forgiven thief, a doctored horse.

SHABELSKI. A forgiven thief, a doctored horse, and a Christianised Jew
are all worth the same price.

ANNA. [Laughing] You can't even repeat the simplest saying without
ill-nature. You are a most malicious old man. [Seriously] Seriously,
Count you are extremely disagreeable, and very tiresome and painful to
live with. You are always grumbling and growling, and everybody to you
is a blackguard and a scoundrel. Tell me honestly, Count, have you ever
spoken well of any one?

SHABELSKI. Is this an inquisition?

ANNA. We have lived under this same roof now for five years, and I
have never heard you speak kindly of people, or without bitterness and
derision. What harm has the world done to you? Is it possible that you
consider yourself better than any one else?

SHABELSKI. Not at all. I think we are all of us scoundrels and
hypocrites. I myself am a degraded old man, and as useless as a cast-off
shoe. I abuse myself as much as any one else. I was rich once, and free,
and happy at times, but now I am a dependent, an object of charity, a
joke to the world. When I am at last exasperated and defy them, they
answer me with a laugh. When I laugh, they shake their heads sadly and
say, "The old man has gone mad." But oftenest of all I am unheard and
unnoticed by every one.

ANNA. [Quietly] Screaming again.

SHABELSKI. Who is screaming?

ANNA. The owl. It screams every evening.

SHABELSKI. Let it scream. Things are as bad as they can be 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