against the table] What can I do? What can I do?

ASTROFF. Nothing.

VOITSKI. You must tell me something! Oh, my God! I am forty-seven
years old. I may live to sixty; I still have thirteen years
before me; an eternity! How shall I be able to endure life for
thirteen years? What shall I do? How can I fill them? Oh, don't
you see? [He presses ASTROFF'S hand convulsively] Don't you see,
if only I could live the rest of my life in some new way! If I
could only wake some still, bright morning and feel that life had
begun again; that the past was forgotten and had vanished like
smoke. [He weeps] Oh, to begin life anew! Tell me, tell me how to
begin.

ASTROFF. [Crossly] What nonsense! What sort of a new life can you
and I look forward to? We can have no hope.

VOITSKI. None?

ASTROFF. None. Of that I am convinced.

VOITSKI. Tell me what to do. [He puts his hand to his heart] I
feel such a burning pain here.

ASTROFF. [Shouts angrily] Stop! [Then, more gently] It may be
that posterity, which will despise us for our blind and stupid
lives, will find some road to happiness; but we--you and I--have
but one hope, the hope that we may be visited by visions, perhaps
by pleasant ones, as we lie resting in our graves. [Sighing] Yes,