Part 352 (1/2)

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.