Читать книгу Plays - Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovsky - Страница 14

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From a side door there enter a footman with a samovar and a maid with a tea-service; they place both on the table and go out. GAVRÍLOVNA and POTÁPYCH enter after them. GAVRÍLOVNA prepares the tea. VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA enters from the garden.

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. My dear, you always serve me only water.

GAVRÍLOVNA. It isn't good for you to drink strong tea, madam.

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. It's not your business to worry about me!

GAVRÍLOVNA. It dries up the chest, and you're all dried up as it is.

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. What a life! What a life! I am not dried up from tea-drinking, my dear, but from the insults of the world.

GAVRÍLOVNA. Insults! You insult everybody yourself, as if something were stirring you up!

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. Don't you dare talk to me like that. Just remember who you are. I once owned serfs myself; at my place, such people as you didn't dare peep, they walked the chalk. I didn't let your sort get high-headed!

GAVRÍLOVNA. That time's gone by. God gives a vicious cow no horns.

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. Oh, you monsters, wretches! You want me to die. Soon I shall die, soon; my soul feels its fast approaching end! Raising her eyes heavenward Shelter me from men, O lid of my coffin! Take me to thee, moist earth! Then you'll be happy; then you'll be joyful!

POTÁPYCH. We? What's it to us? … Tend to your own business.

GAVRÍLOVNA. While God is patient with your sins.

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. For my sins I have already been tortured here. I mourn now the sins of others.

GAVRÍLOVNA. It would be better for you not to bother with other people's sins. Now you're getting ready to die, yet you talk about the sins of others. Aren't you afraid?

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. Afraid of what? Why should I be afraid?

GAVRÍLOVNA. Of that little black man with the hook. He's waiting for you now, I guess.

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. Where am I? Where am I? My God! Just as if I were in a slough; monsters. …

From the left side MADAM ULANBÉKOV, NÁDYA, LÍZA, and GRÍSHA come in.