I am grown up I will give away everything I have.
Masha |
Not everything, I should think. |
Misha |
Why not? |
Masha |
But what would you have left for yourself? |
Misha |
I don’t care. We must always be kind. Then the whole world will be happy. |
|
Misha stopped playing with his sister, went to the nursery, tore a page out of a copybook, wrote a line on it, and put it in his pocket. On that page was written: We Must Be Kind. |
On Renumeration of Labour
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The Father
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Katia, a girl of nine
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Fedia, a boy of eight
Katia |
Father, our sledge is broken. Couldn’t you mend it for us? |
Father |
No, darling, I can not. I don’t know how to do it. Give it to Prohor; he will put it right for you. |
Katia |
We have asked him to already. He says he is busy. He is making a gate. |
Father |
Well, then, you must just wait a little with your sledge. |
Fedia |
And you, father, can’t you mend it for us, really? |
Father |
Smiling. Really, my boy. |
Fedia |
Can’t you do any work at all? |
Father |
Laughing. Oh yes, there are some kinds of work I can do. But not the kind that Prohor does. |
Fedia |
Can you make samovars like Vania? |
Father |
No. |
Fedia |
Or harness horses? |
Father |
Not that either. |
Fedia |
I wonder why are we all unable to do any work, and they do it all for us. Ought it to be like that? |
Father |
Everybody has to do the work he is fit for. Learn, like a good boy, and you will know what work everybody has to do. |
Fedia |
Are we not to learn how to prepare food and to harness horses? |
Father |
There are things more necessary than that. |
Fedia |
I know: to be kind, not to get cross, not to abuse people. But isn’t it possible to do the cooking and harness horses, and be kind just the same? Isn’t that possible? |
Father |
Undoubtedly. Just wait till you are grown up. Then you will understand. |
Fedia |
And what if I don’t grow up? |
Father |
Don’t talk nonsense! |
Katia |
Then we may ask Prohor to mend the sledge? |
Father |
Yes, do. Go to Prohor and tell him I wish him to do it. |
On Drink
An evening in the autumn.
|
Makarka, a boy of twelve, and Marfutka, a girl of eight, are coming out of the house into the street. Marfutka is crying. Pavlushka, a boy of ten, stands before the house next door. |
Pavlushka |
Where the devil are you going to, both of you? Have you any night work? |
Makarka |
Crazy drunk again. |
Pavlushka |
Who? Uncle Prohor? |
Makarka |
Of course. |
Marfutka |
He is beating mother— |
Makarka |
I won’t go inside tonight. He would hit me also. Sitting down on the doorstep. I will stay here the whole night. I will. |
|
Marfutka weeps. |
Pavlushka |
Stop crying. Never mind. It can’t be helped. Stop crying, I say. |
Marfutka |
If I was the Tsar, I would have the people who give him any drink just beaten to death. I would not allow anybody to sell brandy. |
Pavlushka |
Wouldn’t you? But it is the Tsar himself who sells it. He doesn’t let anybody else sell it, for fear it would lessen his own profits. |
Marfutka |
It is a lie! |
Pavlushka |
Humph! A lie! You just ask anybody you like. Why have they put Akulina in prison? Because they did not want her to sell brandy and lessen their profits. |
Makarka |
Is that really so! I heard she had done something against the law. |
Pavlushka |
What she did against the law was selling brandy. |
Marfutka |
I would not allow her to sell it either. It is just that brandy that does all the mischief. Sometimes he is very nice, and then at other times he hits everybody. |
Makarka |
To Pavlushka. You say very strange things. I will ask the schoolmaster tomorrow. He must know. |
Pavlushka |
Do ask him. |
|
The next morning Prohor, Makarka’s father, after a night’s sleep, goes to refresh himself with a drink; Makarka’s mother, with a swollen eye, is kneading bread. Makarka has gone to school. The Schoolmaster is sitting at the door of the village school, watching the children coming in. |
Makarka |
Coming up to the schoolmaster. Tell me, please, Eugene Semenovich, is it true, what a fellow was telling me, that the Tsar makes a business of selling brandy, and that is why Akulina has been sent to prison? |
Schoolmaster |
That is a very silly question, and whoever told you that is a fool. The Tsar sells nothing whatsoever. A tsar never does. As for Akulina, she was put in prison because she was selling brandy without a license, and was thereby lessening the revenues of the Crown. |
Makarka |
How lessening? |
Schoolmaster |
Because there is a duty on spirits. A barrel costs so much in the factory, and is sold to the public for so much more. This surplus constitutes the income of the state. The largest revenue comes from it, and amounts to many millions. |
Makarka |
Then the more brandy people drink the greater the income? |
Schoolmaster |
Certainly. If it were not for that income there would be nothing to keep the army with, or schools, or all the rest of the things you need. |
Makarka |
But if all those things are necessary, why not take the money directly for the necessary things? Why get it by means of brandy? |
Schoolmaster |
Why? Because that is the law. But the children are all in now. Take your seats. |
On Capital Punishment
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Peter Petrovich, a professor
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Maria Ivanovna, his wife Sewing.
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Fedia, their son, a boy of nine Listening to his father’s conversation.
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Ivan Vasilievich, counsel for the prosecution in the court martial
Ivan Vasilievich |
The experience of history cannot be gainsaid. We have not only seen in France after the revolution, and at other historical moments, but in our own country as well, that doing away with—I mean the removal of perverted and dangerous members of society has in fact the desired result. |
Peter Petrovich |
No, we cannot know what the consequences of this are in reality. The proclamation of a |