The Storm E-Book

Aleksandr Ostrovsky

• Herausgeber: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 109

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The city of Kalinov on the Volga. In the house of Kabanov's merchants, a wedding feast was thundering. For Katerina, the young wife of the merchant's son Tikhon, the painful, monotonous days of marriage are set in. The Katerina's environment — severe and powerful mother-in-law Kabaniha, weak-willed husband, cunning Varvara, thievish Kudryash. Circumstances reduce the heroine with Boris, the nephew of the merchant Dikiy. He seems to her as a man of a different, better world. But she is afraid of the arising feeling. When Tikhon leaves for Moscow and does not take Katerina with him, she approaches with Boris. Pretty illustrations by Nataliia Borisova provide you with new impressions from reading this legendary story.

Leseprobe

The Storm

By Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky

The city of Kalinov on the Volga. In the house of Kabanov’s merchants, a wedding feast was thundering. For Katerina, the young wife of the merchant's son Tikhon, the painful, monotonous days of marriage are set in. The Katerina’s environment — severe and powerful mother-in-law Kabaniha, weak-willed husband, cunning Varvara, thievish Kudryash.

Circumstances reduce the heroine with Boris, the nephew of the merchant Dikiy. He seems to her as a man of a different, better world. But she is afraid of the arising feeling. When Tikhon leaves for Moscow and does not take Katerina with him, she approaches with Boris.

Pretty illustrations by Nataliia Borisova provide you with new impressions from reading this legendary story.

Dramatis Personae

Savil Prokofievitch Dikoy, a merchant, and personage of importance in the town.

Boris Grigorievitch, his nephew, a young man of good education.

Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, a rich merchant's widow.

Tihon Ivanitch Kabanov, her son.

Katerina, his wife.

Varvara, sister of Tihon.

Kuligin, a man of artisan class, a self-taught watchmaker, engaged in trying to discover the secret of perpetual motion.

Vania Kudriash, a young man, clerk to Dikoy.

Shapkin, an artisan.

Feklusha, a pilgrim woman.

Glasha, a maid servant in the Kabanovs' house.

An old ladyof seventy, half mad, withTwo footmen.

Townspeopleof both sexes.

The action takes place in the town of Kalinov, on the banks of the Volga, in summertime. There is an interval of ten days between the 3rd and 4th acts. All the characters except Boris are dressed in old Russian national dress.

Act I

Scene I

A public garden on the steep bank of the Volga; beyond the Volga, a view of the country. On the stage two benches and a few bushes.

Kuligin(sitting on a bench, looking towards the river). Kudriash and Shapkin(walking up and down).

Kuligin(singing). “Amidst the level dales, upon a sloping hillside,”… (ceases singing) Wonderful, one really must say it's wonderful! Kudriash! Do you know, I've looked upon the Volga every day these fifty years and I can never get tired of looking upon it.

Kudriash. How's that?

Kuligin. It's a marvellous view! Lovely! It sets my heart rejoicing.

Kudriash. It's not bad.

Kuligin. It's exquisite! And you say “not bad”! You are tired of it, or you don't feel the beauty there is in nature.

Kudriash. Come, there's no use talking to you! You're a genuine antique, we all know, a chemical genius.

Kuligin. Mechanical, a self-taught mechanician.

Kudriash. It's all one.

Silence.

Kuligin(pointing away). Look, Kudriash, who's that waving his arms about over there?

Kudriash. There? Oh, that's Dikoy pitching into his nephew.

Kuligin. A queer place to do it!

Kudriash. All places are alike to him. He's not afraid of any one! Boris Grigoritch is in his clutches now, so he is always bullying him.

Shapkin. Yes, you wouldn't find another bully like our worthy Saviol Prokofitch in a hurry! He pulls a man up for nothing at all.

Kudriash. He is a stiff customer.

Shapkin. Old Dame Kabanova's a good hand at that too!

Kudriash. Yes, but she at least does it all under pretence of morality; he's like a wild beast broken loose!

Shapkin. There's no one to bring him to his senses, so he rages about as he likes!

Kudriash. There are too few lads of my stamp or we'd have broken him of it.

Shapkin. Why, what would you have done?

Kudriash. We'd have given him a good scare.

Shapkin. How'd you do that?

Kudriash. Why, four or five of us would have had a few words with him, face to face, in some back street, and he'd soon have been as soft as silk. And he'd never have let on to a soul about the lesson we'd given him; he'd just have walked off and taken care to look behind him.

Shapkin. I see he'd some reason for wanting to get you sent for a soldier.

Kudriash. He wanted to, right enough, but he didn't do it. No, he won't get rid of me; he's an inkling that I'd make him pay too dear for it. You're afraid of him, but I know how to talk to him.

Shapkin. Oh, I daresay!

Kudriash. What do you mean by that? I am reckoned a tough one to deal with. Why do you suppose he keeps me on? Because he can't do without me, to be sure.

Well, then, I've no need to be afraid of him; let him be afraid of me.

Shapkin. Why, doesn't he swear at you?

Kudriash. Swear at me! Of course; he can't breathe without that. But I don't give way to him: if he says one word, I say ten; he curses and goes off. No, I'm not going to lick the dust for him.

Kuligin. What, follow his example! You'd do better to bear it in patience.

Kudriash. Come, I say, if you're so wise, teach him good manners first and then we'll learn! It's a pity his daughters are all children, there's not one grown-up girl among them.

Shapkin. What if there were?

Kudriash. I should treat him as he deserves if there were. I'm a devil of a fellow among the girls!

Dikoy and Boris advance. Kuligin takes off his hat.

Shapkin(to Kudriash). Let us move off; he'll pick a quarrel with us, very likely.

They move off a little.

Scene II

The Same, Dikoy and Boris.

Dikoy. Did you come here to loaf about in idleness? eh? Lazy good for nothing fellow, confound you!

Boris. It's a holiday; what could I be doing at home?

Dikoy. You'd find work to do if you wanted to. I've said it once, and I've said it twice, “don't dare to let me come across you”; you're incorrigible! Isn't there room enough for you? Go where one will, there you are! Damn you! Why do you stand there like a post? Do you hear what's said to you?

Boris. I'm listening, — what more am I to do?

Dikoy(looking at Boris). Get away with you! I won't talk to a Jesuit like you. (Going) To come forcing himself on me here!

Spits and exit.

Scene III

Kuligin, Boris, Kudriash, and Shapkin.

Kuligin. What have you to do with him, sir? We can't make it out. What can induce you to live with him and put up with his abuse?

Boris. A poor inducement, Kuligin! I'm not free.

Kuligin. But how are you not free, allow me to ask you. If you can tell us, sir, do.

Boris. Why not? You knew our grandmother, Anfisa Mihalovna?

Kuligin. To be sure I did!

Kudriash. I should think we did!

Boris. She quarrelled with my father you know because he married into a noble family. It was owing to that that my father and mother lived in Moscow. My mother used to tell me that she could hardly endure life for three days together with my father's relations, it all seemed so rough and coarse to her.

Kuligin. Well it might! you have to be used to it from the first, sir, to be able to bear it.

Boris. Our parents brought us up well in Moscow, they spared no expense. They sent me to the Commercial Academy, and my sister to a boarding school, but they both died suddenly of cholera. We were left orphans, my sister and I. Then we heard that our grandmother was dead here, and had left a will that our uncle was to pay us a fair share of her fortune, when we came of age, only upon one condition.

Kuligin. And what was that, sir?

Boris. If we showed a proper respect for his authority.

Kuligin. Then there's no doubt, sir, you'll never see your fortune.

Boris. No, but that's not all, Kuligin! First he finds fault with us to his heart's content, and ends none the less with giving us nothing, or some tiny dole. And then he'll go making out that it's a great favour, and that he ought not to have done even that.

Kudriash. That's just the way the merchants go on among us. Besides, if you were ever so respectful to him, who's to hinder him from saying you're disrespectful?

Boris. To be sure. And indeed he sometimes will say: I've children of my own, why should I give money away to outsiders? Am I to wrong my own like that?

Kuligin. It's plain, sir, you're not in luck's way.

Boris. If it were only me, I wouldn't care! I'd throw it all up and go away. But I'm sorry for my sister. He did write for her to come too, but mother's relations wouldn't let her, they wrote she wasn't well. It frightens me to think what the life here would be for her.

Kudriash. Of course. The master's no decent manners at all.

Kuligin. In what capacity do you live with him, sir; what arrangement has he made with you?

Boris. Why, none whatever; “you live with me,” he says, “and do what you're told, and your pay shall be what I give you,” that's to say, in a year's time he'll settle up with me as he thinks fit.

Kudriash. That's just his way. Not one of us dare as much as hint at a salary, or he storms till he's black in the face. “How do you know,” he'll say, “what I have in my mind to do? Do you suppose you can see into my heart? Maybe, I shall be so disposed as to give you five thousand.” It's no use talking to him! Only you may be pretty sure he's never been disposed that way in his life.

Kuligin. It's a hard case, sir! You must try and get the right side of him somehow.

Boris. But the point is, Kuligin, that it's impossible. Why, even his own children can never do anything to please him; so it's hardly likely I could!

Kudriash. Who could please him, when his whole life's spent in bullying people? Especially where money's at stake; no accounts are ever settled without storms of abuse. Often people are glad to go short of their due, if only he'll let them off quietly. Woe to us if anyone vexes him in the morning! He falls foul of everyone all day long.

Boris. Every morning my aunt entreats us with tears in her eyes: “Don't anger him, friends! Dear boys, don't anger him!”

Kudriash. But you can never avoid it! If he goes to the bazaar, it's all up! He scolds all the peasants. Even if they ask him less than cost price they never get off without abuse. And then he's upset for the whole day.

Shapkin. He's a bully-there's no other word for him.

Kudriash. A bully? I should think he is!

Boris. And what's fatal is if some man offends him, whom he daren't be rude to. Then all his household have to look out for themselves!

Kudriash. Bless my soul! That was a joke though. Didn't that hussar let him have it on the Volga, at the ferry! Oh, a lovely shindy he kicked up afterwards, too.

Boris. Ah, and didn't his family suffer for it! Why, for a fortnight after we were all hiding away in the attics and cupboards.

Kuligin. Surely that's not the folk coming back from vespers?

Several persons pass in the background.

Kudriash. Come on, Shapkin, let's get a drink! It's no good stopping here.

They bow and exeunt.

Boris. Oh, Kuligin, it's awfully hard here for me who've not been used to it. Everyone seems to look with unfriendly eyes at me, as though I were not wanted here, as though I were in their way. I don't understand the ways here. I know this is truly Russia, my own country, but still I can't get used to it.

Kuligin. And you never will get used to it, sir.

Boris. Why?

Kuligin