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 withou