On Children
A Lady with her children—a Schoolboy of fourteen, a girl of five, Janichka, are walking in the garden. An Old Peasant Woman approaches them.
Lady
What do you want, Matresha?
Old Woman
I have come again to ask a favour of your ladyship.
Lady
What is it?
Old Woman
I am simply ashamed to speak, your ladyship, but that don’t help. My daughter, the one for whom you stood godmother, has got another baby. God has given her a boy this time. She sent me to ask your ladyship if you would do her a favour, and have the child christened into our Orthodox faith.
Lady
But didn’t she have a child very recently?
Old Woman
Well, that’s just as you think. A year ago in Lent.
Lady
How many grandchildren have you got now?
Old Woman
I could hardly tell you, dear lady. All of them are still babes. Such a misfortune!
Lady
How many children has your daughter?
Old Woman
This is the seventh child, your ladyship, and all alive. I wish God had taken some back to Him.
Lady
How can you speak like that?
Old Woman
I can’t help it. That’s how one comes to sin. But then our misery is so great. Well, your ladyship, are you willing to help us, and stand godmother to the child? Believe me, on my soul, lady, we have not even got anything to pay the priest; bread itself is scarce in the house. All the children are small. My son-in-law is working away from home, and I am alone with my daughter. I am old, and she is expecting or nursing the whole time, and what work can you ask her to do with all that? So it is me that has to do everything. And that hungry lot all the while asking for food.
Lady
Are there really seven children?
Old Woman
Seven, your ladyship, sure. Just the eldest girl begins to help a bit; all the rest are little.
Lady
But why do they have such a lot of children?
Old Woman
How can one help that, dear lady? He comes now and then for a short stay, or just for a feast day. They are young, and he lives near in town. I wish he had to go somewhere far away.
Lady
That’s the way! Some people are sad because they have no children, or their children die, and you complain of having too many.
Old Woman
They are too many. We have not the means to keep them. Well, your ladyship, may I cheer her up with your consent?
Lady
Well, I will stand godmother to this one like the others. It is a boy, you say?
Old Woman
It’s a small baby, but very strong; he’s got good lungs. What day do you order the christening to be?
Lady
Whenever you like.
Old Woman thanks her and goes.
Janichka
Mother, why is it that some people have children and some have not? You have, Matresha, has, but Parasha hasn’t any.
Lady
Parasha is not married. People have children when they are married. They marry, become husband and wife, and then only children come.
Janichka
Do they always get children then?
Lady
No, not always. Our cook has a wife, but they have no children.
Janichka
Couldn’t it be arranged that only those who want children should have them, and those who don’t want them should have none?
Schoolboy
What nonsense you talk!
Janichka
That is not nonsense at all. I only thought that if Matresha’s daughter doesn’t want to have children, it ought to be arranged so that she shouldn’t have any. Couldn’t it be arranged, mother?
Schoolboy
Have I not told you not to talk nonsense about things you know nothing about?
Janichka
Mother, could it be arranged as I say?
Lady
I don’t know: we never know about that. It all depends on the will of God.
Janichka
But how do children come into the world?
Schoolboy
The goat brings them.
Janichka
Hurt. Why do you tease me? I don’t see anything to laugh at in what I am saying. But I do think that since Matresha says they are worse off for having children, it ought to be managed so that no children should be born to her. There is Nurse who has none.
Lady
But she is not married.
Janichka
Then all those that do not care for children ought not to marry. As it is now, children are born and people have nothing to feed them with. The mother exchanges a glance with her son, and does not answer. When I am grown up I will marry by all means, and I shall see that I have one girl and one boy, and no more. Do you think it is nice when children are born and people don’t care for them? As for mine, I shall love them dearly. Don’t you think so, mother? I will go and ask Nurse. Exit.
Lady
To her son. Yes, truth flows from the lips of children. What she says is a great truth. If people would understand how serious marriage is, instead of regarding it as amusement—if they would marry not for their own sake, but for the sake of the children—then all these horrors would not exist. There would be no children suffering from neglect or distress, nor would such cases happen as that of Matresha’s daughter, where children bring sorrow in place of joy.