No More Learning

Have you the tsar's edict with you?

2ND OFFICER. I have it.

1ST OFFICER. Give it here.

MISSAIL. Why do you look at me so fixedly?

1ST OFFICER. This is why; from Moscow there has fled a
certain wicked heretic--Grishka Otrepiev. Have you
heard this?

MISSAIL. I have not heard it.

OFFICER. Not heard it? Very good.
And the tsar has
ordered to arrest and hang the fugitive heretic. Do you
know this?

MISSAIL. I do not know it.

OFFICER. (To VARLAAM. ) Do you know how to read?

VARLAAM. In my youth I knew how, but I have forgotten.

OFFICER. (To MISSAIL. ) And thou?

MISSAIL. God has not made me wise.

OFFICER. So then here's the tsar's edict.