SASHA [_going to the eikon corner with a glass of vodka in his hand_]. Aha! Alexander Nevski, my patron saint. I drink to you, my friend: but I cannot congratulate you on your work. As a guardian angel you have been something of a failure. And what is this? [_taking a photograph_]. Myself! Who would have known this for my portrait? Look at the angel child, with the soft cheeks and the pretty curly hair. How innocent and good I looked! [_bringing it down_]. And even then I was deceiving my mother. She never understood that a young man must live, he must live. We are animals first; we have instincts that need something warmer, something livelier, than the tame dull round of home. [_He throws down the photograph; Fomá replaces it._] And even now I have no intention of dying. Yet how am I to live? I cannot work; the mines have sucked out all my strength. Has my mother any money? AST. [_to Fomá_]. What can we do with him? SASHA. Has my mother any money? AST. Money? Of course not. Would she let lodgings if she had? Listen. I am a poor man myself, but I will give you ten roubles and your railway fare to go to St. Petersburg. SASHA. St. Petersburg? And what shall I do there when I have spent the ten roubles? AST. [_shrugging his shoulders_]. How do I know? Live there, die there, only stay away from here. FOMÁ. What right have you to send him away? Why do you suppose that she will not be glad to see him? Let her see her saint bedraggled, and love him still--that is what true love means. You have regaled her with lies all these years; but now it is no longer possible. [_A knocking at the door._] She is at the door. AST. [_to Sasha_]. Come with me. [_To Fomá._] He must go out by the other way. FOMÁ [_stopping them_]. No, I forbid it. It is the hand of God that has led him here. Go and unlock the door. [_Astéryi shrugs his shoulders, and goes to unlock the door._] [_To Sasha, hiding him._] Stand here a moment till I have prepared your mother. [_Enter Praskóvya and Varvára, carrying a box._] PRAS. Why is the door locked? Were you afraid without old Praskóvya to protect you? Here is the money. Now let me count it. Have you two been quarreling? There are fifty roubles in this bag, all in little pieces of silver; it took me two years. FOMÁ. How you must have denied yourself, Praskóvya, and all to build a hut in a churchyard! PRAS. On what better thing could money be spent? FOMÁ. You are so much in love with your tomb-house, I believe that you would be sorry if it turned out that your son was not dead, but alive. PRAS. Why do you say such things? You know that I should be glad. Ah! if I could but see him once again as he was then, and hold him in my arms! FOMÁ. But he would not be the same now. PRAS. If he were different, he would not be my son. FOMÁ. What if all these years he had been an outcast, living in degradation? PRAS. Who has been eating here? Who has been drinking here? Something has happened! Tell me what it is.