Boyars.  We will not from our plighted oath depart.

Boris.  Now let us go to kneel before the tombs
Of Russia’s great departed rulers.  Then
Bid summon all our people to a feast,
All, from the noble to the poor blind beggar. 
To all free entrance, all most welcome guests.

(Exit, the Boyars following.)

Prince Vorotinsky. (Stopping Shuisky.)
You rightly guessed.

Shuisky.  Guessed what?

Vorotinsky.  Why, you remember—­
The other day, here on this very spot.

Shuisky.  No, I remember nothing.

Vorotinsky.  When the people
Flocked to the Virgin’s Field, thou said’st—­

Shuisky.  ’Tis not
The time for recollection.  There are times
When I should counsel you not to remember,
But even to forget.  And for the rest,
I sought but by feigned calumny to prove thee,
The truelier to discern thy secret thoughts. 
But see!  The people hail the tsar—­my absence
May be remarked.  I’ll join them.

Vorotinsky.  Wily courtier!

NIGHT

Cell in the Monastery of Chudov (A.D. 1603)

Father Pimen, Gregory (sleeping)

Pimen (Writing in front of a sacred lamp.)
One more, the final record, and my annals
Are ended, and fulfilled the duty laid
By God on me a sinner.  Not in vain
Hath God appointed me for many years
A witness, teaching me the art of letters;
A day will come when some laborious monk
Will bring to light my zealous, nameless toil,
Kindle, as I, his lamp, and from the parchment
Shaking the dust of ages will transcribe
My true narrations, that posterity
The bygone fortunes of the orthodox
Of their own land may learn, will mention make
Of their great tsars, their labours, glory, goodness—­
And humbly for their sins, their evil deeds,
Implore the Saviour’s mercy.—­In old age
I live anew; the past unrolls before me.—­
Did it in years long vanished sweep along,
Full of events, and troubled like the deep? 
Now it is hushed and tranquil.  Few the faces
Which memory hath saved for me, and few
The words which have come down to me;—­the rest
Have perished, never to return.—­But day
Draws near, the lamp burns low, one record more,
The last. (He writes.)

Gregory. (Waking.) Ever the selfsame dream!  Is ’t possible? 
For the third time!  Accursed dream!  And ever
Before the lamp sits the old man and writes—­
And not all night, ’twould seem, from drowsiness,
Hath closed his eyes.  I love the peaceful sight,
When, with his soul deep in the past immersed,
He keeps his chronicle.  Oft have I longed
To guess what ’tis he writes of.  Is ’t