Fruits of Culture Part 33

FIRST PEASANT. That's just it; as by laying on the signature the affair is come to a conclusion, we only wish to make payment with thanks.

ANNA PaVLOVNA. Wait a bit with your thanks. It was all done by fraud! It is not settled yet. Not sold yet.... Leonid.... Call Leonid Fyodoritch.

[Exit Doorkeeper].

Leonid Fyodoritch enters, but, seeing his wife and the Peasants, wishes to retreat.

ANNA PaVLOVNA. No, no, come here, please! I told you the land must not be sold on credit, and everybody told you so, but you let yourself be deceived like the veriest blockhead.

LEONiD FYoDORITCH. How? I don't understand who is deceiving?

ANNA PaVLOVNA. You ought to be ashamed of yourself! You have grey hair, and you let yourself be deceived and laughed at like a silly boy. You grudge your son some three hundred roubles which his social position demands, and let yourself be tricked of thousands--like a fool!

LEONiD FYoDORITCH. Now come, Annette, try to be calm.

FIRST PEASANT. We are only come about the acceptation of the sum, for example ...

THIRD PEASANT [taking out the money] Let us finish the matter, for Christ's sake!

ANNA PaVLOVNA. Wait, wait!

Enter Tanya and Gregory.

ANNA PaVLOVNA [angrily] You were in the small drawing-room during the seance last night?

Tanya looks round at Theodore Ivanitch, Leonid Fyodoritch, and Simon, and sighs.

GREGORY. It's no use beating about the bush; I saw you myself ...

ANNA PaVLOVNA. Tell me, were you there? I know all about it, so you'd better confess! I'll not do anything to you. I only want to expose him [pointing to Leonid Fyodoritch] your master.... Did you throw the paper on the table?

TaNYA. I don't know how to answer. Only one thing,--let me go home.

Enter Betsy un.o.bserved.

ANNA PaVLOVNA [to Leonid Fyodoritch] There, you see! You are being made a fool of.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRUITS OF CULTURE. ACT IV.

ANNA PaVLOVNA. There, you see! You are being made a fool of.]

TaNYA. Let me go home, Anna Pavlovna!

ANNA PaVLOVNA. No, my dear! You may have caused us a loss of thousands of roubles. Land has been sold that ought not to be sold!

TaNYA. Let me go, Anna Pavlovna!

ANNA PaVLOVNA. No; you'll have to answer for it! Such tricks won't do.

We'll have you up before the Justice of the Peace!

BETSY [comes forward] Let her go, mamma. Or, if you wish to have her tried, you must have me tried too! She and I did it together.

ANNA PaVLOVNA. Well, of course, if _you_ have a hand in anything, what can one expect but the very worst results!

Enter the Professor.

PROFESSOR. How do you do, Anna Pavlovna? How do you do, Miss Betsy?

Leonid Fyodoritch, I have brought you a report of the Thirteenth Congress of Spiritualists at Chicago. An amazing speech by Schmidt!

LEONiD FYoDORITCH. Oh, that is interesting!

ANNA PaVLOVNA. I will tell you something much more interesting! It turns out that both you and my husband were fooled by this girl! Betsy takes it on herself, but that is only to annoy me. It was an illiterate peasant girl who fooled you, and you believed it all. There were no mediumistic phenomena last night; it was she [pointing to Tanya] who did it!

PROFESSOR [taking off his overcoat] What do you mean?

ANNA PaVLOVNA. I mean that it was she who, in the dark, played on the guitar and beat my husband on the head and performed all your idiotic tricks--and she has just confessed!

PROFESSOR [smiling] What does that prove?

ANNA PaVLOVNA. It proves that your mediumism is--tomfoolery; that's what it proves!

PROFESSOR. Because this young girl wished to deceive, we are to conclude that mediumism is "tomfoolery," as you are pleased to express it?

[Smiles] A curious conclusion! Very possibly this young girl may have wished to deceive: that often occurs. She may even have done something; but then, what she did--_she_ did. But the manifestations of mediumistic energy still remain manifestations of _mediumistic_ energy! It is even very probable that what this young girl did, evoked (and so to say solicited) the manifestation of mediumistic energy,--giving it a definite form.

ANNA PaVLOVNA. Another lecture!

PROFESSOR [sternly] You say, Anna Pavlovna, that this girl, and perhaps this dear young lady also, did something; but the light we all saw, and, in the first case the fall, and in the second the rise of temperature, and Grossman's excitement and vibration--were those things also done by this girl? And these are facts, Anna Pavlovna, facts! No! Anna Pavlovna, there are things which must be investigated and fully understood before they can be talked about, things too serious, too serious ...

LEONiD FYoDORITCH. And the child that Marya Vasilevna distinctly saw?

Why, I saw it too.... That could not have been done by this girl.

ANNA PaVLOVNA. You think yourself wise, but you are--a fool.

LEONiD FYoDORITCH. Well, I'm going.... Alexey Vladimiritch, will you come? [Exit into his study].

PROFESSOR [shrugging his shoulders, follows] Oh, how far, how far, we still lag behind Western Europe!

Enter Jacob.

ANNA PaVLOVNA [following Leonid Fyodoritch with her eyes] He has been tricked like a fool, and he sees nothing! [To Jacob] What do you want?

JACOB. How many persons am I to lay the table for?

ANNA PaVLOVNA. For how many?... Theodore Ivanitch! Let him give up the silver plate to you. Be off, at once! It is all his fault! This man will bring me to my grave. Last night he nearly starved the dog that had done him no harm! And, as if that were not enough, he lets the infected peasants into the kitchen, and now they are here again! It is all his fault! Be off at once! Discharge him, discharge him! [To Simon] And you, horrid peasant, if you dare to have rows in my house again, I'll teach you!

SECOND PEASANT. All right, if he is a horrid peasant there's no good keeping him; you'd better discharge him too, and there's an end of it.

ANNA PaVLOVNA [while listening to him looks at Third Peasant] Only look!

Why, he has a rash on his nose--a rash! He is ill; he is a hotbed of infection!! Did I not give orders, yesterday, that they were not to be allowed into the house, and here they are again? Drive them out!