NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. You don't know what you are saying. If I give it to you, I cannot go on living with you; I shall have to go away. I cannot continue to live under these conditions. I shall not be able to look on while the life-blood is squeezed out of the peasants and they are imprisoned, in your name if not in mine. So choose!
MARY IVÁNOVNA. How cruel you are! Is this Christianity? It is harshness! I cannot, after all, live as you want me to. I cannot rob my own children and give everything away to other people; and that is why you want to desert me. Well—do so! I see you have ceased loving me, and I even know why.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Very well then—I will sign; but, Mary, you demand the impossible of me. [Goes to writing-table and signs] You wished it, but I shall not be able to go on living like this.
Curtain.
ACT III
Scene 1
The scene is laid in Moscow. A large room. In it a carpenter's bench; a table with papers on it; a book-cupboard; a looking-glass and pictures on the wall behind, with some planks leaning in front of them. A Carpenter and Nicholas Ivánovich wearing a carpenter's apron are working at the bench, planing.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [takes a board from the vice] Is that all right?
CARPENTER [setting a plane] Not quite, you must do it more boldly—like this.