gesture. Their philosophy is joyous, art and science blossom among
them, their treatment of women is full of exquisite nobility----

VOITSKI. [Laughing] Bravo! Bravo! All that is very pretty, but it is
also unconvincing. So, my friend [To ASTROFF] you must let me go on
burning firewood in my stoves and building my sheds of planks.

ASTROFF. You can burn peat in your stoves and build your sheds of stone.
Oh, I don't object, of course, to cutting wood from necessity, but why
destroy the forests? The woods of Russia are trembling under the blows
of the axe. Millions of trees have perished. The homes of the wild
animals and birds have been desolated; the rivers are shrinking, and
many beautiful landscapes are gone forever. And why? Because men are too
lazy and stupid to stoop down and pick up their fuel from the ground.
[To HELENA] Am I not right, Madame? Who but a stupid barbarian could
burn so much beauty in his stove and destroy that which he cannot make?
Man is endowed with reason and the power to create, so that he may
increase that which has been given him, but until now he has not
created, but demolished. The forests are disappearing, the rivers are
running dry, the game is exterminated, the climate is spoiled, and the
earth becomes poorer and uglier every day. [To VOITSKI] I read irony in
your eye; you do not take what I am saying seriously, and--and--after
all, it may very well be nonsense. But when I pass peasant-forests
that I have preserved from the axe, or hear the rustling of the young
plantations set out with my own hands, I feel as if I had had some small
share in improving the climate, and that if mankind is happy a thousand
years from now I will have been a little bit responsible for their
happiness. When I plant a little birch tree and then see it budding
into young green and swaying in the wind, my heart swells with pride and
I--[Sees the WORKMAN, who is bringing him a glass of vodka on a tray]
however--[He drinks] I must be off. Probably it is all nonsense, anyway.
Good-bye.

He goes toward the house. SONIA takes his arm and goes with him.

SONIA. When are you coming to see us again?

ASTROFF. I can't say.

SONIA. In a month?

ASTROFF and SONIA go into the house. HELENA and VOITSKI walk over to the
terrace.

HELENA. You have behaved shockingly again. Ivan, what sense was there
in teasing your mother and talking about _perpetuum mobile?_ And at
breakfast you quarreled with Alexander again. Real