NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. And what am I to do? Don't I know why that wretched man--dressed up in his cassock and wearing that cross--was sent for, and why Alexándra Ivánovna brought the Notary? You want me to hand the estate over to you, but I can't. You know that I have loved you all the twenty years we have lived together. I love you and wish you well, and therefore cannot sign away the estate to you. If I sign it away at all, it can only be to give it back to those from whom it has been taken--the peasants. And I can't let things remain as they are, but must give it to them. I'm glad the Notary has come; and I will do it. MARY IVÁNOVNA. No, that is dreadful! Why this cruelty? Though you think it a sin, still give it to me. [Weeps]. NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. You don't know what you are saying. If I give it to you, I cannot go on living with you; I shall have to go away. I cannot continue to live under these conditions. I shall not be able to look on while the life-blood is squeezed out of the peasants and they are imprisoned, in your name if not in mine. So choose! MARY IVÁNOVNA. How cruel you are! Is this Christianity? It is harshness! I cannot, after all, live as you want me to. I cannot rob my own children and give everything away to other people; and that is why you want to desert me. Well--do so! I see you have ceased loving me, and I even know why. NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Very well then--I will sign; but, Mary, you demand the impossible of me. [Goes to writing-table and signs] You wished it, but I shall not be able to go on living like this. Curtain. ACT III SCENE 1 The scene is laid in Moscow. A large room. In it a carpenter's bench; a table with papers on it; a book-cupboard; a looking-glass and pictures on the wall behind, with some planks leaning in front of them. A Carpenter and Nicholas Ivánovich wearing a carpenter's apron are working at the bench, planing. NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [takes a board from the vice] Is that all right? CARPENTER [setting a plane] Not quite, you must do it more boldly--like this. NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. It is easy to say boldly, but I can't manage it. CARPENTER. But why should your honour trouble to learn to be a carpenter? There are such a lot of us nowadays that we can hardly get a living as it is. NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [at work again] I'm ashamed to lead an idle life. CARPENTER. Yours is that kind of position. God has given you property. NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. That's just where it is. I don't believe that God gave it, but that some of us have taken it, and taken it from our brother men. CARPENTER [taken aback] That's so! But still you've no need to do this. NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. I understand that it must seem strange to you that while living in this house where there is such superfluity, I should wish to earn something. CARPENTER [laughs] No. Everybody knows that gentlefolk want to master everything. Well, now go over it again with the smoothing plane.