate, At the gate he stands, and ponders in his
+      heart, In his heart he ponders, how he will slay his wife. And the wife,
+      the wife besought him, Falling down at his swift feet; Master, friend of
+      my heart, I pray thee, Strike me not, slay me not in the evening! But kill
+      me, slay me after midnight! Let my little children be asleep, My little
+      children, and all my good neighbours. [<i>Enter Boris</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      KUDRIASH and BORIS.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH (<i>stops singing</i>). Hullo! Such a sober, staid person as you,
+      out on the spree too?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Kudriash, is that you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. It is, Boris Grigoritch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. What are you here for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. What for? I suppose because I want to be here, Boris Grigoritch,
+      since I am here. I shouldn't have come if I hadn't wanted to. Where is
+      fortune taking you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS (<i>looking carefully at the scene around him</i>). Look here,
+      Kudriash, I've got to stop here, and I've no doubt it's all the same to
+      you, so you might go and sit in some other place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. No, Boris Grigoritch, you're here, I perceive, for the first
+      time, but this is a place where I have often sat, and this little path has
+      been trodden by my feet. I like you, sir, and am ready to do you any
+      service; but you'll kindly refrain from meeting me in this path at night,
+      lest evil come of it. Fair words are better than gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. What is the matter with you, Vania?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Vania, indeed! I know my name's Vania. But you go on your way,
+      that's all about it. Find a girl to your liking, and walk out with her to
+      your heart's content, and no one will say a word to you. But don't meddle
+      with other fellows' girls! That's not the way we do things here, or the
+      fellows will break your legs for you. For my girl ... Well, I don't know
+      what I wouldn't do! I'd cut your throat!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. You're angry for no reason; I've not the slightest idea of robbing
+      you of her. I shouldn't have come here if I hadn't been told to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Who told you to?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. I couldn't make out, it was dark. A girl stopped me in the street
+      and said I was to come just here, behind the Kabanovs' garden, where there
+      is a little path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Who could that be?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Listen, Kudriash. Could I speak to you openly, you wouldn't gossip?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. You needn't be afraid of that! I'm as safe as the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. I know nothing of your habits and ways of doing things here; but
+      the fact is ...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. You're in love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Yes, Kudriash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Oh, well, that's all right. We're free enough in that way. The
+      girls amuse themselves as they like, and the father and mother have
+      nothing to say to it. It's only the wives are kept shut up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. That's just what's so sad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. You don't mean to say you're in love with a married woman?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. She is married, Kudriash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Ah, Boris Grigoritch, you must drop that!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. It's easy to say drop it! I daresay it's all the same to you,
+      you'll throw up one and pick up another easily enough! But I can't do like
+      that! If once I love ...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. That's as much as to say you're ready to ruin the poor thing
+      completely, Boris Grigoritch!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. God forbid! God forbid! No, Kudriash, how can you! I ready to ruin
+      her! I only want to see her, to speak to her, I ask for nothing more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. You can't answer for yourself like that, sir! And just think
+      what sort of people you have to deal with here. You know them yourself.
+      They'd be the death of her, they'd torment her into the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Ah, don't say that, Kudriash, please don't frighten me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. But does she care for you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. I don't know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Have you ever met then?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. I have only once been in their house with my uncle. And I see her
+      in church, and pass her sometimes on the parade. Ah, Kudriash, how she
+      prays, if you could see her! the angelic smile on her face! her face seems
+      to shed light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Oh, then it's the young wife of Kabanov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Yes, Kudriash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Oh, so that's it! Well, I humbly congratulate you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. What for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Well, things look promising for you, since she's sent you word
+      to come here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Can it be she sent word?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Why, who else could it be?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. No, you're making fun of me! It can't be so. (<i>Clutches his head</i>.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. What's the matter?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. I shall go mad with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. What next! I can't see anything to go mad about! You look out
+      that you don't make a mess of things and get her into trouble! Her
+      husband's a fool, we all know, but her mother-in-law is terrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Varvara comes out of the gate.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same and VARVARA, afterwards KATERINA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>at the gate, sings</i>). "Beyond the river, the swift river,
+      My Vania's walking, dear Vania's walking" ...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH (<i>going on with the song</i>). "Going to the fair." (<i>Whistles.</i>)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>comes down the path and, hiding her face in her kerchief, goes
+      up to Boris</i>). You wait a bit, lad. You've something to wait for. (<i>To
+      Kudriash</i>) Let's go to the Volga.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. Why have you been so long? Kept me waiting again! You know I
+      don't like it! (<i>Varvara puts one arm round him and they walk away.</i>)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. It's like a dream! This night, and singing and trysts! They're
+      walking, their arms round each other. It is so new for me, so sweet! Here
+      I am waiting for something. And what I am waiting for&mdash;I know not and
+      cannot picture to myself; only my heart is throbbing and every nerve is
+      quivering. I cannot think even what to say to her, I can hardly breathe,
+      my knees are shaking! My stupid heart is in my mouth, I can't quiet it.
+      Here she comes. (<i>Katerina slowly comes down the path, wrapt in a large
+      white kerchief, her eyes fixed on the ground. Silence.</i>) Is it you?
+      Katerina Petrovna? (<i>Silence.</i>) How can I ever thank you,&mdash;I
+      don't know. (<i>Silence.</i>) If you only knew, Katerina Petrovna, how I
+      love you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Tries to take her hand.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>with terror, but not raising her eyes</i>). Do not touch me,
+      do not touch me! Alas, alas!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Do not be angry!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Go away from me, go away, unhappy man! Do you know that never by
+      any prayer can I be free of this sin, never again! Like a stone it will
+      lie on my soul, like a stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Do not send me away!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Why did you come? Why did you come for my undoing? I am a wife,
+      you know, I must live with my husband, till I lie in the grave....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. You told me yourself to come ...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Till the grave; do you understand?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Better if I had never seen you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>with great emotion</i>). You see what I am preparing for
+      myself? What is the only place left for me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Calm yourself. (<i>Takes her hand</i>) Sit down!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Why do you wish for my ruin?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. How can I wish to injure you, when I love you more than anything in
+      the world, more than myself?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, no! You have been the undoing of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Am I such a wicked wretch?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>shaking her head</i>). I am lost, lost, lost!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. God forbid! I'd rather perish myself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Have I not forsaken my home, and come out to you in the night?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. You came of your own free will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I have no will. If I had had any will left of my own, I would
+      not have come to you. (<i>Lifts her eyes and looks at Boris. A short
+      silence</i>.) Your will is upon me now, don't you see that? [<i>Sinks on
+      his neck</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS (<i>puts his arms about Katerina</i>). My life!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Ah, if death would come quickly now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Why die when life is so sweet for us?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, life is not for me! I know it is not for me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Don't say such things, please, don't torture me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Yes, you are happy, you are free as the air, but I! ...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. No one shall know of our love. Do you think I have no feeling for
+      you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Ah! Why feel for me, it's no one's fault. I have come to this of
+      myself. Don't think of me! Anyone may know, anyone may see what I do! (<i>Takes
+      Boris in her arms</i>.) Since I have not feared to do wrong for you, am I
+      likely to fear the judgment of men? They do say, it will be better for
+      one, if one has to suffer here on earth for any sin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Come, why think of that, when we are happy now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Why, truly! I shall have long years to weep enough hereafter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. And I was so frightened, I thought you would send me away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>smiling</i>). Send you away! How could I? Not with my heart.
+      If you had not come, think I should have gone to you myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. I never even guessed you loved me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I have loved you for so long. It's as though, for my sins, you
+      came here to torment me. Directly I saw you I ceased to belong to myself.
+      From the first moment, I believe, if you had beckoned to me, I would have
+      followed you; to the ends of the earth I would have followed you, and
+      never looked back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Has your husband gone away for long?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. For a fortnight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. O, then we will be happy! that is a long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. We will be happy. And then ... (<i>sinks into dreamy musing</i>).
+      If they lock me up, that will be my death! And if they don't lock me up, I
+      will find some way to see you again! [<i>Enter Kudriash and Varvara</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same, with KUDRIASH and VARVARA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Well, have you made friends? (<i>Katerina hides her face on
+      Boris's breast</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Yes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. You might go and walk about a bit and let us rest. When it's time
+      to go in, Vania will shout. (<i>Boris and Katerina go away, Kudriash and
+      Varvara sit down on the stone</i>.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. This is a first-rate plan, getting out at the garden gate. It's
+      fine and convenient for us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. It's all my doing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. There's no one like you for such things. But what if your mother
+      catches you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Oh! How could she? It would never enter her head!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. But if by ill luck, it were to?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Her first sleep is sound; in the early morning now, there is more
+      chance of her being awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. But there's never any knowing! Some evil spirit might rouse her
+      up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Well, even then! Our gate into the yard is locked on the inside,
+      the garden side; she would knock and knock and then go away. And in the
+      morning we'd declare we'd been sound asleep and heard nothing. Besides,
+      Glasha's on the lookout; the faintest sound, she'd let us know in a
+      minute. One can't do anything without some risk! No, indeed! the only
+      thing is to mind what one's about and not get into a scrape. (<i>Kudriash
+      strikes a few cords on the guitar. Varvara leans on the shoulder of
+      Kudriash who plays softly, paying no attention to her. Varvara yawning</i>)
+      How could we find out what time it is?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. It's one o'clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. How do you know?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. A watchman struck one blow on his board just now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>yawning</i>). It's late. Shout to them! We'll get out earlier
+      tomorrow, so as to have longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH (<i>gives a whistle and then sings loudly</i>)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They're all going home! They're all going home! But I won't go home!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS (<i>behind the scenes</i>). I hear!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>gets up</i>). Well, good-bye! (<i>yawns, then gives a cool
+      kiss to Kudriash, as if he were an old and very intimate friend</i>).
+      To-morrow mind you come earlier! (<i>Looks in the direction in which Boris
+      and Katerina went away</i>) You've said good-bye enough, you're not
+      parting for ever, you'll see each other to-morrow (<i>yawns and stretches,
+      Katerina hurries in, followed by Boris</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE IX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      KUDRIASH, VARVARA, BORIS and KATERINA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Come, let us go now, let us go! (<i>They go up the path,
+      Katerina turns round</i>). Good-bye!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Till to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Yes, to-morrow! Tell me what you dream to-night!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>The girls reach the gate</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Yes, yes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH (<i>sings and plays guitar</i>) Come out, lassie, while you may
+      Till the glow of setting day! Ai-lalee, while you may, Till the glow of
+      setting day!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>at the gate</i>). Aye, my laddie, while I may, Till the glow
+      of break of day! Ai-lalee, while I may, Till the glow of break of day!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUDRIASH. When the sun has risen fair And I may not linger mair. [<i>Exit
+      singing.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ACT IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the foreground a narrow arcade running round an old building which has
+      begun to fall into decay; bushes and grass about it; in the background the
+      banks of the Volga and view beyond it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (<i>Several Persons of both Sexes approach the Arcade.</i>)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. It's spotting with rain, seems as though it might be a storm coming
+      on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. Look, it's gathering yonder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. A good thing we've somewhere to take shelter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>They all go under the arches.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A WOMAN. What a lot of folks out on the parade, too! To-day being a
+      holiday, everyone's out walking. The merchants' ladies all pranked out in
+      their best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. They'll stand up somewhere out of the rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. Look, at the people hurrying this way now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST (<i>staring round at the walls</i>). I say, old fellow, it must have
+      been covered with paintings once, do you know. One can make them out even
+      now, here and there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. To be sure! Of course the walls were covered with paintings. Now
+      it's all been let go to rack and ruin, and the old place is falling to
+      pieces. There's been nothing done to it since the fire. But to be sure you
+      don't remember that fire, it will be forty years ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. Whatever's this picture here, old fellow? It's not easy to make out
+      what it's about.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. That's a picture of the torments of hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. Oh! so that's what it is!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. And there's folks of all sorts and conditions going down into the
+      fire, see?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. To be sure, yes, I understand it now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. Of every sort and rank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. And niggers too?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. Yes, niggers too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. And I say, old fellow, what's this?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. That's the Lithuanian invasion. A battle, d'ye see? Our men
+      fighting with the men of Lithuania.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. Who were these Lithuanians?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. Can't say. Lithuanians, to be sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. But they do say, you know, they fell down on us from heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. I can't tell about that, I daresay they did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A WOMAN. What ignorance! Why, everyone knows the Lithuanians fell from
+      heaven. Well to be sure! and it was in memory of the battle with them that
+      these mounds were made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. There, old fellow! That's so, you see!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Enter Dikoy and Kuligin, his head bare. All the bystanders bow and
+      assume a respectful air on seeing Dikoy.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE II
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same, DIKOY and KULIGIN.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Ugh, I'm wet through. (<i>To Kuligin</i>) Get away from me! Let me
+      alone! (<i>Angrily</i>) Fool of a man!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Saviol Prokofitch, it would be conferring a benefit, your
+      worship, on all the residents in the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Go along! A mighty benefit! Who wants such a benefit?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. And on you, indeed, your worship, Saviol Prokofitch. To be set
+      up, for instance, on the parade in the open space. And as for expense,&mdash;the
+      expense would be trifling: a stone column (<i>indicates the size of each
+      thing by gestures</i>), a copper disc, round like this, and a pivot, an
+      upright pivot (<i>shows, gesticulating</i>) of the simplest description. I
+      will put it all up and carve the figures on the face myself too. And, your
+      worship, when you are pleased to take a walk, or any other people are out
+      walking, you will go up to it, and see at once what o'clock it is. As it
+      is, it's a fine position and a fine view and all, but, as it were, it
+      wants something. And we have visitors too, your worship, who come here to
+      see our views, and it will always be an ornament,&mdash;a pleasant object
+      for the eye to rest on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. But why on earth do you come pestering me with every sort of
+      idiocy? It's possible, don't you see, that I don't want to talk to you.
+      You ought first to ascertain whether I am disposed to listen to you or
+      not, you dolt. What am I to you? ... am I your equal, eh? Damn the fellow!
+      A mighty clever idea he's hit upon! And then up he must come and
+      straightway start holding forth upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. If I were about my own business, I should be to blame certainly.
+      But I am speaking in the public interest, your worship. And it's no great
+      matter spending about a pound on a public object! More than that would not
+      be needed, sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. I daresay you'd like to pocket the money; who knows anything of
+      you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Seeing that I want to give my services for nothing, your worship,
+      how could I pocket anything? And everyone knows me here; no one can say
+      any harm of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. They may know you, for all I care, but I don't want to know you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Why insult an honest man, sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. Am I to account to you for what I say or do? Let me tell you I
+      allow no one to criticise my actions&mdash;no, not folks of far more
+      consequence than you. I shall think of you as I choose to think of you.
+      Others may say you're an honest man, but I look upon you as a brigand, and
+      that's all about it. You seem anxious to hear my opinion, so here it is! I
+      say you're a brigand, and nothing else! Do you want to have the law of me,
+      hey? Very well then, let me tell you you're a worm. If I choose, I spare
+      you; if I choose, I can trample you under foot!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. So be it, Saviol Prokofitch! I am only a poor man, sir, it costs
+      little to be rude to me. But let me remind you, your honour, virtue is
+      honourable even in rags!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. None of your insolence now! Mind that!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. I am not being insolent to you in any way, sir, and I merely
+      addressed you because I thought you might have a mind to do something for
+      the town sometime. You have a great deal of power, your worship, if only
+      you had the wish to do some good. Now, for instance, we've storms so
+      often, and yet we don't put up lightning conductors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY (<i>haughtily</i>). It's all vanity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. How can it be vanity when experiments have been made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. What sort of lightning conductors are you talking about?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Steel ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY (<i>wrathfully</i>). Well, and what then?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Steel rods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY (<i>getting more and more furious</i>). I hear they're steel rods,
+      you viper, but what of it? Granted they're steel rods! Well, what of it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. And what is the cause of a storm to your notions, hey? Come, speak
+      up!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Electricity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY (<i>stamping</i>). 'Lectricity he says! Ah, a brigand you are and no
+      mistake! a storm is sent as a chastisement to make us feel our sins, and
+      you want with rods and tackle of one sort and another, God forgive you, to
+      ward it off! What, are you a Tartar or what? Are you a Tartar? Speak up! A
+      Tartar, hey?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Saviol Prokofitch, your honour, Derzhavin said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In body, I languish in the dust, In mind, I command the tempest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. For such words you ought to be led off to the police captain, he'd
+      give it to you! Just listen, worthy citizens, what the fellow is saying!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. There's no help for it, I must submit! But when I have made my
+      fortune, then you'll see how I'll talk!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>With a wave of his hand goes out.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. What! are you going to steal a fortune? Stop him! The false
+      scoundrel! How ever is one to treat such people! I don't know. (<i>Turning
+      to the crowd</i>) And you, damned rascals, you're enough to make anyone
+      swear! Here I'd no wish to lose my temper, and he must needs go and put me
+      out, as if it were on purpose. Curse the fellow! (<i>angrily</i>) Has the
+      rain given over, eh?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. I fancy it has.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DIKOY. You fancy! go and see, you fool. Tell me, you fancy, indeed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST (<i>going outside the arches</i>). It has left off!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Dikoy goes out and all follow him. The scene is empty for a little
+      while. Varvara runs quickly in under the arcade and, hiding herself, peeps
+      out.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE III
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      VARVARA and later BORIS.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. I believe it's he! (<i>Boris advances from the background of the
+      scene</i>.) Sss-sss! (<i>Boris looks round</i>.) Come here. (<i>She
+      beckons, Boris goes up to her</i>.) What are we to do with Katerina? For
+      mercy's sake tell me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Why, what is it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. It's terrible, that's all. Her husband has come back, do you know
+      that? We didn't expect him, but he's here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. No, I didn't know it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. She's simply beside herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. It seems as if I had only lived for these ten short days that he
+      has been away. And now not to see her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Oh, I've no patience with you! I've something to tell you! She's
+      shaking all over, as if she were in a fever. She's so pale, she wanders
+      about the house, as though she were looking for something. Her eyes are
+      wild, she's like a mad thing! She began crying long ago in the morning,
+      she simply sobs. Merciful Heavens, what am I to do with her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. But perhaps this will pass off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. I doubt it. She daren't raise her eyes to her husband. Mamma's
+      begun to notice it, and she follows her about and keeps a suspicious eye
+      upon her. She looks daggers at her; and that makes her worse than ever. It
+      makes one wretched to see her. And I'm afraid too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. What are you afraid of?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. You don't know her. She's a strange creature. One never knows
+      what to expect from her! She will do things ...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. My God! What's to be done? You must talk to her thoroughly. Can't
+      you manage to soothe her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. I've tried. She doesn't even hear. Better leave her alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Well, what do you suppose she may do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why, simply this: fling herself down at her husband's feet, and
+      tell him everything. That's what I'm afraid of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS (<i>with horror</i>). Could she possibly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. She may do anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Where is she now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. At this moment she's out on the parade with her husband, and my
+      mother's with them too. You go and meet them, if you like. But no, you'd
+      better not go, or she'll very likely lose her head completely. (<i>A peal
+      of thunder in the distance</i>) Isn't that thunder? <i>(Looks out)</i>
+      Yes, it's raining too. And here are people coming this way. Get somewhere
+      out of sight, and I'll stand here where I can be seen, so that they won't
+      notice anything. <i>(Enter several persons of both sexes and different
+      classes.)</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA and various persons, and later, MME. KABANOVA, KABANOV, KATERINA
+      and KULIGIN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. The good lady seems awfully frightened by the way she's hurrying
+      for shelter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A WOMAN. No use seeking shelter! If it's written in the book of fate,
+      there's no escaping!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA <i>(running in).</i> Ah, Varvara! <i>(Seizes her hand and holds
+      it tight.)</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Come, be quiet!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. It will be my death!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Come, come! Pull yourself together!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No! I can't. I can do nothing. My heart aches so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA <i>(entering).</i> Let me tell you, one should live so as to
+      be always ready for anything. You would not be in such terror then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But what sins in special has she to frighten her, mamma? Her sins
+      are no more than all of us have to repent; being afraid of storms is a
+      matter of temperament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. How do you know, pray? The heart of another is darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV <i>(jestingly).</i> Oh well, maybe, something very wicked while I
+      was away; certainly when I've been here she never did anything bad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Maybe, when you were away, then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV <i>(jesting).</i> Katia, my girl, you'd better repent, if you've
+      been sinful in any way. You can't have secrets from me, you know; no, you
+      naughty girl, I know all about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA <i>(looks him straight in the face).</i> Dear Tihon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Come, why do you keep teazing her? Can't you see she's not well?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Boris steps out of the crowd and bows to the Kabanovs.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>shrieks</i>). Ah!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. What are you frightened of? Did you think it was a stranger? This
+      is a friend! Is your uncle quite well?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Quite, thank you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>to Varvara</i>). What more does he want of me? ... Isn't it
+      enough that I am in torture like this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Leans against Varvara, sobs.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA (<i>aloud, so that her mother should hear</i>). We're simply tired
+      out, and don't know what to do with her; and now outsiders must come up
+      too!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Gives Boris a sign and he walks away to the entrance of the arcade.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN (coming into the middle of the scene and addressing the crowd).
+      Why, what are you afraid of, I should like to know! every blade of grass,
+      every flower is rejoicing now, while we try to get away and are as
+      frightened as if it were a disaster! The storm kill us indeed! It's not a
+      storm to be dreaded, it's a blessing! Yes, a blessing! Everything's
+      dreadful to you. If the Northern Lights shine in the heavens&mdash;you
+      ought to admire and marvel at "the dawn breaking in the land of midnight!"
+      But you are in terror, and imagine it means war or flood. If a comet comes&mdash;I
+      can't take my eyes from it! a thing so beautiful! the stars we have looked
+      upon to our hearts' content, they are always with us, but that is
+      something new; well, one must gaze and admire! But you're afraid even to
+      look at the sky, and all in a tremble! You make a bogey out of everything.
+      Ah, what a people! I'm not afraid, you see. Come, sir, let's go on!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Yes, let us go! it's more terrible here! [<i>Goes.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same, without BORIS and KULIGIN.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Well, that's a pretty sermon he gave us! Something worth
+      hearing, and no mistake! What have the times come to, when such as he turn
+      teacher! If an old man talks so, what can we expect from the young ones!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A WOMAN. The whole sky's overcast. It's covered up all over, as it were,
+      with a cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST. Eh, mate, see how the storm cloud is rolling into a ball, as though
+      there were something alive turning round in it. And see how it's creeping
+      up towards us, creeping like a live thing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND. Mark my words, that storm's not coming up for nothing. It's the
+      truth I tell you; I know. It'll strike someone dead, or set fire to a
+      house; you'll see, look what an extraordinary colour!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA <i>(listening).</i> What are they saying? They say someone will
+      be struck dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. You know what stuff they talk, any nonsense that comes into their
+      heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Don't you criticise your elders! They know better than you.
+      Old people have forewarnings of all sorts. Old people don't talk at
+      random.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA <i>(to her husband).</i> Dear Tihon, I know who will be struck
+      dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA <i>(to Katerina, softly).</i> If only you would hold your tongue!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. How do you know?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. It will strike me. Pray for me, then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Enter Old Lady with footmen. Katerina with a shriek hides her face.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same and the OLD LADY.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      THE OLD LADY. Why hide your face? It's no use hiding! One can see you're
+      afraid. You've no wish to die! She wants to live! To be sure she does!&mdash;look
+      what a beauty! Ha, ha, ha! Beauty! Better pray to God to take away your
+      beauty! It's beauty that is our ruin! Ruin to yourself, a snare to others,
+      so rejoice in your beauty if you will! Many, many, you lead into sin!
+      Giddy fellows fight duels over you, slash each other with swords for your
+      sake. And you are glad! Old men, honourable men, forget that they must
+      die, tempted by beauty! And who has to answer for all. Better go down into
+      the abyss with your beauty! Yes, quick, quick. <i>(Katerina hides
+      herself.)</i> Where will you hide away, foolish one! There's no escaping
+      God! <i>(A clap of thunder.)</i> All of you will burn in fire
+      unquenchable! [<i>Exit.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Ah, I am dying!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. Why do you torture yourself like this! Stand on one side and
+      pray; you will feel better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA <i>(goes to the wall and drops on her knees, then jumps up
+      quickly, seeing the picture on the wall).</i> Ah! Hell! Hell! The fire
+      unquenchable! <i>(Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, and Varvara surround her.)</i>
+      My heart is torn! I can bear it no longer! Mother! Tihon! I have sinned
+      against God and against you! Did I not swear to you I would not set eyes
+      on anyone when you were away! You remember! you remember! And do you know
+      what I have done in my sinfulness? The first night I went out of the
+      house....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV <i>(in despair, in tears, pulls at her sleeve).</i> You mustn't,
+      you mustn't! don't! What are you saying? Mother is here!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA <i>(severely).</i> Come, come, speak, now you have begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. And every night the same.... <i>(Sobs, Kabanov tries to embrace
+      her).</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Let her be! With whom?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VARVARA. She's raving, she doesn't know what she is saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. You be quiet! So this is the meaning of it! Well, with
+      whom?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. With Boris Grigoritch. <i>(A clap of thunder.)</i> Ah!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Falls unconscious in her husband's arms.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Well, son! You see what freedom leads to! I told you so,
+      but you wouldn't heed me. See what you've brought on yourself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ACT V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE I
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Scene same as Act I. Twilight.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN (<i>sitting on a bench</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV (<i>walking along the parade</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN (<i>sings</i>). "In dark of night are hid the skies In sleep now
+      all have closed their eyes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (<i>seeing Kabanov</i>) Good-evening, sir, are you walking far?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. No, I am going home. You have heard talk, I expect, about us? The
+      whole household's upside down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. I have heard so, sir, yes, I have heard so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. I went away to Moscow, you know. Mamma sent me off with a sermon,
+      oh, such a sermon, but as soon as I was well away, I went in for enjoying
+      myself. I was glad to have escaped into freedom. And I was drinking all
+      the journey, and in Moscow too I kept it up, and had a jolly time&mdash;as
+      you may fancy! Of course I'd to get in fun enough to last me the whole
+      year. I never once thought about home. Though, if I had thought of it, I
+      never should have dreamed of what was going on here. You've heard about
+      it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Yes, sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. I'm a miserable man now! And so, for nothing, my life's spoiled,
+      for nothing I have done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Your mother is terribly hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Yes, indeed, she's the cause of it all. And what am I suffering
+      for, tell me that? Here I've just come from Dikoy's, and well, we drank a
+      bit; I thought it would drown care; but it has only made me worse,
+      Kuligin! Ah, the wrong my wife has done me! It couldn't be worse....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. It's a difficult business, sir. It's difficult to judge between
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. No; nothing could be worse than what she's done! It wouldn't be
+      much to kill her for it. There's mamma keeps saying: she ought to be
+      buried alive to punish her! But I love her, I can't bear to lay a finger
+      on her. I did give her a blow or two, but that was at mamma's bidding. It
+      makes one wretched to see her, do you understand that, Kuligin. Mamma's
+      just tormenting her to death, while she wanders about like a shadow, and
+      makes no resistance. She only weeps, and she's wasting away like wax. It's
+      simply breaking my heart to see her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. You must make it up somehow, sir! You ought to forgive her, and
+      never refer to it again. You are not without sin yourself, I daresay!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. I should think not!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. And you must never reproach her even when you're drunk! She would
+      be a good wife to you yet, sir, better than any&mdash;believe me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. But understand me, Kuligin; I'd never say a word, but mamma ...
+      do you suppose one can get over her!...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. It's time you were guided, sir, by your own good sense, sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. My own good sense! I've got none, I'm told, and so I'm to live by
+      other people's! I declare I'll drink away whatever sense I have left, and
+      then mamma can look after me as much as she likes, when I'm crazy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Ah sir! there's a world of troubles! But, Boris Grigoritch, sir,
+      what of him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Oh, he, the scoundrel, is being sent off to Tiahta, to the
+      Chinese. His uncle's sending him off to a merchant he knows there. He's to
+      be there three years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Well, what does he say to it, sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Oh, he's wretched too; he weeps. His uncle and I, we set upon him
+      not long ago, we swore at him&mdash;he didn't say a word. He seems like a
+      wild thing. Do what you like to me, says he, only don't torment her! He's
+      sorry for her too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. He's a good fellow, sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. He's packed up and ready, and the horses are ordered. He's so
+      wretched, it's awful! I can see he wants to say good-bye to her. But
+      that's too much! I can't have it. He's been an enemy to me, you know,
+      Kuligin! He ought to be thrashed within an inch of his life to teach him
+      ...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. We must forgive our enemies, sir!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. You go and tell that to mamma, and see what she'll say to it. So,
+      brother Kuligin, all our family is now split up and divided. We're not
+      like relations but enemies to one another. Mamma kept nagging and nagging
+      at Varvara; she couldn't stand it, and she soon made an end of it&mdash;she's
+      simply gone away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Where has she gone?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. No one knows. They do say she's run off with Vania Kudriash, and
+      he can't be found anywhere either. It's all mamma's doing. I'll tell you
+      frankly, Kuligin: she had started bullying her and locking her up. "Don't
+      shut me up," she said, "or it will be the worse," and so it has turned
+      out. What am I to do, tell me that! Tell me how I am to live now! My home
+      is made loathsome to me, I'm put to shame before everyone, if I set about
+      anything my hands drop listless and dejected. Here I'm on my way home now.
+      Shall I find any happiness there, do you suppose? [<i>Enter Glasha.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Master, Tihon Ivanitch!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. What is it now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. There's something wrong at home, sir!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Mercy on us! It's one thing on top of another! Tell me, what is
+      it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. Why, your good lady....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Well, what? Is she dead?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. No, sir, she has disappeared; we can't find her anywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Kuligin! we must run and search for her. Do you know what I am
+      afraid of? That she may be driven in her misery to lay hands on herself!
+      She grieves and grieves,&mdash;ah, God! It rends my heart to see her. What
+      were you thinking of? Has she been gone long?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GLASHA. No, sir, not long! It's we're to blame, of course; we didn't keep
+      an eye on her every minute. Though it's true, to be sure, the most
+      watchful will be caught napping sooner or later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Well, don't stand there doing nothing; bestir yourself! <i>(Exit
+      Glasha.)</i> And let us go too, Kuligin!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>They go. The stage is empty for a little while. From the opposite
+      side, Katerina enters and walks slowly about the stage.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE II
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      KATERINA alone.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Throughout the whole monologue and in the following scenes she speaks
+      slowly and disconnectedly, repeating words dreamily and, as it were, in a
+      state of forgetfulness.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, no, nowhere! What is he doing, my poor boy, now? All I want
+      is to say good-bye to him, and then ... and then death. Why did I lead him
+      into trouble. It's made it no better for me! I should have suffered alone!
+      But I have ruined myself, ruined him, brought dishonour on myself,&mdash;everlasting
+      disgrace on him&mdash;yes,&mdash;dishonour on myself, and on him
+      everlasting disgrace. (<i>Silence</i>.) If I could remember what it was he
+      said. How he felt for me? What were the words he said? (<i>Clutches at her
+      head</i>) I can't remember, I have forgotten everything. The nights, oh,
+      the nights are a weariness to me! All lie down to sleep, I too lie down;
+      it is well with all of them, but I lie as in my grave. It is fearful in
+      the darkness! There is a sound of singing as at some burial; but so soft,
+      almost out of hearing, far away, far from me.... How one longs for the
+      light! But I can't bear to get up&mdash;the same people again, the same
+      talk, the same torture. Why do they look at me so? Why is it they don't
+      kill one nowadays? Why don't they? In old days, they say, they used to
+      kill women. If they would take me and throw me into the Volga, I would be
+      glad. "If we kill you," they say, "your sin is taken from you; you must
+      live, and suffer for your sin." But I have suffered for it already! Am I
+      to suffer much longer? What have I to live for now, what for? I care for
+      nothing, nothing is sweet to me, the light of day is not sweet to me! And
+      still death does not come. One calls upon death and death comes not.
+      Whatever I look upon, whatever I hear, it is nothing but aching here <i>(touching
+      her heart).</i> If I could be with him, there might perhaps be still some
+      joy for me.... Nay, it's all the same, my soul is lost now. How sick I am
+      with longing for him! If I cannot see thee, hear me at least from far
+      away! Wild winds, bear my grief and longing to him! My God! I am weary, I
+      am weary! <i>(goes to the river bank and cries loudly at the top of her
+      voice)</i> My sweet, my heart, my soul, I love you! Answer! [<i>Falls
+      a-weeping. Enter Boris.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE III
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      KATERINA and BORIS.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      BORIS (<i>not seeing Katerina</i>). My God! It's her voice! Where is she?
+      <i>(Looks round.)</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA <i>(runs to him and falls on his neck).</i> At last I see you
+      again! <i>(Weeps on his bosom. Silence.)</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. We are weeping together, God has brought us together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. You have not forgotten me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Me forget you? Don't!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Oh no, oh no! You're not angry?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. How could I be angry?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Forgive me, anyway! I did not mean to harm you; but I was not
+      free myself. I did not know what I was doing, what I was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Oh don't! how can you! how can you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Well, how is it with you? how are you now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. I am going away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Where are you going?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Far away, Katia, to Siberia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Take me with you, away from here!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. I cannot, Katia. I am not going of my own free will; my uncle is
+      sending me, he has the horses waiting for me already; I only begged for a
+      minute, I wanted to take a last farewell of the spot where we used to see
+      each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Go and God be with you! Don't grieve over me. At first your
+      heart will be heavy perhaps, poor boy, and then you will begin to forget.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Why talk of me! I am free at least; how about you? what of your
+      husband's mother?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. She tortures me, she locks me up. She tells everyone and tells
+      my husband: "don't trust her, she's sly and deceitful." They all follow me
+      about all day long and laugh at me before my face. At every word they
+      reproach me with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. And your husband?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. One minute he's kind, one minute he's angry, but he's drinking
+      all the while. He is loathsome to me, loathsome; his kindness is worse
+      than his blows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. You are wretched, Katia?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. So wretched, so wretched, that it were better to die!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Who could have dreamed that we should have to suffer such anguish
+      for our love! I'd better have run away then!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. It was an evil day for me when I saw you. Joy I have known
+      little of, but of sorrow, of sorrow, how much! And how much is still
+      before me! But why think of what is to be! I am seeing you now, that they
+      cannot take away from me; and I care for nothing more. All I wanted was to
+      see you. Now my heart is much easier; as though a load had been taken off
+      me. I kept thinking you were angry with me, that you were cursing me....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. How can you! How can you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, that's not what I mean; that's not what I wanted to say! I
+      was sick with longing for you, that's it; and now, I have seen you....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. They must not come upon us here!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Stay a minute! Stay a minute! Something I meant to say to you!
+      I've forgotten! Something I had to say! Everything is in confusion in my
+      head, I can remember nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. It's time I went, Katia!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Wait a minute, a minute!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Come, what did you want to say?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. I will tell you directly. <i>(Thinking a moment.)</i> Yes! As
+      you travel along the highroads, do not miss over one beggar, give to
+      everyone, and bid them pray for my sinful soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS. Ah, if these people knew what it is to me to part from you! My God!
+      God grant they may one day know such bitterness as I know now. Farewell,
+      Katia! <i>(embraces her and tries to go away).</i> Miscreants! monsters!
+      Ah, if I were strong!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Stay, stay! Let me look at you for the last time <i>(gazes into
+      his face).</i> Now all's over with me. The end is come for me. Now, God be
+      with thee. Go, go quickly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS <i>(moves away a few steps and stands still).</i> Katia, I feel a
+      dread of something! You have something fearful in your mind? I shall be in
+      torture as I go, thinking of you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. No, no! Go in God's name! (<i>Boris is about to go up to her.</i>)
+      No, no, enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORIS (<i>sobbing</i>). God be with thee! There's only one thing to pray
+      God for, that she may soon be dead, that she may not be tortured long!
+      Farewell!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA. Farewell!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Boris goes out. Katerina follows him with her eyes and stands for some
+      time, lost in thought.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      KATERINA (<i>alone</i>). Where am I going now? Home? No, home or the grave&mdash;it's
+      the same. Yes, home or the grave! ... the grave! Better the grave.... A
+      little grave under a tree ... how sweet.... The sunshine warms it, the
+      sweet rain falls on it ... in the spring the grass grows on it, soft and
+      sweet grass ... the birds will fly in the tree and sing, and bring up
+      their little ones, and flowers will bloom; golden, red and blue ... all
+      sorts of flowers, (<i>dreamily</i>) all sorts of flowers ... how still!
+      how sweet! My heart's as it were lighter! But of life I don't want to
+      think! Live again! No, no, no use ... life is not good! ... And people are
+      hateful to me, and the house is hateful, and the walls are hateful! I will
+      not go there! No, no, I will not go! If I go to them, they'll come and
+      talk, and what do I want with that? Ah, it has grown dark! And there is
+      singing again somewhere! What are they singing? I can't make out.... To
+      die now.... What are they singing? It is just the same whether death
+      comes, or of myself ... but live I cannot! A sin to die so! ... they won't
+      pray for me! If anyone loves me he will pray ... they will fold my arms
+      crossed in the grave! Oh yes.... I remember. But when they catch me, and
+      take me home by force.... Ah, quickly, quickly! <i>(Goes to the river
+      bank. Aloud)</i> My dear one! My sweet! Farewell! [<i>Exit.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Enter Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, Kuligin and workmen with torches.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MME. KABANOVA, KABANOV and KULIGIN.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. They say she was seen here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Is it certain?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. They say they saw her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Thank God, if she has been seen alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. And you in such a fright already and crying over it!
+      There's no need. She's not worth fretting about! Don't worry yourself, we
+      shall have our hands full with her for many a long year yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Who would have dreamed of her coming here! A place so frequented.
+      No one would ever think of hiding here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. That's just her way! The shameless hussy! She wants to keep
+      up her character, it seems!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>A crowd with torches collects, coming in from different directions.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ONE OF THE CROWD. Well, is she found?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. It seems not. She seems to have vanished into the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SEVERAL VOICES. How strange! It's a queer thing. And where could she hide?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ONE OF THE CROWD. Oh, she'll be found!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A SECOND. Of course she'll be found!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A THIRD. To be sure, she'll come back of herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>A voice behind the scene: "Hi, boat there!"</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN <i>(from the bank).</i> Who's calling? What is it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>The voice: "A woman's thrown herself into the water!" Kuligin and
+      several men after him run out.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0047" id="link2H_4_0047"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MME. KABANOVA, and KABANOV and Crowd.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Merciful Heavens, it is she! <i>(tries to run off. Mme. Kabanova
+      holds his arm)</i> Mamma, let me go! I will save her! or I too ... What
+      can I do without her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. I'm not going to let you go, and don't you suppose it! Kill
+      yourself on her account; she's worth that, isn't she? As if she'd not
+      brought disgrace enough on us already, to plot to do a thing like this
+      too!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Let me go!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. There are plenty to help without you. I'll curse you if you
+      go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV <i>(falling on his knees).</i> Oh, to look upon her at least!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. They'll pull her out&mdash;you'll look upon her, right
+      enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV (<i>gets up. To the crowd</i>). Well, my lads, do you see
+      anything?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ONE OF THE CROWD. It's dark down below, there's nothing in sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>A noise behind the scene.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A SECOND. They seemed to be shouting something, but I couldn't make out
+      what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE FIRST. That's Kuligin's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE SECOND. They're coming along the bank with torches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE FIRST. They're coming this way, and they're carrying her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Several people come back.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ONE OF THOSE WHO HAVE COME BACK. That Kuligin's a brave fellow! It was
+      close here in a deep pool, near the bank; with the torchlight we could see
+      a long way off in the water; he saw her dress and pulled her out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Alive?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE MAN. How could she be alive? She had thrown herself from the height;
+      the bank is steep there, and she must have fallen upon the anchor, she was
+      so injured, poor thing! But she looks as though she were alive! Only one
+      little wound on the temple, and one single stain of blood on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Kabanov runs across the scene, meets Kuligin with the crowd, carrying
+      in Katerina.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SCENE VII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Same and KULIGIN.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      KULIGIN. Here is your Katerina. You may do what you like with her. Her
+      body is here, take it; but her soul is not yours now; she is before a
+      Judge more merciful than you are, now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Lays her on the ground and exit.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV <i>(rushes to Katerina).</i> Katia! Katia!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Hush! It's a sin even to weep for her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. Mother, you have murdered her! you! you! you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. What do you mean? Think what you're saying! You forget whom
+      you're speaking to!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. You have murdered her! you! you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MME. KABANOVA. Come, I'll talk to you at home. (<i>Bows low to the
+      assembled people</i>) I thank you, good people, for your services! [<i>All
+      bow low.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KABANOV. It is well with you, Katia! But why am I left to live and suffer!
+      [<i>Falls on his wife's body.</i>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Storm, by Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+
+Title: The Storm
+
+Author: Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
+Translator: Constance Garnett
+
+Release Date: May 12, 2013 [EBook #7991]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, S.R.Ellison and the DP Proofreading Team
+
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+
+THE STORM
+
+By Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
+
+Translated By Constance Garnett
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Up to the years of the Crimean War Russia was always a strange, uncouth
+riddle to the European consciousness. It would be an interesting study to
+trace back through the last three centuries the evidence of the historical
+documents that our forefathers have left us when they were brought face to
+face, through missions, embassies, travel, and commerce, with the
+fantastic life, as it seemed to them, led by the Muscovite. But in any
+chance record we may pick up, from the reports of a seventeenth century
+embassy down to the narrative of an early nineteenth century traveller,
+the note always insisted on is that of all the outlandish civilisations,
+queer manners and customs of Europeans, the Russian's were the queerest
+and those standing furthest removed from the other nations'. And this
+sentiment has prevailed to-day, side by side with the better understanding
+we have gained of Russia. Nor can this conception, generally held among
+us, which is a half truth, be removed by personal contact or mere
+objective study; for example, of the innumerable memoirs published on the
+Crimean war, it is rare to find one that gives us any real insight into
+the nature of the Russian. And the conception itself can only be amended
+and enlarged by the study of the Russian mind as it expresses itself in
+its own literature. The mind of the great artist, of whatever race he
+springs, cannot lie. From the works of Thackeray and George Eliot in
+England and Turgenev and Tolstoi in Russia, a critic penetrates into the
+secret places of the national life, where all the clever objective
+pictures of foreign critics must lead him astray. Ostrovsky's drama, "The
+Storm," here translated for the English reader, is a good instance of this
+truth. It is a revelation of the old-fashioned Muscovite life _from the
+inside_, and Ostrovsky thereby brings us in closer relation to that
+primitive life than was in the power of Tolstoi or Goncharov, or even
+Gogol to bring us. These great writers have given us admirable pictures of
+the people's life as it appeared to them at the angle of the educated
+Westernised Russian mind; but here in "The Storm" is the atmosphere of the
+little Russian town, with its primitive inhabitants, merchants, and
+workpeople, an atmosphere untouched, unadulterated by the _ideas_ of any
+outside European influence. It is the Russia of Peter the Great and
+Catherine's time, the Russian patriarchal family life that has existed for
+hundreds of years through all the towns and villages of Great Russia, that
+lingers indeed to-day in out-of-the-way corners of the Empire, though now
+invaded and much broken up by modern influences. It is, in fact, the very
+Muscovite life that so puzzled our forefathers, and that no doubt will
+seem strange to many English readers. But the special triumph of "The
+Storm" is that although it is a realistic picture of old-fashioned Russian
+patriarchal life, it is one of the deepest and simplest psychological
+analyses of the Russian soul ever made. It is a very deep though a very
+narrow analysis. Katerina, the heroine, to the English will seem weak, and
+crushed through her weakness; but to a Russian she typifies revolt,
+freedom, a refusal to be bound by the cruelty of life. And her attitude,
+despairing though it seems to us, is indeed the revolt of the spirit in a
+land where Tolstoi's doctrine of non-resistance is the logical outcome of
+centuries of serfdom in a people's history. The merchant Dikoy, the bully,
+the soft characterless lover Boris, the idealistic religious Katerina,
+Kuligin the artisan, and Madame Kabanova, the tyrannical mother, all these
+are true national types, true Russians of the changing ages, and the
+counterparts of these people may be met to-day, if the reader takes up
+Tehehov's tales. English people no doubt will find it difficult to believe
+that Madame Kabanova could so have crushed Katerina's life, as Ostrovsky
+depicts. Nothing indeed is so antagonistic to English individualism and
+independence as is the passivity of some of the characters in "The Storm."
+But the English reader's very difficulty in this respect should give him a
+clue to much that has puzzled Europeans, should help him to penetrate into
+the strangeness of Russian political life, the strangeness of her love of
+despotism. Only in the country that produces such types of weakness and
+tyranny is possible the fettering of freedom of thought and act that we
+have in Russia to-day. Ostrovsky's striking analysis of this fatalism in
+the Russian soul will help the reader to understand the unending struggle
+in Russia between the enlightened Europeanised intelligence of the few,
+and the apathy of the vast majority of Russians who are disinclined to
+rebel against the crystallised conditions of their lives. Whatever may be
+strange and puzzling in "The Storm" to the English mind, there is no doubt
+that the Russians hail the picture as essentially true. The violence of
+such characters as Madame Kabanova and Dikoy may be weakened to-day
+everywhere by the gradual undermining of the patriarchal family system now
+in progress throughout Russia, but the picture is in essentials a
+criticism of the national life. On this point the Russian critic
+Dobroliubov, criticising "The Storm," says: "The need for justice, for
+respect for personal rights, this is the cry ... that rises up to the ear
+of every attentive reader. Well, can we deny the wide application of this
+need in Russia? Can we fail to recognise that such a dramatic background
+corresponds with the true condition of Russian society? Take history,
+think of our life, look about you, everywhere you will find justification
+of our words. This is not the place to launch out into historical
+investigation; it is enough to point out that our history up to the most
+recent times has not fostered among us the development of a respect for
+equity, has not created any solid guarantees for personal rights, and has
+left a wide field to arbitrary tyranny and caprice." This criticism of
+Dobroliubov's was written in 1860, the date of the play; but we have only
+to look back at the internal history of Russia for the last thirty years
+to see that it too "has not created any solid guarantees for personal
+rights, and has left a wide field to arbitrary tyranny and caprice." And
+here is Ostrovsky's peculiar merit, that he has in his various dramas
+penetrated deeper than any other of the great Russian authors into one of
+the most fundamental qualities of the Russian nature--its innate tendency
+to arbitrary power, oppression, despotism. Nobody has drawn so powerfully,
+so truly, so incisively as he, the type of the 'samodour' or 'bully,' a
+type that plays a leading part in every strata of Russian life. From
+Turgenev we learn more of the reverse side of the Russian character, its
+lack of will, tendency to weakness, dreaminess and passivity: and it is
+this aspect that the English find it so hard to understand, when they
+compare the characters in the great Russian novels with their own idea of
+Russia's formidable power. The people and the nation do not seem to
+correspond. But the riddle may be read in the coexistence of Russia's
+internal weakness and misery along with her huge force, and the immense
+role she fills as a civilising power. In "The Storm" we have all the
+contradictory elements: a life strongly organised, yet weak within;
+strength and passivity, despotism and fatalism side by side.
+
+The author of "The Storm," Alexander Ostrovsky (born in Moscow 1823, died
+1886), is acknowledged to be the greatest of the Russian dramatists. He
+has been called "a specialist in the natural history of the Russian
+merchant," and his birth, upbringing, family connections and vocations
+gave him exceptional facilities for penetrating into the life of that
+class which he was the first to put into Russian literature. His best
+period was from 1850 to 1860, but all his work received prompt and
+universal recognition from his countrymen. In 1859 Dobroliubov's famous
+article, "The Realm of Darkness," appeared, analysing the contents of all
+Ostrovsky's dramas, and on the publication of "The Storm" in 1860, it was
+followed by another article from the same critic, "A Ray of Light in the
+Realm of Darkness." These articles were practically a brief for the case
+of the Liberals, or party of Progress, against the official and Slavophil
+party. Ostrovsky's dramas in general are marked by intense sombreness,
+biting humour and merciless realism. "The Storm" is the most poetical of
+his works, but all his leading plays still hold the stage.
+
+"The Storm" will repay a minute examination by all who recognise that in
+England to-day we have a stage without art, truth to life, or national
+significance. There is not a superfluous line in the play: all is drama,
+natural, simple, deep. There is no _falsity_, no forced situations, no
+sensational effects, none of the shallow or flashy caricatures of daily
+life that our heterogeneous public demands. All the reproach that lives
+for us in the word _theatrical_ is worlds removed from "The Storm." The
+people who like 'farcical comedy' and social melodrama, and 'musical
+sketches' will find "The Storm" deep, forbidding and gloomy. The critic
+will find it an abiding analysis of a people's temperament. The reader
+will find it literature.
+
+E. G. _November_, 1898.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORM
+
+
+
+DRAMATIS PERSONAE
+
+
+SAVIL PROKOFIEVITCH DIKOY, _a merchant, and personage of importance in the
+town_.
+
+BORIS GRIGORIEVITCH, _his nephew, a young man of good education_.
+
+MARFA IGNATIEVNA KABANOVA, _a rich merchant's widow_.
+
+TIHON IVANITCH KABANOV, _her son_.
+
+KATERINA, _his wife_.
+
+VARVARA, _sister of Tihon_.
+
+KULIGIN, _a man of artisan class, a self-taught watchmaker, engaged in
+trying to discover the secret of perpetual motion_.
+
+VANIA KUDRIASH, _a young man, clerk to Dikoy_.
+
+SHAPKIN, _an artisan_.
+
+FEKLUSHA, _a pilgrim woman_.
+
+GLASHA, _a maid servant in the Kabanovs' house_.
+
+AN OLD LADY _of seventy, half mad, with_ TWO FOOTMEN.
+
+TOWNSPEOPLE _of both sexes_.
+
+
+_The action takes place in the town of Kalinov, on the banks of the Volga,
+in summertime. There is an interval of ten days between the 3rd and 4th
+acts. All the characters except Boris are dressed in old Russian national
+dress._
+
+
+
+
+ACT I
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+
+A public garden on the steep bank of the Volga; beyond the Volga, a view
+of the country. On the stage two benches and a few bushes.
+
+KULIGIN (_sitting on a bench, looking towards the river_).
+
+KUDRIASH and SHAPKIN (_walking up and down_).
+
+
+KULIGIN (_singing_).
+"Amidst the level dales, upon a sloping hillside,"... (_ceases singing_)
+Wonderful, one really must say it's wonderful! Kudriash! Do you know, I've
+looked upon the Volga every day these fifty years and I can never get
+tired of looking upon it.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+How's that?
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's a marvellous view! Lovely! It sets my heart rejoicing.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+It's not bad.
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's exquisite! And you say "not bad"! You are tired of it, or you don't
+feel the beauty there is in nature.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Come, there's no use talking to you! You're a genuine antique, we all
+know, a chemical genius.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Mechanical, a self-taught mechanician.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+It's all one.
+
+[_Silence._
+
+KULIGIN (_pointing away_).
+Look, Kudriash, who's that waving his arms about over there?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+There? Oh, that's Dikoy pitching into his nephew.
+
+KULIGIN.
+A queer place to do it!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+All places are alike to him. He's not afraid of any one! Boris Grigoritch
+is in his clutches now, so he is always bullying him.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Yes, you wouldn't find another bully like our worthy Saviol Prokofitch in
+a hurry! He pulls a man up for nothing at all.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+He is a stiff customer.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Old Dame Kabanova's a good hand at that too!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Yes, but she at least does it all under pretence of morality; he's like a
+wild beast broken loose!
+
+SHAPKIN.
+There's no one to bring him to his senses, so he rages about as he likes!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+There are too few lads of my stamp or we'd have broken him of it.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Why, what would you have done?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+We'd have given him a good scare.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+How'd you do that?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Why, four or five of us would have had a few words with him, face to face,
+in some back street, and he'd soon have been as soft as silk. And he'd
+never have let on to a soul about the lesson we'd given him; he'd just
+have walked off and taken care to look behind him.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+I see he'd some reason for wanting to get you sent for a soldier.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+He wanted to, right enough, but he didn't do it. No, he won't get rid of
+me; he's an inkling that I'd make him pay too dear for it. You're afraid
+of him, but I know how to talk to him.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Oh, I daresay!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+What do you mean by that? I am reckoned a tough one to deal with. Why do
+you suppose he keeps me on? Because he can't do without me, to be sure.
+Well, then, I've no need to be afraid of him; let him be afraid of me.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+Why, doesn't he swear at you?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Swear at me! Of course; he can't breathe without that. But I don't give
+way to him: if he says one word, I say ten; he curses and goes off. No,
+I'm not going to lick the dust for him.
+
+KULIGIN.
+What, follow his example! You'd do better to bear it in patience.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Come, I say, if you're so wise, teach him good manners first and then
+we'll learn! It's a pity his daughters are all children, there's not one
+grown-up girl among them.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+What if there were?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+I should treat him as he deserves if there were. I'm a devil of a fellow
+among the girls!
+
+[_Dikoy and Boris advance. Kuligin takes off his hat._
+
+SHAPKIN (_to Kudriash_).
+Let us move off; he'll pick a quarrel with us, very likely.
+
+[_They move off a little._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II.
+
+The Same, DIKOY and BORIS.
+
+
+DIKOY.
+Did you come here to loaf about in idleness? eh? Lazy good for nothing
+fellow, confound you!
+
+BORIS.
+It's a holiday; what could I be doing at home?
+
+DIKOY.
+You'd find work to do if you wanted to. I've said it once, and I've said
+it twice, "don't dare to let me come across you"; you're incorrigible!
+Isn't there room enough for you? Go where one will, there you are! Damn
+you! Why do you stand there like a post? Do you hear what's said to you?
+
+BORIS.
+I'm listening,--what more am I to do?
+
+DIKOY (_looking at Boris_).
+Get away with you! I won't talk to a Jesuit like you. (_Going_) To come
+forcing himself on me here!
+
+[_Spits and exit_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+
+KULIGIN, BORIS, KUDRIASH, and SHAPKIN.
+
+
+KULIGIN.
+What have you to do with him, sir? We can't make it out. What can induce
+you to live with him and put up with his abuse?
+
+BORIS.
+A poor inducement, Kuligin! I'm not free.
+
+KULIGIN.
+But how are you not free, allow me to ask you. If you can tell us, sir,
+do.
+
+BORIS.
+Why not? You knew our grandmother, Anfisa Mihalovna?
+
+KULIGIN.
+To be sure I did!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+I should think we did!
+
+BORIS.
+She quarrelled with my father you know because he married into a noble
+family. It was owing to that that my father and mother lived in Moscow. My
+mother used to tell me that she could hardly endure life for three days
+together with my father's relations, it all seemed so rough and coarse to
+her.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Well it might! you have to be used to it from the first, sir, to be able
+to bear it.
+
+BORIS.
+Our parents brought us up well in Moscow, they spared no expense. They
+sent me to the Commercial Academy, and my sister to a boarding school, but
+they both died suddenly of cholera. We were left orphans, my sister and I.
+Then we heard that our grandmother was dead here, and had left a will that
+our uncle was to pay us a fair share of her fortune, when we came of age,
+only upon one condition.
+
+KULIGIN.
+And what was that, sir?
+
+BORIS.
+If we showed a proper respect for his authority.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Then there's no doubt, sir, you'll never see your fortune.
+
+BORIS.
+No, but that's not all, Kuligin! First he finds fault with us to his
+heart's content, and ends none the less with giving us nothing, or some
+tiny dole. And then he'll go making out that it's a great favour, and that
+he ought not to have done even that.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+That's just the way the merchants go on among us. Besides, if you were
+ever so respectful to him, who's to hinder him from saying you're
+disrespectful?
+
+BORIS.
+To be sure. And indeed he sometimes will say: I've children of my own, why
+should I give money away to outsiders? Am I to wrong my own like that?
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's plain, sir, you're not in luck's way.
+
+BORIS.
+If it were only me, I wouldn't care! I'd throw it all up and go away. But
+I'm sorry for my sister. He did write for her to come too, but mother's
+relations wouldn't let her, they wrote she wasn't well. It frightens me to
+think what the life here would be for her.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Of course. The master's no decent manners at all.
+
+KULIGIN.
+In what capacity do you live with him, sir; what arrangement has he made
+with you?
+
+BORIS.
+Why, none whatever; "you live with me," he says, "and do what you're told,
+and your pay shall be what I give you," that's to say, in a year's time
+he'll settle up with me as he thinks fit.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+That's just his way. Not one of us dare as much as hint at a salary, or he
+storms till he's black in the face. "How do you know," he'll say, "what I
+have in my mind to do? Do you suppose you can see into my heart? Maybe, I
+shall be so disposed as to give you five thousand." It's no use talking to
+him! Only you may be pretty sure he's never been disposed that way in his
+life.
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's a hard case, sir! You must try and get the right side of him somehow.
+
+BORIS.
+But the point is, Kuligin, that it's impossible. Why, even his own
+children can never do anything to please him; so it's hardly likely I
+could!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Who could please him, when his whole life's spent in bullying people?
+Especially where money's at stake; no accounts are ever settled without
+storms of abuse. Often people are glad to go short of their due, if only
+he'll let them off quietly. Woe to us if anyone vexes him in the morning!
+He falls foul of everyone all day long.
+
+BORIS.
+Every morning my aunt entreats us with tears in her eyes: "Don't anger
+him, friends! Dear boys, don't anger him!"
+
+KUDRIASH.
+But you can never avoid it! If he goes to the bazaar, it's all up! He
+scolds all the peasants. Even if they ask him less than cost price they
+never get off without abuse. And then he's upset for the whole day.
+
+SHAPKIN.
+He's a bully--there's no other word for him.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+A bully? I should think he is!
+
+BORIS.
+And what's fatal is if some man offends him, whom he daren't be rude to.
+Then all his household have to look out for themselves!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Bless my soul! That was a joke though. Didn't that hussar let him have it
+on the Volga, at the ferry! Oh, a lovely shindy he kicked up afterwards,
+too.
+
+BORIS.
+Ah, and didn't his family suffer for it! Why, for a fortnight after we
+were all hiding away in the attics and cupboards.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Surely that's not the folk coming back from vespers?
+
+[_Several persons pass in the background_.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Come on, Shapkin, let's get a drink! It's no good stopping here.
+
+[_They bow and exeunt_.
+
+BORIS.
+Oh, Kuligin, it's awfully hard here for me who've not been used to it.
+Everyone seems to look with unfriendly eyes at me, as though I were not
+wanted here, as though I were in their way. I don't understand the ways
+here. I know this is truly Russia, my own country, but still I can't get
+used to it.
+
+KULIGIN.
+And you never will get used to it, sir.
+
+BORIS.
+Why?
+
+KULIGIN.
+They're a coarse lot, sir, in our town, a coarse lot! Among the working
+people, sir, you'll find nothing but brutality and squalid poverty. And
+we've no chance, sir, of ever finding our way out of it. For by honest
+labour we can never earn more than a crust of bread. And everyone with
+money, sir, tries all he can to get a poor man under his thumb, so as to
+make more money again out of his working for nothing. Do you know the
+answer your uncle, Saviol Prokofitch, made to the provost? The peasants
+were always coming to the provost with complaints that your uncle never
+paid one of them fairly according to agreement. The provost said to him at
+last: "Look here," says he, "Saviol Prokofitch, you must pay the peasants
+what's fairly owing to them! Every day they come to me with some
+complaint!" Your uncle slapped the provost on the shoulder, and says he:
+"It's not worth while, your Worship, for you and me to waste our breath
+over such petty details! I have to do with numbers of peasants in the
+course of the year; you can understand, if I pay them a paltry farthing
+short, every man of them, it mounts up to thousands, and a capital thing
+too for me!" Think of that, sir! And the way they treat one another too,
+sir! They injure each other's trade all they can, and that not so much
+from self-interest, as from envy. They are always at feud with one
+another. They entertain in their grand mansions drunken attorneys' clerks,
+wretched creatures, sir, that hardly look like human beings. And they, for
+a small tip, will cover sheets of stamped paper with malicious quibbling
+attacks on their neighbours. And then there's a lawsuit commences between
+them, sir, and no end to the worry and fret. They bring it before the
+court here, and go off to the chief town, and there everyone in court is
+on the look-out for them and they clap their hands with glee when they see
+them. Words do not take long, but deeds are not soon done. They are
+dragged from court to court, they are worn out with delays; but they are
+positively delighted at that; it's just that they want. "I've lost a lot
+of money," one will say, "but it's cost him a pretty penny too!" I did try
+to put it all into verse....
+
+BORIS.
+Why, do you make verse?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Yes, sir, in the old-fashioned style. I have read Lomonosov and Derzhavin.
+Lomonosov was a deep thinker, an investigator of nature.... And he was
+one of us plain working folk too.
+
+BORIS.
+You should write. That would be interesting.
+
+KULIGIN.
+How could I, sir! They'd tear me to pieces, they'd skin me alive. Even as
+it is, sir, I have had to pay for my chattering; but I can't help it, I
+love to speak my mind freely. I meant to say something about their family
+life, sir, but we'll talk of that some other time. There's plenty to tell
+about that too.
+
+[_Enter Feklusha and another woman_.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+De-lightful, my clear, de-lightful! Divinely beautiful! But what's the use
+of talking! You live in the Promised Land, simply! And the merchant gentry
+are all a devout people, and famed for many a virtue! liberality and much
+almsgiving! I am well content, my good soul, full to the brim of content!
+For their liberality to us will their abundance be greatly increased,
+especially in the house of Kabanova.
+
+[_Exeunt_.
+
+BORIS.
+Kabanova?
+
+KULIGIN.
+A fanatical hypocrite, sir. She gives to the poor, but her own household
+she worries to death. (_Silence_.) All I want, sir, is to find out the
+secret of perpetual motion!
+
+BORIS.
+Why, what would you do?
+
+KULIGIN.
+How can you ask, sir! Why, the English offer millions for it. I should use
+all the money for public purposes,--we want to provide work for the
+working people. Here they have hands to work, and no work to do.
+
+BORIS.
+And you hope to discover perpetual motion?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Not a doubt, I shall, sir! I have only to scrape up enough money for
+models. Good-bye, sir!
+
+[_Exit_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+
+BORIS (_alone_).
+I haven't the heart to disillusion him! What a good fellow! He dreams and
+is happy. But I, it seems, must waste my youth in this wretched hole. I
+was utterly crushed before, and now this madness creeping into my mind! So
+suitable! Me give myself up to tender sentiments! Trampled upon,
+broken-spirited, and as if that's not enough, in my idiocy I must needs
+fall in love! And of all people in the world! With a woman, whom I may
+never have the luck to speak a word to. (_Silence_.) But for all that, I
+can't get her out of my head, try as I will. Here she is! Coming with her
+husband, oh! and the mother-in-law with them! Ah, what a fool I am! I must
+snatch a look at her round the corner, and then home again.
+
+[_Exit. From the opposite side, enter Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, Katerina and
+Varvara_.]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+MADAME KABANOVA, KABANOV, KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+If you care to listen to your mother, you'll do as I have told you,
+directly you get there.
+
+KABANOV.
+How could I possibly disobey you, mother!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Young folks show little respect to their elders, nowadays.
+
+VARVARA (_to herself_).
+Not respect you, my dear? That's likely!
+
+KABANOV.
+I think, mamma, I never depart a hairsbreadth from your will.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I might believe you, my son, if I hadn't seen with my own eyes and heard
+with my own ears how little reverence parents receive nowadays from
+children! They might at least remember all the sufferings a mother has to
+put up with for her children.
+
+KABANOV.
+Mamma, I....
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+If the mother that bore you does at times say a word that wounds your
+pride surely you might put up with it! Hey, what do you think?
+
+KABANOV.
+But, mamma, when have I not put up with anything from you?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+The mother's old, and foolish, to be sure; you young people must not be
+too exacting with us old fools.
+
+KABANOV (_sighs, aside_).
+Oh, merciful Heavens! (_To his mother_) We should never dare think such a
+thing for a moment, mamma!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+It's out of love that parents are severe with you, out of love they scold
+even--they're always thinking how to train you in the right way. To be
+sure, that's not in favour nowadays. And children go about among folks
+proclaiming that their mother's a scold, that their mother won't let them
+stir, that she's the plague of their life. And if--Lord save us--some word
+of hers doesn't please her daughter-in-law, then it's the talk all over
+the place, that the mother-in-law worries her to death.
+
+KABANOV.
+You don't mean that anyone talks about you, mamma?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I haven't heard so, my son, I haven't; I don't want to tell a lie about
+it. If I had, indeed, I shouldn't be talking to you like this, my dear.
+(_Sighs_) Ah, sin is a heavy burden! Sin is never far off! Something said
+goes to the heart, and there, one sins, one gets angry. No, my son, say
+what you like about me, there's no forbidding anyone to talk; if they
+don't dare before one's face, they'll do it behind one's back.
+
+KABANOV.
+May my tongue wither up and...
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Hush, hush, don't swear! It's a sin! I've seen plain enough for a long
+time past that your wife's dearer to you than your mother. Ever since you
+were married, I don't see the same love for me that I did in you.
+
+KABANOV.
+In what way do you see me changed, mamma?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+In everything, my son! When a mother doesn't see a thing with her eyes,
+her heart's so sensitive she can feel it with her heart. Or maybe it's
+your wife sets you against me, I can't say.
+
+KABANOV.
+Oh no, mamma! how can you say so, really?
+
+KATERINA.
+I look upon you as I would on my own mother, and indeed Tihon loves you
+too.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+You might hold your tongue, I should think, till you're asked a question.
+You've no need to defend him, young madam, I'm not going to hurt him, no
+fear! He's my son too, let me tell you; don't you forget it! What do you
+want to fire up and display your feelings before folks for! That we may
+see you love your husband? We know that, we know that, you show off before
+everyone.
+
+VARVARA (_to herself_).
+A nice place she's pitched on to read us a sermon!
+
+KATERINA.
+You have no need to say that of me, mamma. I am just the same before
+people, as I am by myself. I make no show of anything.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+And I'd no intention of speaking about you at all, but it happened to come
+up.
+
+KATERINA.
+Even so, why need you attack me?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+My, what a stuck-up thing she is! Here she's in a huff directly!
+
+KATERINA.
+No one likes to put up with unjust blame.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I know, I know my words are not to your liking, but that can't be helped.
+I'm not a stranger to you, it makes my heart grieve to see you. I've seen
+for a long time past that you want your own way. Well, well, you've only
+to wait a bit, you'll have it all your own way when I'm dead and gone.
+Then to be sure you can do as you please, there'll be no elders then to
+look after you. And, maybe, you will think of me then.
+
+KABANOV.
+But we pray God night and day for you, mamma, that God may grant you
+health, and every blessing and success in all you do.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, give over, please. I daresay you did love your mother, while you
+were a bachelor. But you've no thoughts for me now you've a young wife.
+
+KABANOV.
+The one doesn't hinder the other. A wife is something different, but for
+my mother I have a reverence quite apart.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Then would you give up your wife rather than your mother? No, that I'll
+never believe.
+
+KABANOV.
+But why should I give up either? I love both.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Oh, I daresay, I daresay, you may talk away! I see plain enough that I'm a
+hindrance to you.
+
+KABANOV.
+You must think as you please, it's for you to decide in everything. Only I
+can't comprehend why I was ever born into the world so unlucky as not to
+be able to please you anyhow.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+What do you mean by whimpering like a sick child! A pretty husband, upon
+my word! You should just see yourself! Do you suppose your wife will fear
+you after that?
+
+KABANOV.
+Why should she fear me? I'm content, if she loves me.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Why should she fear you! Why should she fear you! What do you mean? Why,
+you must be crazy! If she doesn't fear you, she's not likely to fear me. A
+pretty state of confusion there would be in the house! Why, you're living
+with her in lawful wedlock, aren't you? Or does the law count for nothing
+to your thinking? If you do harbour such fools' notions in your brain, you
+shouldn't talk so before her anyway, nor before your sister, that's a girl
+still. She'll have to be married too; and if she catches up your silly
+talk it's her husband will thank us afterwards for the lessons we've
+taught her. You see how little sense you've got, and yet you want to be
+independent and live as you like.
+
+KABANOV.
+But indeed, mamma, I don't want to be independent. How ever could I be
+independent!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+So, to your thinking then, kindness is all that's needed with a wife?
+Mustn't even scold her then, or threaten her?
+
+KABANOV.
+But, indeed, mamma....
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_hotly_).
+Wait till she sets up a lover.... Hey! But I daresay that's no
+consequence either, to your thinking? Hey? Come, speak?
+
+KABANOV.
+But, mercy on us, mamma....
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_perfectly coolly_).
+Fool! (_Sighs_) What's the use of talking to a fool! it's simply a sin!
+(_Silence_) I'm going home.
+
+KABANOV.
+We'll come directly too; we'll only take one or two more turns on the
+parade.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Very well; do as you like, only mind you don't keep me waiting! You know I
+don't like that.
+
+KABANOV.
+Oh no, mamma! God forbid!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Mind you don't then!
+
+[_Goes_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+The Same, except MME. KABANOVA.
+
+
+KABANOV.
+There, you see how I always catch it from mamma on your account! A nice
+sort of life I lead!
+
+KATERINA.
+Is it my fault?
+
+KABANOV.
+I don't know whose fault it is.
+
+VARVARA.
+Is it likely you would know?
+
+KABANOV.
+She used to keep on at me, "You must get a wife, you must get a wife, I'm
+longing to see you a married man." And now she worries my life out, and
+gives me no peace--all on your account.
+
+VARVARA.
+Well, it's not her fault! Mother attacks her, and you too. And then you
+say you love your wife. It makes me sick to look at you. (_Turns away_.)
+
+KABANOV.
+Talk away! What am I to do?
+
+VARVARA.
+Mind your own business--hold your tongue, if you can't do anything better.
+Why do you stand there shilly-shallying? I can see by your face what's in
+your mind.
+
+KABANOV.
+Why, what?
+
+VARVARA.
+What?--Why, that you want to go in and have a drink with Saviol
+Prokofitch. Eh? isn't that it?
+
+KABANOV.
+You've hit it, old girl.
+
+KATERINA.
+Come back quickly, Tihon dear, or mamma will be scolding again.
+
+VARVARA.
+Yes, indeed, you must look sharp, or you'll know what to expect.
+
+KABANOV.
+I should think I do!
+
+VARVARA.
+We've no great desire to get into a row for your sake either.
+
+KABANOV.
+I'll fly. Wait for me!
+
+[_Goes_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VII
+
+KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+KATERINA.
+So you are sorry for me, Varia?
+
+VARVARA (_looking away_).
+Of course, I am.
+
+KATERINA.
+Then you love me, don't you? (_Kisses her warmly._)
+
+VARVARA.
+Love you? Of course.
+
+KATERINA.
+Thank you! you are so sweet, I love you dearly. (_Silence_) Do you know
+what I'm thinking?
+
+VARVARA.
+What?
+
+KATERINA.
+What a pity people can't fly!
+
+VARVARA.
+I don't know what you mean.
+
+KATERINA.
+What a pity people can't fly like birds. Do you know I sometimes fancy I'm
+a bird. When one stands on a high hill, one feels a longing to fly. One
+would take a little run, throw up one's arms, and fly away! Couldn't we
+try it now? (_Makes as though she would run._)
+
+VARVARA.
+What will you make up next?
+
+KATERINA (_sighs_).
+How I used to love play and frolic! But in your house I'm growing old and
+spiritless.
+
+VARVARA.
+Do you suppose I don't see it?
+
+KATERINA.
+How different I used to be! I lived without a care in my heart, as free as
+a bird. Mother adored me, dressed me up like a doll, and never forced me
+to work; I could do just as I liked. Do you know how I passed my days as a
+girl? I'll tell you. I used to get up early; if it was summer I used to go
+to the spring, and bathe, and bring back water with me, and water all the
+flowers in the house, every one of them. Then mother and I used to go to
+church, and all the pilgrim women--our house was simply full of pilgrims
+and holy women. We used to come back from church, and sit down to some
+work, often embroidery in gold on velvet, while the pilgrim women would
+tell us where they had been, what they had seen, and the different ways of
+living in the world, or else they would sing songs. And so the time would
+pass till dinner. Then the older women lay down for a nap, while I would
+run about in the garden. Then evensong, and in the evening, stories and
+singing again. Ah, those were happy days!
+
+VARVARA.
+But it's pretty much the same with us, if you come to that.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, but here one feels somehow in a cage. And how passionately I loved
+being in church! It was like stepping into Paradise, and I saw no one and
+had no thought of time and did not hear when the service was over. It was
+just as if it were all in one second. Mother used to say that often
+everyone looked at me and wondered what had come over me! And you know, on
+a sunny day, such a column of light streamed down from the golden cupola,
+and a sort of mist moving in the light, like smoke, and at times I seemed
+to see angels flying and singing in that bright light. And sometimes, dear
+girl, I would get up at night--we had lamps always burning all over our
+house,--and fall down in some corner and pray till morning. Or I would go
+out into the garden early in the morning, when the sun was just rising,
+fall on my knees and pray and weep, and not know myself what I prayed and
+wept for; and so they would find me sometimes. And what I was praying for
+then, what I besought God for--I couldn't say. I wanted nothing, I had
+enough of everything. And what dreams I used to have, dear Varia, what
+lovely dreams! Golden temples or gardens of some wonderful sort, and
+voices of unseen spirits singing, and the sweet scent of cypress and
+mountains and trees, not such as we always see, but as they are painted in
+the holy pictures. And sometimes I seemed to be flying, simply flying in
+the air. I dream sometimes now, but not often, and never dreams like
+those.
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, what then?
+
+KATERINA (_after a pause_).
+I shall die soon.
+
+VARVARA.
+What nonsense!
+
+KATERINA.
+No, I know I shall die. Oh, dear girl, something not good is happening
+with me, something strange. It has never been like this with me before.
+There is something in me so incomprehensible. As though I were beginning
+to live again, or ... I don't know what.
+
+VARVARA.
+What is the matter with you?
+
+KATERINA (_taking her hand_).
+I'll tell you, Varia; some dreadful sin is coming upon me! I have such a
+terror in my heart, such terror! As though I am standing on the edge of a
+precipice and someone is pushing me in, and I have nothing to cling to.
+
+[_Clutches her head in her hand._]
+
+VARVARA.
+What's wrong with you? You can't be well.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, I am well.... It would be better if I were ill, it's worse as it is.
+A dream keeps creeping into my mind, and I cannot get away from it. I try
+to think--I can't collect my thoughts, I try to pray--but I can't get free
+by prayer. My lips murmur the words but my heart is far away; as though
+the evil one were whispering in my ear, and always of such wicked things.
+And such thoughts rise up within me, that I'm ashamed of myself. What is
+wrong with me? There's some trouble, something before me! At night I do
+not sleep, Varia, a sort of murmur haunts me; someone seems speaking so
+tenderly to me, as it were cooing to me like a dove. And now I never
+dream, Varia, those old dreams, of trees and mountains in Paradise; but
+it's as though someone were clasping me passionately--so passionately and
+leading me, and I follow him, I follow.
+
+VARVARA.
+Well?
+
+KATERINA.
+But what things I am saying to you, a young girl like you.
+
+VARVARA (_looking about her_).
+You can tell me! I'm worse than you.
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh what am I to tell you? I'm ashamed.
+
+VARVARA.
+You've no need! Tell away.
+
+KATERINA.
+I am stifling, stifling at home, I should like to run away. And the fancy
+comes to me that if I were my own mistress, I would float down the Volga
+now, in a boat, to the singing of songs, or I would drive right away
+clasped close....
+
+VARVARA.
+But not with your husband.
+
+KATERINA.
+How do you know that?
+
+VARVARA.
+As if I didn't know!
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, Varia, there is sin in my heart! Alas, how often I have wept, I have
+done everything I can think of! I can't get free from this sin. I can't
+escape. Varia, it is wicked, it is a fearful sin--I love someone else!
+
+VARVARA.
+I'm not likely to be hard upon you! I've sins enough of my own.
+
+KATERINA.
+What am I to do? I'm at the end of my strength, where can I find help. I'm
+so wretched, I shall do something dreadful.
+
+VARVARA.
+Mercy on us! what is coming to you! Come, wait a bit, brother's going away
+to-morrow, we'll think of something; maybe, you'll be able to see each
+other.
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no, that must not be! What are you saying! God forbid!
+
+VARVARA.
+Why are you frightened?
+
+KATERINA.
+If I were once to see and speak with him, I should run away from home, I
+would not go back home for anything in the world.
+
+VARVARA.
+Oh well, wait a little, and then we shall see.
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no, don't talk to me, I don't want to hear!
+
+VARVARA.
+Why wear yourself out for nothing? You may die of grieving, do you suppose
+they'll be sorry for you? Come, wait a bit. Why, what's the good of making
+yourself miserable?
+
+[_Enter the Old Lady with a stick and two footmen in three-cornered hats
+behind her._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VIII
+
+The same and the OLD LADY.
+
+
+OLD LADY.
+Hey, my pretty charmers? What are you doing here? Waiting for young
+fellows, waiting for your beaus? Are your hearts merry? Merry are they?
+Are you pleased and proud of your beauty? That's where beauty leads to.
+(_Points to the Volga_) Yes, yes, to the bottomless pit! (_Varvara
+smiles._) What, laughing? Let not your heart rejoice! (_Knocks with her
+stick_) You will burn all of you in a fire unquenchable. You will boil in
+the lake of flaming pitch. (_Going_) That is whither beauty leads you!
+
+[_Goes._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IX
+
+KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, how she frightened me! I'm trembling all over, as if she were
+foretelling something for me.
+
+VARVARA.
+Her curse fall on her own head, the old witch!
+
+KATERINA.
+What was it she said, eh? what did she say?
+
+VARVARA.
+It was all rubbish. It's silly to listen to her raving. She foretells evil
+like that to everyone. She was a sinner all her life from her youth up.
+You should hear the stories they tell about her. So now she's afraid of
+death. And she must try and frighten others with what she dreads herself.
+Why even the little street boys hide away from her; she shakes her stick
+at them and growls (_mimicking_) "you'll all burn in fire unquenchable!"
+
+KATERINA (_shrinking_).
+Ah, ah, stop! I can't bear it!
+
+VARVARA.
+There's nothing to be frightened of! An old fool....
+
+KATERINA.
+I am afraid, terribly afraid! I seem to see her all the while before us.
+[_Silence._
+
+VARVARA (_looking round_).
+I say, brother doesn't come, and yonder there's a storm coming up.
+
+KATERINA (_in terror_).
+A storm! Let us run home! Make haste!
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, are you crazy? How can you show yourself at home without my brother?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, let us go home! Never mind him!
+
+VARVARA.
+But why are you so awfully frightened? The storm's a long way off yet.
+
+KATERINA.
+If it's so far off, we'll wait then a little, if you like; but really it
+would be better to go. Yes, we'd better go home.
+
+VARVARA.
+But if anything were to happen, you know, you'd be no safer at home.
+
+KATERINA.
+No, but still, it's better there, it's quieter; at home one can turn to
+the holy pictures and pray to God!
+
+VARVARA.
+I didn't know you were so afraid of a thunderstorm. I'm not afraid, you
+see.
+
+KATERINA.
+Don't talk of not being afraid! Everyone must be afraid. What is dreadful
+is not it's killing you, but that death may overtake you all of a sudden,
+just as you are, with all your sins, with all your erring thoughts. I have
+no fear of death, but when I think that I shall be brought all at once
+before the face of God just as I am here, with you, after this
+talk,--that's what is awful! What I had in my heart! What wickedness!
+fearful to think of! (_Thunder._) Ah!
+
+[_Enter Kabanov._
+
+VARVARA.
+Here comes my brother. (_To Kabanov_) Hurry up!
+
+[_Thunder._
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah! Make haste! Make haste!
+
+
+
+
+ACT II
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+A room in the house of the Kabanovs.
+
+GLASHA (_packing up clothes in a bundle_).
+
+_Enter_ FEKLUSHA.
+
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Dear girl, always at work! What are you doing, my dear?
+
+GLASHA.
+I'm getting the master's things ready for his journey.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Is he going away then--the light of our eyes?
+
+GLASHA.
+Yes.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Is he going to be away long, my dear?
+
+GLASHA.
+No, not long.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Well, God speed him on his way! And say, will the young mistress do a wail
+for his going or not?
+
+GLASHA.
+That I can't say, really.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+But she does wail at times, I suppose?
+
+GLASHA.
+Never heard of her doing it.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Well now, my dear, if there's one thing I love, it's to hear a wail well
+done! (_Silence._) And mind you keep a sharp look out, my girl, on the
+beggar woman below, that she don't lay her hands on anything.
+
+GLASHA.
+Who's to tell the rights and wrongs of it with you begging pilgrims, you
+all speak ill of one another. Why can't you live and let live? I should
+have thought you wandering women get plenty in our house all of you, and
+yet you must always be quarrelling and nagging at each other. Aren't you
+afraid of such sin?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+One can't be without sin, my good girl; we live in the world. I'll tell
+you what, my dear; you, simple folk, are tempted of one devil, but we
+pilgrim folk are beset, one with six, another with twelve devils; and here
+we have to struggle against all at once. It's a hard fight, my dear, a
+hard fight!
+
+GLASHA.
+Why is it you have such a lot?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Ah, my good girl, that comes of the hatred the evil one has for us,
+because we lead a life of such holiness. But I can't say, my dear, that
+I'm one to gossip; that's not a sin of mine. One failing I have, truly; I
+know myself what it is. I love dainty eating. Well, well, the Lord in His
+mercy provides according to my weakness.
+
+GLASHA.
+And have you travelled far in your wanderings, Feklusha?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+No, my dear, owing to my weakness, I've never gone far away; but many a
+thing I've heard. They do say, my dear, there are countries where there
+are no Tsars of the true faith, but Sultans rule the lands. In one land
+there is the Sultan Mahnoot the Turk on the throne--and in another the
+Sultan Mahnoot the Persian. And they rule, my good girl, over all men, and
+whatever they decree it's always unrighteous. And they cannot, my dear,
+judge righteously in any one thing, such is the ban laid upon them. We
+have a just law, but they, my dear, an unjust law. Everything that is one
+way in our land is the very opposite in theirs. And all the judges with
+them, in their countries, are unjust too, so that, do you know, my girl,
+they even write in their petitions: "judge me, unjust judge!" And there is
+a country too where all the men have the heads of dogs.
+
+GLASHA.
+How do they come to have dogs' heads?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+For their infidelity. I am going off on my rounds among the merchant
+gentry, my dear, to see if there won't be some alms for poverty. Good-bye
+for the present!
+
+GLASHA.
+Good-bye! (_Exit Feklusha_.) Only fancy that there are lands like that!
+There's no end to the marvels in the world. And here we sit at home and
+know nothing. A good thing it is to be sure, that there are pious folk;
+from time to time one hears what is being done in the light of day; if it
+weren't for them, we should live and die in our foolishness.
+
+_Enter Katerina and Varvara_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+VARVARA (_to Glasha_).
+Carry the bundles down to the chaise, the horses are at the door. (_To
+Katerina_) You were married off young, and you never had any fun when you
+were a girl; and so your heart is restless still.
+
+[_Glasha goes out._
+
+KATERINA.
+And it always will be.
+
+VARVARA.
+Why?
+
+KATERINA.
+I have been like that from my birth up, full of fire! I was only six years
+old, when do you know what I did? They offended me somehow at home,--it
+was in the evening and quite dark--I ran away to the Volga, and got into a
+boat, and pushed it off from the bank. They found me next morning, ten
+miles down the river.
+
+VARVARA.
+Really! And were there any men in love with you, as a girl?
+
+KATERINA.
+Of course there were!
+
+VARVARA.
+Well? And didn't you care for anyone?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, I only laughed at them.
+
+VARVARA.
+And you know, Katia, you don't love Tihon.
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh, yes, I do! I'm dreadfully sorry for him.
+
+VARVARA.
+Oh, no, you don't. If you're sorry for him you don't love him. And indeed
+you've no great reason to, I must own. And it's no good your being so
+close with me! I noticed a long while ago, that you were fond of some one.
+
+KATERINA (_with dismay_).
+How did you notice it?
+
+VARVARA.
+How absurd you are! I'm not a baby! Well, I'll tell you the first sign I
+knew by; directly you see him, your whole face is transformed. (_Katerina
+drops her eyes._) And that's not all....
+
+KATERINA (_still looking down_).
+Well, whom then?
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, you know, what's the use of telling his name?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, tell it! Tell his name!
+
+VARVARA.
+Boris Grigoritch.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, yes, Varia! Only mind, Varia, for pity's sake....
+
+VARVARA.
+What nonsense! _You'd_ better mind, and not betray yourself in any way.
+
+KATERINA.
+I can't deceive, I don't know how to conceal anything.
+
+VARVARA.
+But there's no doing without deceit; think where you're living! Our whole
+house rests on it! I wasn't fond of lying either, but I learnt the trick,
+when I had to. I was out walking yesterday, and so I saw him and had a few
+minutes talk with him.
+
+KATERINA (_after a short silence, looking down_).
+Well?
+
+VARVARA.
+He sent greetings to you. He was sorry, he said, that he never meets you.
+
+KATERINA (_her head still more bent down_).
+As if we could meet! And what would be the use....
+
+VARVARA.
+He is so sad and unhappy....
+
+KATERINA.
+Don't speak to me of him, for goodness' sake, don't speak of him! I don't
+want to know him even. I will love my husband: Tisha, my dear one, no one
+shall ever take your place! I did not want to think of him, you tempt me.
+
+VARVARA.
+All right, don't think of him; no one compels you to.
+
+KATERINA.
+You have no mercy on me! You say: don't think of him, and you mention him
+yourself! Do you suppose I want to think of him; but what can I do, when I
+can't get him out of my mind? Whatever I try to think, he seems always
+standing before my eyes. And I try to be different, and I can't. Do you
+know, last night, the evil one tempted me again. I was almost walking
+straight out of the house.
+
+VARVARA.
+You are such a fantastical creature, God bless you! What I think is: one
+should do what one likes, only be sure it's kept dark!
+
+KATERINA.
+I don't like that. What good can come of it! I had much better bear it as
+long as I can bear it.
+
+VARVARA.
+And when you can't bear it, what will you do?
+
+KATERINA.
+What shall I do?
+
+VARVARA.
+Yes, what will you do?
+
+KATERINA.
+Whatever I long to do, I will do.
+
+VARVARA.
+Just try; why they'd torment you to death.
+
+KATERINA.
+What do I care! I should go away, and that would be the end of it.
+
+VARVARA.
+Where would you go? You are a married woman.
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, Varia, you don't know me! I pray, of course, it may never come to
+that! But if I am too miserable here, they would not keep me by any force
+on earth. I should throw myself out of the window, I should drown myself
+in the Volga. If I will not to live here, then I would not, they might cut
+me to pieces! (_Silence._)
+
+VARVARA.
+Do you know what, Katia! When Tihon's gone, let's sleep in the garden, in
+the summerhouse.
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh, why, Varia?
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, isn't it just the same to you?
+
+KATERINA.
+I'm timid of sleeping in a place I'm not used to.
+
+VARVARA.
+Timid, nonsense! Glasha will be with us.
+
+KATERINA.
+Still one feels nervous, somehow! But perhaps I will.
+
+VARVARA.
+I wouldn't have asked you, only mamma wouldn't let me alone, and I must.
+
+KATERINA (_looking at her_).
+What for?
+
+VARVARA.(_laughing_).
+We'll tell our fortunes together there.
+
+KATERINA.
+You must be joking.
+
+VARVARA.
+To be sure, I am joking; did you think I meant it?
+
+[_Silence_.
+
+KATERINA.
+Where can Tihon be?
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, do you want him?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, I only wondered, he has to start so soon.
+
+VARVARA.
+He's sitting locked up with mamma. She's nagging away at him now.
+
+KATERINA.
+What for?
+
+VARVARA.
+For nothing at all, teaching him to mind what he's about. He'll be a
+fortnight away out of her sight! Only fancy! She has an uneasy inkling all
+the time that he'll enjoy himself when he's his own master. And so she's
+busy now laying all sorts of injunctions upon him, each more imperative
+than the last, and then she'll take him up to the holy picture and make
+him swear solemnly that he'll do everything exactly and precisely
+according to her bidding.
+
+KATERINA.
+And so even when he's free he'll be as good as bound.
+
+VARVARA.
+Bound! Oh, will he! As soon as he gets away, he'll start drinking, you may
+be sure. He says nothing now, but all the while he's only thinking how to
+get away as soon as possible.
+
+[_Enter Mme. Kabanova and Kabanov_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+The Same with KABANOV and MADAME KABANOVA.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Now do you remember everything I've told you? Mind you do remember it!
+Keep it in your heart!
+
+KABANOV.
+Yes, mamma.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, now everything is ready. The horses are at the door. You've only to
+say good-bye and be off in God's name.
+
+KABANOV.
+Yes, mamma, it's time I was off.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well?
+
+KABANOV.
+What do you desire?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Why are you standing about? Don't you know the way to do things? Lay your
+commands upon your wife, exhort her how she is to live in your absence.
+
+[_Katerina looks on the ground_.
+
+KABANOV.
+But she knows quite well without that.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+The way you talk! Come, come, give your commands, that I may hear what
+commands you lay upon her! And then when you come back, you can ask if she
+has performed everything exactly.
+
+KABANOV (_standing opposite Katerina_).
+Obey mamma, Katia.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Tell her not to be saucy to her mother-in-law.
+
+KABANOV.
+Don't be saucy!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+To revere her mother-in-law as her own mother.
+
+KABANOV.
+Revere mamma, Katia, as your own mother.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Not to sit with her hands in her lap like a fine lady.
+
+KABANOV.
+Do some work while I am away!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Not to go staring out of window!
+
+KABANOV.
+But, mamma, whenever has she....
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, come!
+
+KABANOV.
+Don't look out of window!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Not to stare at young fellows while you are away!
+
+KABANOV.
+But that is too much, mamma, for mercy's sake!
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_severely_).
+Enough of this nonsense! It's your duty to do what your mother tells you.
+(_With a smile_) It's always as well when it's forbidden.
+
+KABANOV (_in great confusion_).
+Don't look at young men! [_Katerina looks sternly at him_.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, now you can talk by yourselves a little, if you want to. Come,
+Varvara! [_They go out_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+KABANOV and KATERINA (_she stands as though turned to stone_).
+
+
+KABANOV.
+Katia! (_Silence_.) Katia, you're not angry with me?
+
+KATERINA (_after a protracted silence--shakes her head_).
+No!
+
+KABANOV.
+But why are you like this? Come, forgive me!
+
+KATERINA (_still in the same position, slightly shaking her head_).
+Peace be with you! (_Hiding her face in her hands_) She has hurt me!
+
+KABANOV.
+If you take everything to heart so, you'll soon fall into a decline. Why
+listen to her! You know she must talk! Well then, let her talk, and you
+let it go in at one ear and out at the other. Come, good-bye, Katia!
+
+KATERINA (_falling on her husband's neck_).
+Tisha, don't go away! For God's sake, don't go away! Dear one, I implore
+you!
+
+KABANOV.
+I must, Katia. When mamma sends me, how can I not go?
+
+KATERINA.
+Well, take me with you, do take me!
+
+KABANOV (_freeing himself from her embrace_).
+But it's impossible!
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh, why, Tisha, impossible?
+
+KABANOV.
+Much fun there would be in going with you! You've worried me out of my
+life here between you! No sooner have I a hope of escaping than you want
+to fasten yourself upon me.
+
+KATERINA.
+Why, can it be that you are tired of me?
+
+KABANOV.
+No, I'm not tired of you; but to get out of this slavery a man would run
+away from the loveliest woman in the world! Just consider for a minute; I
+may not be good for much; but I'm a man anyway; and living all my life as
+you see, one's glad to run away from one's wife even. Why, when I think
+now, that for two whole weeks there'll be no storm hanging over me, no
+fetters on my legs,--do you suppose I can think of my wife?
+
+KATERINA.
+How can I care for you, when you say things like that?
+
+KABANOV.
+Say things? Why, what things am I to say? God knows what it is you're
+afraid of! You won't be alone, you know, you'll be with mamma.
+
+KATERINA.
+Don't speak of her, don't torture my heart! Ah, how wretched I am, how
+wretched! (_Weeps_.) Where can I go? Whom can I cling to? Merciful
+Heavens, I am lost!
+
+KABANOV.
+Come, be quiet!
+
+KATERINA (_goes up to her husband and draws him to her_).
+Tisha, dear one, if you would stay, if you would take me with you, how I
+would love you, how I would cherish you, my dear one!
+
+KABANOV.
+I can't make you out, Katia! Often there's no getting a word out of you,
+to say nothing of a kiss, and now you come coaxing up to me of your own
+accord.
+
+KATERINA.
+Tisha, what are you leaving me to? There'll be trouble when you're away!
+There'll be trouble!
+
+KABANOV.
+Now, come, I can't, so it's no use.
+
+KATERINA.
+Well, here then! Take from me some dreadful vow....
+
+KABANOV.
+What vow?
+
+KATERINA.
+A vow that I will not dare while you're away on any ground whatever to
+speak with any outsider, nor see anyone,--that I will not even dare to
+think of anyone but you.
+
+KABANOV.
+But what's this for?
+
+KATERINA.
+Set my heart at rest, do this for me!
+
+KABANOV.
+But one can never answer for oneself like that, anything may come into
+one's head.
+
+KATERINA (_falling on her knees_).
+May I never look upon my father nor my mother! May I die impenitent,
+if I...
+
+KABANOV (_pulling her up_).
+Hush! Nonsense! What wickedness is this! I won't hear you!
+
+[_Voice of Mme. Kabanova heard without, "It's time to start, Tihon!" Enter
+Mme. Kabanova, Varvara and Glasha._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+The same.
+
+MME. KABANOVA, VARVARA and GLASHA.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, Tihon, it's time now! Set off on your way in God's name! (_sits
+down_). Sit down, all of you! (_All sit down. Silence_.) Now, good-bye!
+(_Gets up and all get up_.)
+
+KABANOV (_going up to his mother_).
+Good-bye, mamma!
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_with a wave of her hand points him to the ground_).
+At my feet! At my feet! (_Kabanov bows down to her feet, then kisses his
+mother_.) Say good-bye to your wife.
+
+KABANOV.
+Good-bye, Katia! [_Katerina falls on his neck_.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+What do you want to hang on his neck like that for, shameless hussy! It's
+not a lover you're parting from! He's your husband--your head! Don't you
+know how to behave? Bow down at his feet!     [_Katerina bows down to his
+feet_.
+
+KABANOV.
+Good-bye, sister (_kisses Varvara_). Good-bye! Glasha (_kisses Glasha_).
+Good-bye, mamma! (_bows down to the ground_).
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Good-bye! Long farewells mean foolish tears.
+[_Kabanov goes out, after him Katerina, Varvara, and Glasha_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_alone_).
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+The way young folks behave! It makes one laugh really to see them! If they
+weren't my own, I could laugh till I split. They don't know the way to do
+anything properly. Can't even take leave with decorum. A lucky thing it is
+for them that they have elder folk, who will keep their house together as
+long as they're living. And yet, the silly fools, they long to be their
+own masters, though when they do have their own way, they get in a mess
+directly to the scandal and amusement of all worthy folk. One here and
+there, to be sure, will be sorry for them, but for the most part they'll
+all laugh. No one can help laughing either; they'll invite guests, and not
+know how they should sit, and what's more, as likely as not, they leave
+out some one of their relations. It's simply comical. But the old order's
+passing away. There are some houses one doesn't care to go into. If you do
+cross the threshold, all you can do is to spit, and get away as quick as
+may be. What will happen when the old people are dead, how the world will
+go on, I really can't think. I'm thankful anyway, that I shall see nothing
+of it.
+
+[_Enter Katerina and Varvara._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VII
+
+MME. KABANOVA, KATERINA, and VARVARA.
+
+
+You make a boast of loving your husband so much; I see now how much your
+love's worth. Any other good wife, on seeing her husband off, would wail
+for a good hour and a half, lying on the steps; but one can see you're not
+much upset.
+
+KATERINA.
+There's no reason to be! Besides, I don't know how to wail. Why make the
+people laugh!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+No great art is needed. If you loved him you would have learnt to do it.
+If you can't wail properly, you should wail a little, if only for example.
+It is always more decorous; or else one sees it is all words with you.
+Well, I'm going to pray to God; do not interrupt me.
+
+VARVARA.
+I'm going out.
+
+MME. KABANOVA (_caressingly_).
+I've nothing against it! Go and enjoy yourself till your time comes.
+You'll have sitting indoors enough later on! [_Exeunt Mme. Kabanova and
+Varvara._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VIII
+
+
+KATERINA (_alone, dreamily_).
+Well, now, peace reigns in our house! Ah, the dreariness. If only there
+were children! That's the saddest thing! I have no children; I should sit
+with them and amuse them all day. I love talking to little children--they
+are angels, really. (_Silence._) If I had died when I was little, it would
+have been better. I should have looked down on to the earth from Heaven
+and been delighted with everything. I should have flown unseen wherever I
+liked. I would have floated into the country and fluttered from flower to
+flower, like a butterfly. (_Sinks into a reverie_) I know what I will do;
+I will begin some piece of work, as an offering to God. I will go to the
+bazaar, and buy some stuff and make some clothes to give to the poor. They
+will remember me in their prayers. And so I'll sit sewing with Varvara,
+and we shall not notice how the time passes; and soon Tisha will be back.
+
+[_Enter Varvara_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IX
+
+KATERINA and VARVARA.
+
+
+VARVARA (_putting a kerchief on her head before the looking-glass_).
+I am just going out for a walk now; Glasha's putting our beds in the
+summer house now, mamma's consented to let us sleep there. Mamma always
+keeps the little gate in the garden behind the raspberries locked up and
+hides the key. I've taken it and put another one in its place for her, so
+she won't notice it. Here, see, maybe, it will be wanted (_gives the
+key_). If I see him, I shall tell him to come to the little gate.
+
+KATERINA (_with horror, pushing away the key_).
+What for! what for! No! no!
+
+VARVARA.
+If you don't want it, I do; take it, it won't bite you!
+
+KATERINA.
+But what are you plotting, wicked girl? It's impossible! Do you know what
+you're doing? It's dreadful, dreadful!
+
+VARVARA.
+Well, well--Least said is soonest mended; and I've no time to stay either.
+It's time for my walk.
+
+[_Goes._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE X
+
+
+KATERINA (_alone, holding the key in her hand_).
+The things she thinks of doing! Ah, she's a mad girl, really mad! Here is
+ruin! Here it is! Fling it away, fling it far away, drop it into the
+river, that it may never be found. It burns the hand like fire. (_Musing_)
+This is how we women come to ruin. How can anyone be happy in bondage? One
+may be driven to anything. Many a one is glad if she gets the chance; she
+flings herself headlong. But how can they, without thinking, without
+reflecting! Easy is the path that leads to misfortune! And then tears and
+anguish all your life: your bondage is bitterer than ever. (_Silence_) But
+bitter is a life of bondage, ah, how bitter! Who does not weep in it! Most
+of all, we women. Here am I now! I am fretting away my life, and I see no
+loophole of light and hope before me! And I never shall see it, that's
+certain! It'll be worse as it goes on. And now this wickedness too has
+come upon me. (_Muses_) If it were not for my mother-in-law! ... She is
+crushing me.... She has made the house hateful to me.... I loathe the
+very walls because of her. (_Looks dreamily at the key_) Throw it away? Of
+course, I must throw it away. And how came it into my hands? For my
+temptation, for my undoing. (_Listens_) Ah, someone is coming. How my
+heart is beating! (_hides the key in her pocket_) No! ... No one! ... Why
+was I so frightened? And I have put away the key.... Well, that's a sign
+it is to be! Fate itself, it seems, wills it! And where is the sin if I do
+look at him just once, from a distance. Even if I speak to him, still
+there's no harm in that! But what I said to Tihon ... why, he would not
+have it himself. And maybe, such a chance will not come again all my life
+long. Then I may well weep to myself--that there was a chance and I had
+not sense to seize it. But why talk, why cheat myself? If I die for it, I
+must see him. Whom am I trying to deceive.... Throw away the key! No, for
+nothing in the whole world! It is mine now.... Come what may, I will see
+Boris! Ah, night! come quickly!
+
+
+
+
+ACT III
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+The Street. The gates of the Kabanovs' house, a garden seat before the
+gates.
+
+MME. KABANOVA and FEKLUSHA (_sitting on the bench_).
+
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+The end of the world is at hand, ma'am, by every sign and token, Marfa
+Ignatievna, the end of the world is at hand. It's peace and paradise still
+here in your town, but in other towns it's simply Sodom, ma'am: the noise,
+the bustle, the incessant traffic! The people keep running, one one way,
+and one another.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+We've no need to hurry, my dear, we live without haste.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+No, ma'am; there is peace and quietness in this town, because there are
+many people, you for instance, adorned with virtues, as with flowers;
+that's why everything is done decorously and tranquilly. Why, what is the
+meaning of all that haste and bustle, ma'am? It is vanity, to be sure! In
+Moscow now: the folk run to and fro; there's no knowing for why. It is all
+vanity. It is a people, full of vanity, ma'am, and so it runs to and fro.
+Each one fancies he's hurrying on business; he hastens, poor fellow,
+doesn't recognise people; it seems to him that someone is beckoning him;
+but when he gets to the place, sure enough it's empty, there's nothing
+there, it's only a dream. And he is downcast and disappointed. And another
+one fancies that he's overtaking someone he knows. Anyone looking on can
+see in a trice that there's no one; but it seems to him in his vanity and
+delusion that he's overtaking someone. Vanity, to be sure, is like a fog
+about them. Here among you on a fine evening like this, it's not often
+anyone even comes out to sit at his gate; but in Moscow now there's
+walking and playing, and a fearful racket going on in the street; a
+continual roar. And what's more, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, they've
+harnessed a fiery serpent to drive: all, look you, for the sake of more
+speed.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I have heard tell of it, my dear.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+But I, ma'am, have seen it with my own eyes; no doubt, others, in
+blindness and vanity, see nothing, so it seems a machine to them, but I
+saw it doing like this _(spreading out her fingers)_ with its paws. And a
+roar, too, that folks of righteous life hear for what it is.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+You can call it anything you like, call it a machine, if you will; the
+people is foolish and will believe anything. But as for me you might load
+me with gold, I wouldn't drive with such a thing.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+The very idea, ma'am! The Lord preserve us from such a thing. And let me
+tell you too, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, a vision I had in Moscow. I went
+out early in the morning, it was just dawn, and on a high, very high
+house, on the roof, I saw someone standing, with a black face. You
+understand whom I mean. And he kept moving his hands, as though he were
+scattering something, but nothing fell. Then I divined that he was the
+enemy sowing tares, and the people in their blindness see it not, and
+gather them up. And that is why they run to and fro so, and the women
+among them are all so thin, and never get plump and comfortable, but
+always look as if they had lost something, or were looking for something,
+and that careworn they are, you feel sorry for them.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Anything is possible, my dear, in our times, one can't be surprised at
+anything.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+Hard times they are, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, very hard. Already the time
+has begun diminishing.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+How is that? diminishing, my dear?
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+We, of course--how should we observe it in our blindness and vanity? but
+wise people have observed that time has grown shorter with us. Once the
+summer and the winter dragged on endlessly, you got tired of looking for
+the end of them, but now, before one's time to look about one, they've
+flown. The days and the hours still seem the same, of course; but the time
+keeps growing shorter and shorter, for our sins. That's what the learned
+folk say about it.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+And worse than that will be, my dear.
+
+FEKLUSHA.
+I only trust we shan't live to see it.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Maybe, we shall.    [_Enter Dikoy._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+The Same and DIKOY.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+What brings you abroad so late, old friend?
+
+DIKOY.
+Why, who's to hinder me being out, I should like to know?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Who wants to hinder you, indeed!
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, then what's the use of talking? Whose control am I under, hey? What
+next will you say? What the devil....
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Now then, keep a little check on your tongue! You'd better look out for
+someone else to talk to! I won't let you off so easily as some do! Go your
+way wherever you're going. Come indoors, Feklusha.
+
+[_Gets up._
+
+DIKOY.
+Wait a bit, old friend, wait a bit! Don't be angry. You're in no hurry to
+get home; your home's not many miles away. Here it is!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+If you've come on business, don't shout at me, but speak out plainly.
+
+DIKOY.
+I've no business, but I'm drunk, that's what it is!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, would you have me praise you for that, hey?
+
+DIKOY.
+Needn't praise or blame. Only I'm drunk, and that's all about it. I can't
+get over it till I've slept it off.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, go and have a sleep then.
+
+DIKOY.
+Where am I to go?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Home, of course, where else?
+
+DIKOY.
+But if I don't want to go home.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Why not, allow me to ask you?
+
+DIKOY.
+Because I've a row going on there.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Why, who is there to quarrel with? You're the only quarrelsome one there,
+you know.
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, what if I am quarrelsome, hey? What of it, hey?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Oh, nothing. Only there's no great glory in doing battle all your life
+with women, that's all.
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, I suppose they ought to obey me! Or am I to obey them, hey?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I really wonder at you; with all the crowd of folks in your house, not a
+single one can do anything to your liking.
+
+DIKOY.
+That's so!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, what do you want of me?
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, talk me out of my temper. You're the only person in the whole town
+who knows how to talk to me.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Go in, Feklusha, and order a little something to be served. _(Feklusha
+goes.)_ Let's go indoors.
+
+DIKOY.
+No, I'm not going indoors, I'm worse indoors!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+How have they put you into such a rage?
+
+DIKOY.
+I've been so all day since the morning.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I suppose they've been asking for money.
+
+DIKOY.
+As if they were in league together, damn them. One after another the whole
+day long they've been at me.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+No doubt you'll have to give it them, or they wouldn't persist.
+
+DIKOY.
+I know that; but what would you have me do, since I've a temper like that?
+Why, I know that I must pay, still I can't do it with a good will. You're
+a friend of mine, and I've to pay you something, and you come and ask me
+for it, I'm bound to swear at you! Pay I will, if pay I must, but I must
+swear too. For you've only to hint at money to me, and I feel hot all over
+in a minute; red-hot all over, and that's all about it. And to be sure at
+such times, I'd swear at anyone for nothing at all.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+You've no one over you, and so you think you can do as you like.
+
+DIKOY.
+No, you hold your tongue! Listen to me! I'll tell you the sort of troubles
+that happen to me. I had fasted and all ready for sacrament in Lent, and
+then the evil one thrusts a wretched peasant under my nose. He had come
+for money,--for wood he had supplied us. And for my sins he must needs
+show himself at a time like that! I fell into sin, of course, I pitched
+into him, pitched into him finely, I did, all but thrashed him. There you
+have it, my temper! Afterwards I asked his pardon, bowed down at his feet,
+upon my word I did. It's the truth I'm telling you, I bowed down at a
+peasant's feet. That's what my temper brings me to: on the spot there, in
+the mud I bowed down at his feet; before everyone, I did.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+But what do you work yourself up into a rage on purpose for? That's not
+right, my friend!
+
+DIKOY.
+On purpose? How d'you mean?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I've seen you, I know all about it. When you see that people are going to
+ask you for anything, you go and pick a quarrel purposely with one of your
+household, so as to work yourself into a rage. For you know that when
+you're in a rage, no one dare come near you. That's a pretty thing!
+
+DIKOY.
+Well, what of it? Who likes parting with his property?
+
+[_Glasha comes in._
+
+GLASHA.
+Marfa Ignatievna, lunch is served!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, old friend, come in! Have a taste of what God has sent us!
+
+DIKOY.
+Much obliged.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Pray walk in. _(Ushers Dikoy in front and follows him in. Glasha, folding
+her arms, stands at the gates.)_
+
+GLASHA.
+If that isn't Boris Grigoritch coming. Sure now he's not after his uncle?
+Or may be, just out for a stroll--to be sure, out for a stroll, he must
+be. [_Enter Boris._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+GLASHA, BORIS, later KULIGIN.
+
+
+BORIS.
+Isn't my uncle inside?
+
+GLASHA.
+Yes. Do you want him?
+
+BORIS.
+They sent me from home to find out where he was. But since he's with you
+let him stop there; no one wants him. At home they're pleased and happy
+that he's out.
+
+GLASHA.
+Our good lady out to marry him, she'd soon make him mind what he's about.
+But I mustn't stop here gossiping with you! Good-bye.  [_Exit._
+
+BORIS.
+Ah, merciful Heavens! For one glimpse of her! I can't go into the house.
+No one calls anywhere uninvited in this place. What a life! We are living
+in the same town, almost next door; yet we barely see each other once a
+week, and then only in church, or in the street,--and that's all! When a
+woman's married here she might as well be buried,--it's all the same.
+_(Silence.)_ If only I had never seen her; it would have been better for
+me! I can only see her by snatches, and before people,--who are all eyes,
+staring at one. It's simply heartrending. And yet there's no mastering
+oneself. If I go out for a walk, I always find myself here at the gate.
+And what use is there in coming here? There's never any chance of seeing
+her, and what's more, it may give rise to gossip and do her harm. Well,
+it's a fine town, certainly!
+
+[_He is going, Kuligin comes, meeting him._
+
+KULIGIN.
+Well, sir? out for a walk?
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, it's very pleasant out now.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Very pleasant it is, sir, walking now. The stillness, the sweet air, the
+scent of flowers from the far side of the Volga, the clear sky--
+
+The space aloft, filled full of stars,
+Stars numberless, space limitless.
+
+Shall we go to the parade, there's not a soul there.
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, come along.
+
+KULIGIN
+That's our town all over, sir! Here they've made a parade, but they don't
+walk there. They only walk out on fete days, and then they only make a
+show of being out for a walk. They really come out to show off their best
+clothes. You never meet anyone but maybe a drunken attorney's clerk
+reeling home from the tavern. The poor have no time, sir, to walk out;
+they must work and worry day and night. Three hours' sleep is all they get
+out of the twenty-four. But what are the rich about? You'd wonder why they
+shouldn't walk about and enjoy the fresh air. But not a bit of it! They've
+all had their gates, sir, locked up long ago, and their dogs let loose.
+... Do you suppose they are at work at their business, or praying to God?
+No, sir! And it's not for fear of thieves they lock themselves up; it's
+that folks shouldn't see the way they ill-treat their household, and bully
+their families. And the tears that flow behind those bolts, unseen,
+unheard of! But there's no need to tell you that, sir! You can judge of it
+for yourself. And the sordid sodden vice within those barred gates, sir!
+And all hidden and buried--no one sees or knows anything of it, God alone
+beholds it! Stare at me as you like, say they, in the street and among
+folk, but you've nothing to do with my family; that's what I have locks
+for, and bolts and bars and savage dogs. The family's something apart,
+secret! We know all about such secrets!--secrets, sir, that make one man
+merry, perhaps, while the rest are weeping and wailing. Much secrecy about
+it! Everyone knows! Robbing their orphans, kinsfolk, nephews, beating
+their dependents till they're too cowed to hint at what goes on within
+doors,--there's no great secret in that! But that's enough of them! Do you
+know, sir, who do go for walks here? The young fellows and girls. They
+steal an hour or two from sleep and walk out in couples. There's a couple
+over there!
+
+[_Kudriash and Varvara are seen. They kiss._
+
+BORIS.
+They are kissing.
+
+KULIGIN.
+We don't think much of that.
+
+[_Kudriash goes off, and Varvara goes towards her own gate and beckons
+Boris, he goes up to her._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+BORIS, KULIGIN and VARVARA.
+
+
+KULIGIN.
+I'll go to the parade, sir. I'm in your way. I'll wait for you there.
+
+BORIS.
+Very well, I'll come directly.
+
+VARVARA (_hiding her face in her kerchief_).
+Do you know the hollow behind the Kabanovs' garden?
+
+BORIS.
+Yes.
+
+VARVARA.
+You come there a little later on.
+
+BORIS.
+What for?
+
+VARVARA.
+How stupid you are! Come; then you'll see what for. Well, you'd better
+make haste now, since that person's waiting for you. (_Boris goes_.)
+There, he didn't know me! Well, now let him wonder, I know very well that
+Katerina won't hold out, she'll run out to see him. [_Goes in at the gate.
+Curtain_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+The scene changes.
+
+A hollow dell covered with bushes; at the top of it the Kabanovs' garden
+and a gate; a path leading down from it.
+
+(_Kudriash enters with a, guitar_.)
+
+
+KUDRIASH.
+No one. What is she up to? Well, I'll sit and wait for her. (_Seats
+himself on a stone_) This is slow; I'll sing a song (_sings_).
+
+As the Don Cossack, the Cossack, leads his horse to drink,
+The brave young man, he stands at the gate,
+At the gate he stands, and ponders in his heart,
+In his heart he ponders, how he will slay his wife.
+And the wife, the wife besought him,
+Falling down at his swift feet;
+Master, friend of my heart, I pray thee,
+Strike me not, slay me not in the evening!
+But kill me, slay me after midnight!
+Let my little children be asleep,
+My little children, and all my good neighbours.    [_Enter Boris_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+KUDRIASH and BORIS.
+
+
+KUDRIASH (_stops singing_). Hullo! Such a sober, staid person as you, out
+on the spree too?
+
+BORIS.
+Kudriash, is that you?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+It is, Boris Grigoritch.
+
+BORIS.
+What are you here for?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+What for? I suppose because I want to be here, Boris Grigoritch, since I
+am here. I shouldn't have come if I hadn't wanted to. Where is fortune
+taking you?
+
+BORIS (_looking carefully at the scene around him_).
+Look here, Kudriash, I've got to stop here, and I've no doubt it's all the
+same to you, so you might go and sit in some other place.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+No, Boris Grigoritch, you're here, I perceive, for the first time, but
+this is a place where I have often sat, and this little path has been
+trodden by my feet. I like you, sir, and am ready to do you any service;
+but you'll kindly refrain from meeting me in this path at night, lest evil
+come of it. Fair words are better than gold.
+
+BORIS.
+What is the matter with you, Vania?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Vania, indeed! I know my name's Vania. But you go on your way, that's all
+about it. Find a girl to your liking, and walk out with her to your
+heart's content, and no one will say a word to you. But don't meddle with
+other fellows' girls! That's not the way we do things here, or the fellows
+will break your legs for you. For my girl ... Well, I don't know what I
+wouldn't do! I'd cut your throat!
+
+BORIS.
+You're angry for no reason; I've not the slightest idea of robbing you of
+her. I shouldn't have come here if I hadn't been told to.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Who told you to?
+
+BORIS.
+I couldn't make out, it was dark. A girl stopped me in the street and said
+I was to come just here, behind the Kabanovs' garden, where there is a
+little path.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Who could that be?
+
+BORIS.
+Listen, Kudriash. Could I speak to you openly, you wouldn't gossip?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+You needn't be afraid of that! I'm as safe as the grave.
+
+BORIS.
+I know nothing of your habits and ways of doing things here; but the fact
+is ...
+
+KUDRIASH.
+You're in love.
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, Kudriash.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Oh, well, that's all right. We're free enough in that way. The girls amuse
+themselves as they like, and the father and mother have nothing to say to
+it. It's only the wives are kept shut up.
+
+BORIS.
+That's just what's so sad.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+You don't mean to say you're in love with a married woman?
+
+BORIS.
+She is married, Kudriash.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Ah, Boris Grigoritch, you must drop that!
+
+BORIS.
+It's easy to say drop it! I daresay it's all the same to you, you'll throw
+up one and pick up another easily enough! But I can't do like that! If
+once I love ...
+
+KUDRIASH.
+That's as much as to say you're ready to ruin the poor thing completely,
+Boris Grigoritch!
+
+BORIS.
+God forbid! God forbid! No, Kudriash, how can you! I ready to ruin her! I
+only want to see her, to speak to her, I ask for nothing more.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+You can't answer for yourself like that, sir! And just think what sort of
+people you have to deal with here. You know them yourself. They'd be the
+death of her, they'd torment her into the grave.
+
+BORIS.
+Ah, don't say that, Kudriash, please don't frighten me!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+But does she care for you?
+
+BORIS.
+I don't know.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Have you ever met then?
+
+BORIS.
+I have only once been in their house with my uncle. And I see her in
+church, and pass her sometimes on the parade. Ah, Kudriash, how she prays,
+if you could see her! the angelic smile on her face! her face seems to
+shed light.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Oh, then it's the young wife of Kabanov.
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, Kudriash.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Oh, so that's it! Well, I humbly congratulate you!
+
+BORIS.
+What for?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Well, things look promising for you, since she's sent you word to come
+here.
+
+BORIS.
+Can it be she sent word?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Why, who else could it be?
+
+BORIS.
+No, you're making fun of me! It can't be so. (_Clutches his head_.)
+
+KUDRIASH.
+What's the matter?
+
+BORIS.
+I shall go mad with joy.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+What next! I can't see anything to go mad about! You look out that you
+don't make a mess of things and get her into trouble! Her husband's a
+fool, we all know, but her mother-in-law is terrible.
+
+[_Varvara comes out of the gate._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VII
+
+The Same and VARVARA, afterwards KATERINA.
+
+
+VARVARA (_at the gate, sings_).
+"Beyond the river, the swift river,
+My Vania's walking, dear Vania's walking" ...
+
+KUDRIASH (_going on with the song_).
+"Going to the fair." (_Whistles._)
+
+VARVARA (_comes down the path and, hiding her face in her kerchief, goes
+up to Boris_).
+You wait a bit, lad. You've something to wait for. (_To Kudriash_) Let's
+go to the Volga.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+Why have you been so long? Kept me waiting again! You know I don't like
+it! (_Varvara puts one arm round him and they walk away._)
+
+BORIS.
+It's like a dream! This night, and singing and trysts! They're walking,
+their arms round each other. It is so new for me, so sweet! Here I am
+waiting for something. And what I am waiting for--I know not and cannot
+picture to myself; only my heart is throbbing and every nerve is
+quivering. I cannot think even what to say to her, I can hardly breathe,
+my knees are shaking! My stupid heart is in my mouth, I can't quiet it.
+Here she comes. (_Katerina slowly comes down the path, wrapt in a large
+white kerchief, her eyes fixed on the ground. Silence._) Is it you?
+Katerina Petrovna? (_Silence._) How can I ever thank you,--I don't know.
+(_Silence._) If you only knew, Katerina Petrovna, how I love you!
+
+[_Tries to take her hand._
+
+KATERINA (_with terror, but not raising her eyes_).
+Do not touch me, do not touch me! Alas, alas!
+
+BORIS.
+Do not be angry!
+
+KATERINA.
+Go away from me, go away, unhappy man! Do you know that never by any
+prayer can I be free of this sin, never again! Like a stone it will lie on
+my soul, like a stone.
+
+BORIS.
+Do not send me away!
+
+KATERINA.
+Why did you come? Why did you come for my undoing? I am a wife, you know,
+I must live with my husband, till I lie in the grave....
+
+BORIS.
+You told me yourself to come ...
+
+KATERINA.
+Till the grave; do you understand?
+
+BORIS.
+Better if I had never seen you.
+
+KATERINA (_with great emotion_).
+You see what I am preparing for myself? What is the only place left for
+me?
+
+BORIS.
+Calm yourself. (_Takes her hand_) Sit down!
+
+KATERINA.
+Why do you wish for my ruin?
+
+BORIS.
+How can I wish to injure you, when I love you more than anything in the
+world, more than myself?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no! You have been the undoing of me.
+
+BORIS.
+Am I such a wicked wretch?
+
+KATERINA (_shaking her head_).
+I am lost, lost, lost!
+
+BORIS.
+God forbid! I'd rather perish myself!
+
+KATERINA.
+Have I not forsaken my home, and come out to you in the night?
+
+BORIS.
+You came of your own free will.
+
+KATERINA.
+I have no will. If I had had any will left of my own, I would not have
+come to you. (_Lifts her eyes and looks at Boris. A short silence_.) Your
+will is upon me now, don't you see that? [_Sinks on his neck_.
+
+BORIS (_puts his arms about Katerina_).
+My life!
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, if death would come quickly now!
+
+BORIS.
+Why die when life is so sweet for us?
+
+KATERINA.
+No, life is not for me! I know it is not for me!
+
+BORIS.
+Don't say such things, please, don't torture me.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, you are happy, you are free as the air, but I! ...
+
+BORIS.
+No one shall know of our love. Do you think I have no feeling for you?
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah! Why feel for me, it's no one's fault. I have come to this of myself.
+Don't think of me! Anyone may know, anyone may see what I do! (_Takes
+Boris in her arms_.) Since I have not feared to do wrong for you, am I
+likely to fear the judgment of men? They do say, it will be better for
+one, if one has to suffer here on earth for any sin.
+
+BORIS.
+Come, why think of that, when we are happy now!
+
+KATERINA.
+Why, truly! I shall have long years to weep enough hereafter.
+
+BORIS.
+And I was so frightened, I thought you would send me away.
+
+KATERINA (_smiling_).
+Send you away! How could I? Not with my heart. If you had not come, think
+I should have gone to you myself.
+
+BORIS.
+I never even guessed you loved me.
+
+KATERINA.
+I have loved you for so long. It's as though, for my sins, you came here
+to torment me. Directly I saw you I ceased to belong to myself. From the
+first moment, I believe, if you had beckoned to me, I would have followed
+you; to the ends of the earth I would have followed you, and never looked
+back.
+
+BORIS.
+Has your husband gone away for long?
+
+KATERINA.
+For a fortnight.
+
+BORIS.
+O, then we will be happy! that is a long time.
+
+KATERINA.
+We will be happy. And then ... (_sinks into dreamy musing_). If they lock
+me up, that will be my death! And if they don't lock me up, I will find
+some way to see you again! [_Enter Kudriash and Varvara_.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VIII
+
+The Same, with KUDRIASH and VARVARA.
+
+
+VARVARA.
+Well, have you made friends? (_Katerina hides her face on Boris's
+breast_).
+
+BORIS.
+Yes.
+
+VARVARA.
+You might go and walk about a bit and let us rest. When it's time to go
+in, Vania will shout. (_Boris and Katerina go away, Kudriash and Varvara
+sit down on the stone_.)
+
+KUDRIASH.
+This is a first-rate plan, getting out at the garden gate. It's fine and
+convenient for us.
+
+VARVARA.
+It's all my doing.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+There's no one like you for such things. But what if your mother catches
+you?
+
+VARVARA.
+Oh! How could she? It would never enter her head!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+But if by ill luck, it were to?
+
+VARVARA.
+Her first sleep is sound; in the early morning now, there is more chance
+of her being awake.
+
+KUDRIASH.
+But there's never any knowing! Some evil spirit might rouse her up.
+
+VARVARA.
+Well, even then! Our gate into the yard is locked on the inside, the
+garden side; she would knock and knock and then go away. And in the
+morning we'd declare we'd been sound asleep and heard nothing. Besides,
+Glasha's on the lookout; the faintest sound, she'd let us know in a
+minute. One can't do anything without some risk! No, indeed! the only
+thing is to mind what one's about and not get into a scrape. (_Kudriash
+strikes a few cords on the guitar. Varvara leans on the shoulder of
+Kudriash who plays softly, paying no attention to her. Varvara yawning_)
+How could we find out what time it is?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+It's one o'clock.
+
+VARVARA.
+How do you know?
+
+KUDRIASH.
+A watchman struck one blow on his board just now.
+
+VARVARA (_yawning_).
+It's late. Shout to them! We'll get out earlier tomorrow, so as to have
+longer.
+
+KUDRIASH (_gives a whistle and then sings loudly_)
+
+They're all going home!
+They're all going home!
+But I won't go home!
+
+BORIS (_behind the scenes_).
+I hear!
+
+VARVARA (_gets up_).
+Well, good-bye! (_yawns, then gives a cool kiss to Kudriash, as if he were
+an old and very intimate friend_). To-morrow mind you come earlier!
+(_Looks in the direction in which Boris and Katerina went away_) You've
+said good-bye enough, you're not parting for ever, you'll see each other
+to-morrow (_yawns and stretches, Katerina hurries in, followed by Boris_).
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IX
+
+KUDRIASH, VARVARA, BORIS and KATERINA.
+
+
+KATERINA.
+Come, let us go now, let us go! (_They go up the path, Katerina turns
+round_). Good-bye!
+
+BORIS.
+Till to-morrow.
+
+KATERINA.
+Yes, to-morrow! Tell me what you dream to-night!
+
+[_The girls reach the gate_.
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, yes.
+
+KUDRIASH (_sings and plays guitar_)
+Come out, lassie, while you may
+Till the glow of setting day!
+Ai-lalee, while you may,
+Till the glow of setting day!
+
+VARVARA (_at the gate_).
+Aye, my laddie, while I may,
+Till the glow of break of day!
+Ai-lalee, while I may,
+Till the glow of break of day!
+
+KUDRIASH.
+When the sun has risen fair
+And I may not linger mair.
+[_Exit singing._
+
+
+
+
+ACT IV
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+In the foreground a narrow arcade running round an old building which has
+begun to fall into decay; bushes and grass about it; in the background the
+banks of the Volga and view beyond it.
+
+(_Several Persons of both Sexes approach the Arcade._)
+
+
+FIRST.
+It's spotting with rain, seems as though it might be a storm coming on.
+
+SECOND.
+Look, it's gathering yonder.
+
+FIRST.
+A good thing we've somewhere to take shelter.
+
+[_They all go under the arches._
+
+A WOMAN.
+What a lot of folks out on the parade, too! To-day being a holiday,
+everyone's out walking. The merchants' ladies all pranked out in their
+best.
+
+FIRST.
+They'll stand up somewhere out of the rain.
+
+SECOND.
+Look, at the people hurrying this way now!
+
+FIRST (_staring round at the walls_).
+I say, old fellow, it must have been covered with paintings once, do you
+know. One can make them out even now, here and there.
+
+SECOND.
+To be sure! Of course the walls were covered with paintings. Now it's all
+been let go to rack and ruin, and the old place is falling to pieces.
+There's been nothing done to it since the fire. But to be sure you don't
+remember that fire, it will be forty years ago.
+
+FIRST.
+Whatever's this picture here, old fellow? It's not easy to make out what
+it's about.
+
+SECOND.
+That's a picture of the torments of hell.
+
+FIRST.
+Oh! so that's what it is!
+
+SECOND.
+And there's folks of all sorts and conditions going down into the fire,
+see?
+
+FIRST.
+To be sure, yes, I understand it now.
+
+SECOND.
+Of every sort and rank.
+
+FIRST.
+And niggers too?
+
+SECOND.
+Yes, niggers too.
+
+FIRST.
+And I say, old fellow, what's this?
+
+SECOND.
+That's the Lithuanian invasion. A battle, d'ye see? Our men fighting with
+the men of Lithuania.
+
+FIRST.
+Who were these Lithuanians?
+
+SECOND.
+Can't say. Lithuanians, to be sure.
+
+FIRST.
+But they do say, you know, they fell down on us from heaven.
+
+SECOND.
+I can't tell about that, I daresay they did.
+
+A WOMAN.
+What ignorance! Why, everyone knows the Lithuanians fell from heaven. Well
+to be sure! and it was in memory of the battle with them that these mounds
+were made.
+
+FIRST.
+There, old fellow! That's so, you see!
+
+[_Enter Dikoy and Kuligin, his head bare. All the bystanders bow and
+assume a respectful air on seeing Dikoy._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+The Same, DIKOY and KULIGIN.
+
+
+DIKOY.
+Ugh, I'm wet through. (_To Kuligin_) Get away from me! Let me alone!
+(_Angrily_) Fool of a man!
+
+KULIGIN.
+Saviol Prokofitch, it would be conferring a benefit, your worship, on all
+the residents in the town.
+
+DIKOY.
+Go along! A mighty benefit! Who wants such a benefit?
+
+KULIGIN.
+And on you, indeed, your worship, Saviol Prokofitch. To be set up, for
+instance, on the parade in the open space. And as for expense,--the
+expense would be trifling: a stone column (_indicates the size of each
+thing by gestures_), a copper disc, round like this, and a pivot, an
+upright pivot (_shows, gesticulating_) of the simplest description. I will
+put it all up and carve the figures on the face myself too. And, your
+worship, when you are pleased to take a walk, or any other people are out
+walking, you will go up to it, and see at once what o'clock it is. As it
+is, it's a fine position and a fine view and all, but, as it were, it
+wants something. And we have visitors too, your worship, who come here to
+see our views, and it will always be an ornament,--a pleasant object for
+the eye to rest on.
+
+DIKOY.
+But why on earth do you come pestering me with every sort of idiocy? It's
+possible, don't you see, that I don't want to talk to you. You ought first
+to ascertain whether I am disposed to listen to you or not, you dolt. What
+am I to you? ... am I your equal, eh? Damn the fellow! A mighty clever
+idea he's hit upon! And then up he must come and straightway start holding
+forth upon it.
+
+KULIGIN.
+If I were about my own business, I should be to blame certainly. But I am
+speaking in the public interest, your worship. And it's no great matter
+spending about a pound on a public object! More than that would not be
+needed, sir.
+
+DIKOY.
+I daresay you'd like to pocket the money; who knows anything of you?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Seeing that I want to give my services for nothing, your worship, how
+could I pocket anything? And everyone knows me here; no one can say any
+harm of me.
+
+DIKOY.
+They may know you, for all I care, but I don't want to know you.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Why insult an honest man, sir?
+
+DIKOY.
+Am I to account to you for what I say or do? Let me tell you I allow no
+one to criticise my actions--no, not folks of far more consequence than
+you. I shall think of you as I choose to think of you. Others may say
+you're an honest man, but I look upon you as a brigand, and that's all
+about it. You seem anxious to hear my opinion, so here it is! I say you're
+a brigand, and nothing else! Do you want to have the law of me, hey? Very
+well then, let me tell you you're a worm. If I choose, I spare you; if I
+choose, I can trample you under foot!
+
+KULIGIN.
+So be it, Saviol Prokofitch! I am only a poor man, sir, it costs little to
+be rude to me. But let me remind you, your honour, virtue is honourable
+even in rags!
+
+DIKOY.
+None of your insolence now! Mind that!
+
+KULIGIN.
+I am not being insolent to you in any way, sir, and I merely addressed you
+because I thought you might have a mind to do something for the town
+sometime. You have a great deal of power, your worship, if only you had
+the wish to do some good. Now, for instance, we've storms so often, and
+yet we don't put up lightning conductors.
+
+DIKOY (_haughtily_).
+It's all vanity!
+
+KULIGIN.
+How can it be vanity when experiments have been made.
+
+DIKOY.
+What sort of lightning conductors are you talking about?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Steel ones.
+
+DIKOY (_wrathfully_).
+Well, and what then?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Steel rods.
+
+DIKOY (_getting more and more furious_).
+I hear they're steel rods, you viper, but what of it? Granted they're
+steel rods! Well, what of it?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Nothing.
+
+DIKOY.
+And what is the cause of a storm to your notions, hey? Come, speak up!
+
+KULIGIN.
+Electricity.
+
+DIKOY (_stamping_).
+'Lectricity he says! Ah, a brigand you are and no mistake! a storm is sent
+as a chastisement to make us feel our sins, and you want with rods and
+tackle of one sort and another, God forgive you, to ward it off! What, are
+you a Tartar or what? Are you a Tartar? Speak up! A Tartar, hey?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Saviol Prokofitch, your honour, Derzhavin said:
+
+In body, I languish in the dust,
+In mind, I command the tempest.
+
+DIKOY.
+For such words you ought to be led off to the police captain, he'd give it
+to you! Just listen, worthy citizens, what the fellow is saying!
+
+KULIGIN.
+There's no help for it, I must submit! But when I have made my fortune,
+then you'll see how I'll talk!
+
+[_With a wave of his hand goes out._
+
+DIKOY.
+What! are you going to steal a fortune? Stop him! The false scoundrel! How
+ever is one to treat such people! I don't know. (_Turning to the crowd_)
+And you, damned rascals, you're enough to make anyone swear! Here I'd no
+wish to lose my temper, and he must needs go and put me out, as if it were
+on purpose. Curse the fellow! (_angrily_) Has the rain given over, eh?
+
+FIRST.
+I fancy it has.
+
+DIKOY.
+You fancy! go and see, you fool. Tell me, you fancy, indeed!
+
+FIRST (_going outside the arches_).
+It has left off!
+
+[_Dikoy goes out and all follow him. The scene is empty for a little
+while. Varvara runs quickly in under the arcade and, hiding herself, peeps
+out._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+VARVARA and later BORIS.
+
+
+VARVARA.
+I believe it's he! (_Boris advances from the background of the scene_.)
+Sss-sss! (_Boris looks round_.) Come here. (_She beckons, Boris goes up to
+her_.) What are we to do with Katerina? For mercy's sake tell me!
+
+BORIS.
+Why, what is it?
+
+VARVARA.
+It's terrible, that's all. Her husband has come back, do you know that? We
+didn't expect him, but he's here.
+
+BORIS.
+No, I didn't know it.
+
+VARVARA.
+She's simply beside herself.
+
+BORIS.
+It seems as if I had only lived for these ten short days that he has been
+away. And now not to see her!
+
+VARVARA.
+Oh, I've no patience with you! I've something to tell you! She's shaking
+all over, as if she were in a fever. She's so pale, she wanders about the
+house, as though she were looking for something. Her eyes are wild, she's
+like a mad thing! She began crying long ago in the morning, she simply
+sobs. Merciful Heavens, what am I to do with her?
+
+BORIS.
+But perhaps this will pass off.
+
+VARVARA.
+I doubt it. She daren't raise her eyes to her husband. Mamma's begun to
+notice it, and she follows her about and keeps a suspicious eye upon her.
+She looks daggers at her; and that makes her worse than ever. It makes one
+wretched to see her. And I'm afraid too.
+
+BORIS.
+What are you afraid of?
+
+VARVARA.
+You don't know her. She's a strange creature. One never knows what to
+expect from her! She will do things ...
+
+BORIS.
+My God! What's to be done? You must talk to her thoroughly. Can't you
+manage to soothe her?
+
+VARVARA.
+I've tried. She doesn't even hear. Better leave her alone.
+
+BORIS.
+Well, what do you suppose she may do?
+
+VARVARA.
+Why, simply this: fling herself down at her husband's feet, and tell him
+everything. That's what I'm afraid of.
+
+BORIS (_with horror_).
+Could she possibly!
+
+VARVARA.
+She may do anything.
+
+BORIS.
+Where is she now?
+
+VARVARA.
+At this moment she's out on the parade with her husband, and my mother's
+with them too. You go and meet them, if you like. But no, you'd better not
+go, or she'll very likely lose her head completely. (_A peal of thunder in
+the distance_) Isn't that thunder? _(Looks out)_ Yes, it's raining too.
+And here are people coming this way. Get somewhere out of sight, and I'll
+stand here where I can be seen, so that they won't notice anything.
+_(Enter several persons of both sexes and different classes.)_
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+VARVARA and various persons, and later, MME. KABANOVA, KABANOV, KATERINA
+and KULIGIN.
+
+
+FIRST.
+The good lady seems awfully frightened by the way she's hurrying for
+shelter.
+
+A WOMAN.
+No use seeking shelter! If it's written in the book of fate, there's no
+escaping!
+
+KATERINA _(running in)._
+Ah, Varvara! _(Seizes her hand and holds it tight.)_
+
+VARVARA.
+Come, be quiet!
+
+KATERINA.
+It will be my death!
+
+VARVARA.
+Come, come! Pull yourself together!
+
+KATERINA.
+No! I can't. I can do nothing. My heart aches so.
+
+MME. KABANOVA _(entering)._
+Let me tell you, one should live so as to be always ready for anything.
+You would not be in such terror then.
+
+KABANOV.
+But what sins in special has she to frighten her, mamma? Her sins are no
+more than all of us have to repent; being afraid of storms is a matter of
+temperament.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+How do you know, pray? The heart of another is darkness.
+
+KABANOV _(jestingly)._
+Oh well, maybe, something very wicked while I was away; certainly when
+I've been here she never did anything bad.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Maybe, when you were away, then.
+
+KABANOV _(jesting)._
+Katia, my girl, you'd better repent, if you've been sinful in any way. You
+can't have secrets from me, you know; no, you naughty girl, I know all
+about it.
+
+KATERINA _(looks him straight in the face)._
+Dear Tihon!
+
+VARVARA.
+Come, why do you keep teazing her? Can't you see she's not well?
+
+[_Boris steps out of the crowd and bows to the Kabanovs._
+
+KATERINA (_shrieks_).
+Ah!
+
+KABANOV.
+What are you frightened of? Did you think it was a stranger? This is a
+friend! Is your uncle quite well?
+
+BORIS.
+Quite, thank you.
+
+KATERINA (_to Varvara_).
+What more does he want of me? ... Isn't it enough that I am in torture
+like this.
+
+[_Leans against Varvara, sobs._
+
+VARVARA (_aloud, so that her mother should hear_).
+We're simply tired out, and don't know what to do with her; and now
+outsiders must come up too!
+
+[_Gives Boris a sign and he walks away to the entrance of the arcade._
+
+KULIGIN (coming into the middle of the scene and addressing the crowd).
+Why, what are you afraid of, I should like to know! every blade of grass,
+every flower is rejoicing now, while we try to get away and are as
+frightened as if it were a disaster! The storm kill us indeed! It's not a
+storm to be dreaded, it's a blessing! Yes, a blessing! Everything's
+dreadful to you. If the Northern Lights shine in the heavens--you ought to
+admire and marvel at "the dawn breaking in the land of midnight!" But you
+are in terror, and imagine it means war or flood. If a comet comes--I
+can't take my eyes from it! a thing so beautiful! the stars we have looked
+upon to our hearts' content, they are always with us, but that is
+something new; well, one must gaze and admire! But you're afraid even to
+look at the sky, and all in a tremble! You make a bogey out of everything.
+Ah, what a people! I'm not afraid, you see. Come, sir, let's go on!
+
+BORIS.
+Yes, let us go! it's more terrible here! [_Goes._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+The Same, without BORIS and KULIGIN.
+
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, that's a pretty sermon he gave us! Something worth hearing, and no
+mistake! What have the times come to, when such as he turn teacher! If an
+old man talks so, what can we expect from the young ones!
+
+A WOMAN.
+The whole sky's overcast. It's covered up all over, as it were, with a
+cap.
+
+FIRST.
+Eh, mate, see how the storm cloud is rolling into a ball, as though there
+were something alive turning round in it. And see how it's creeping up
+towards us, creeping like a live thing!
+
+SECOND.
+Mark my words, that storm's not coming up for nothing. It's the truth I
+tell you; I know. It'll strike someone dead, or set fire to a house;
+you'll see, look what an extraordinary colour!
+
+KATERINA _(listening)._
+What are they saying? They say someone will be struck dead.
+
+KABANOV.
+You know what stuff they talk, any nonsense that comes into their heads.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Don't you criticise your elders! They know better than you. Old people
+have forewarnings of all sorts. Old people don't talk at random.
+
+KATERINA _(to her husband)._
+Dear Tihon, I know who will be struck dead.
+
+VARVARA _(to Katerina, softly)._
+If only you would hold your tongue!
+
+KABANOV.
+How do you know?
+
+KATERINA.
+It will strike me. Pray for me, then.
+
+[_Enter Old Lady with footmen. Katerina with a shriek hides her face._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+The Same and the OLD LADY.
+
+
+THE OLD LADY.
+Why hide your face? It's no use hiding! One can see you're afraid. You've
+no wish to die! She wants to live! To be sure she does!--look what a
+beauty! Ha, ha, ha! Beauty! Better pray to God to take away your beauty!
+It's beauty that is our ruin! Ruin to yourself, a snare to others, so
+rejoice in your beauty if you will! Many, many, you lead into sin! Giddy
+fellows fight duels over you, slash each other with swords for your sake.
+And you are glad! Old men, honourable men, forget that they must die,
+tempted by beauty! And who has to answer for all. Better go down into the
+abyss with your beauty! Yes, quick, quick. _(Katerina hides herself.)_
+Where will you hide away, foolish one! There's no escaping God! _(A clap
+of thunder.)_ All of you will burn in fire unquenchable! [_Exit._
+
+KATERINA.
+Ah, I am dying!
+
+VARVARA.
+Why do you torture yourself like this! Stand on one side and pray; you
+will feel better.
+
+KATERINA _(goes to the wall and drops on her knees, then jumps up quickly,
+seeing the picture on the wall)._
+Ah! Hell! Hell! The fire unquenchable! _(Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, and
+Varvara surround her.)_ My heart is torn! I can bear it no longer! Mother!
+Tihon! I have sinned against God and against you! Did I not swear to you I
+would not set eyes on anyone when you were away! You remember! you
+remember! And do you know what I have done in my sinfulness? The first
+night I went out of the house....
+
+KABANOV _(in despair, in tears, pulls at her sleeve)._
+You mustn't, you mustn't! don't! What are you saying? Mother is here!
+
+MME. KABANOVA _(severely)._
+Come, come, speak, now you have begun.
+
+KATERINA.
+And every night the same.... _(Sobs, Kabanov tries to embrace her)._
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Let her be! With whom?
+
+VARVARA.
+She's raving, she doesn't know what she is saying.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+You be quiet! So this is the meaning of it! Well, with whom?
+
+KATERINA.
+With Boris Grigoritch. _(A clap of thunder.)_ Ah!
+
+[_Falls unconscious in her husband's arms._
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Well, son! You see what freedom leads to! I told you so, but you wouldn't
+heed me. See what you've brought on yourself!
+
+
+
+
+ACT V
+
+
+
+
+SCENE I
+
+Scene same as Act I. Twilight.
+
+KULIGIN (_sitting on a bench_).
+
+KABANOV (_walking along the parade_).
+
+
+KULIGIN (_sings_).
+"In dark of night are hid the skies
+In sleep now all have closed their eyes."
+
+(_seeing Kabanov_) Good-evening, sir, are you walking far?
+
+KABANOV.
+No, I am going home. You have heard talk, I expect, about us? The whole
+household's upside down.
+
+KULIGIN.
+I have heard so, sir, yes, I have heard so.
+
+KABANOV.
+I went away to Moscow, you know. Mamma sent me off with a sermon, oh, such
+a sermon, but as soon as I was well away, I went in for enjoying myself. I
+was glad to have escaped into freedom. And I was drinking all the journey,
+and in Moscow too I kept it up, and had a jolly time--as you may fancy! Of
+course I'd to get in fun enough to last me the whole year. I never once
+thought about home. Though, if I had thought of it, I never should have
+dreamed of what was going on here. You've heard about it?
+
+KULIGIN.
+Yes, sir.
+
+KABANOV.
+I'm a miserable man now! And so, for nothing, my life's spoiled, for
+nothing I have done.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Your mother is terribly hard.
+
+KABANOV.
+Yes, indeed, she's the cause of it all. And what am I suffering for, tell
+me that? Here I've just come from Dikoy's, and well, we drank a bit; I
+thought it would drown care; but it has only made me worse, Kuligin! Ah,
+the wrong my wife has done me! It couldn't be worse....
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's a difficult business, sir. It's difficult to judge between you.
+
+KABANOV.
+No; nothing could be worse than what she's done! It wouldn't be much to
+kill her for it. There's mamma keeps saying: she ought to be buried alive
+to punish her! But I love her, I can't bear to lay a finger on her. I did
+give her a blow or two, but that was at mamma's bidding. It makes one
+wretched to see her, do you understand that, Kuligin. Mamma's just
+tormenting her to death, while she wanders about like a shadow, and makes
+no resistance. She only weeps, and she's wasting away like wax. It's
+simply breaking my heart to see her.
+
+KULIGIN.
+You must make it up somehow, sir! You ought to forgive her, and never
+refer to it again. You are not without sin yourself, I daresay!
+
+KABANOV.
+I should think not!
+
+KULIGIN.
+And you must never reproach her even when you're drunk! She would be a
+good wife to you yet, sir, better than any--believe me.
+
+KABANOV.
+But understand me, Kuligin; I'd never say a word, but mamma ... do you
+suppose one can get over her!...
+
+KULIGIN.
+It's time you were guided, sir, by your own good sense, sir.
+
+KABANOV.
+My own good sense! I've got none, I'm told, and so I'm to live by other
+people's! I declare I'll drink away whatever sense I have left, and then
+mamma can look after me as much as she likes, when I'm crazy.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Ah sir! there's a world of troubles! But, Boris Grigoritch, sir, what of
+him?
+
+KABANOV.
+Oh, he, the scoundrel, is being sent off to Tiahta, to the Chinese. His
+uncle's sending him off to a merchant he knows there. He's to be there
+three years.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Well, what does he say to it, sir?
+
+KABANOV.
+Oh, he's wretched too; he weeps. His uncle and I, we set upon him not long
+ago, we swore at him--he didn't say a word. He seems like a wild thing. Do
+what you like to me, says he, only don't torment her! He's sorry for her
+too.
+
+KULIGIN.
+He's a good fellow, sir.
+
+KABANOV.
+He's packed up and ready, and the horses are ordered. He's so wretched,
+it's awful! I can see he wants to say good-bye to her. But that's too
+much! I can't have it. He's been an enemy to me, you know, Kuligin! He
+ought to be thrashed within an inch of his life to teach him ...
+
+KULIGIN.
+We must forgive our enemies, sir!
+
+KABANOV.
+You go and tell that to mamma, and see what she'll say to it. So, brother
+Kuligin, all our family is now split up and divided. We're not like
+relations but enemies to one another. Mamma kept nagging and nagging at
+Varvara; she couldn't stand it, and she soon made an end of it--she's
+simply gone away.
+
+KULIGIN.
+Where has she gone?
+
+KABANOV.
+No one knows. They do say she's run off with Vania Kudriash, and he can't
+be found anywhere either. It's all mamma's doing. I'll tell you frankly,
+Kuligin: she had started bullying her and locking her up. "Don't shut me
+up," she said, "or it will be the worse," and so it has turned out. What
+am I to do, tell me that! Tell me how I am to live now! My home is made
+loathsome to me, I'm put to shame before everyone, if I set about anything
+my hands drop listless and dejected. Here I'm on my way home now. Shall I
+find any happiness there, do you suppose? [_Enter Glasha._
+
+GLASHA.
+Master, Tihon Ivanitch!
+
+KABANOV.
+What is it now?
+
+GLASHA.
+There's something wrong at home, sir!
+
+KABANOV.
+Mercy on us! It's one thing on top of another! Tell me, what is it?
+
+GLASHA.
+Why, your good lady....
+
+KABANOV.
+Well, what? Is she dead?
+
+GLASHA.
+No, sir, she has disappeared; we can't find her anywhere.
+
+KABANOV.
+Kuligin! we must run and search for her. Do you know what I am afraid of?
+That she may be driven in her misery to lay hands on herself! She grieves
+and grieves,--ah, God! It rends my heart to see her. What were you
+thinking of? Has she been gone long?
+
+GLASHA.
+No, sir, not long! It's we're to blame, of course; we didn't keep an eye
+on her every minute. Though it's true, to be sure, the most watchful will
+be caught napping sooner or later.
+
+KABANOV.
+Well, don't stand there doing nothing; bestir yourself! _(Exit Glasha.)_
+And let us go too, Kuligin!
+
+[_They go. The stage is empty for a little while. From the opposite side,
+Katerina enters and walks slowly about the stage._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+KATERINA alone.
+
+[_Throughout the whole monologue and in the following scenes she speaks
+slowly and disconnectedly, repeating words dreamily and, as it were, in a
+state of forgetfulness._
+
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no, nowhere! What is he doing, my poor boy, now? All I want is to say
+good-bye to him, and then ... and then death. Why did I lead him into
+trouble. It's made it no better for me! I should have suffered alone!
+But I have ruined myself, ruined him, brought dishonour on
+myself,--everlasting disgrace on him--yes,--dishonour on myself, and on
+him everlasting disgrace. (_Silence_.) If I could remember what it was he
+said. How he felt for me? What were the words he said? (_Clutches at her
+head_) I can't remember, I have forgotten everything. The nights, oh, the
+nights are a weariness to me! All lie down to sleep, I too lie down; it is
+well with all of them, but I lie as in my grave. It is fearful in the
+darkness! There is a sound of singing as at some burial; but so soft,
+almost out of hearing, far away, far from me.... How one longs for the
+light! But I can't bear to get up--the same people again, the same talk,
+the same torture. Why do they look at me so? Why is it they don't kill one
+nowadays? Why don't they? In old days, they say, they used to kill women.
+If they would take me and throw me into the Volga, I would be glad. "If we
+kill you," they say, "your sin is taken from you; you must live, and
+suffer for your sin." But I have suffered for it already! Am I to suffer
+much longer? What have I to live for now, what for? I care for nothing,
+nothing is sweet to me, the light of day is not sweet to me! And still
+death does not come. One calls upon death and death comes not. Whatever I
+look upon, whatever I hear, it is nothing but aching here _(touching her
+heart)._ If I could be with him, there might perhaps be still some joy for
+me.... Nay, it's all the same, my soul is lost now. How sick I am with
+longing for him! If I cannot see thee, hear me at least from far away!
+Wild winds, bear my grief and longing to him! My God! I am weary, I am
+weary! _(goes to the river bank and cries loudly at the top of her voice)_
+My sweet, my heart, my soul, I love you! Answer! [_Falls a-weeping. Enter
+Boris._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+KATERINA and BORIS.
+
+
+BORIS (_not seeing Katerina_).
+My God! It's her voice! Where is she? _(Looks round.)_
+
+KATERINA _(runs to him and falls on his neck)._
+At last I see you again! _(Weeps on his bosom. Silence.)_
+
+BORIS.
+We are weeping together, God has brought us together.
+
+KATERINA.
+You have not forgotten me?
+
+BORIS.
+Me forget you? Don't!
+
+KATERINA.
+Oh no, oh no! You're not angry?
+
+BORIS.
+How could I be angry?
+
+KATERINA.
+Forgive me, anyway! I did not mean to harm you; but I was not free myself.
+I did not know what I was doing, what I was saying.
+
+BORIS.
+Oh don't! how can you! how can you!
+
+KATERINA.
+Well, how is it with you? how are you now?
+
+BORIS.
+I am going away.
+
+KATERINA.
+Where are you going?
+
+BORIS.
+Far away, Katia, to Siberia.
+
+KATERINA.
+Take me with you, away from here!
+
+BORIS.
+I cannot, Katia. I am not going of my own free will; my uncle is sending
+me, he has the horses waiting for me already; I only begged for a minute,
+I wanted to take a last farewell of the spot where we used to see each
+other.
+
+KATERINA.
+Go and God be with you! Don't grieve over me. At first your heart will be
+heavy perhaps, poor boy, and then you will begin to forget.
+
+BORIS.
+Why talk of me! I am free at least; how about you? what of your husband's
+mother?
+
+KATERINA.
+She tortures me, she locks me up. She tells everyone and tells my husband:
+"don't trust her, she's sly and deceitful." They all follow me about all
+day long and laugh at me before my face. At every word they reproach me
+with you.
+
+BORIS.
+And your husband?
+
+KATERINA.
+One minute he's kind, one minute he's angry, but he's drinking all the
+while. He is loathsome to me, loathsome; his kindness is worse than his
+blows.
+
+BORIS.
+You are wretched, Katia?
+
+KATERINA.
+So wretched, so wretched, that it were better to die!
+
+BORIS.
+Who could have dreamed that we should have to suffer such anguish for our
+love! I'd better have run away then!
+
+KATERINA.
+It was an evil day for me when I saw you. Joy I have known little of, but
+of sorrow, of sorrow, how much! And how much is still before me! But why
+think of what is to be! I am seeing you now, that they cannot take away
+from me; and I care for nothing more. All I wanted was to see you. Now my
+heart is much easier; as though a load had been taken off me. I kept
+thinking you were angry with me, that you were cursing me....
+
+BORIS.
+How can you! How can you!
+
+KATERINA.
+No, that's not what I mean; that's not what I wanted to say! I was sick
+with longing for you, that's it; and now, I have seen you....
+
+BORIS.
+They must not come upon us here!
+
+KATERINA.
+Stay a minute! Stay a minute! Something I meant to say to you! I've
+forgotten! Something I had to say! Everything is in confusion in my head,
+I can remember nothing.
+
+BORIS.
+It's time I went, Katia!
+
+KATERINA.
+Wait a minute, a minute!
+
+BORIS.
+Come, what did you want to say?
+
+KATERINA.
+I will tell you directly. _(Thinking a moment.)_ Yes! As you travel along
+the highroads, do not miss over one beggar, give to everyone, and bid them
+pray for my sinful soul.
+
+BORIS.
+Ah, if these people knew what it is to me to part from you! My God! God
+grant they may one day know such bitterness as I know now. Farewell,
+Katia! _(embraces her and tries to go away)._ Miscreants! monsters! Ah, if
+I were strong!
+
+KATERINA.
+Stay, stay! Let me look at you for the last time _(gazes into his face)._
+Now all's over with me. The end is come for me. Now, God be with thee. Go,
+go quickly!
+
+BORIS _(moves away a few steps and stands still)._
+Katia, I feel a dread of something! You have something fearful in your
+mind? I shall be in torture as I go, thinking of you.
+
+KATERINA.
+No, no! Go in God's name! (_Boris is about to go up to her._) No, no,
+enough.
+
+BORIS (_sobbing_).
+God be with thee! There's only one thing to pray God for, that she may
+soon be dead, that she may not be tortured long! Farewell!
+
+KATERINA.
+Farewell!
+
+[_Boris goes out. Katerina follows him with her eyes and stands for some
+time, lost in thought._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+
+KATERINA (_alone_).
+Where am I going now? Home? No, home or the grave--it's the same. Yes,
+home or the grave! ... the grave! Better the grave.... A little grave
+under a tree ... how sweet.... The sunshine warms it, the sweet rain
+falls on it ... in the spring the grass grows on it, soft and sweet grass
+... the birds will fly in the tree and sing, and bring up their little
+ones, and flowers will bloom; golden, red and blue ... all sorts of
+flowers, (_dreamily_) all sorts of flowers ... how still! how sweet! My
+heart's as it were lighter! But of life I don't want to think! Live again!
+No, no, no use ... life is not good! ... And people are hateful to me, and
+the house is hateful, and the walls are hateful! I will not go there! No,
+no, I will not go! If I go to them, they'll come and talk, and what do I
+want with that? Ah, it has grown dark! And there is singing again
+somewhere! What are they singing? I can't make out.... To die now....
+What are they singing? It is just the same whether death comes, or of
+myself ... but live I cannot! A sin to die so! ... they won't pray for me!
+If anyone loves me he will pray ... they will fold my arms crossed in the
+grave! Oh yes.... I remember. But when they catch me, and take me home by
+force.... Ah, quickly, quickly! _(Goes to the river bank. Aloud)_ My dear
+one! My sweet! Farewell!  [_Exit._
+
+[_Enter Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, Kuligin and workmen with torches._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+MME. KABANOVA, KABANOV and KULIGIN.
+
+
+KULIGIN.
+They say she was seen here.
+
+KABANOV.
+Is it certain?
+
+KULIGIN.
+They say they saw her.
+
+KABANOV.
+Thank God, if she has been seen alive.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+And you in such a fright already and crying over it! There's no need.
+She's not worth fretting about! Don't worry yourself, we shall have our
+hands full with her for many a long year yet.
+
+KABANOV.
+Who would have dreamed of her coming here! A place so frequented. No one
+would ever think of hiding here.
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+That's just her way! The shameless hussy! She wants to keep up her
+character, it seems!
+
+[_A crowd with torches collects, coming in from different directions._
+
+ONE OF THE CROWD.
+Well, is she found?
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+It seems not. She seems to have vanished into the earth.
+
+SEVERAL VOICES.
+How strange! It's a queer thing. And where could she hide?
+
+ONE OF THE CROWD.
+Oh, she'll be found!
+
+A SECOND.
+Of course she'll be found!
+
+A THIRD.
+To be sure, she'll come back of herself.
+
+[_A voice behind the scene: "Hi, boat there!"_
+
+KULIGIN _(from the bank)._
+Who's calling? What is it?
+
+[_The voice: "A woman's thrown herself into the water!" Kuligin and
+several men after him run out._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VI
+
+MME. KABANOVA, and KABANOV and Crowd.
+
+
+KABANOV.
+Merciful Heavens, it is she! _(tries to run off. Mme. Kabanova holds his
+arm)_ Mamma, let me go! I will save her! or I too ... What can I do
+without her!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+I'm not going to let you go, and don't you suppose it! Kill yourself on
+her account; she's worth that, isn't she? As if she'd not brought disgrace
+enough on us already, to plot to do a thing like this too!
+
+KABANOV.
+Let me go!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+There are plenty to help without you. I'll curse you if you go.
+
+KABANOV _(falling on his knees)._
+Oh, to look upon her at least!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+They'll pull her out--you'll look upon her, right enough.
+
+KABANOV (_gets up. To the crowd_).
+Well, my lads, do you see anything?
+
+ONE OF THE CROWD.
+It's dark down below, there's nothing in sight.
+
+[_A noise behind the scene._
+
+A SECOND.
+They seemed to be shouting something, but I couldn't make out what.
+
+THE FIRST.
+That's Kuligin's voice.
+
+THE SECOND.
+They're coming along the bank with torches.
+
+THE FIRST.
+They're coming this way, and they're carrying her.
+
+[_Several people come back._
+
+ONE OF THOSE WHO HAVE COME BACK.
+That Kuligin's a brave fellow! It was close here in a deep pool, near the
+bank; with the torchlight we could see a long way off in the water; he saw
+her dress and pulled her out.
+
+KABANOV.
+Alive?
+
+THE MAN.
+How could she be alive? She had thrown herself from the height; the bank
+is steep there, and she must have fallen upon the anchor, she was so
+injured, poor thing! But she looks as though she were alive! Only one
+little wound on the temple, and one single stain of blood on it.
+
+[_Kabanov runs across the scene, meets Kuligin with the crowd, carrying in
+Katerina._
+
+
+
+
+SCENE VII
+
+The Same and KULIGIN.
+
+
+KULIGIN.
+Here is your Katerina. You may do what you like with her. Her body is
+here, take it; but her soul is not yours now; she is before a Judge more
+merciful than you are, now!
+
+[_Lays her on the ground and exit._
+
+KABANOV _(rushes to Katerina)._
+Katia! Katia!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Hush! It's a sin even to weep for her!
+
+KABANOV.
+Mother, you have murdered her! you! you! you!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+What do you mean? Think what you're saying! You forget whom you're
+speaking to!
+
+KABANOV.
+You have murdered her! you! you!
+
+MME. KABANOVA.
+Come, I'll talk to you at home. (_Bows low to the assembled people_) I
+thank you, good people, for your services! [_All bow low._
+
+KABANOV.
+It is well with you, Katia! But why am I left to live and suffer!
+[_Falls on his wife's body._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Storm, by Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
+
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