ANNA _(confused)_: And love? Surely that is not merely a product
of the association of ideas? Tell me frankly, have you ever loved?

VALENTIN _(bitterly)_: Let us not touch on old wounds not yet healed.
_(A pause.)_ What are you thinking of?

ANNA: I believe you are unhappy.

During the sixteenth scene Pavel Vassilyevitch yawned, and accidently
made with his teeth the sound dogs make when they catch a fly. He
was dismayed at this unseemly sound, and to cover it assumed an
expression of rapt attention.

"Scene seventeen! When will it end?" he thought. "Oh, my God! If
this torture is prolonged another ten minutes I shall shout for the
police. It's insufferable."

But at last the lady began reading more loudly and more rapidly,
and finally raising her voice she read _"Curtain."_

Pavel Vassilyevitch uttered a faint sigh and was about to get up,
but the lady promptly turned the page and went on reading.

ACT II.--_Scene, a village street. On right, School. On left,
Hospital._ Villagers, _male and female, sitting on the hospital
steps._

"Excuse me," Pavel Vassilyevitch broke in, "how many acts are there?"

"Five," answered the lady, and at once, as though fearing her