The Storm by Garnett, Constance, 1861-1946, Ostrovsky, Aleksandr Nicolaevich, 1823-1886

"The Storm" will repay a minute examination by all who recognise that in England to-day we have a stage without art, truth to life, or national significance. There is not a superfluous line in the play: all is drama, natural, simple, deep. There is no _falsity_, no forced situations, no sensational effects, none of the shallow or flashy caricatures of daily life that our heterogeneous public demands. All the reproach that lives for us in the word _theatrical_ is worlds removed from "The Storm." The people who like 'farcical comedy' and social melodrama, and 'musical sketches' will find "The Storm" deep, forbidding and gloomy. The critic will find it an abiding analysis of a people's temperament. The reader will find it literature.

E. G. _November_, 1898.

THE STORM

DRAMATIS PERSONA

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 LADY _of seventy, half mad, with_ TWO FOOTMEN.

TOWNSPEOPLE _of 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.

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.