MERIK. [Gets up and spreads his short fur and coat the bench] Come on, lie down, sir. TIHON. And where will you sleep. MERIK. Oh, anywhere.... The floor will do.... [Spreads a coat on the floor] It’s all one to me [Puts the axe by him] It would be torture for him to sleep on the floor. He’s used to silk and down.... TIHON. [To BORTSOV] Lie down, your honour! You’ve looked at that portrait long enough. [Puts out a candle] Throw it away! BORTSOV. [Swaying about] Where can I lie down? TIHON. In the tramp’s place! Didn’t you hear him giving it up to you? BORTSOV. [Going up to the vacant place] I’m a bit... drunk... after all that.... Is this it?... Do I lie down here? Eh? TIHON. Yes, yes, lie down, don’t be afraid. [Stretches himself out on the counter.] BORTSOV. [Lying down] I’m... drunk.... Everything’s going round.... [Opens the medallion] Haven’t you a little candle? [Pause] You’re a queer little woman Masha.... Looking at me out of the frame and laughing.... [Laughs] I’m drunk! And should you laugh at a man because he’s drunk? You look out, as Schastlivtsev says, and... love the drunkard. FEDYA. How the wind howls. It’s dreary! BORTSOV. [Laughs] What a woman.... Why do you keep on going round? I can’t catch you! MERIK. He’s wandering. Looked too long at the portrait. [Laughs] What a business! Educated people go and invent all sorts of machines and medicines, but there hasn’t yet been a man wise enough to invent a medicine against the female sex.... They try to cure every sort of disease, and it never occurs to them that more people die of women than of disease.... Sly, stingy, cruel, brainless.... The mother-in-law torments the bride and the bride makes things square by swindling the husband... and there’s no end to it.... TIHON. The women have ruffled his hair for him, and so he’s bristly. MERIK. It isn’t only I.... From the beginning of the ages, since the world has been in existence, people have complained.... It’s not for nothing that in the songs and stories, the devil and the woman are put side by side.... Not for nothing! It’s half true, at any rate... [Pause] Here’s the gentleman playing the fool, but I had more sense, didn’t I, when I left my father and mother, and became a tramp? FEDYA. Because of women? MERIK. Just like the gentleman... I walked about like one of the damned, bewitched, blessing my stars... on fire day and night, until at last my eyes were opened... It wasn’t love, but just a fraud.... FEDYA. What did you do to her? MERIK. Never you mind.... [Pause] Do you think I killed her?... I wouldn’t do it.... If you kill, you are sorry for it.... She can live and be happy! If only I’d never set eyes on you, or if I could only forget you, you viper’s brood! [A knocking at the door.] TIHON. Whom have the devils brought.... Who’s there? [Knocking] Who knocks? [Gets up and goes to the door] Who knocks? Go away, we’ve locked up!