FÉDYA. You know that the one joy I have in life is your love.
MÁSHA. _My_ love--yes; but yours doesn't exist.
FÉDYA. All right. I'm not going to assure you. Besides, what's the good? You know!
FÉDYA [goes up and embraces her] Másha! What's it all about? Stop that. One must live, and not whine. It doesn't suit you at all, my lovely one!
MÁSHA. Only me? Well then, read what you have been writing.
MÁSHA. It's you who wrote it, so it's sure to be good.
FÉDYA. Well then listen. [Reads] "One day, late in autumn, my friend and I agreed to meet on the Murýgin fields, where there was a close thicket with many young birds in it. The day was dull, warm, and quiet. The mist ..."
Enter two old gipsies, Másha's parents, Iván Makárovich and Nastásia Ivánovna.
NASTÁSIA [stepping up to her daughter] Here you are then, you damned runaway sheep! [To Fédya] My respects to you, sir! [To Másha] Is that how you treat us, eh?
IVÁN [to Fédya] It's wrong, sir, what you're doing! You're ruining the wench! Oh, but it's wrong ... You're doing a dirty deed.
NASTÁSIA. Put on your shawl! March at once!... Running away like this! What can I say to the choir? Gallivanting with a beggar--what can you get out of him?
MÁSHA. I don't gallivant! I love this gentleman, that's all. I've not left the choir. I'll go on singing, and what ...
IVÁN. Say another word, and I'll pull the hair off your head!... Slut!... Who behaves like that? Not your father, nor your mother, nor your aunt!... It's bad, sir! We were fond of you--often and often we sang to you without pay. We pitied you, and what have you done?
NASTÁSIA. You've ruined our daughter for nothing ... our own, our only daughter, the light of our eyes, our priceless jewel--you've trodden her into the mire, that's what you've done! You've no conscience.
FÉDYA. Nastásia Ivánovna, you suspect me falsely. Your daughter is like a sister to me. I care for her honour. You must think no evil ... but I love her! What is one to do?
IVÁN. But you didn't love her when you had money! If you'd then subscribed ten thousand roubles or so to the choir, you might have had her honourably. But now you've squandered everything, and carry her off by stealth! It's a shame, sir, a shame!
MÁSHA. He has not carried me off! I came to him myself, and if you take me away now, I shall come back again. I love him, and there's an end of it! My love is stronger than all your locks ... I won't!