SAVVA

Have you seen Kondraty?

FRIAR

No, he is in the monastery.

[Savva remains standing in silence.  The noise in the monastery has subsided and the sad, pitiful singing of the blind is heard.

FRIAR

Mr. Savva.

SAVVA

Have you got a cigarette?

FRIAR

No, I don’t smoke. (Plaintively) Come to the woods, Mr. Savva. (Savva remains immovable and silent) They’ll kill you, Mr. Tropinin.  Come to the woods—­please come! (Savva looks fixedly at him, then silently turns and walks away) Mr. Tropinin, on my word you had better come with me to the woods.

LIPA

Leave him alone.  He is like Cain.  He can’t find a place on the earth.  Everybody is rejoicing, and he—­

FRIAR

His face is black.  I am sorry for him.

LIPA

He is black all through.  You had better keep away from him, Vassya.  You don’t know whom you are pitying.  You are too young.  I am his sister.  I love him, but if he is killed, it will be a benefit to the whole world.  You don’t know what he wanted to do.  The very thought of it is terrible.  He is a madman, Vassya, a fearful lunatic.  Or else he is—­I don’t know what.

FRIAR (waving his hand)

You needn’t tell me all that.  I know.  Of course I know.  Don’t I see?  But I am sorry for him all the same, and I am disgusted too.  Why did he do it?  Why?  What stupid things people will do!  Oh, my!

LIPA

I have only one hope—­that he has understood at last.  But if—­

FRIAR

Well, what’s the “if”?

LIPA

Oh, nothing, but—­When he came here, it was as if a cloud had passed across the sun.

FRIAR

There you go also!  You should be happy—­Why don’t you rejoice?  Don’t be “iffing” and “butting.”

[A crowd begins to collect gradually.  Two wagons with cripples stop on the road.  A paralytic has been sitting for some time under a tree, crying and blowing his nose and wiping it with his sleeve.  A Man in Peasant Overcoat appears from the direction of the monastery.

MAN IN OVERCOAT (officiously)

We must get the cripples over to Him, to the ikon—­we must get them over there.  What’s the matter, women, are you asleep?  Come on, move along.  You’ll get your rest over there.  What’s the matter with you, gran’pa?  Why aren’t you moving along?  You ought to be there with your legs.  Go on, old man, go on.