Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 60

VAR. The six and the seven go. Saints preserve us! and the eight. [_She takes up a card to move it._]

AST. No, not that one; leave that.

VAR. Where did it come from?

AST. From here.

PRAS. No, from there.

VAR. It was from here.

AST. It is all the same.

FOMa. It will go.

PRAS. And the knave from off this row.

VAR. The Wolf is going out!

PRAS. It is seven years since it went out.

FOMa. Seven years?

AST. It is out!

PRAS. It is done!

VAR. [_clapping her hands_]. Hooray!

AST. [_elated_]. Some great good fortune is going to happen.

VAR. What can it be? [_A pause._]

PRAS. And what is the vodka for?

AST. The vodka?

PRAS. You promised to tell me when the patience was done.

AST. How much money have you saved up for the house on Sasha's tomb?

PRAS. Four hundred and six roubles and a few kopecks.

AST. And Spiridon asks for 500 roubles?

PRAS. Five hundred roubles.

AST. What if he should lower his price?

PRAS. He will not lower his price.

AST. What if he should say that he would take 450 roubles?

PRAS. Why, if I went without food for a year.... [_Laughing at herself._] If one could but live without food!

AST. What if he should say that he would take 420 roubles?

PRAS. Asteryi Ivanovitch, you know the proverb--the elbow is near, but you cannot bite it. I am old and feeble. I want it now, now, now. Shall I outlive the bitter winter? A shelter to sit in and talk to my son. A monument worthy of such a saint.

AST. Spiridon has been here.

PRAS. Spiridon has been here? What did he say? Tell me!

AST. He will build it for 400 roubles.

VAR. For 400 roubles!

AST. He will return soon to strike a bargain.

PRAS. Is it true?

AST. As true as that I wear the cross.

PRAS. Oh, all the holy saints be praised! Slava Tebye Hospodi!

[_Kneeling before the eikons._] Oh, my darling Sasha, we will meet in a fine house, you and I, face to face. [_She prostrates herself three times before the eikons._]

VAR. Then this is the good luck.

AST. No, this cannot be what the cards told us; for this had happened already before the Wolf came out.

VAR. Then there is something else to follow?

AST. Evidently.

VAR. What can it be?

AST. To-morrow perhaps we shall know.

PRAS. [_rising_]. And in a month I shall have my tomb-house finished, for which I have been waiting twenty years! A little stone house safe against the rain. [_Smiling and eager._] There will be a tile stove which I can light: in the middle a stone table and two chairs--one for me and one for my boy when he comes and sits with me, and....

VAR. [_at the window, shrieking_]. Ah! Heaven defend us!

PRAS. What is it?

VAR. The face! the face!

PRAS. The face again?