your poor feet for you. I shall pray to God for you.

SEREBRAKOFF. [Touched] Let us go, Marina.

MARINA. My own feet are aching so badly, oh, so badly! [She and
SONIA lead SEREBRAKOFF out] Sonia's mother used to wear herself
out with sorrow and weeping. You were still little and foolish
then, Sonia. Come, come, master.

SEREBRAKOFF, SONIA and MARINA go out.

HELENA. I am absolutely exhausted by him, and can hardly stand.

VOITSKI. You are exhausted by him, and I am exhausted by my own
self. I have not slept for three nights.

HELENA. Something is wrong in this house. Your mother hates
everything but her pamphlets and the professor; the professor is
vexed, he won't trust me, and fears you; Sonia is angry with her
father, and with me, and hasn't spoken to me for two weeks; I am
at the end of my strength, and have come near bursting into tears
at least twenty times to-day. Something is wrong in this house.

VOITSKI. Leave speculating alone.

HELENA. You are cultured and intelligent, Ivan, and you surely
understand that the world is not destroyed by villains and
conflagrations, but by hate and malice and all this spiteful
tattling. It is your duty to make peace, and not to growl at
everything.