our
house, and you have not answered my letters. I imagined you suffering
dreadfully, or ill, or dead. I have not slept for nights. I am going
now, but first tell me that you are well.

IVANOFF. No, I am not well. I am a torment to myself, and every one
torments me without end. I can't stand it! And now you come here. How
morbid and unnatural it all is, Sasha. I am terribly guilty.

SASHA. What dreadful, pitiful speeches you make! So you are guilty, are
you? Tell me, then, what is it you have done?

IVANOFF I don't know; I don't know!

SASHA. That is no answer. Every sinner should know what he is guilty of.
Perhaps you have been forging money?

IVANOFF. That is stupid.

SASHA. Or are you guilty because you no longer love your wife? Perhaps
you are, but no one is master of his feelings, and you did not mean to
stop loving her. Do you feel guilty because she saw me telling you that
I love you? No, that cannot be, because you did not want her to see it--

IVANOFF. [Interrupting her] And so on, and so on! First you say I love,
and then you say I don't; that I am not master of my feelings. All these
are commonplace, worn-out sentiments, with which you cannot help me.

SASHA. It is impossible to talk to you. [She looks at a picture on the
wall] How well those dogs are drawn! Were they done from life?

IVANOFF. Yes, from life. And this whole romance of ours is a tedious
old story; a man loses heart and begins to go down in the world; a girl
appears, brave and strong of heart, and gives him a hand to help him
to rise again. Such situations are pretty, but they are only found in
novels and not in real life.

SASHA. No, they are found in real life too.

IVANOFF. Now I see how well you understand real life! My sufferings seem
noble to you; you imagine you have discovered in me a second Hamlet;
but my state of mind in all its phases is only fit to furnish food for
contempt and derision. My contortions are ridiculous enough to make any
one die of laughter, and you want to play the guardian angel; you want
to do a noble deed and save me. Oh, how I hate myself to-day! I feel
that this tension must soon be relieved in some way. Either I shall
break something, or else--

SASHA. That is exactly what you need. Let yourself go! Smash something;
break it to pieces; give a yell! You are angry with me, it was foolish
of me to come here. Very well, then, get excited about it; storm at me;
stamp your feet! Well, aren't you getting