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.