VOITSKI. [Dreaming] Such eyes--a glorious woman!

ASTROFF. Come, Ivan, tell us something.

VOITSKI. [Indolently] What shall I tell you?

ASTROFF. Haven't you any news for us?

VOITSKI. No, it is all stale. I am just the same as usual, or
perhaps worse, because I have become lazy. I don't do anything
now but croak like an old raven. My mother, the old magpie, is
still chattering about the emancipation of woman, with one eye on
her grave and the other on her learned books, in which she is
always looking for the dawn of a new life.

ASTROFF. And the Professor?

VOITSKI. The Professor sits in his library from morning till
night, as usual--

"Straining the mind, wrinkling the brow,
We write, write, write,
Without respite
Or hope of praise in the future or now."

Poor paper! He ought to write his autobiography; he would make a
really splendid subject for a book! Imagine it, the life of a
retired professor, as stale as a piece of hardtack, tortured by
gout, headaches, and rheumatism, his liver bursting with jealousy