Kore. What of Petoff?
Adr. [Looks about and sees Vasil at his book] Vasil, lad, a cup of water from the garden well. The roads are unusually dusty for the first of June.
[Exit Vasil, kitchen way]
Kore. You are wrong, Adrian. It is time for him to know man's work. This is not a day for dreamers.
Adr. For dreamers, no,—but a dreamer, yes. Can we not spare one to step out of the days to a place in the ages? We shall die, indeed, if there is none to sing us.
Kore. He must know his theme then.
Adr. He shall know it,—when he knows art so well that life can not tempt him to die. I will save his youth, his enthusiasm, and then ... he may please himself.
Kore. No use. Our prisons are full of buried enthusiasms. He must take his fate with the rest of us. This is the world, not a fairy's cockle-shell. You can't save him.
Adr. I must. In him Heaven has given me back my own youth. I shall not surrender it a second time.
Kore. He belongs to himself, and he will soon find out that he is a man and a Russian. But Petoff? What did you find there?