The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (25+ Works with active table of contents) (429 page)

NASTASÏA (stepping up to MASHA). So here you are--you cursed little stray sheep. No disrespect to you, sir. (To MASHA.) You black-hearted, ungrateful little snake. How dare you treat us like this, how dare you, eh?

Iván (to FÉDYA). It's not right, sir, what you've done, bringing to her ruin our only child. It's against God's law.

NASTASÏA (to MASHA). Come and get out of here with me. You thought you'd skip, didn't you? And what was I supposed to tell the troupe while you dangled around here with this tramp? What can you get out of him, tell me that? Did you know he hasn't got a kopek to his name, didn't you?

[During scene with parents, FÉDYA sits dumbly on the bed, bewildered. He puts his forehead against MASHA'S face and clings to her like a child.

MASHA (sullenly). I haven't done anything wrong. I love this gentleman, that's all. I didn't leave the troupe either. I'll go on singing just the same.

Iván. If you talk any more, I'll pull your hair all out for you, you loose little beast, you. (To FÉDYA, reproachfully.) And you, sir, when we were so fond of you--why, often and often we used to sing for you for nothing and this is how you pay us back.

NASTASÏA (rocking herself to and fro). You've ruined our daughter, our very own, our only one, our best beloved, our diamond, our precious one, (with sudden fury). You've stamped her into the dirt, you have. Where's your fear of God?

FÉDYA. Nastasïa, Nastasïa, you've made a mistake. Your daughter is like a sister to me. I haven't harmed her at all. I love her, that's true. But how can I help it?

IVÁN. Well, why didn't you love her when you had some money? If you'd paid us ten thousand rubles, you could have owned her, body and soul. That's what respectable gentlemen do. But you--you throw away every kopek you've got and then you steal her like you'd steal a sack of meal. You ought to be ashamed, sir.

MASHA (rising, puts her arm around his neck). He didn't steal me. I went to him myself, and if you take me away now, I'll come right back. If you take me away a thousand times, I'll come back to him. I love him and that's enough. My love will break through anything--through anything. Through anything in the whole damn world.

NASTASÏA (trying to soothe her). Now, Mashenka darling, don't get cross. You know you haven't behaved well to your poor old parents. There, there, come along with us now.

[With greedy fingers that pretend to caress, NASTASÏA seizes her savagely and suddenly at the end of this speech and draws her to the door. MASHA cries out "FÉDYA! FÉDYA!" as she exits R.

IVÁN (alongside). You open your mouth again and I'll smash you dumb. (To FÉDYA.) Good-bye, your worship.

[All exit R. I.

[FÉDYA sits as though stupefied. The gypsies exit noisily. There is a pause. He drinks; then PRINCE SERGIUS appears, very quiet and dignified, at the door.

PRINCE. Excuse me. I'm afraid I'm intruding upon a rather painful scene.

FÉDYA (getting up). With whom have I the honor---- (recognizing the Prince). Ah, Prince Sergius, how do you do?

[They shake hands.

PRINCE (in a distinguished manner). I repeat that I am afraid to be most inopportune. I would rather not have heard, but since I have, it's my duty to say so. When I arrived I knocked several times, but I presume you could not have heard through such uproar.

FÉDYA. Do sit down. (PRINCE sits chair R.C.) Thanks for telling me you heard. (Sits on bed up C.) It gives me a chance to explain it all. Forgive me for saying your opinion of me can't concern me, but I want to tell you that the way her parents talked to that young girl, that gypsy singer, was absolutely unjust. She's as pure as your own mother. My relations with her are simply friendly ones. Possibly there is a ray of poetry in them, but that could hardly degrade her. However, what can I do for you?

PRINCE SERGIUS. Well, to begin----

FÉDYA (interrupting). Excuse me, Prince, but my present social position hardly warrants a visit from you.

[Smiling.

PRINCE SERGIUS. I know that, but I ask you to believe that your changed position does not influence me in what I am about to tell you.

FÉDYA (interrogatively). Then?

PRINCE SERGIUS. To be as brief as possible, Victor Karénin, the son of my old friend, Sophia Karénina, and she herself, have asked me to discover from you personally what your present relations are with your wife, and what intentions you have regarding them.

FÉDYA. My relations with my wife--I should say my former wife--are several.

PRINCE SERGIUS. As I thought, and for this reason accepted my somewhat difficult mission.

FÉDYA (quickly). I wish to say first of all that the fault was entirely mine. She is, just as she always was, absolutely stainless, faultless.

PRINCE SERGIUS. Victor Karénin and especially his mother are anxious to know your exact intentions regarding the future.

FÉDYA. I've got no intentions. I've given her full freedom. I know she loves Victor Karénin, let her. Personally, I think he is a bore, but he is a good bore. So they'll probably be very happy together, at least in the ordinary sense and que le bon Dieu les bénisse.

PRINCE SERGIUS. Yes, but we----

FÉDYA (rising, goes L., leans on table). Please don't think I'm jealous. If I just said Victor was dull, I take it back. He's splendid, very decent, in fact the opposite of myself, and he's loved her since her childhood (slowly) and maybe she loved him even when we were married. After all, that happens, and the strongest love is perhaps unconscious love. Yes, I think she's always loved him far, far down beneath what she would admit to herself, and this feeling of nine has been a black shadow across our married life. But--I--I really don't suppose I ought to be talking to you like this, ought I?

PRINCE SERGIUS. Please go on. My only object in coming was to understand this situation completely, and I begin to see how the shadow--as you charmingly express it--could have been----

FÉDYA (looking strangely ahead of him). Yes, no brightness could suck up that shadow. And so I suppose I never was satisfied with what my wife gave me, and I looked for every kind of distraction, sick at heart because I did so. I see it more and more clearly since we've been apart. Oh, but I sound as if I were defending myself. God knows I don't want to do that. No, I was a shocking bad husband. I say was, because now I don't consider myself her husband at all. She's perfectly free. There, does that satisfy you?

PRINCE SERGIUS. Yes, but you know how strictly orthodox Victor and his family are. Of course I don't agree with them--perhaps I have broader views--(with a shrug) but I understand how they feel. They consider that any union without a church marriage is--well, to put it mildly, unthinkable.

FÉDYA. Yes, I know he's very stu--I mean strict. (With a slight smile.) "Conservative" is the word, isn't it? But what in God's name (crossing to C.) do they want, a divorce? I told them long ago I was perfectly willing. But the business of hiring a street-woman and taking her to a shady hotel and arranging to be caught by competent witnesses--ugh--it's all so--so loathsome.

[He shudders--pauses; and sits on bed.

PRINCE SERGIUS. I know. I know. I assure you, I can sympathize with such a repugnance, but how can one avoid it? You see, it's the only way out. But, my dear boy, you mustn't think I don't sympathize with you. It's a horrible situation for a sensitive man and I quite understand how you must hate it.

FÉDYA. Thank you, Prince Sergius. I always knew you were kind and just. Now tell me what to do. Put yourself in my place. I don't pretend to be any better than I really am. I am a blackguard but there are some things that even I can't do. (With a smile and helpless gesture.) I can't tell lies.

[A pause.

PRINCE SERGIUS. I must confess that you bewilder me. You with your gifts and charm and really au fond--a wonderful sense of what's right. How could you have permitted yourself to plunge into such tawdry distractions? How could you have forgotten so far what you owed to yourself? Tell me, why did you let your life fall into this ruin?

FÉDYA (suppressing emotion). I've led this sort of life for ten years and you're the first real person to show me sympathy. Of course, I've been pitied by the degraded ones but never before by a sensible, kind man like you. Thanks more than it's possible to say. (He seems to forget his train of thought and suddenly to recall it.) Ah, yes, my ruin. Well, first, drink, not because it tasted well, but because everything I did disappointed me so, made me so ashamed of myself. I feel ashamed now, while I talk to you. Whenever I drank, shame was drowned in the first glass, and sadness. Then music, not opera or Beethoven, but gypsy music; the passion of it poured energy into my body, while those dark bewitching eyes looked into the bottom of my soul. (He sighs.) And the more alluring it all was, the more shame I felt afterwards.

[Pause.

PRINCE SERGIUS. But what about your career?

FÉDYA. My career? This seems to be it. Once I was a director of a bank. There was something terribly lacking between what I felt and what I could do. (Abruptly.) But enough, enough of myself. It makes me rather nervous to think about myself.

[Rises.

PRINCE SERGIUS. What answer am I to take back?

FÉDYA (very nervous). Oh, tell them I'm quite at their disposal. (Walking up and down) They want to marry, and there mustn't be anything in their way (pause); is that it? (Stops walking very suddenly. Repeats.) There mustn't be anything in their way--is that it?

PRINCE SERGIUS (pause. FÉDYA sits on table L.). Yes. When do you--when do you think--you'll--you'll have it ready? The evidence?

FÉDYA (turns and looks at the PRINCE, suppressing a slight, strained smile). Will a fortnight do?

PRINCE SERGIUS (rising). Yes, I am sure it will. (Rises and crosses to FÉDYA.) May I say that you give them your word?

FÉDYA (with some impatience). Yes. Yes. (PRINCE offers his hand.) Good-bye, Prince Sergius. And again thanks.

[Exit PRINCE SERGIUS, R. I. FÉDYA sits down in an attitude of deep thought.

Why not? Why not? And it's good not to be ashamed----

[Lights dim and out.

CURTAIN

SCENE V

Private room in a cheap restaurant. FÉDYA is shown in by a shabby waiter.

WAITER. This way, sir. No one will disturb you here. Here's the writing paper.

[Starts to exit.

FÉDYA (as waiter starts to exit). Bring me a bottle of champagne.

WAITER. Yes, sir.

[Exits R. C.

[FÉDYA sits at table L. C., and begins to write. IVÁN PETROVICH appearing in the doorway R. C.

IVÁN PETROVICH. I'll come in, shall I?

FÉDYA (sitting L. of table L. C. Very serious). If you want to, but I'm awfully busy, and--(seeing he has already entered) Oh, all right, do come in.

IVÁN PETROVICH (C.). You're going to write an answer to their demand. I'll help you. I'll tell you what to say Speak out. Say what you mean. It's straight from the shoulder. That's my system. (Picks up box that FÉDYA has placed on table--opens it and takes out a revolver.) Hallo! What's this? Going to shoot yourself. Of course, why not? I understand. They want to humiliate you, and you show them where the courage is--put a bullet through your head and heap coals of fire on theirs. I understand perfectly. (The waiter enters with champagne on tray, pours a glass for FÉDYA, then exits. PETROVICH takes up the glass of wine and starts to drink. FÉDYA looks up from his writing.) I understand everything and everybody, because I'm a genius.

FÉDYA. So you are, but----

IVÁN PETROVICH (filling and lifting his glass). Here's to your immortal journey. May it be swift and pleasant. Oh, I see it from your point of view. So why should I stop you? Life and death are the same to genius. I'm dead during life and I live after death. You kill yourself in order to make a few people miss you, but I--but I--am going to kill myself to make the whole world know what it lost. I won't hesitate or think about it. I'll just take the revolver--one, two--and all is over--um. But I am premature. My hour is not yet struck. (He puts the revolver down.) But I shall write nothing. The world will have to understand all by itself. (FÉDYA continues to write.) The world, what is it but a mass of preposterous creatures, who crawl around through life, understanding nothing--nothing at all --do you hear me? (FÉDYA looks up, rather exasperated.) Oh, I'm not talking to you. All this is between me and the cosmos. (Pours himself out another drink.) After all, what does humanity most lack? Appreciation for its geniuses. As it is, we're persecuted, tortured, racked, through a lifetime of perpetual agony, into the asylum or the grave. But no longer will I be their bauble. Humanity, hypocrite that you are--to hell with you.

[Drinks wine.

FÉDYA (having finished his letter). Oh, go away, please.

IVÁN PETROVICH. Away? (With a gesture.) Away? Me? (With profound resolve.) So be it. (He leans over the table, faces FÉDYA.) I shall away. I'll not deter you from accomplishing what I also shall commit-- all in its proper moment, however. Only I should like to say this----