FATHER GERaSIM. Heresy and spiritual pride are speaking through you. You ought to conquer your intellectual pride.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. It is not pride. I am only asking you what should I do according to Christ's law, when I have become conscious of the sin of robbing the people and enslaving them by means of the land. How am I to act? Continue to own land and to profit by the labour of starving men: putting them to this kind of work [points to Servant who is bringing in the lunch and some wine], or am I to return the land to those from whom my ancestors stole it?

FATHER GERaSIM. You must act as behoves a son of the Church. You have a family and children, and you must keep and educate them in a way suitable to their position.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Why?

FATHER GERaSIM. Because G.o.d has placed you in that position. If you wish to be charitable, be charitable by giving away part of your property and by visiting the poor.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. But how is it that the rich young man was told that the rich cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

FATHER GERaSIM. It is said, "If thou wouldest be perfect."

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. But I _do_ wish to be perfect. The Gospels say, "Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven ..."

FATHER GERaSIM. But we have to understand in what connection a thing is said.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. I do try to understand, and all that is said in the Sermon on the Mount is plain and comprehensible.

FATHER GERaSIM. Spiritual pride.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Where is the pride, since it is said that what is hidden from the wise is revealed to babes?

FATHER GERaSIM. Revealed to the meek, but not to the proud.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. But who is proud? I, who consider myself a man like the rest of mankind, and one who therefore must live like the rest by his own labour and as poorly as his brother men, or those who consider themselves to be specially selected sacred people, knowing the whole truth and incapable of error; and who interpret Christ's words their own way?

FATHER GERaSIM [offended] Pardon me, Nicholas Ivanovich, I did not come here to argue which of us is right, nor to receive an admonition, but I called, at Alexandra Ivanovna's request, to talk things over with you.

But since you know everything better than I do, we had better end our conversation. Only, once again, I must entreat you in G.o.d's name to come to your senses. You have gone cruelly astray and are ruining yourself.

[Rises].

MARY IVaNOVNA. Won't you have something to eat?

FATHER GERaSIM. No, I thank you. [Exit with Alexandra Ivanovna].

MARY IVaNOVNA [to young Priest] And what now?

PRIEST. Well, in my opinion, Nicholas Ivanovich spoke the truth, and Father Gerasim produced no argument on his side.

PRINCESS. He was not allowed to speak, and he did not like having a kind of debate with everybody listening. It was his modesty that made him withdraw.

BORiS. It wasn't modesty at all. All he said was so false. It was evident that he had nothing to say.

PRINCESS. Yes, with your usual instability I see that you are beginning to agree with Nicholas Ivanovich about everything. If you believe such things you ought not to marry.

BORiS. I only say that truth is truth, and I can't help saying it.

PRINCESS. You of all people should not talk like that.

BORiS. Why not?

PRINCESS. Because you are poor, and have nothing to give away. However, all this is not our business. [Exit, followed by all except Nicholas Ivanovich and Mary Ivanovna].

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [sits pondering, then smiles at his own thoughts]

Mary! What is all this for? Why did you invite that wretched, erring man? Why do those noisy women and that priest come into our most intimate life? Can we not settle our own affairs?

MARY IVaNOVNA. What am I to do, if you want to leave the children penniless? That is what I cannot quietly submit to. You know that I am not grasping, and that I want nothing for myself.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. I know, I know and believe it. But the misfortune is that you do not trust the truth. I know you see it, but you can't make up your mind to rely on it. You rely neither on the truth nor on me. Yet you trust the crowd--the Princess and the rest of them.

MARY IVaNOVNA. I believe in you, I always did; but when you want to let the children go begging ...

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. That means that you do not rely on me. Do you think I have not struggled and have not feared! But afterwards I became convinced that this course is not only possible but obligatory, and that it is the one thing necessary and good for the children themselves. You always say that were it not for the children you would follow me, but I say that if we had no children we might live as we are doing; we should then only be injuring ourselves, but now we are injuring them too.

MARY IVaNOVNA. But what am I to do, if I don't understand?

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. And what am I to do? Don't I know why that wretched man--dressed up in his ca.s.sock and wearing that cross--was sent for, and why Alexandra Ivanovna brought the Notary? You want me to hand the estate over to you, but I can't. You know that I have loved you all the twenty years we have lived together. I love you and wish you well, and therefore cannot sign away the estate to you. If I sign it away at all, it can only be to give it back to those from whom it has been taken--the peasants. And I can't let things remain as they are, but must give it to them. I'm glad the Notary has come; and I will do it.

MARY IVaNOVNA. No, that is dreadful! Why this cruelty? Though you think it a sin, still give it to me. [Weeps].

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. You don't know what you are saying. If I give it to you, I cannot go on living with you; I shall have to go away. I cannot continue to live under these conditions. I shall not be able to look on while the life-blood is squeezed out of the peasants and they are imprisoned, in your name if not in mine. So choose!

MARY IVaNOVNA. How cruel you are! Is this Christianity? It is harshness!

I cannot, after all, live as you want me to. I cannot rob my own children and give everything away to other people; and that is why you want to desert me. Well--do so! I see you have ceased loving me, and I even know why.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Very well then--I will sign; but, Mary, you demand the impossible of me. [Goes to writing-table and signs] You wished it, but I shall not be able to go on living like this.

Curtain.

ACT III

SCENE 1

The scene is laid in Moscow. A large room. In it a carpenter's bench; a table with papers on it; a book-cupboard; a looking-gla.s.s and pictures on the wall behind, with some planks leaning in front of them. A Carpenter and Nicholas Ivanovich wearing a carpenter's ap.r.o.n are working at the bench, planing.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [takes a board from the vice] Is that all right?

CARPENTER [setting a plane] Not quite, you must do it more boldly--like this.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. It is easy to say boldly, but I can't manage it.

CARPENTER. But why should your honour trouble to learn to be a carpenter? There are such a lot of us nowadays that we can hardly get a living as it is.