Hostess. (Weeps.) God pardon and save you! 
(During the course of VARLAAM’S speech the 1st
officer watches Missail significantly.)

1St officer.  Alexis!  Have you the tsar’s edict with you?

2Nd officer.  I have it.

1St officer.  Give it here.

Missail.  Why do you look at me so fixedly?

1St officer.  This is why; from Moscow there has fled a certain wicked heretic—­Grishka Otrepiev.  Have you heard this?

Missail.  I have not heard it.

Officer.  Not heard it?  Very good.  And the tsar has ordered to arrest and hang the fugitive heretic.  Do you know this?

Missail.  I do not know it.

Officer. (To Varlaam.) Do you know how to read?

Varlaam.  In my youth I knew how, but I have forgotten.

Officer. (To Missail.) And thou?

Missail.  God has not made me wise.

Officer.  So then here’s the tsar’s edict.

Missail.  What do I want it for?

Officer.  It seems to me that this fugitive heretic, thief, swindler, is—­thou.

Missail.  I?  Good gracious!  What are you talking about?

Officer.  Stay!  Hold the doors.  Then we shall soon get at the truth.

Hostess.  O the cursed tormentors!  Not to leave even the old man in peace!

Officer.  Which of you here is a scholar?

Gregory. (Comes forward.) I am a scholar!

Officer.  Oh, indeed!  And from whom did you learn?

Gregory.  From our sacristan.

Officer (Gives him the edict.) Read it aloud.

Gregory. (Reads.) “An unworthy monk of the Monastery Of Chudov, Gregory, of the family of Otrepiev, has fallen into heresy, taught by the devil, and has dared to vex the holy brotherhood by all kinds of iniquities and acts of lawlessness.  And, according to information, it has been shown that he, the accursed Grishka, has fled to the Lithuanian frontier.”

Officer. (To Missail.) How can it be anyone but you?

Gregory.  “And the tsar has commanded to arrest him—­”

Officer.  And to hang!

Gregory.  It does not say here “to hang.”

Officer.  Thou liest.  What is meant is not always put into writing.  Read:  to arrest and to hang.

Gregory.  “And to hang.  And the age of the thief Grishka” (looking at Varlaam) “about fifty, and his height medium; he has a bald head, grey beard, fat belly.”

(All glance at Varlaam.)

1St officer, My lads!  Here is Grishka!  Hold him!  Bind him!  I never thought to catch him so quickly.

Varlaam. (Snatching the paper.) Hands off, my lads!  What sort of a Grishka am I?  What!  Fifty years old, grey beard, fat belly!  No, brother.  You’re too young to play off tricks on me.  I have not read for a long time and I make it out badly, but I shall manage to make it out, as it’s a hanging matter. (Spells it out.) “And his age twenty.”  Why, brother, where does it say fifty?—­ Do you see—­twenty?