Friend: Permit me to remark upon this that to say that something is beautiful does not mean to say it is right, and I, in that case——
Master: Better beautiful and wrong, than right and ugly; in both cases we’re a thousand miles away from final truth.
Friend: Yes, but if you judge in that way——
Master: You understand, I was physically unable to bear any longer the society of those advanced fools. Lord, what a gang! They poisoned the whole air. If I weren’t sorry for the trees, I’d hang ’em all with my own hands; I’d drown ’em all in the sea, if I didn’t love the sea, I — I’d shove them all over a precipice, if only there were a precipice they wouldn’t overfill! Write for them? Write for that mercantile riffraff?!
Friend: But what are you occupied with here? What do you do, cut off from all the world?
Master: We’re busy with salting, boiling, pickling, drying and soaking. We simply don’t see time pass: hunting, looking after the estate; just look how many books we've got, let alone papers!
Companion: And did you see the tall tower on our house? We've got a telescope and we look at the skies for hours. And then riding and walking?
Master: If only you saw our wonderful marsh, behind the village cemetery. Not only we walk there in the dark midnights — little green fires, sweetly-sad as we, without direction and without purpose, move about us and wave——
Companion: We’re almost the whole day in the fresh air.
Master: How strong I’ve got! What muscles, why—— (To Companion.) Bring a horseshoe or a poker and a pack of cards. (Exit Companion.) What do I do? There! read his diary.
Friend (reads): “Diary of daily events.”
Master: Find to-day’s date!
Friend: Yes, and then!
Master: Read more or less what I was occupied with to-day. (Pours him out mead.)
Friend (reads): “In the morning I went hunting with tolerable success, the reason of which was doubly sad thoughts about Anna——”
Master: That was his aunt.
Friend: “Still God is good. I wrote to my friend in town to send me another doctor. In the day I personally superintended the arrangement of the bath-house for the winter. Tarass was to dinner.”
Master: A neighbour.
Friend: “We were much diverted with an anecdote made upon an oracle. My aunt felt herself so much improved at evening, that she was even desirous to be present at a comic performance of the house-servants, and they, rejoiced at her graciousness, did not spare their efforts to amuse and divert her at discretion.”
Master: And this morning I, too, went hunting, in the daytime I superintended the dismantling of the bath-house, and this evening we, too, shall have a comic performance. (Calls.) Grusha! Grusha!
Friend: H’m. (Bitterly.) It’s all right for you to live like this — you’ve got so much money.
Master (seriously): Yes, it is. I’m not complaining.
Friend: Pah! Well, I’m damned! Your frankness is very near cynicism. But are you really satisfied with such a life? (Drinks.) Master: Agree that it’s more beautiful than yours.
Friend: But the reason for it——
Master: You madden me. What reason? Can you still keep on hugging that “reason”? What! hasn’t the senselessness of existence stared you in the face yet? You haven’t yet shrunk with horror at its look? Wait, wait! I had too high an opinion of you. The hour will come when it’ll happen. The hour will come when the demon of vengeance will awake in you, the terrible demon of vengeance, and when you will want to seize the globe like a stone from the street of the world and throw it with all your force at the great Policeman. (Enter Maid.)
Friend: Lord, what a passion!
Master: A pipe. (Exit Maid.)
Friend: And you’ve become a phrase-maker, dear old chap. I hope you’re not offended at my frankness, because——
Master: Come, can we be anything else? It’s time at last to recognise that even the cleverest of us, the most talented, the most learned, is no more than a posing phrase-maker. Aren't we all bewitched in a circle of error; aren’t all our reasonings the chatter of children?
Friend: But you’re not going to deny that the love of truth which lies in us——
Master: But the love of beauty and the love of pleasure lie in us too. My dear chap, you busy yourself with science and I with hunting, but which is the more important is not for us to decide. I have lost the measure of importance and, thank God! I can do whatever comes into my mind without pangs of conscience. You understand, we’ve wasted what is most valuable of our heritage from our ancestors: credible knowledge and sound ethics. Ah! these lovely sisters, these attentive slaves we’ve gambled away for that old rake, Scepticism! — But they have left us, with other old stuff, their garments, their grand motley garments, so-called “phrases” and “poses.” Yes, my friend, it’s sad, but it’s so: there are only phrases and poses left to us. But still, it’s good that there’s something left: we can divert ourselves with these beautiful rags and remember those who were clad in them, whom they made so charming. To confound you with the charm of the expression, I say, “Let not these rags lie unused in the wardrobe of our affliction!”
Friend: Bravo, bravo!
Master: There are left to us only phrases and poses! Well! Let's love them as dear toys are loved. (Maid brings him a pipe.) You smile, but—— (Smokes.) Jokes aside, without metaphors, what is there left credible to us beyond self-perception? (To Maid.) Stop! (To Friend.) “Do I think it’s dull?” “Well, ——” “Should I like to see a lovely body dance among sharp swords?” “I should.” There’s an example of credibility! Let my desires be absurd, I like them because they are credible for me. Begad, just something there’s no doubt about! (To Maid) I want to see the “Dance on the Wrathful Road.” Go away, undress and exhibit your art!
Maid (looking at Friend) : But—— (Master turns to her.) Very well, sir. (Exit.)
Friend: By Jove, I seem to be asleep again, but this time — I don’t want to wake up. Your mead is incredibly strong. And it seemed to me that portrait smiled. Who is it?
Master: My grandfather.
Friend: I thought it was you. (Companion puts poker and cards on the table.)
Master: I am such as he was — I’m made of the same dough; my soul is as masterly as his was. I’m not inferior to him, inferior in no way to him, but still—— Oh! (Points to Companion.) Ask her how often I stand before this portrait and gnash my teeth with envy, and even weep. (Picks up the poker and bends it.) Tell me, how have I offended fate? Why am I deprived of the powers and rights and all that importance which he had? And if it had to be so, was it really necessary to leave me with a soul like his? Why didn’t they tear out of my heart all love of power, all masterly pride, all blue-blooded caprice? (Enter Servant.)
Companion: What do you want?
Servant: When do you order supper?
Master: In an hour. Tell the Arab boy to be quick! Take up the carpet! Why is he so long with the swords? And the fool? Has he gone to sleep? Wake him and tell him to bring the tambourines. Then light the chandeliers. And don’t forget to burn perfumes!
Servant: Very well, sir. (Exit.)
Friend: All the same I’m sure that if you’d lived in that time, you’d have taken a most ardent part in the movement for emancipation.
Master: