On Drink
An evening in the autumn.
Makarka, a boy of twelve, and Marfutka, a girl of eight, are coming out of the house into the street. Marfutka is crying. Pavlushka, a boy of ten, stands before the house next door.
Pavlushka
Where the devil are you going to, both of you? Have you any night work?
Makarka
Crazy drunk again.
Pavlushka
Who? Uncle Prohor?
Makarka
Of course.
Marfutka
He is beating mother—
Makarka
I won’t go inside tonight. He would hit me also. Sitting down on the doorstep. I will stay here the whole night. I will.
Marfutka weeps.
Pavlushka
Stop crying. Never mind. It can’t be helped. Stop crying, I say.
Marfutka
If I was the Tsar, I would have the people who give him any drink just beaten to death. I would not allow anybody to sell brandy.
Pavlushka
Wouldn’t you? But it is the Tsar himself who sells it. He doesn’t let anybody else sell it, for fear it would lessen his own profits.
Marfutka
It is a lie!
Pavlushka
Humph! A lie! You just ask anybody you like. Why have they put Akulina in prison? Because they did not want her to sell brandy and lessen their profits.
Makarka
Is that really so! I heard she had done something against the law.
Pavlushka
What she did against the law was selling brandy.
Marfutka
I would not allow her to sell it either. It is just that brandy that does all the mischief. Sometimes he is very nice, and then at other times he hits everybody.
Makarka
To Pavlushka. You say very strange things. I will ask the schoolmaster tomorrow. He must know.
Pavlushka
Do ask him.
The next morning Prohor, Makarka’s father, after a night’s sleep, goes to refresh himself with a drink; Makarka’s mother, with a swollen eye, is kneading bread. Makarka has gone to school. The Schoolmaster is sitting at the door of the village school, watching the children coming in.
Makarka
Coming up to the schoolmaster. Tell me, please, Eugene Semenovich, is it true, what a fellow was telling me, that the Tsar makes a business of selling brandy, and that is why Akulina has been sent to prison?
Schoolmaster
That is a very silly question, and whoever told you that is a fool. The Tsar sells nothing whatsoever. A tsar never does. As for Akulina, she was put in prison because she was selling brandy without a license, and was thereby lessening the revenues of the Crown.
Makarka
How lessening?
Schoolmaster
Because there is a duty on spirits. A barrel costs so much in the factory, and is sold to the public for so much more. This surplus constitutes the income of the state. The largest revenue comes from it, and amounts to many millions.
Makarka
Then the more brandy people drink the greater the income?
Schoolmaster
Certainly. If it were not for that income there would be nothing to keep the army with, or schools, or all the rest of the things you need.
Makarka
But if all those things are necessary, why not take the money directly for the necessary things? Why get it by means of brandy?
Schoolmaster
Why? Because that is the law. But the children are all in now. Take your seats.