VAR. [_to Praskóvya_]. I must get your supper. [_She gets a plate of meat from a cupboard._]
FOMÁ. And on All Souls' Day she brought home holy water in a bottle and sprinkled the rooms of all the lodgers. The schoolmaster was very angry. You spotted the cover of his Greek Lexicon. He says it is a pagan custom, come down to us from the ancient Scythians.
PRAS. I do not like to hear jokes about sacred things. One may provoke Heaven to anger.
FOMÁ. You are always afraid of offending Heaven.
PRAS. Of course I am. Think what I have at stake. For you it is only a little thing. You have a life of your own on earth; I have none. I have been as good as dead for twenty years, and the only thing that I desire is to get safely to heaven to join my son who is there.
PRAS. Not so much as I do. If I were in hell it is not the brimstone that would matter; it would be to know that I should not see my son. [_Fomá nods_].
[_They all concentrate their attention eagerly on the patience._]
VAR. The six and the seven go. Saints preserve us! and the eight. [_She takes up a card to move it._]
PRAS. It is seven years since it went out.
AST. [_elated_]. Some great good fortune is going to happen.
PRAS. You promised to tell me when the patience was done.
AST. How much money have you saved up for the house on Sasha's tomb?
PRAS. Four hundred and six roubles and a few kopecks.
AST. What if he should say that he would take 450 roubles?
PRAS. Why, if I went without food for a year.... [_Laughing at herself._] If one could but live without food!
AST. What if he should say that he would take 420 roubles?
PRAS. Astéryi Ivanovitch, you know the proverb--the elbow is near, but you cannot bite it. I am old and feeble. I want it now, now, now. Shall I outlive the bitter winter? A shelter to sit in and talk to my son. A monument worthy of such a saint.
PRAS. Spiridón has been here? What did he say? Tell me!
AST. He will return soon to strike a bargain.
PRAS. Oh, all the holy saints be praised! Sláva Tebyé Hóspodi! [_Kneeling before the eikons._] Oh, my darling Sasha, we will meet in a fine house, you and I, face to face. [_She prostrates herself three times before the eikons._]
AST. No, this cannot be what the cards told us; for this had happened already before the Wolf came out.