audience might escape her, she went on rapidly.

VALENTIN _is looking out of the schoolhouse window. In the background_
Villagers _can be seen taking their goods to the Inn._

Like a man condemned to be executed and convinced of the impossibility
of a reprieve, Pavel Vassilyevitch gave up expecting the end,
abandoned all hope, and simply tried to prevent his eyes from
closing, and to retain an expression of attention on his face. . . .
The future when the lady would finish her play and depart seemed
to him so remote that he did not even think of it.

"Trooo--too--too--too . . ." the lady's voice sounded in his ears.
"Troo--too--too . . . sh--sh--sh--sh . . ."

"I forgot to take my soda," he thought. "What am I thinking about?
Oh--my soda. . . . Most likely I shall have a bilious attack. . . .
It's extraordinary, Smirnovsky swills vodka all day long and
yet he never has a bilious attack. . . . There's a bird settled on
the window . . . a sparrow. . . ."

Pavel Vassilyevitch made an effort to unglue his strained and closing
eyelids, yawned without opening his mouth, and stared at Mme.
Murashkin. She grew misty and swayed before his eyes, turned into
a triangle and her head pressed against the ceiling. . . .

VALENTIN No, let me depart.

ANNA _(in dismay)_: Why?