Grusha sees that the child, Michael Abashvili, has been left behind, and, against her better judgement, takes him away with her to protect him.
Scene 3
The singer tells us that Grusha is heading to the northern mountains with the child. She tries to buy her way onto a caravansary with two rich ladies by pretending to be rich herself, but the gives herself away by making up some beds. She is forced to run away to avoid the police.
The singer tells us that Grusha is being followed by the Prince’s Ironshirts. The Ironshirts are loud and crude, particularly the corporal.
Grusha leaves Michael on the doorstep of a peasant woman’s house. The peasant woman takes him in.
As she leaves Grusha bumps into the two Ironshirts. She panics and runs back to the peasant woman’s house to beg her to protect the child from them. When the ironshirts catch up, the peasant woman panics and throws herself at their mercy. Grusha hits the corporal, takes the child and runs away.
She crosses a rotting bridge and the Ironshirts don’t dare to follow her.
Scene 4
Grusha and Michael reach Grusha’s brother in the northern mountains. Grusha is ill from her journey and is invited by her brother to stay with them until the spring.
In the spring, the brother, Lavrenti, tells Grusha that she must marry to cover for the child. Grusha agrees to marry a dying man, so that she will be widowed when Simon returns from the war.
Grusha marries, but when the groom hears that the war is over he reveals that he was faking it to avoid fighting in the war, so Grusha has a husband. Simon returns and Grusha tells him that she is married; he sees the child and assumes that it is her with her husband. At that moment two Ironshirts come to take Michael away. Grusha cries out that he is hers, and Simon runs away. Grusha follows the Ironshirts to Nukha.
Scene 5
In this scene we meet Azdak. When we meet him he is a clerk, trying to help a fugitive dressed as a beggar. Azdak soon figures out that the fugitive is actually a noble man, but helps him anyway.
He finds out that the man was actually the Grand Duke, and he escapes. Azdak demands that the policeman, Shauva, takes him to Nukha to be tried.
When they get to Nukha they find that the judge has been hanged, and Prince Kazbeki is trying to persuade the drunken Ironshirts to appoint his nephew as the new judge. They stage a mock trial, using Azdak to act as the Grand Duke who is on trial. The Ironshirts are so impressed by his performance that they appoint him judge instead of the nephew.
Azdak remained judge for two years, completely ignoring the law. After two years the Grand Duke returned, and as a reward for sheltering him when he was on the run, he allows Azdak to remain judge.
Scene 6
Azdak judges the trial to decide whom the rightful mother of Michael Abashvili is, Natella Abashvili or Grusha Vachnadze. Natella has two lawyers. One of them reveals that Natella needs Michael to get into the palace and to get the money that was her husbands before he was killed.
Halfway through the trial Azdak loses interest and sees an old couple who want to divorce. Before he signs their divorce papers he goes back to Grusha’s trial.
He uses the test of the chalk circle, which involves standing the child in the middle of a circle and each woman trying to pull him out. Grusha lets go, the trial is repeated and she lets go again crying that she doesn’t want to hurt him.
Azdak gives Michael to Grusha and sends Natella away, declaring that her money will go to build a park for the children.
Azdak signs a divorce for Grusha and her husband instead of the old couple and then steps down from his position as judge.
Simon agrees to stay with Grusha and Michael and Azdak disappears.
The singer declares that the moral of the story is that everything should go to those that are good for them.Document1
