Act 1, Scene 4

A plainly furnished room, bed, table and stove. FÉDYA alone writing.

At rise MASHA is heard outside calling “FÉDYA! FÉDYA!” MASHA enters R. I, crosses to FÉDYA on bed C. and embraces him.

Fédya. Ah, thank Heaven you’ve come. I was wasting away in boredom.

Masha. Then why didn’t you come over to us? (Sees wine glass on chair near bed.) So, you’ve been drinking again? And after all your promises!

Fédya (embarrassed). I didn’t come over because I had no money.

Masha. Oh, why is it I love you so.

Fédya. Masha!

Masha (imitating him). Masha! Masha! What’s that mean? If you loved me, by now you’d have your divorce. You say you don’t love your wife. (FÉDYA winces.) But you stick to her like grim death.

Fédya (interrupting her). You know why I don’t want to.

Masha. Nonsense. They’re right when they say you’re no good. It’s your mind that you can never make up comfortably causing you all the worry.

Fédya. You know perfectly well that the only joy I’ve got in life is being in love with you.

Masha. Oh, it’s always “My joy,” “Your love.” Where’s your love and my joy?

Fédya (a little wearily). Well, Masha, after all, you’ve got all I can give, the best I’ve ever had to give, perhaps, because you’re so strong, so beautiful, that sometimes you’ve made me know how to make you glad. So why torture yourself?

Masha (kneels and puts her arms around his neck). I won’t if you’re sure you love me.

Fédya (coming closer to her). My beautiful young Masha.

Masha (tearfully, searching his face). You do love me?

Fédya. Of course, of course.

Masha. Only me, only me?

Fédya (kissing her). Darling, only you.

Masha (with a return to brightness). Now read me what you’ve written.

Fédya. It may bore you.

Masha (reproachfully). How could it?

Fédya (reads). “The snow was flooded in moonlight and the birch trees wavered their stark shadows across it like supplicating arms. Suddenly I heard the soft padded sound of snow falling upon snow, to slowly perceive a figure, the slender figure of a young child attempting to arouse itself almost at my feet—I——”

[Enter IVÁN and NASTASÏA. They are two old gypsies, MASHA’S parents.

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 kopeck 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 kopeck 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

(Source: 1918 translation by Arthur Hopkins for the production at Plymouth Theatre, New York.)