Act II

ACT II

SCENE I

A dirty, ill-lighted underground dive; people are lying around
drinking, sleeping, playing cards and making love. Near the front a
small table at which FÉDYA sits; he is in rags and has fallen very
low. By his side is PETUSHKÓV, a delicate spiritual man, with long
yellow hair and beard. Both are rather drunk.

Candle light is the only lighting in this Scene.

PETUSHKÓV (R.C. of table C.). I know. I know. Well, that's real love.
So what happened then?

FÉDYA (L. C. of table C., pensively). You might perhaps expect a girl
of our own class, tenderly brought up, to be capable of sacrificing
for the man she loved, but this girl was a gypsy, reared in greed, yet
she gave me the purest sort of self-sacrificing love. She'd have done
anything for nothing. Such contrasts are amazing.

PETUSHKÓV. I see. In painting we call that value. Only to realize
bright red fully when there is green around it. But that's not the
point. What happened?

FÉDYA. Oh, we parted. I felt it wasn't right to go on taking, taking
where I couldn't give. So one night we were having dinner in a little
restaurant, I told her we'd have to say good-bye. My heart was so
wrung all the time I could hardly help crying.

PETUSHKÓV. And she?

FÉDYA. Oh, she was awfully unhappy, but she knew I was right. So we
kissed each other a long while, and she went back to her gypsy troupe
--(Slowly.) Maybe she was glad to go----

[A pause.

PETUSHKÓV. I wonder.

FÉDYA. Yes. The single good act of my soul was not ruining that girl.

PETUSHKÓV. Was it from pity?

FÉDYA. I sorry for her? Oh, never. Quite the contrary. I worshipped
her unclouded sincerity, the energy of her clear, strong will, and God
in Heaven, how she sang. And probably she is singing now, for some one
else. Yes, I always looked up at her from beneath, as you do at some
radiance in the sky. I loved her really. And now it's a tender
beautiful memory.

PETUSHKÓV. I understand. It was ideal, and you left it like that.

FÉDYA (ruminatingly). And I've been attracted often, you know. Once I
was in love with a grande dame, bestially in love, dog-like. Well,
she gave me a rendezvous, and I didn't, couldn't, keep it, because
suddenly I thought of her husband, and it made me feel sick. And you
know, it's queer, that now, when I look back, instead of being glad
that I was decent, I am as sorry as if I had sinned. But with Masha
it's so different; I'm filled with joy that I've never soiled the
brightness of my feeling for her. (He points his finger at the floor.)
I may go much further down.