Act III - Page 2

ANÍSYA. You only see if he's there.

NAN. All right. I'll be back in a winking.

[Long silence.

MÍTRITCH (roars). Oh Lord! merciful Nicholas!

NEIGHBOR (starting). Oh, how he scared me! Who is it?

ANÍSYA. Why, Mítritch, our laborer.

NEIGHBOR. Oh dear, oh dear, what a fright he did give me! I had quite
forgotten. But tell me, dear, I've heard some one's been wooing
Akoulína?

ANÍSYA (gets up from the loom and sits down by the table). There was
some one from Dédlovo; but it seems the affair's got wind there too.
They made a start, and then stopped; so the thing fell through. Of
course, who'd care to?

NEIGHBOR. And the Lizounófs from Zoúevo?

ANÍSYA. They made some steps too, but it didn't come off either. They
won't even see us.

NEIGHBOR. Yet it's time she was married.

ANÍSYA. Time and more than time! Ah, my dear, I'm that impatient to
get her out of the house; but the matter does not come off. He does
not wish it, nor she either. He's not yet had enough of his beauty,
you see.

NEIGHBOR. Eh, eh, eh, what doings! Only think of it. Why, he's her
step-father!

ANÍSYA. Ah, friend, they've taken me in completely. They've done me so
fine it's beyond saying. I, fool that I was, noticed nothing,
suspected nothing, and so I married him. I guessed nothing, but they
already understood one another.

NEIGHBOR. Oh dear, what goings on!

ANÍSYA. So it went on from bad to worse, and I see they begin hiding
from me. Ah, friend, I was that sick--that sick of my life! It's not
as if I didn't love him.

NEIGHBOR. That goes without saying.

ANÍSYA. Ah, how hard it is to bear such treatment from him! Oh, how it
hurts!

NEIGHBOR. Yes, and I've heard say he's becoming too free with his
fists?

ANÍSYA. And that too! There was a time when he was gentle when he'd
had a drop. He used to hit out before, but of me he was always fond!
But now when he's in a temper he goes for me and is ready to trample
me under his feet. The other day he got both my hands entangled in my
hair so that I could hardly get away. And the girl's worse than a
serpent; it's a wonder the earth bears such furies.

NEIGHBOR. Ah, ah, my dear, now I look at you, you are a sufferer! To
suffer like that is no joke. To have given shelter to a beggar, and he
to lead you such a dance! Why don't you pull in the reins?

ANÍSYA. Ah, but, my dear, if it weren't for my heart! Him as is gone
was stern enough, still I could twist him about any way I liked; but
with this one I can do nothing. As soon as I see him all my anger