Is that not so then, Astéryi Ivanovitch?
Ast. Oh, Fomá Ilyitch is a chemist; he can tell you what fire is made of.
Fomá. So you have been all the way to St. Pantaléimon's in the Marsh? Oh, piety, thy name is Praskóvya Petróvna! Not a person can hold the most miserably little service in the remotest corner of the town but you smell it out and go to it.
Var. It is a Christian deed, Fomá Ilyitch.
Ast. Now I can get at the ace.
Var. [to Praskóvya]. I must get your supper. [She gets a plate of meat from a cupboard.]
Fomá. And on All Souls' Day she brought home holy water in a bottle and sprinkled the rooms of all the lodgers. The schoolmaster was very angry. You spotted the cover of his Greek Lexicon. He says it is a pagan custom, come down to us from the ancient Scythians.
Pras. I do not like to hear jokes about sacred things. One may provoke Heaven to anger.
Ast. Now I get all this row off.
Fomá. You are always afraid of offending Heaven.
Pras. Of course I am. Think what I have at stake. For you it is only a little thing. You have a life of your own on earth; I have none. I have been as good as dead for twenty years, and the only thing that I desire is to get safely to heaven to join my son who is there.
Fomá. We all wish to get to heaven.
Pras. Not so much as I do. If I were in hell it is not the brimstone that would matter; it would be to know that I should not see my son. [Fomá nods].
Ast. I believe it is coming out.
[They all concentrate their attention eagerly on the patience.]
Var. The six and the seven go. Saints preserve us! and the eight. [She takes up a card to move it.]
Ast. No, not that one; leave that.
Var. Where did it come from?
Ast. From here.
Pras. No, from there.
Var. It was from here.
Ast. It is all the same.
Fomá. It will go.
Pras. And the knave from off this row.
Var. The Wolf is going out!
Pras. It is seven years since it went out.
Fomá. Seven years?
Ast. It is out!
Pras. It is done!
Var. [clapping her hands]. Hooray!
Ast. [elated]. Some great good fortune is going to happen.
Var. What can it be? [A pause.]
Pras. And what is the vodka for?
Ast. The vodka?
Pras. You promised to tell me when the patience was done.
Ast. How much money have you saved up for the house on Sasha's tomb?
Pras. Four hundred and six roubles and a few kopecks.
Ast. And Spiridón asks for 500 roubles?
Pras. Five hundred roubles.
Ast. What if he should lower his price?
Pras. He will not lower his price.
Ast. What if he should say that he would take 450 roubles?
Pras. Why, if I went without food for a year.... [Laughing at herself.] If one could but live without food!
Ast. What if he should say that he would take 420 roubles?
Pras. Astéryi Ivanovitch, you know the proverb—the elbow is near, but you cannot bite it. I am old and feeble. I want it now, now, now. Shall I outlive the bitter winter? A shelter to sit in and talk to my son. A monument worthy of such a saint.
Ast. Spiridón has been here.
Pras. Spiridón has been here? What did he say? Tell me!
Ast. He will build it for 400 roubles.
Var. For 400 roubles!
Ast. He will return soon to strike a bargain.
Pras. Is it true?
Ast. As true as that I wear the cross.
Pras. Oh, all the holy saints be praised! Sláva Tebyé Hóspodi! [Kneeling before the eikons.] Oh, my darling Sasha, we will meet in a fine house, you and I, face to face. [She prostrates herself three times before the eikons.]
Var. Then this is the good luck.
Ast. No, this cannot be what the cards told us; for this had happened already before the Wolf came out.
Var. Then there is something else to follow?
Ast. Evidently.
Var. What can it be?
Ast. To-morrow perhaps we shall know.
Pras. [rising]. And in a month I shall have my tomb-house finished, for which I have been waiting twenty years! A little stone house safe against the rain. [Smiling and eager.] There will be a tile stove which I can light: in the middle a stone table and two chairs—one for me and one for my boy when he comes and sits with me, and....
Var. [at the window, shrieking]. Ah! Heaven defend us!
Pras. What is it?
Var. The face! the face!
Pras. The face again?
Fomá. What face?
Var. The face looked in at the window!
Ast. Whose face?
Var. It is the man that we have seen watching us in the cemetery.
Pras. [crossing herself]. Oh, Heaven preserve me from this man!
Fomá. [opening the street door]. There is nobody there.
Ast. This is a false alarm.
Fomá. People who tire their eyes by staring at window-panes at night often see faces looking in through them.
Pras. Oh, Hóspodi!
Ast.
