already. [Stretches himself] Alas, my dear Sarah! If I could only
win a thousand or two roubles, I should soon show you what I
could do. I wish you could see me! I should get away out of this
hole, and leave the bread of charity, and should not show my nose
here again until the last judgment day.

ANNA. What would you do if you were to win so much money?

SHABELSKI. [Thoughtfully] First I would go to Moscow to hear the
Gipsies play, and then--then I should fly to Paris and take an
apartment and go to the Russian Church.

ANNA. And what else?

SHABELSKI. I would go and sit on my wife's grave for days and
days and think. I would sit there until I died. My wife is buried
in Paris. [A pause.]

ANNA. How terribly dull this is! Shall we play a duet?

SHABELSKI. As you like. Go and get the music ready. [ANNA goes
out.]

IVANOFF and LVOFF appear in one of the paths.

IVANOFF. My dear friend, you left college last year, and you are
still young and brave. Being thirty-five years old I have the
right to advise you. Don't marry a Jewess or a bluestocking or a
woman who is queer in any way. Choose some nice, common-place
girl without any strange and startling points in her character.