TIHON. My word!
FEDYA. To Kuban? Really? [Sitting up] It’s a fine place. You wouldn’t see such a country, brother, if you were to fall asleep and dream for three years. They say the birds there, and the beasts are—my God! The grass grows all the year round, the people are good, and they’ve so much land they don’t know what to do with it! The authorities, they say... a soldier was telling me the other day... give a hundred dessiatins ahead. There’s happiness, God strike me!
MERIK. Happiness.... Happiness goes behind you.... You don’t see it. It’s as near as your elbow is, but you can’t bite it. It’s all silly.... [Looking round at the benches and the people] Like a lot of prisoners.... A poor lot.
EFIMOVNA. [To MERIK] What great, angry, eyes! There’s an enemy in you, young man.... Don’t you look at us!
MERIK. Yes, you’re a poor lot here.
EFIMOVNA. Turn away! [Nudges SAVVA] Savva, darling, a wicked man is looking at us. He’ll do us harm, dear. [To MERIK] Turn away, I tell you, you snake!
SAVVA. He won’t touch us, mother, he won’t touch us.... God won’t let him.
MERIK. All right, Orthodox brothers! [Shrugs his shoulders] Be quiet! You aren’t asleep, you bandy-legged fools! Why don’t you say something?
EFIMOVNA. Take your great eyes away! Take away that devil’s own pride!
MERIK. Be quiet, you crooked old woman! I didn’t come with the devil’s pride, but with kind words, wishing to honour your bitter lot! You’re huddled together like flies because of the cold—I’d be sorry for you, speak kindly to you, pity your poverty, and here you go grumbling away! [Goes up to FEDYA] Where are you from?