Act I

ACT I

SCENE I

Protosovs' flat in Moscow. The scene represents a small dining room. ANNA PÁVLOVNA, a stout, gray-haired lady, tightly laced, is sitting alone at the tea-table on which is a samovár.

Enter NURSE carrying a tea-pot.

NURSE (enters R. I, over to table C.). Please, Madam, may I have some water?

ANNA PÁVLOVNA (sitting R. of table C.). Certainly. How is the baby now?

NURSE. Oh, restless, fretting all the time. There's nothing worse than for a lady to nurse her child. She has her worries and the baby suffers for them. What sort of milk could she have, not peeping all night, and crying and crying?

[SASHA enters R. I, strolls to L. of table C. ANNA PÁVLOVNA. But I thought she was more calm now? NURSE. Fine calm! It makes me sick to look at her. She's just been writing something and crying all the time. SASHA (to nurse). Lisa's looking for you. [Sits in chair L. of table C. NURSE. I'm going. [Exits R. I. ANNA PÁVLOVNA. Nurse says she's always crying. Why can't she try and calm herself a little? SASHA. Well, really, Mother, you're amazing. How can you expect her to behave as if nothing had happened when she's just left her husband and taken her baby with her? ANNA PÁVLOVNA. Well, I don't exactly, but that's all over. If I approve of my daughter's having left her husband, if I'm ever glad, well, you may be quite sure he deserved it. She has no reason to be miserable--on the contrary, she ought to be delighted at being freed from such a wretch. SASHA. Mother! Why do you go on like this? It's not the truth and you know it. He's not a wretch, he's wonderful. Yes, in spite of all his weakness. ANNA PÁVLOVNA. I suppose you'd like her to wait till he'd spent every kopec they had, and smile sweetly when be brought his gypsy mistresses home with him. SASHA. He hasn't any mistresses. ANNA PÁVLOVNA. There you go again. Why, the man's simply bewitched you, but I can see through him, and he knows it. If I'd been Lisa, I'd left him a year ago. SASHA. Oh, how easily you speak of these serious things. ANNA PÁVLOVNA. Not easily, not easily at all. Do you suppose it's agreeable for me to have my daughter admit her marriage a failure? But anything's better than for her to throw away her life in a lie. Thank God, she's made up her mind to finish with him for good. SASHA. Maybe it won't be for good. ANNA PÁVLOVNA. It would be if only he'd give her a divorce. SASHA. To what end? ANNA PÁVLOVNA. Because she's young and has the right to look for happiness. SASHA. It's awful to listen to you. How could she love some one else? ANNA PÁVLOVNA. Why not? There are thousands better than your Fédya, and they'd be only too happy to marry Lisa. SASHA. Oh, it's not nice of you. I feel, I can tell, you're thinking about Victor Karénin. ANNA PÁVLOVNA. Why not? He loved her for ten years, and she him,