THE LITTLE STONE HOUSE is founded on a story by the same author, published anonymously some years ago in _Temple Bar_.
The agents for amateur rights in this play are Messrs. Samuel French, 28 West 38th Street, New York, and Joseph Williams, Ltd., 32 Great Portland Street, London, from whom a license to play it in public must be obtained.
It was first performed for the Stage Society at the Aldwych Theatre, London, January 29, 1911, with the following cast:
PRASKÓVYA, _a lodging-house keeper_ _Mrs. Saba Raleigh_ VARVÁRA, _her servant_ _Miss Eily Malyon_ ASTÉRYI, _a lodger_ _Mr. Franklin Dyall_ FOMÁ, _a lodger_ _Mr. Stephen T. Ewart_ SPIRIDÓN, _a stonemason_ _Mr. Leon M. Lion_ A STRANGER _Mr. O. P. Heggie_ A CORPORAL _Mr. E. Cresfan_
SCENE: _Small provincial town in Russia._
Reprinted by permission of, and special arrangement with, Messrs. Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd., publishers of the English edition.
[_Praskóvya's sitting-room. Street door in porch and a curtainless window at the back. It is night; the light of an oil-lamp in the street dimly shows snow-covered houses and falling snow. The room is plainly furnished: a bed, a curtain on a cord, some books, eikons on a shelf in the corner with a wick in a red glass bowl burning before them, paper flowers, and Easter eggs on strings. A photograph of a man of twenty hangs by the eikons. There are doors to kitchen and to the lodgers' rooms._
_Varvára is discovered sitting by a lamp darning stockings._
_There is an atmosphere of silence, solitude, and Russian monotony. The clock ticks. A man is seen passing in the street; his feet make no sound on the snowy ground. There is the sound of a concertina and a man who laughs in the distance out of doors. Then silence again._
_Enter Astéryi, stout and lazy; gray hair thrown untidily back, a rough beard. He is in slippers and dirty dressing-gown, with a big case full of Russian cigarettes in his pocket._]
VAR. [_rising_]. She is not at home, Astéryi Ivanovitch. She has gone to Vespers at St. Pantaléimon's in the Marsh. It is the festival of the translation of St. Pantaléimon's relics. [_Varvára sits again. Astéryi walks to and fro smoking a cigarette._] Will you not have your game of patience as usual?