Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovsky

“ KUDRIASH. Of course. The master's no decent manners at all.
KULIGIN. In what capacity do you live with him, sir; what arrangement has he made with you?
BORIS. Why, none whatever; "you live with me," he says, "and do what you're told, and your pay shall be what I give you," that's to say, in a year's time he'll settle up with me as he thinks fit.
KUDRIASH. That's just his way. Not one of us dare as much as hint at a salary, or he storms till he's black in the face. "How do you know," he'll say, "what I have in my mind to do? ”

“ KUDRIASH. There? Oh, that's Dikoy pitching into his nephew.
KULIGIN. A queer place to do it!
KUDRIASH. All places are alike to him. He's not afraid of any one! Boris Grigoritch is in his clutches now, so he is always bullying him.
SHAPKIN. Yes, you wouldn't find another bully like our worthy Saviol Prokofitch in a hurry! He pulls a man up for nothing at all.
KUDRIASH. He is a stiff customer.
SHAPKIN. Old Dame Kabanova's a good hand at that too!
KUDRIASH. Yes, but she at least does it all under pretence of morality; he's like a wild beast broken loose! ”

“ KULIGIN. It's a hard case, sir! You must try and get the right side of him somehow.
BORIS. But the point is, Kuligin, that it's impossible. Why, even his own children can never do anything to please him; so it's hardly likely I could!
KUDRIASH. Who could please him, when his whole life's spent in bullying people? Especially where money's at stake; no accounts are ever settled without storms of abuse. Often people are glad to go short of their due, if only he'll let them off quietly. Woe to us if anyone vexes him in the morning! He falls foul of everyone all day long. ”

“ KULIGIN. Nothing.
DIKOY. And what is the cause of a storm to your notions, hey? Come, speak up!
KULIGIN. Electricity.
DIKOY (stamping) . 'Lectricity he says! Ah, a brigand you are and no mistake! a storm is sent as a chastisement to make us feel our sins, and you want with rods and tackle of one sort and another, God forgive you, to ward it off! What, are you a Tartar or what? Are you a Tartar? Speak up! A Tartar, hey?
KULIGIN. Saviol Prokofitch, your honour, Derzhavin said:
In body, I languish in the dust, In mind, I command the tempest. ”

“ VARVARA. But if anything were to happen, you know, you'd be no safer at home.
KATERINA. No, but still, it's better there, it's quieter; at home one can turn to the holy pictures and pray to God!
VARVARA. I didn't know you were so afraid of a thunderstorm. I'm not afraid, you see.
KATERINA. Don't talk of not being afraid! Everyone must be afraid. What is dreadful is not it's killing you, but that death may overtake you all of a sudden, just as you are, with all your sins, with all your erring thoughts. ”

“ Enter Katerina and Varvara.
SCENE VII MME. KABANOVA, KATERINA, and VARVARA.
You make a boast of loving your husband so much; I see now how much your love's worth. Any other good wife, on seeing her husband off, would wail for a good hour and a half, lying on the steps; but one can see you're not much upset.
KATERINA. There's no reason to be! Besides, I don't know how to wail. Why make the people laugh!
MME. KABANOVA. No great art is needed. If you loved him you would have learnt to do it. If you can't wail properly, you should wail a little, if only for example. ”

“ KULIGIN. So be it, Saviol Prokofitch! I am only a poor man, sir, it costs little to be rude to me. But let me remind you, your honour, virtue is honourable even in rags!
DIKOY. None of your insolence now! Mind that!
KULIGIN. I am not being insolent to you in any way, sir, and I merely addressed you because I thought you might have a mind to do something for the town sometime. You have a great deal of power, your worship, if only you had the wish to do some good. Now, for instance, we've storms so often, and yet we don't put up lightning conductors.
DIKOY (haughtily) . It's all vanity! ”

“ BORIS. Kabanova?
KULIGIN. A fanatical hypocrite, sir. She gives to the poor, but her own household she worries to death. (Silence.) All I want, sir, is to find out the secret of perpetual motion!
BORIS. Why, what would you do?
KULIGIN. How can you ask, sir! Why, the English offer millions for it. I should use all the money for public purposes,—we want to provide work for the working people. Here they have hands to work, and no work to do.
BORIS. And you hope to discover perpetual motion?
KULIGIN. Not a doubt, I shall, sir! I have only to scrape up enough money for models. ”

“ The people keep running, one one way, and one another.
MME. KABANOVA. We've no need to hurry, my dear, we live without haste.
FEKLUSHA. No, ma'am; there is peace and quietness in this town, because there are many people, you for instance, adorned with virtues, as with flowers; that's why everything is done decorously and tranquilly. Why, what is the meaning of all that haste and bustle, ma'am? It is vanity, to be sure! In Moscow now: the folk run to and fro; there's no knowing for why. It is all vanity. It is a people, full of vanity, ma'am, and so it runs to and fro. ”

“ The girls reach the gate.
BORIS. Yes, yes.
KUDRIASH (sings and plays guitar) Come out, lassie, while you may Till the glow of setting day! Ai-lalee, while you may, Till the glow of setting day!
VARVARA (at the gate) . Aye, my laddie, while I may, Till the glow of break of day! Ai-lalee, while I may, Till the glow of break of day!
KUDRIASH. When the sun has risen fair And I may not linger mair. ”

“ Better pray to God to take away your beauty! It's beauty that is our ruin! Ruin to yourself, a snare to others, so rejoice in your beauty if you will! Many, many, you lead into sin! Giddy fellows fight duels over you, slash each other with swords for your sake. And you are glad! Old men, honourable men, forget that they must die, tempted by beauty! And who has to answer for all. Better go down into the abyss with your beauty! Yes, quick, quick. (Katerina hides herself.) ”

“ KULIGIN. We must forgive our enemies, sir!
KABANOV. You go and tell that to mamma, and see what she'll say to it. So, brother Kuligin, all our family is now split up and divided. We're not like relations but enemies to one another. Mamma kept nagging and nagging at Varvara; she couldn't stand it, and she soon made an end of it—she's simply gone away.
KULIGIN. Where has she gone?
KABANOV. No one knows. They do say she's run off with Vania Kudriash, and he can't be found anywhere either. It's all mamma's doing. ”

“ GLASHA. Who's to tell the rights and wrongs of it with you begging pilgrims, you all speak ill of one another. Why can't you live and let live? I should have thought you wandering women get plenty in our house all of you, and yet you must always be quarrelling and nagging at each other. Aren't you afraid of such sin?
FEKLUSHA. One can't be without sin, my good girl; we live in the world. I'll tell you what, my dear; you, simple folk, are tempted of one devil, but we pilgrim folk are beset, one with six, another with twelve devils; and here we have to struggle against all at once. ”

“ FEKLUSHA. Hard times they are, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, very hard. Already the time has begun diminishing.
MME. KABANOVA. How is that? diminishing, my dear?
FEKLUSHA. We, of course—how should we observe it in our blindness and vanity? but wise people have observed that time has grown shorter with us. Once the summer and the winter dragged on endlessly, you got tired of looking for the end of them, but now, before one's time to look about one, they've flown. The days and the hours still seem the same, of course; but the time keeps growing shorter and shorter, for our sins. ”

“ Why is it they don't kill one nowadays? Why don't they? In old days, they say, they used to kill women. If they would take me and throw me into the Volga, I would be glad. "If we kill you," they say, "your sin is taken from you; you must live, and suffer for your sin." But I have suffered for it already! Am I to suffer much longer? What have I to live for now, what for? I care for nothing, nothing is sweet to me, the light of day is not sweet to me! And still death does not come. One calls upon death and death comes not. ”

“ VARVARA. He's sitting locked up with mamma. She's nagging away at him now.
KATERINA. What for?
VARVARA. For nothing at all, teaching him to mind what he's about. He'll be a fortnight away out of her sight! Only fancy! She has an uneasy inkling all the time that he'll enjoy himself when he's his own master. And so she's busy now laying all sorts of injunctions upon him, each more imperative than the last, and then she'll take him up to the holy picture and make him swear solemnly that he'll do everything exactly and precisely according to her bidding. ”

“ Shall we go to the parade, there's not a soul there.
BORIS. Yes, come along.
KULIGIN That's our town all over, sir! Here they've made a parade, but they don't walk there. They only walk out on fête days, and then they only make a show of being out for a walk. They really come out to show off their best clothes. You never meet anyone but maybe a drunken attorney's clerk reeling home from the tavern. The poor have no time, sir, to walk out; they must work and worry day and night. Three hours' sleep is all they get out of the twenty-four. But what are the rich about? ”

“ Her sins are no more than all of us have to repent; being afraid of storms is a matter of temperament.
MME. KABANOVA. How do you know, pray? The heart of another is darkness.
KABANOV (jestingly) . Oh well, maybe, something very wicked while I was away; certainly when I've been here she never did anything bad.
MME. KABANOVA. Maybe, when you were away, then.
KABANOV (jesting) . Katia, my girl, you'd better repent, if you've been sinful in any way. You can't have secrets from me, you know; no, you naughty girl, I know all about it.
KATERINA (looks him straight in the face) . Dear Tihon! ”

“ If I had, indeed, I shouldn't be talking to you like this, my dear. (Sighs) Ah, sin is a heavy burden! Sin is never far off! Something said goes to the heart, and there, one sins, one gets angry. No, my son, say what you like about me, there's no forbidding anyone to talk; if they don't dare before one's face, they'll do it behind one's back.
KABANOV. May my tongue wither up and...
MME. KABANOVA. Hush, hush, don't swear! It's a sin! I've seen plain enough for a long time past that your wife's dearer to you than your mother. ”

“ BORIS. Every morning my aunt entreats us with tears in her eyes: "Don't anger him, friends! Dear boys, don't anger him!"
KUDRIASH. But you can never avoid it! If he goes to the bazaar, it's all up! He scolds all the peasants. Even if they ask him less than cost price they never get off without abuse. ”

“ Enter Feklusha and another woman.
FEKLUSHA. De-lightful, my clear, de-lightful! Divinely beautiful! But what's the use of talking! You live in the Promised Land, simply! And the merchant gentry are all a devout people, and famed for many a virtue! liberality and much almsgiving! I am well content, my good soul, full to the brim of content! For their liberality to us will their abundance be greatly increased, especially in the house of Kabanova. ”

“ KATERINA (alone, holding the key in her hand) . The things she thinks of doing! Ah, she's a mad girl, really mad! Here is ruin! Here it is! Fling it away, fling it far away, drop it into the river, that it may never be found. It burns the hand like fire. (Musing) This is how we women come to ruin. How can anyone be happy in bondage? One may be driven to anything. Many a one is glad if she gets the chance; she flings herself headlong. But how can they, without thinking, without reflecting! Easy is the path that leads to misfortune! ”

“ We should never dare think such a thing for a moment, mamma!
MME. KABANOVA. It's out of love that parents are severe with you, out of love they scold even—they're always thinking how to train you in the right way. To be sure, that's not in favour nowadays. And children go about among folks proclaiming that their mother's a scold, that their mother won't let them stir, that she's the plague of their life. ”

“ KATERINA (listening) . What are they saying? They say someone will be struck dead.
KABANOV. You know what stuff they talk, any nonsense that comes into their heads.
MME. KABANOVA. Don't you criticise your elders! They know better than you. Old people have forewarnings of all sorts. Old people don't talk at random.
KATERINA (to her husband) . Dear Tihon, I know who will be struck dead.
VARVARA (to Katerina, softly) . ”

“ MME. KABANOVA. Oh, nothing. Only there's no great glory in doing battle all your life with women, that's all.
DIKOY. Well, I suppose they ought to obey me! Or am I to obey them, hey?
MME. KABANOVA. I really wonder at you; with all the crowd of folks in your house, not a single one can do anything to your liking.
DIKOY. That's so!
MME. KABANOVA. Come, what do you want of me?
DIKOY. Well, talk me out of my temper. You're the only person in the whole town who knows how to talk to me.
MME. KABANOVA. Go in, Feklusha, and order a little something to be served. (Feklusha goes.) ”

“ MME. KABANOVA. You've no one over you, and so you think you can do as you like.
DIKOY. No, you hold your tongue! Listen to me! I'll tell you the sort of troubles that happen to me. I had fasted and all ready for sacrament in Lent, and then the evil one thrusts a wretched peasant under my nose. He had come for money,—for wood he had supplied us. And for my sins he must needs show himself at a time like that! ”

“ I like you, sir, and am ready to do you any service; but you'll kindly refrain from meeting me in this path at night, lest evil come of it. Fair words are better than gold.
BORIS. What is the matter with you, Vania?
KUDRIASH. Vania, indeed! I know my name's Vania. But you go on your way, that's all about it. Find a girl to your liking, and walk out with her to your heart's content, and no one will say a word to you. But don't meddle with other fellows' girls! That's not the way we do things here, or the fellows will break your legs for you. For my girl ... ”