Enter Nurse.
NURSE. Don't you hear baby crying? Please come to nurse him.
MARY IVÁNOVNA. I'm coming, coming! [Rises and exit].
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. I'm dreadfully sorry for my sister. I see how she suffers. Seven children, one of them unweaned, and then all these fads to put up with. It seems to me quite plain that he has something wrong here [touching her forehead. To Priest] Now tell me, I ask you, what new religion is this you have discovered?
PRIEST. I don't understand, in fact …
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. Oh, please don't beat about the bush. You know very well what I am asking you about.
PRIEST. But allow me …
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. I ask you, what creed is it that bids us shake hands with every peasant and let them cut down the trees, and give them money for vódka, and abandon our own families?
PRIEST. I don't know that …
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. He says it is Christianity. You are a priest of the Orthodox Greek Church, and therefore you must know and must say whether Christianity bids us encourage robbery.