A Greek convent in a bleak district near the sea Belozero.
A train of nuns, in black robes and veils, passes over the
back of the stage. MARFA, in a white veil, stands apart
from the others, leaning on a tombstone. OLGA steps out
from the train, remains gazing at her for a time, and then
advances to her.

OLGA.
And does thy heart not urge thee forth with us
To taste reviving nature's opening sweets?
The glad sun comes, the long, long night retires,
The ice melts in the streams, and soon the sledge
Will to the boat give place and summer swallow.
The world awakes once more, and the new joy
Woos all to leave their narrow cloister cells
For the bright air and freshening breath of spring.
And wilt thou only, sunk in lasting grief,
Refuse to share the general exultation?

MARFA.
On with the rest, and leave me to myself!
Let those rejoice who still have power to hope.
The time that puts fresh youth in all the world
Brings naught to me; to me the past is all,
My hopes, my joys are with the things that were.

OLGA.
Dost thou still mourn thy son—still, still lament
The sovereignty which thou has lost? Does time,
Which pours a balm on every wounded heart,
Lose all its potency with thee alone?
Thou wert the empress of this mighty realm,
The mother of a blooming son. He was
Snatched from thee by a dreadful destiny;
Into this dreary convent wert thou thrust,
Here on the verge of habitable earth.
Full sixteen times since that disastrous day
The face of nature hath renewed its youth;
Still have I seen no change come over thine,
That looked a grave amid a blooming world.
Thou'rt like some moonless image, carved in stone
By sculptor's chisel, that doth ever keep
The selfsame fixed unalterable mien.

MARFA.
Yes, time, fell time, hath signed and set me up
As a memorial of my dreadful fate.
I will not be at peace, will not forget.
That soul must be of poor and shallow stamp
Which takes a cure from time—a recompense
For what can never be compensated!
Nothing shall buy my sorrow from me. No,
As heaven's vault still goes with the wanderer,
Girds and environs him with boundless grasp,
Turn where he will, by sea or land, so goes
My anguish with me, wheresoe'er I turn;
It hems me round, like an unbounded sea;
My ceaseless tears have failed to drain its depths.

OLGA.
Oh, see! what news can yonder boy have brought,
The sisters round him throng so eagerly?
He comes from distant shores, where homes abound,
And brings us tidings from the land of men.
The sea is clear, the highways free once more.
Art thou not curious to learn his news?
Though to the world we are as good as dead,
Yet of its changes willingly we hear,
And, safe upon the shore, with wonder mark
The roar and ferment of the trampling waves.

[NUNS come down the stage with a FISHER BOY.

XENIA—HELENA.
Speak, speak, and tell us all the news you bring.

ALEXIA.
Relate what's passing in the world beyond.

FISHER BOY.
Good, pious ladies, give me time to speak!

XENIA.
Is't war—or peace?

ALEXIA.
Who's now upon the throne?

FISHER BOY.
A ship is to Archangel just come in
From the north pole, where everything is ice.

OLGA.
How came a vessel into that wild sea?

FISHER BOY.
It is an English merchantman, and it
Has found a new way out to get to us.

ALEXIA.
What will not man adventure for his gain?

XENIA.
And so the world is nowhere to be barred!

FISHER BOY.
But that's the very smallest of the news.
'Tis something very different moves the world.

ALEXIA.
Oh, speak and tell us!

OLGA.
Say, what has occurred?

FISHER BOY.
We live to hear strange marvels nowadays:
The dead rise up, and come to life again.

OLGA.
Explain yourself.

FISHER BOY.
Prince Dmitri, Ivan's son,
Whom we have mourned for dead these sixteen years,
Is now alive, and has appeared in Poland.

OLGA.
The prince alive?

MARFA (starting).
My son!

OLGA.
Compose thyself!
Calm down thy heart till we have learned the whole.

ALEXIA.
How can this possibly be so, when he
Was killed, and perished in the flames at Uglitsch?

FISHER BOY.
He managed somehow to escape the fire,
And found protection in a monastery.
There he grew up in secrecy, until
His time was come to publish who he was.

OLGA (to MARFA).
You tremble, princess! You grow pale!

MARFA.
I know
That it must be delusion, yet so little
Is my heart steeled 'gainst fear and hope e'en now,
That in my breast it flutters like a bird.

OLGA.
Why should it be delusion? Mark his words!
How could this rumor spread without good cause?

FISHER BOY.
Without good cause? The Lithuanians
And Poles are all in arms upon his side.
The Czar himself quakes in his capital.

[MARFA is compelled by her emotion to lean upon OLGA and ALEXIA.

XENIA.
Speak on, speak, tell us everything you know.

ALEXIA.
And tell us, too, of whom you stole the news.

FISHER BOY.
I stole the news? A letter has gone forth
To every town and province from the Czar.
This letter the Posadmik of our town
Read to us all, in open market-place.
It bore, that busy schemers were abroad,
And that we should not lend their tales belief.
But this made us believe them; for, had they
Been false, the Czar would have despised the lie.

MARFA.
Is this the calm I thought I had achieved?
And clings my heart so close to temporal things,
That a mere word can shake my inward soul?
For sixteen years have I bewailed my son,
And yet at once believe that still he lives.

OLGA.
Sixteen long years thou'st mourned for him as dead,
And yet his ashes thou hast never seen!
Naught countervails the truth of the report.
Nay, does not Providence watch o'er the fate
Of kings and monarchies? Then welcome hope!
More things befall than thou canst comprehend.
Who can set limits to the Almighty's power?

MARFA.
Shall I turn back to look again on life,
To which long since I spoke a sad farewell?
It was not with the dead my hopes abode.
Oh, say no more of this. Let not my heart
Hang on this phantom hope! Let me not lose
My darling son a second time. Alas!
My peace of mind is gone,—my dream of peace
I cannot trust these tidings,—yet, alas,
I can no longer dash them from my soul!
Woe's me, I never lost my son till now.
Oh, now I can no longer tell if I
Shall seek him 'mongst the living or the dead,
Tossed on the rock of never-ending doubt.

OLGA [A bell sounds,—the sister PORTERESS enters.
Why has the bell been sounded, sister, say?

PORTERESS.
The lord archbishop waits without; he brings
A message from the Czar, and craves an audience.

OLGA.
Does the archbishop stand within our gates?
What strange occurrence can have brought him here?

XENIA.
Come all, and give him greeting as befits.

[They advance towards the gate as the ARCHBISHOP enters;
they all kneel before him, and he makes the sign of the
Greek cross over them.

ARCHBISHOP.
The kiss of peace I bring you in the name
Of Father, Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
Proceeding from the Father!

OLGA.
Sir, we kiss
In humblest reverence thy paternal hand!
Command thy daughters!

ARCHBISHOP.
My mission is addressed to Sister Marfa.

OLGA.
See, here she stands, and waits to know thy will.

[All the NUNS withdraw.

ARCHBISHOP.
It is the mighty prince who sends me here;
Upon his distant throne he thinks of thee;
For as the sun, with his great eye of flame,
Sheds light and plenty all abroad the world,
So sweeps the sovereign's eye on every side;
Even to the farthest limits of his realm
His care is wakeful and his glance is keen.

MARFA.
How far his arm can strike I know too well.

ARCHBISHOP.
He knows the lofty spirit fills thy soul,
And therefore feels indignantly the wrong
A bold-faced villain dares to offer thee.
Learn, then, in Poland, an audacious churl,
A renegade, who broke his monkish