Page:Five Russian plays and one Ukrainian.pdf/98

 it’s impossible. Well, what shall I tell them; what shall I tell them?


 * Tell them I’m fastidious—after that it’s just routine! Say that I don’t want their life! Be it full of all possible happiness, but—life is a little twig of lilac seized in the hand in the search for happiness, many-leaved happiness. Their life is ugly, withered, confused, soiled—in short, it’s the life of the mob, though perhaps great happiness is hidden in it. My life is the twig of lilac which no one yet has touched, in which no one till me has yet sought his happiness


 * You want them to think I’m laughing at them.


 * And don’t they deserve to be laughed at?

(sitting at clavichord): May I begin?


 * Please! (Companion plays the andante cantabile from Mozart’s sonata in C sharp. Friend listens enraptured. Master stands by the hearth, smiling sadly. After the first few bars of the third part of the andante.)

(as if raving): Lord! Oh, my God! I’m asleep—I know it—I’m asleep and can’t wake up! Divine Mozart! You died not long ago! Oh, my head! What’s wrong with my heart;