TIHON. What are you shaking for? Talk sense!
BORTSOV. It may be mean and wicked on my part, but what am I to do? I’m doing this wicked thing, not reckoning on what’s to come…. If I was tried for it, they’d let me off. Take it, only on condition that you return it later, when I come back from town. I give it to you in front of these witnesses. You will be my witnesses! [Takes a gold medallion out from the breast of his coat] Here it is…. I ought to take the portrait out, but I’ve nowhere to put it; I’m wet all over…. Well, take the portrait, too! Only mind this… don’t let your fingers touch that face…. Please… I was rude to you, my dear fellow, I was a fool, but forgive me and… don’t touch it with your fingers…. Don’t look at that face with your eyes. [Gives TIHON the medallion.]
TIHON. [Examining it] Stolen property…. All right, then, drink…. [Pours out vodka] Confound you.
BORTSOV. Only don’t you touch it… with your fingers. [Drinks slowly, with feverish pauses.]
TIHON. [Opens the medallion] Hm… a lady!… Where did you get hold of this?
MERIK. Let’s have a look. [Goes to the bar] Let’s see.
TIHON. [Pushes his hand away] Where are you going to? You look somewhere else!
FEDYA. [Gets up and comes to TIHON] I want to look too!
[Several of the tramps, etc., approach the bar and form a group. MERIK grips TIHON’s hand firmly with both his, looks at the portrait, in the medallion in silence. A pause.]
MERIK. A pretty she-devil. A real lady….
FEDYA. A real lady…. Look at her cheeks, her eyes…. Open your hand, I can’t see. Hair coming down to her waist…. It is lifelike! She might be going to say something…. [Pause.]
MERIK. It’s destruction for a weak man. A woman like that gets a hold on one and… [Waves his hand] you’re done for!
[KUSMA’S voice is heard. “Trrr…. Stop, you brutes!” Enter KUSMA.]
KUSMA. There stands an inn upon my way. Shall I drive or walk past it, say? You can pass your own father and not notice him, but you can see an inn in the dark a hundred versts away. Make way, if you believe in God! Hullo, there! [Planks a five-copeck piece down on the counter] A glass of real Madeira! Quick!
FEDYA. Oh, you devil!
TIHON. Don’t wave your arms about, or you’ll hit somebody.
KUSMA. God gave us arms to wave about. Poor sugary things, you’re half-melted. You’re frightened of the rain, poor delicate things. [Drinks.]
EFIMOVNA. You may well get frightened, good man, if you’re caught on your way in a night like this. Now, thank God, it’s all right, there are many villages and houses where you can shelter from the weather, but before that there weren’t any. Oh, Lord, it was bad! You walk a hundred versts, and not only isn’t there a village; or a house, but you don’t even see a dry stick. So you sleep on the ground….
KUSMA. Have you been long on this earth, old woman?
EFIMOVNA. Over seventy years, little father.
KUSMA. Over seventy years! You’ll soon come to crow’s years. [Looks at BORTSOV] And what sort of a raisin is this? [Staring at BORTSOV] Sir! [BORTSOV recognizes KUSMA and retires in confusion to a corner of the room, where he sits on a bench] Semyon Sergeyevitch! Is that you, or isn’t it? Eh? What are you doing in this place? It’s not the sort of place for you, is it?
BORTSOV. Be quiet!
MERIK. [To KUSMA] Who is it?
KUSMA. A miserable sufferer. [Paces irritably by the counter] Eh? In an inn, my goodness! Tattered! Drunk! I’m upset, brothers… upset…. [To MERIK, in an undertone] It’s my master… our landlord. Semyon Sergeyevitch and Mr. Bortsov…. Have you ever seen such a state? What does he look like? Just… it’s the drink that brought him to this…. Give me some more! [Drinks] I come from his village, Bortsovka; you may have heard of it, it’s 200 versts from here, in the Ergovsky district. We used to be his father’s serfs…. What a shame!
MERIK. Was he rich?
KUSMA. Very.
MERIK. Did he drink it all?
KUSMA. No, my friend, it was something else…. He used to be great and rich and sober…. [To TIHON] Why you yourself used to see him riding, as he used to, past this inn, on his way to the town. Such bold and noble horses! A carriage on springs, of the best quality! He used to own five troikas, brother…. Five years ago, I remember, he cam here driving two horses from Mikishinsky, and he paid with a five-rouble piece…. I haven’t the time, he says, to wait for the change…. There!
MERIK. His brain’s gone, I suppose.
KUSMA. His brain’s all right…. It all happened because of his cowardice! From too much fat. First of all, children, because of a woman…. He fell in love with a woman of the town, and it seemed to him that there wasn’t any more beautiful thing in the wide world. A fool may love as much as a wise man. The girl’s people were all right…. But she wasn’t exactly loose, but just… giddy… always changing her mind! Always winking at one! Always laughing and laughing…. No sense at all. The gentry like that, they think that’s nice, but we moujiks would soon chuck her out…. Well, he fell in love, and his luck ran out. He began to keep company with her, one thing led to another… they used to go out in a boat all night, and play pianos….
BORTSOV. Don’t tell them, Kusma! Why should you? What has my life got to do with them?
KUSMA. Forgive me, your honour, I’m only telling them a little… what does it matter, anyway…. I’m shaking all over. Pour out some more. [Drinks.]
MERIK. [In a semitone] And did she love him?
KUSMA. [In a semitone which gradually becomes his ordinary voice] How shouldn’t she? He was a man of means…. Of course you’ll fall in love when the man has a thousand dessiatins and money to burn…. He was a solid, dignified, sober gentleman… always the same, like this… give me your hand [Takes MERIK’S hand] “How do you do and goodbye, do me the favour.” Well, I was going one evening past his garden — and what a garden, brother, versts of it — I was going along quietly, and I look and see the two of them sitting on a seat and kissing each other. [Imitates the sound] He kisses her once, and the snake gives him back two…. He was holding her white, little hand, and she was all fiery and kept on getting closer and closer, too…. “I love you,” she says. And he, like one of the damned, walks about from one place to another and brags, the coward, about his happiness…. Gives one man a rouble, and two to another…. Gives me money for a horse. Let off everybody’s debts….
BORTSOV. Oh, why tell them all about it? These people haven’t any sympathy…. It hurts!
KUSMA. It’s nothing, sir! They asked me! Why shouldn’t I tell them? But if you are angry I won’t… I won’t…. What do I care for them…. [Post-bells are heard.]
FEDYA. Don’t shout; tell us quietly….
KUSMA. I’ll tell you quietly…. He doesn’t want me to, but it can’t be helped…. But there’s nothing more to tell. They got married, that’s all. There was nothing else. Pour out another drop for Kusma the stony! [Drinks] I don’t like people getting drunk! Why the time the wedding took place, when the gentlefolk sat down to supper afterwards, she went off in a carriage… [Whispers] To the town, to her lover, a lawyer…. Eh? What do you think of her now? Just at the very moment! She would be let off lightly if she were killed for it!
MERIK. [Thoughtfully] Well… what happened then?
KUSMA. He went mad…. As you see, he started with a fly, as they say, and now it’s grown to a bumblebee. It was a fly then, and now — it’s a bumblebee…. And he still loves her. Look at him, he loves her!