_Vasil._ [_Smiling_] I am ready for him.[_Crosses to small table rear, sits by it, and begins studying. Vera follows him, and they look over the book together, Vasil explaining, Vera teasing_] _Vet._ [_Taking up his work_] I wish you loved the music, Catherine. It makes things different somehow ... while it lasts. _Cath._ 'Tis your spirit, Petrovich. You were never like the rest of us. The others called you queer, but I knew it was just spirit. _Vet._ Eh--yes. Don't you remember the gypsy ring in the forest forty-five years---- _Cath._ How you talk, Petrusha! 'Tis evil times [_looks guardedly at the young people_] and we are old. _Vet._ Yes ... old. We may gather acorns in the woods, mother, but we shall never find any more flowers. Well enough. The trees would grow wrinkled with laughter to see an old man dancing beneath them. Eh--yes, let him stoop, and pick up brush. _Cath._ [_Comfortingly_] We have the children, Petrusha. _Vet._ [_Sullenly_] We had their father and mother, too. _Cath._ We've fared better than others. We've always had our home. _Vet._ Because you served in the barin's house and the mistress liked you. Just chance! And then the barin died and Travinski got hold of everything. _Cath._ But the Shepherd came. _Vet._ Another chance! Life oughtn't to owe itself to that. It isn't living. Those two awful years before the Shepherd came--when Andrei died--they were real. A part of what _is_. We were like our neighbors then. Yes. [_Stops talking as Vera crosses to her grandmother_] _Vera._ [_Leaning affectionately against Catherine_] How you must love Vasil, grandmamma, to make him an embroidered blouse out of a piece of your best blanket! _Cath._ He is leaving us, my child. _Vera._ You said I should have this if I married Alexander. _Cath._ Perhaps these bad times will be over then, and we may be able to get something new. _Vera._ O, these bad times! They will never be over. I've been waiting for that ever since I was born. _Cath._ And we waited before you, child. _Vera._ [_Repentant_] I didn't mean it, grandmamma! Can't I help you make the blouse? But it may not be the fashion in Berlin. I will ask Sasha what the students wear. [_Takes up a piece of the stuff_] And how can you sew on winter things in summer time? Winter is so far away,--a thousand years away. Vasil will never live till winter time. _Cath._ [_Shocked_] Vera! _Vera._ Well, you know he can't live a thousand years. _Cath._ Why does winter seem so far off, dear? _Vera._ O, I don't know. [_A slight pause_] Alexander says we can not be married before winter. _Cath._ [_Smiling and laying down her work_] Do you love him so much? [_Vera buries her face in her grandmother's lap_] And he is right, dear. You should wait a long time. What can a young man do now? Everything is uncertain. Nothing is sure but hunger and children. _Vera._ [_Looking up_] Isn't it the strangest thing in the world? _Cath._ What, dear? _Vera._ That he should love me.