The Alpha who plays me

Part of a densely grown garden; on the right benches; at the back a rail fence, separating the garden from a field.

SCENE I

Enter NáDYA and LíZA

NáDYA. No, Líza, don't say that: what comparison could there be between country and city life!

LíZA. What is there so specially fine about city life?

NáDYA. Well, everything is different there; the people themselves, and even the whole social order are entirely different. [She sits down on a bench.] When I was in Petersburg with the mistress, one had only to take a look at the sort of people who came to see us, and at the way our rooms were decorated; besides, the mistress took me with her everywhere; we even went on the steamer to Peterhof, and to Tsarskoe Selo.

LíZA. That was pretty fine, I suppose.

NáDYA. Yes indeed, it was so splendid that words can't describe it! Because, no matter how much I may tell you about it, if you haven't seen it yourself, you'll never understand. And when a young lady, the mistress's niece, was visiting us, I used to chat with her the whole evening, and sometimes we even sat through the night.

LíZA. What in the world did you talk about with her?

NáDYA. Well, naturally, for the most part about the ways of high society, about her dancing partners, and about the officers of the guard. And as she was often at balls, she told me what they talked about there, and whom she had liked best. Only how fine those young ladies are!

LíZA. What do you mean?

NáDYA. They're very gay. And where did they learn all that? Afterwards we lived a whole winter in Moscow. Seeing all this, my dear, you try to act like a born lady yourself. Your very manners change, and you try to have a way of talking of your own.

LíZA. But why should we try to be fine ladies? Much good it does!

NáDYA. Much good, you say? Well, you see the ladies promised to marry me off, so I am trying to educate myself, so that no one'll be ashamed to take me. You know what sort of wives our officials have; well, what a lot they are! And I understand life and society ten times better than they do. Now I have just one hope: to marry a good man, so I may be the mistress of my own household. You just watch then how I'll manage the house; it will be no worse at my house than at any fine lady's.

LíZA. God grant your wish! But do you notice how the young master is running after you?

NáDYA. Much good it'll do him! Of course, he's a pretty fellow, you might even say, a beauty; only he has nothing to expect from me; because I am decidedly not of that sort; and on the other hand, I'm trying now in every way that there may be no scandal of any sort about me. I have but one thing in mind: to get married.

LíZA. Even married life is sometimes no joy! You may get such a husband that … God help you!

NáDYA. What a joy it would be to me to marry a really fine man! I, thank God, am able to distinguish between people: who is good, who bad. That's easy to see at once from their manners and conversation. But the mistress is so unreasonable in holding us in so strictly, and in keeping everlasting watch over us! Indeed, it's insulting to me! I'm a girl that knows how to take care of herself without any watching.

LíZA. It looks as if the master were coming.

NáDYA. Then let's go. [They rise and go out.

LEONíD comes in with a gun.

SCENE II

LEONíD and then POTáPYCH

LEONíD. Wait a bit! Hey, you, where are you going? Why are they always running away from me? You can't catch them anyhow! [He stands musing. Silence.

A GIRL sings behind the rail fence:

"No man may hope to flee the sting

Of cruel affliction's pain;

New love within the heart may sing-

Regret still in its train."

LEONíD. [Running up to the fence] What a pretty girl you are!

GIRL. Pretty, but not yours!

LEONíD. Come here!

GIRL. Where?

LEONíD. To me in the garden.

GIRL. Why go to you?

LEONíD. I'll go to town and buy you earrings.

GIRL. You're only a kid!

She laughs loudly and goes out. LEONíD stands with bowed head musing. POTáPYCH enters in hunting-dress, with a gun.

POTáPYCH. One can't keep up with you, sir; you have young legs.

LEONíD. [All the while lost in thought] All this, Potápych, will be mine.

POTáPYCH. All yours, sir, and we shall all be yours…. Just as we served the old master, so we must serve you…. Because you're of the same blood…. That's the right way. Of course, may God prolong your dear mamma's days….

LEONíD. Then I shan't enter the service, Potápych; I shall come directly to the country, and here I shall live.

POTáPYCH. You must enter the service, sir.

LEONíD. What's that you say? Much I must! They'll make me a copying clerk! [He sits down upon a bench.

POTáPYCH. No, sir, why should you work yourself? That's not the way to do things! They'll find a position for you-of the most gentlemanly, delicate sort; your clerks will work, but you'll be their chief, over all of them. And promotions will come to you of themselves.

LEONíD. Perhaps they will make me vice-governor, or elect me marshal of the nobility.

POTáPYCH. It's not improbable.

LEONíD. Well, and when I'm vice-governor, shall you be afraid of me?

POTáPYCH. Why should I be afraid? Let others cringe, but for us it's all the same. You are our master: that's honor enough for us.

LEONíD. [Not hearing] Tell me, Potápych, have we many pretty girls here?

POTáPYCH. Why, really, sir, if you think it over, why shouldn't there be girls? There are some on the estate, and among the house servants; only it must be said that in these matters the household is very strictly run. Our mistress, owing to her strict life and her piety, looks after that very carefully. Now just take this: she herself marries off the protégées and housemaids whom she likes. If a man pleases her, she marries the girl off to him, and even gives her a dowry, not a big one-needless to say. There are always two or three protégées on the place. The mistress takes a little girl from some one or other and brings her up; and when she is seventeen or eighteen years old, then, without any talk, she marries her off to some clerk or townsman, just as she takes a notion, and sometimes even to a nobleman. Ah, yes, sir! Only what an existence for these protégées, sir! Misery!

LEONíD. But why?

POTáPYCH. They have a hard time. The lady says: "I have found you a prospective husband, and now," she says, "the wedding will be on such and such a day, and that's an end to it; and don't one of you dare to argue about it!" It's a case of get along with you to the man you're told to. Because, sir, I reason this way: who wants to see disobedience in a person he's brought up? And sometimes it happens that the bride doesn't like the groom, nor the groom the bride: then the lady falls into a great rage. She even goes out of her head. She took a notion to marry one protégée to a petty shopkeeper in town; but he, an unpolished individual, was going to resist. "The bride doesn't please me," he said, "and, besides, I don't want to get married yet." So the mistress complained at once to the town bailiff and to the priest: well, they brought the blockhead round.

LEONíD. You don't say.

POTáPYCH. Yes, sir. And even if the mistress sees a girl at one of her acquaintances', she immediately looks up a husband for her. Our mistress reasons this way: that they are stupid; that if she doesn't look after them closely now, they'll just waste their life and never amount to anything. That's the way, sir. Some people, because of their stupidity, hide girls from the mistress, so that she may never set eyes on them; because if she does, it's all up with the girls.

LEONíD. And so she treats other people's girls the same way?

POTáPYCH. Other people's, too. She extends her care to everybody. She has such a kind heart that she worries about everybody. She even gets angry if they do anything without her permission. And the way she looks after her protégées is just a wonder. She dresses them as if they were her own daughters. Sometimes she has them eat with her; and she doesn't make them do any work. "Let everybody look," says the mistress, "and see how my protégées live; I want every one to envy them," she says.

LEONíD. Well, now, that's fine, Potápych.

POTáPYCH. And what a touching little sermon she reads them when they're married! "You," she says, "have lived with me in wealth and luxury, and have had nothing to do; now you are marrying a poor man, and will live your life in poverty, and will work, and will do your duty. And now forget," she says, "how you lived here, because not for you I did all this; I was merely diverting myself, but you must never even think of such a life; always remember your insignificance, and of what station you are." And all this so feelingly that there are tears in her own eyes.

LEONíD. Well, now, that's fine.

POTáPYCH. I don't know how to describe it, sir. Somehow they all get tired of married life later; they mostly pine away.

LEONíD. Why do they pine away, Potápych?

POTáPYCH. Must be they don't like it, if they pine away.

LEONíD. That's queer.

POTáPYCH. The husbands mostly turn out ruffians.

LEONíD. Is that so?

POTáPYCH. Everybody hopes to get one of our protégées, because the mistress right away becomes his patroness. Now in the case of these she marries to government clerks, there's a good living for the husband; because if they want to drive him out of the court, or have done so, he goes at once to our mistress with a complaint, and she's a regular bulwark for him; she'll bother the governor himself. And then the government clerk can get drunk or anything else, and not be afraid of anybody, unless he is insubordinate or steals a lot….

LEONíD. But, say, Potápych, why is it that the girls run away from me?

POTáPYCH. How can they help running? They must run, sir!