knew how to live.

SAVVA

I don't know how to make you understand. Yes, I did meet, if not altogether good people, yet—The last people with whom I lived were a pretty good sort. They didn't accept life ready-made, but tried to make it over to suit themselves. But—

LIPA

Who were they—students?

SAVVA

No. Look here—how about your tongue—is it of the loose kind?

LIPA

Savva, you ought to be ashamed!

SAVVA

All right. Now then. You've read of people who make bombs—little bombs, you understand? Now if they see anybody who interferes with life, they take him off. They're called anarchists. But that isn't quite correct. (Contemptuously) Nice anarchists they are!

LIPA (starting back, awestruck)

What are you talking about? You can't possibly be in earnest. It isn't true. And you in it, too? Why, you look so simple and talk so simply, and suddenly—I was hot a moment ago, but now I am cold, (The rooster crows-under the window, calling the chickens to share some seed he has found)

SAVVA

There now—you're frightened. First you want me to tell you, and then—

LIPA

Don't mind me, Savva, it's nothing. It was so unexpected. I thought such people didn't really exist—that they were just a fiction of the imagination. And then, all of a sudden, to find you, my brother—You are not joking, Savva? Look me straight in the eye.

SAVVA

But why did you get frightened? They are not so terrible after all. In fact, they are very quiet, orderly people, and very deliberate. They meet and meet, and weigh and consider a long time, and then—bang!—a sparrow drops dead. The next minute there is another sparrow in its place, hopping about on the very same branch. Why are you looking at my hands?

LIPA

Oh, nothing. Give me your hand—no, your right hand.

SAVVA

Here.

LIPA

How heavy it is. Feel how cold mine are. Go on, tell me all about it.
It's so interesting.

SAVVA

What's there to tell? They are a brave set of people, I must admit; but it is a bravery of the head, not of the hands. And their heads are partitioned off into little chambers; they are always careful not to do anything which is unnecessary or harmful. Now you can't clear a dense forest by cutting down one tree at a time, can you? That's what they do. While they chop at one end, it grows up at the other. You can't accomplish anything that way; it's labor lost. I proposed a scheme to them, something on a larger scale. They got frightened, wouldn't hear of it. A little weak-kneed they are. So I left them. Let them practise virtue. A narrow-minded bunch. They lack breadth of vision.

LIPA

You say it as calmly as if you were joking.

SAVVA

No, I am not joking.

LIPA

Aren't you afraid?

SAVVA

I? So far I haven't been, and I don't ever expect to be. What worse can happen to a man than to have been born? It's like asking a man who is drowning whether he is not afraid of getting wet. (Laughs)

LIPA

So that's the kind you are.

SAVVA

One thing I learned from them: respect for dynamite. It's a powerful instrument, dynamite is—nothing like it for a convincing argument.

LIPA

You are only twenty-three years old. You have no beard yet, not even a moustache.

SAVVA (feeling his face)

Yes, a measly growth; but what conclusions do you draw from that?

LIPA

Fear will come to you yet.

SAVVA

No. If I haven't been frightened so far by watching life, there's nothing else to fear. Life, yes. I embrace the earth with my eyes, the whole of it, the entire little planetoid, and I can find nothing more terrible on it than man and human life. And I am not afraid of man.

LIPA (scarcely listening to him; ecstatically)

Yes, that's the word. That's it. Savva, dear, I am not afraid of bodily suffering either. Burn me on a slow fire. Cut me to pieces. I won't cry. I'll laugh. I know I will. But there is another thing I am afraid of. I am afraid of people's suffering, of the misery from which they cannot escape. When in the stillness of the night, broken only by the striking of the hours, I think of how much suffering there is all around us—aimless, needless suffering; suffering one doesn't even know of—when I think of that, I am chilled with terror. I go down on my knees and pray. I pray to God, saying to Him: "Oh, Lord, if there has to be a victim, take me, but give the people joy, give them peace, give them forgetfulness. Oh, Lord, all powerful as Thou art—"

SAVVA

Yes.

LIPA

I have read about a man who was eaten by an eagle, and his flesh grew again overnight. If my body could turn into bread and joy for the people, I would consent to live in eternal torture in order to feed the unfortunate. There'll soon be a holiday here in the monastery—

SAVVA

I know.

LIPA

There is an ikon of the Saviour there with the touching inscription:
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden—

SAVVA

And I will give you rest." I know.

LIPA

It is regarded as a wonder-working ikon. Go there on the feast-day. It's like a torrent pouring into the monastery, an ocean rolling toward its walls; and this whole ocean is made up entirely of human tears, of human sorrow and misery. Such monstrosities, such cripples. After witnessing one of those scenes, I walk about as in a dream. There are faces with such a depth of misery in them that one can never forget them as long as one lives. Why, Savva, I was a gay young thing before I saw all that. There is one man who comes here every year—they have nicknamed him King Herod—

SAVVA

He is here already. I've seen him.

LIPA

Have you?

SAVVA

Yes, he has got a tragic face.

LIPA

Long ago, when still a young man, he killed his son by accident, and from that day he keeps coming here. He has an awful face. And all of them are waiting for a miracle.

SAVVA

Yes. There is something worse than inescapable human suffering, however.

LIPA

What?

SAVVA (lightly)

Inescapable human stupidity.

LIPA

I don't know.

SAVVA

I do. Here you see only a small fragment of life, but if you could see and hear all of it—When I first read their newspapers, I laughed and thought it was a joke. I thought they were published in some asylum for the insane. But I found it was no joke. It was really serious, Lipa, really serious. And then my head began to ache with an intolerable pain. (He presses his hand to his forehead)

LIPA

Your head began to ache?

SAVVA

Yes. It's a peculiar pain. You don't know what