Anfisa

The house of the attorney Fyodor Ivanovich Kostomarov. New Year’s Eve, evening—guests gathered in the house.

On stage is a little grandmother’s room, separated from the ceremonial rooms where the celebration is going on by a narrow corridor and a door. In front of the door there are three steps: the house is very old, having survived many rearrangements, and the grandmother’s room is arranged in an annex. Through a not-fully-closed, possibly even unlocked door, the buzz of merriment can be heard: the tappers play the piano, people dance, talk over one another. But at the grandmother’s—silence and motionless peace of dispassionate old age; a faint flicker of colored lampshades and a small lamp on the table. The bed of the old woman and the icon case are covered with tall screens; beyond a small window, it is a January moonlit night—crystal clear and silent.