On the Press
The schoolroom at home.
Volodia, a schoolboy of fourteen, is reading; Sonia, a girl of fifteen, is writing. The Yard-Porter enters, carrying a heavy load on his back; Misha, a boy of eight, following him.
Porter
Where am I to put that bundle, sir? My shoulders are bent down with the weight of it.
Volodia
Where were you told to put it?
Porter
Vasily Timofeëvich told me to carry it to the schoolroom and leave it for him.
Volodia
Then put it in the corner.
Porter unloads the bundle and sighs heavily.
Sonia
What is it?
Volodia
Truth—a paper.
Misha
Truth? What do you mean?
Sonia
Why have you so many?
Volodia
It is a collection of the whole year’s issues. Continues reading.
Misha
Has all this been written?
Porter
The fellows who wrote it weren’t very lazy, I’ll bet.
Volodia
Laughs. What did you say?
Porter
I said what I meant. It wasn’t a lazy lot that wrote all that. Well, I’m going. Will you kindly say I have brought the bundle. Exit.
Sonia
To Volodia. What does father want all those papers for?
Volodia
He wants to collect Bolchakov’s articles from them.
Sonia
And Uncle Michael Ivanovich says reading Bolchakov makes him ill.
Volodia
Just like Uncle Michael Ivanovich. He only reads Truth for All.
Misha
And is uncle’s Truth as big as this?
Sonia
Bigger. But this is only for one year, and the papers have been published twenty years or more.
Misha
That makes twenty such bundles and another twenty more.
Sonia
Wishing to mystify Misha. That’s nothing. These are only two papers, and besides there are at least thirty more.
Volodia
Without raising his head. Thirty, you say! There are five hundred and thirty in Russia alone. And with those published abroad there are thousands altogether.
Misha
They couldn’t all be put into this room.
Volodia
Not even in this whole street. But please don’t disturb me in my work. Tomorrow teacher is sure to call upon me, and you don’t give me a chance of learning my lessons with your silly talk. Resumes his reading.
Misha
I don’t think there’s any use writing so much.
Sonia
Why not?
Misha
Because if what they write is true, then why say the same thing over and over again? If it isn’t, then why say what is not true?
Sonia
An excellent judgment!
Misha
Why do they write such an awful lot?
Volodia
Without taking his eyes off his book. Because if it wasn’t for the freedom of the press, how would people know what the truth is?
Misha
Father says the Truth contains the truth, and Uncle Michael Ivanovich says Truth makes him ill. Then how do they know where the truth really is—in Truth or in Truth for All?
Sonia
I think you are right. There are really too many papers and magazines and books.
Volodia
Just like a woman: perfectly senseless in every conclusion!
Sonia
I only mean that when there is so much written it is impossible to know anything really.
Volodia
But everybody has brains given him to find out where the truth is.
Misha
Then if everybody has got brains he can reason things out for himself.
Volodia
So that’s how you reason with your large supply of brains! Please go somewhere else and leave me alone to work.