Act III
Ivanov’s study. A writing-table on which papers, books, official envelopes, knickknacks and revolvers are lying in disorder; near the papers a lamp, a decanter of vodka, a plate of herring, pieces of bread and cucumber. On the walls maps, pictures, guns, pistols, sickles, whips, etc. It is midday.
Shabelsky, Lebedyev, Borkin and Pyotr. Shabelsky and Lebedyev are sitting by the writing-table, Borkin in the middle of the stage astride a chair. Pyotr is standing at the door.
| Lebedyev | The policy of France is clear and definite. … The French know what they want. All they want is to flay the sausage-eaters, while it is quite a different story with Germany. Germany has plenty of specks in her eye besides France. … |
| Shabelsky | Nonsense! … What I think is that the Germans are cowards and the French are cowards too. They are simply putting out their tongues at each other on the sly. Believe me, things won’t go further than that. They won’t come to fighting. |
| Borkin | And to my mind, there is no need to fight. What is the use of all these armaments, congresses, expenditure? I tell you what I should do. I should collect dogs from all over the country, innoculate them with a good dose of Pasteur’s virus and let them loose in the enemy’s country. All the enemy would run mad with hydrophobia in a month. |
| Lebedyev | Laughs. His head is small to look at, but there are as many great ideas in it as fish in the sea. |
| Shabelsky | He is a specialist in them! |
| Lebedyev | God bless you, you do amuse me, Mihail Mihailovitch. Stops laughing. We keep chattering away, but what about vodka? Repetatur! Fills three wineglasses. To our good health! They drink and eat a little. Good old red herring is the best sort of snack one can have. |
| Shabelsky | No, cucumber is better. … The learned men have been busy thinking since the creation of the world, but they have thought of nothing better than salted cucumber. To Pyotr. Pyotr, go and get some more cucumbers and tell the cook to fry us four onion turnovers, and send them hot. |
| Pyotr goes out. | |
| Lebedyev | Caviar is not bad with vodka either. But you want to use it properly. … You want to take a quarter of a pound of pressed caviar, two spring onions, olive oil, mix it all together … and just a little wee drop of lemon on the top of it, you know. Gorgeous! The very smell of it is stunning. |
| Borkin | A dish of fried gudgeon is good after vodka too. Only one must know how to fry them. They must be cleaned, then dipped in sifted breadcrumbs and fried till they are dry, so that they crunch in the teeth. … Kroo-kroo-kroo. … |
| Shabelsky | We had a good dish at Madame Babakin’s yesterday—mushrooms. |
| Lebedyev | I daresay. … |
| Shabelsky | Only it was prepared in some special way. You know, with onion and bay leaves and all sorts of condiments. As soon as the cover was taken off there was a steam, a smell … delicious! |
| Lebedyev | Well, what do you say? Repetatur, gentlemen. They drink. To our good health! Looks at his watch. I am afraid I can’t wait for Nikolay. It’s time I was off. You say you had mushrooms at Madame Babakin’s, and we have not seen a mushroom yet. And just tell me, if you please, why the devil are you so often at Marfa’s? |
| Shabelsky | Nods towards Borkin. Why, he wants to marry me to her. |
| Lebedyev | Marry? Why, how old are you? |
| Shabelsky | Sixty-two. |
| Lebedyev | The very time to get married. And Marfa is just the match for you. |
| Borkin | It is not a question of Marfa, but of Marfa’s roubles. |
| Lebedyev | Anything else! Maria’s roubles! You will be crying for the moon next! |
| Borkin | When the man is married and has stuffed his pockets, you will see whether it’s crying for the moon! You will envy his luck. |
| Shabelsky | And you know he is in earnest. This genius is convinced that I’ll do what he tells me and marry her. |
| Borkin | Why, of course! Aren’t you convinced of it too? |
| Shabelsky | You are crazy. … When was I convinced? Phew! |
| Borkin | Thank you. … Thank you very much! So you want to make a fool of me? First, it’s I’ll marry and then I won’t marry. … Who the devil is to make you out? And I have given my word of honour! So you won’t marry her? |
| Shabelsky | Shrugging his shoulders. He is in earnest! Amazing person! |
| Borkin | Indignant. In that case what do you want to upset a respectable woman for? She is mad on being a countess, can’t sleep or eat. … Is it a subject to joke about? Is it honest? |
| Shabelsky | Snapping his fingers. Well, and how if I do play this dirty trick after all? What? Just for mischief? I’ll go and do it! On my word. … It will be fun! |
| Enter Lvov. | |
| Lebedyev | Doctor, our humble respects! Gives Lvov his hand and sings. Doctor, save me kindly, sir, I am in deadly fear of death! |
| Lvov | Nikolay Alexeyevitch has not come in yet? |
| Lebedyev | Why no, I have been waiting for him for more than an hour. Lvov strides impatiently up and down the stage. Well, my dear fellow, how is Anna Petrovna? |
| Lvov | Very ill. |
| Lebedyev | Sighs. Can I go and pay her my respects? |
| Lvov | No, please don’t go. I believe she is asleep … a pause. |
| Lebedyev | She is a nice, sweet woman sighs. On Sasha’s birthday, when she fainted at our house, I looked at her face and I saw she had not long to live, poor dear. I don’t know why she was taken ill then. I ran up, I looked at her and she was lying pale as death, with Nikolay on his knees beside her as pale as she, and Sasha in tears. Sasha and I went about as though we were dazed for a week after. |
| Shabelsky | To Lvov. Tell me, honoured votary of science, what learned sage was it discovered that ladies with delicate chests are benefited by the frequent visits of a young doctor? It’s a great discovery, great! To which is it to be ascribed: to the allopaths or the homeopaths? |
| Lvov is on the point of answering, but with a contemptuous gesture walks away. | |
| Shabelsky | What a withering glance. … |
| Lebedyev | And what devil sets your tongue wagging? Why did you insult him? |
| Shabelsky | Irritably. And what does he tell lies for? Consumption, no hope, she is dying. … It’s all lies! I can’t endure it! |
| Lebedyev | What makes you think he is lying? |
| Shabelsky | Gets up and walks about. I can’t admit the idea that a living creature should suddenly, apropos of nothing, go and die. Let us drop the subject! |
| Enter Kossih. | |
| Kossih | Runs in, breathless. Is Nikolay Alexeyevitch at home? Good morning! Rapidly shakes hands with everyone. Is he at home? |
| Borkin | No; he is out. |
| Kossih | Sits down and leaps up. If that’s so, goodbye! Drinks a glass of vodka and hurriedly eats something. I’ll go on … I am busy … I am worn out … I can hardly stand up. … |
| Lebedyev | Where have you dropped from? |
| Kossih | From Barabanov’s. … We were playing vint all night, and have only just finished. … I am cleaned out. … That Barabanov plays like a cobbler! In a weeping voice. Just listen: all the time I was playing hearts. … Addresses Borkin, who skips away from him. He leads diamonds, but I play hearts again; he diamonds. … Well, I made no tricks. To Lebedyev. We play four clubs. I had the ace, the queen, and five more clubs in my hand, the ace, the ten, and two more spades. … |
| Lebedyev | Putting his fingers in his ears. Spare me, for mercy’s sake, spare me! |
| Kossih | To the Count. Do you see: the ace, the queen, and five more clubs, the ace, the ten, and two more spades. … |
| Shabelsky | Waving him off. Go away; I don’t want to hear you! |
| Kossih | And all at once such ill-luck: my ace of spades was trumped in the first round. |
| Shabelsky | Picking up a revolver from the table. Go away, I’ll shoot! … |
| Kossih | Waves his hand. Damnation take it. … Is there nobody one can say a word to? One might be in Australia: no common interests, no sympathy. … They are all absorbed in themselves. … I must go, though … it’s time snatches up his cap. Time is precious shakes hands with Lebedyev. Pass! Laughter. |
| Kossih goes out, and in the doorway stumbles against Avdotya Nazarovna. | |
| Avdotya | Screams. Plague take you! Knocking me off my feet! |
| All | A‑ah! she is everywhere at once! |
| Avdotya | So this is where they are, and I have been looking all over the house. Good morning! my bright falcons, enjoying your meal? Greets them. |
| Lebedyev | What have you come about? |
| Avdotya | Business, my good sir. To the Count. Business that concerns you, your Excellency bows. I was told to greet you and inquire after your health. … And my pretty poppet bid me say that if you don’t come and see her this evening, she will cry her eyes out. Take him aside, my dear, she said, and whisper it into his ear in secret. But what’s the need of secrets? We are old friends here. Besides, it’s not as if we were robbing a hen-roost, but aiming at lawful wedlock with the love and mutual consent of both parties. Sinful woman that I am, I never touch a drop, but on such an occasion, I will have a glass! |
| Lebedyev | And I’ll have one too fills the glasses. And you, old crow, seem none the worse for wear. You were an old woman when I met you first, thirty years ago. |
| Avdotya | I’ve lost count of the years. … I’ve buried two husbands, and would marry a third, but no one cares to take me without a dowry. I had eight children … takes the glass. Well, please God, we’ve begun a good work and God grant we finish it! They will live and prosper and we shall look at them and rejoice. God give them love and good counsel! Drinks. It’s stiff vodka! |
| Shabelsky | Laughing, to Lebedyev. But what’s the oddest thing of all, you know, is that they seriously think that I … It’s amazing! Gets up. What do you think, Pasha—shall I really play this dirty trick? For mischief. … Why should not the old dog snap up his bone, Pasha, eh? |
| Lebedyev | You are talking nonsense, Count. It’s time for you and me to think of kicking the bucket; the time for Marfas and roubles has passed long ago. … Our day is over. |
| Shabelsky | No, I will do it—on my honour, I will! |
| Enter Ivanov and Lvov. | |
| Lvov | I beg you to spare me only five minutes. |
| Lebedyev | Nikolasha! Goes up to Ivanov and kisses him. Good morning, my dear boy. I have been waiting for you for a good hour. |
| Avdotya | Bows. Good morning, sir. |
| Ivanov | Bitterly. Gentlemen, again you’ve turned my study into a drinking bar! … A thousand times I have asked each and all of you not to do it … goes up to the table. There, now … you’ve spilt vodka over my papers … here are crumbs and bits of cucumber. … It’s disgusting! |
| Lebedyev | I am sorry, Nikolasha, I am sorry. … Forgive us. I want to talk to you, dear boy, about something very important. … |
| Borkin | And I, too. |
| Lvov | Nikolay Alexeyevitch, can I have a word with you? |
| Ivanov | Pointing to Lebedyev. You see he wants me too. Wait a little; you can come afterwards. … To Lebedyev. What is it? |
| Lebedyev | Gentlemen, I want to have a confidential talk. Please. … |
| The Count goes out with Avdotya Nazarovna, Borkin follows them, then Lvov. | |
| Ivanov | Pasha, you may drink as much as you like—it’s an illness with you; but I beg you not to lead Uncle into it. He never used to drink before. It’s bad for him. |
| Lebedyev | Alarmed. My dear, I did not know. … I did not even notice. … |
| Ivanov | If, which God forbid, the old baby should die, it wouldn’t matter to you, but it would to me. … What is it you want? A pause. |
| Lebedyev | You see, my dear friend. … I don’t know how to begin to make it sound less shameless. … Nikolasha, I am ashamed, I blush, I can’t bring myself to say it, but, my dear boy, put yourself in my position—realise that I am a man in bondage, a nigger, a rag. … Forgive me. … |
| Ivanov | What is it? |
| Lebedyev | My wife has sent me. … Do me a favour—be a friend, pay her your interest! You wouldn’t believe how she nags at me, drives me, wears me out! Do get rid of her, for goodness’ sake! … |
| Ivanov | Pasha, you know I have no money just now. |
| Lebedyev | I know, I know; but what am I to do? She won’t wait. If she summons you, how can Sasha and I ever look you in the face again? |
| Ivanov | I am ashamed myself, Pasha—I should like to sink into the earth; but … but where am I to get it? Tell me, where? The only thing is to wait till the autumn, when I sell the corn. |
| Lebedyev | Shouts. She won’t wait! A pause. |
| Ivanov | Your position is unpleasant and difficult, and mine is worse still walks up and down thinking. And there is no plan one can think of. … There’s nothing to sell. … |
| Lebedyev | You might go to Milbach and ask him; he owes you sixteen thousand, you know. |
| Ivanov waves his hand hopelessly. | |
| Lebedyev | I tell you what, Nikolasha. … I know you will begin scolding, but … do a favour to an old drunkard. Between friends. … Look upon me as a friend. … We have both been students, liberals. … We have common ideas and interests. … We both studied in Moscow. … Alma mater … takes out his pocketbook. Here I’ve got a secret hoard; no one at home knows of it. Let me lend it to you … takes out money and lays it on the table. Drop your pride and look at it as a friend. … I would take it from you—on my honour, I would a pause. Here it is, on the table, eleven hundred. You go to her today and give it with your own hands. … Take it, Zinaida Savishna, and may it choke you! Only mind you don’t make a sign that it comes from me, God preserve you! or I shall get it hot from old Gooseberry Jam looks into Ivanov’s face. Oh, all right, never mind! Hastily takes the money from the table and puts it into his pocket. Never mind! I was joking. … Forgive me, for Christ’s sake! A pause. You are sick at heart? |
| Ivanov makes a gesture of despair. | |
| Lebedyev | Yes, it is a business … sighs. A time of woe and tribulation has come for you. A man is like a samovar, old boy. It is not always in the cool on the shelf—there are times when they put hot coals into it. … The comparison is not worth much, but I can’t think of anything better … sighs. Troubles strengthen the spirit. I am not sorry for you, Nikolasha—you’ll get out of your difficulties, things will come right; but I feel vexed and offended with people. … I should like to know where these scandals come from! There are such stories going about you all over the district that you might get a call from the public prosecutor any day. … You are a murderer and a bloodsucker and a robber. … |
| Ivanov | That doesn’t matter; what does matter is that my head aches. |
| Lebedyev | That’s all from thinking too much. |
| Ivanov | I don’t think at all. |
| Lebedyev | You just snap your fingers at everything, Nikolasha, and come over to us. Sasha is fond of you; she understands you and appreciates you. She is a good, fine creature, Nikolasha. She takes neither after father nor mother, but after some passing stranger. … Sometimes I look at her and can’t believe that a bottle-nosed old drunkard like me can have such a treasure. Come over; you can talk about intellectual subjects with her, and it will be a change for you. She has a faithful, sincere nature … a pause. |
| Ivanov | Pasha, my dear soul, leave me alone. |
| Lebedyev | I understand, I understand … looks hurriedly at his watch. I understand kisses Ivanov. Goodbye. I’ve got to go to the dedication of a school goes to the door and stops. She is a clever girl. … Yesterday she and I were talking about gossip laughs. And she made an epigram: “Father,” she said, “glowworms shine at night simply so that the night birds may see and devour them more easily; and good people exist to provide food for gossip and slander.” What do you say to that? A genius! A George Sand! |
| Ivanov | Pasha! Stops him. What is the matter with me? |
| Lebedyev | I wanted to ask you that myself, but, to tell you the truth, I did not like to. I don’t know, dear boy! On the one hand, it seemed to me that you were crushed by misfortunes of all sorts, and on the other hand, I know you are not the sort to … You are not the one to be mastered by trouble. There is something else in it, Nikolasha, but what it is I don’t know. |
| Ivanov | I don’t know myself. I fancy it is either … but no! A pause. You see, what I meant to say was this. I had a workman called Semyon—you remember him. One day at threshing time he wanted to show the girls how strong he was, put two sacks of rye on his back, and ruptured himself. He died soon after. It seems to me that I have ruptured myself, too. The high-school, university, then managing my estate, plans, schools. … My beliefs were not like other people’s, my marriage was not like other people’s. I was enthusiastic, I took risks, threw away my money right and left, as you know. I have had more happiness and more misery than anyone in the whole district. All this was like those sacks for me, Pasha. … I took a burden on my back, and my back was broken. At twenty we are heroes—we tackle anything, we can do anything; and at thirty we are already exhausted and good for nothing. How do you explain that liability to exhaustion, tell me? But perhaps it’s not that, though. … That’s not it, that’s not it! … Go along, Pasha, God bless you; I have been boring you. |
| Lebedyev | Eagerly. You know what it is, old boy? It’s your environment has destroyed you. |
| Ivanov | Oh, that’s stupid, Pasha, and stale. Run along! |
| Lebedyev | Yes, it is certainly stupid. I can see for myself now it is stupid. I am going! I am going! Goes out. |
| Ivanov | Alone. I am a bad, abject, worthless man. One has to be as abject, broken and shattered as Pasha to like and respect me. How I despise myself, my God! How I hate my voice, my step, my hands, these clothes, my thoughts! Isn’t it absurd, isn’t it mortifying? It’s not a year since I was strong and well, I was inexhaustible, full of warmth and confidence, I worked with these same hands, I could speak so as to move even the ignorant to tears, I could weep at the sight of sorrow, was moved to wrath at the sight of wrongdoing. I knew the meaning of inspiration, I felt the charm and poetry of still nights when from sunset to sunrise one sits at one’s writing-table or gladdens one’s soul with dreams. I had faith, I could look into the future as into my mother’s eyes. … But now, oh, my God! I am worn out, I have no faith, I spend days and nights doing nothing. My brains do not obey me, nor my hands nor my feet. My property is going to ruin, the forest is falling under the axe weeps. My land looks at me like a deserted child. I expect nothing, I regret nothing; my soul shudders with fear of the morrow. … And the way I have treated Sarra! I swore to love her forever, I promised her happiness, I displayed before her a future she had not imagined in her dreams. She believed me. For five years I’ve seen her pining away under the weight of her sacrifice, and worn out by the struggle with her conscience, but, as God is above, there has not been one doubtful glance, not one word of reproach! And here I’ve ceased to love her. … How? Why? What for? I don’t understand it. Here she is suffering; her days are numbered, and I, like the meanest sneak, run away from her pale face, her sunken chest, her supplicating eyes. It’s shameful, shameful! A pause. Sasha, a child, is touched by my misery. She tells me, at my age, that she loves me, and I am intoxicated, forget everything in the world, enchanted as though by music, and shout “A new life! happiness!” And next day I believe as little in that new life and happiness as in goblins. … What’s the matter with me? To what depths am I making myself sink? What has brought this weakness on me? What has happened to my nerves? If my sick wife wounds my vanity or a servant does not please me, or my gun misses fire, I become brutal, angry and unlike myself a pause. I don’t understand, I don’t understand! I might as well shoot myself and have done with it! |
| Lvov | Enters. I must have things out with you, Nikolay Alexeyevitch. |
| Ivanov | If we are to have things out every day, Doctor, it’s more than anyone could stand. |
| Lvov | Will you hear me out? |
| Ivanov | I hear you out every day, and I still can’t make out what it is you want of me. |
| Lvov | I speak clearly and definitely, and no one but a heartless man could fail to understand me. |
| Ivanov | That my wife is dying—I know; that I am hopelessly to blame in regard to her, I know also. That you are an honest, upright man, I know too! What more do you want? |
| Lvov | I am revolted by human cruelty. … A woman is dying. She has a father and mother whom she loves and would like to see before her death; they know quite well that she will soon die and that she still loves them, but, damnable cruelty! they seem to want to impress people by their religious hardness—they still persist in cursing her! You are the man to whom she has sacrificed everything—her home and her peace of conscience; yet in the most undisguised way, with the most undisguised objects, you go off every day to those Lebedyevs! … |
| Ivanov | Oh, I have not been there for a fortnight. … |
| Lvov | Not heeding him. With people like you one must speak plainly without beating about the bush, and if you don’t care to listen to me, then don’t listen! I am accustomed to call a spade a spade. … Her death will suit you and pave the way for your new adventures; so be it, but surely you might wait? If you would let her die naturally without persistently worrying her by your open cynicism, surely you would not lose the Lebedyev girl and her dowry? If not now, then in a year or two you would succeed, you marvellous hypocrite, in turning the girl’s head and getting her money just as easily. … Why are you in such a hurry? Why do you want your wife to die now, and not in a month or in a year? … |
| Ivanov | This is simply agony. … You can’t be a very good doctor if you imagine that a man can restrain himself indefinitely. It’s a fearful effort to me not to answer your insults. |
| Lvov | Come, whom do you think you are taking in? Throw off your mask! |
| Ivanov | You clever person, think a little! You suppose there is nothing easier than understanding me, yes? I married Anna for the sake of her fortune … they did not let me have it. I made a blunder, and now I am getting rid of her so as to marry another girl and get her money, yes? How simple and straightforward! Man is such a simple, uncomplicated machine. … No, doctor, there are too many wheels and screws and levers in any one of us for us to be able to judge each other from the first impression or from two or three external signs. I don’t understand you, you don’t understand me, and we don’t understand ourselves. One may be a good doctor and at the same time utterly ignorant of human nature. Don’t be too self-confident, and do see that. |
| Lvov | Can you really imagine that you are so difficult to see through, and that I am so brainless that I can’t see the difference between a rogue and an honest man? |
| Ivanov | It is evident that we shall never come to an understanding. For the last time I ask you the question, and please answer it without any preliminary words: what exactly do you want of me? What are you trying to get at? Irritably. And to whom have I the honour of speaking—my judge or my wife’s doctor? |
| Lvov | I am a doctor, and as a doctor I insist on your behaving differently. Your behaviour is killing Anna Petrovna. |
| Ivanov | But what am I to do? What? Since you understand me better than I understand myself, tell me definitely, what am I to do? |
| Lvov | At least you might keep up appearances. |
| Ivanov | Oh, my God! Do you suppose you understand what you are saying? Drinks water. Leave me alone. I am infinitely to blame: I must answer for it to God; but no one has authorised you to torment me every day. … |
| Lvov | And who has authorised you to outrage my sense of justice? You torture and poison my soul. Before I came into this district I admitted that silly, mad, impulsive people did exist, but I never believed that there were people so criminal as intentionally, consciously, wilfully to choose the path of evil. … I loved and respected mankind, but since I have known you … |
| Ivanov | I have heard about that already. |
| Enter Sasha. | |
| Lvov | Oh, have you? Seeing Sasha; she is in a riding habit. Now I trust we quite understand each other! Shrugs his shoulders and goes out. |
| Ivanov | With alarm. Sasha, is it you? |
| Sasha | Yes, it is me. How are you? You did not expect me? Why haven’t you been to see us for so long? |
| Ivanov | Sasha, for goodness’ sake, this is unwise! Your coming may have a terrible effect on my wife. |
| Sasha | She won’t see me. I came by the back way. I am just going. I am uneasy: are you well? Why is it you haven’t come all this time? |
| Ivanov | My wife is distressed as it is; she is almost dying, and you come here. Sasha, Sasha, it’s thoughtless and inhuman! |
| Sasha | I couldn’t help it. You haven’t been to see us for a fortnight, you haven’t answered my letters. I was worried to death. I fancied that you were unbearably miserable here, ill, dying. I haven’t had one good night’s sleep. I am just going. … Tell me, anyway, are you well? |
| Ivanov | No. I torment myself, and people torment me endlessly. … It’s simply more than I can bear! And now you on the top of it all! How morbid, how abnormal it all is! How guilty I feel, Sasha—how guilty! … |
| Sasha | How fond you are of saying dreadful and tragic things! So you are guilty. … Yes? Guilty? Tell me then, what of? |
| Ivanov | I don’t know, I don’t know. … |
| Sasha | That’s not an answer. Every sinner ought to know what his sins are. Have you forged notes, or what? |
| Ivanov | That’s stupid. |
| Sasha | Are you guilty because you have changed to your wife? Perhaps, but man is not master of his feelings, you didn’t want your feelings to change. Are you guilty because she saw me telling you that I love you? No, you did not want her to see. … |
| Ivanov | Interrupting. And so on, so on. … In love, out of love, not master of his feelings—these are commonplaces, stock phrases, which don’t help. … |
| Sasha | It’s wearisome talking to you looks at a picture. How well that dog is drawn. Is that from life? |
| Ivanov | Yes. And all our love story is commonplace and hackneyed: he has lost heart and is plunged in despair, she appears on the scene, full of strength and courage—holds out a helping hand. That’s fine and sounds all right in novels, but in real life. … |
| Sasha | In real life it’s the same. |
| Ivanov | I see, you’ve such a subtle understanding of life! My whining excites your reverent awe, you fancy you have discovered a second Hamlet in me, but to my mind my morbid state with all accessories provides good material for ridicule and nothing else! You ought to laugh at my antics while you cry “Help!” To save me, to do something heroic! Oh, how cross I am with myself today! I feel this nervous strain will make me do something. … Either I shall smash something, or … |
| Sasha | That’s it, that’s it, just what you ought to do. Break something, smash things, or scream. You are angry with me; it was silly of me to think of coming here. Well, be angry, shout at me, stamp! Well? Begin to rage! A pause. Well? |
| Ivanov | Ridiculous girl! |
| Sasha | Excellent! I believe you are smiling! Be kind and graciously smile again! |
| Ivanov | Laughs. I’ve noticed when you begin saving me and giving me good advice your face becomes very, very naive and your eyes as big as though you were looking at a comet. Wait a minute, your shoulder is dusty brushes some dust off her shoulder. A naive man is a fool, but you women have the art of being naive so that it is sweet and natural and warm and not so silly as it seems. But isn’t it a queer trick in all of you—so long as a man is strong and well and cheerful, you take no notice of him, but as soon as he begins running rapidly downhill and sets up a whine, you throw yourselves upon his neck! Is it worse to be the wife of a strong, brave man than to be the nurse of some lachrymose failure? |
| Sasha | Yes, it is. |
| Ivanov | Why is it? Laughs. Darwin knows nothing about it, or he would give it to you! You are ruining the race. Thanks to you there will soon be none but snivellers and neurotics born into the world! |
| Sasha | There is a great deal men don’t understand. Any girl will prefer a man who is a failure to one who is a success, because every woman longs to love actively. … Do you understand, actively? A man is absorbed in his work and so love with him is in the background. To talk to his wife, to walk in the garden and spend the time pleasantly with her and weep on her grave—that’s all he wants. While with us love is life. I love you, that means that I am dreaming how I shall heal you of your misery, how I shall go to the ends of the earth with you. If you go uphill, I go uphill too; if you go down into a pit, I go down into the pit too. To me, for instance, it would be a great happiness to spend a whole night copying your papers, or the whole night watching that no one should wake you, or walking a hundred miles with you! I remember once three years ago at threshing time you came to see us, all covered with dust, sunburnt and exhausted and asked for water. By the time I brought you a glass, you were lying on the sofa, sleeping like the dead. You slept for twelve hours, and all the time I stood on guard at the door that no one should come in. And how happy I was! The harder the work, the better the love, that is, the more strongly it’s felt, you understand. |
| Ivanov | Active love. … Hm. Decadence, a young girl’s philosophy or perhaps that’s how it should be … shrugs his shoulders. Devil only knows! Gaily. Sasha, on my honour I am a decent man! … Think of this: I have always been fond of generalising, but I have never in my life said that “our women were demoralised” or that “woman was on the wrong track.” I have only been grateful to them and nothing else! Nothing else! My good little girl, how amusing you are! And what an absurd duffer I am! I shock good people and do nothing but whine for days together laughs. Oo‑oo! Oo‑oo! Walks quickly away. But do go, Sasha! we are forgetting … |
| Sasha | Yes, I must go. Goodbye! I am afraid your honest doctor’s sense of duty may make him tell Anna Petrovna that I am here. Listen to me: go to your wife at once and sit by her, sit by her. … If you have to sit by her for a year, sit by her for a year. … If it is ten years—sit ten years. Do your duty. Grieve and beg her forgiveness and weep—all that is only right. And, above all, don’t neglect your work. |
| Ivanov | Again I have that feeling as though I were poisoned. Again! |
| Sasha | Well, God bless you! You need not think about me at all. If you send me a line once a fortnight, that will do for me. I will write to you. … |
| Borkin peeps in at the door. | |
| Borkin | Nikolay Alexeyevitch, may I come in? Seeing Sasha. I beg your pardon, I did not see you … comes in. Bong jour! Bows. |
| Sasha | In confusion. How do you do? |
| Borkin | You have grown plumper and prettier. |
| Sasha | To Ivanov. I am just going. Nikolay Alexeyevitch. … I am going goes out. |
| Borkin | Lovely vision! I came for prose and stumbled on poetry. … Sings. “Thou dids’t appear like a bird at dawn.” … |
| Ivanov walks up and down the stage in agitation. | |
| Borkin | Sits down. There is a certain something about her, you know, Nicolas, unlike other girls. Isn’t there? Something special … phantasmagoric … sighs. As a matter of fact she is the wealthiest match in the countryside, but the mother is such a bitter radish that no one cares to be mixed up with her. When she is dead everything will be left to Sasha, but till then she will give nothing but a miserable ten thousand, with flat irons and gophering tongs, and one will have to go down on one’s knees to her for that too fumbles in his pockets. I’ll smoke De-los-mahoros. Wouldn’t you like one? Offers his cigar-case. They are good. … They are worth smoking. |
| Ivanov | Goes up to Borkin, breathless with anger. Clear out of my house this minute and do not set foot in it again! This minute! |
| Borkin gets up and drops his cigar. | |
| Ivanov | Get out! This minute! |
| Borkin | Nicolas, what’s the matter? Why are you angry? |
| Ivanov | What for? Where did you get those cigars? And do you suppose I don’t know where you are taking the old man every day and what your object is? |
| Borkin | Shrugging his shoulders. But what has that to do with you? |
| Ivanov | You blackguard! The vile projects which you scatter all over the district have disgraced my name in the eyes of everyone! We have nothing in common, and I beg you to leave my house this minute! Strides rapidly up and down. |
| Borkin | I know you are saying all this because you are irritated and so I am not angry with you. You can insult me as much as you like picks up his cigar. But it’s time to shake off your melancholy. You are not a schoolboy. … |
| Ivanov | What did I say to you? Trembling. Are you playing with me? |
| Enter Anna Petrovna. | |
| Borkin | Well, here is Anna Petrovna. … I will go goes out. |
| Ivanov stops at the table and stands with bowed head. | |
| Anna Petrovna | After a pause. What did she come for just now? A pause. I ask you, what did she come for? |
| Ivanov | Don’t ask me, Anyuta … a pause. I am terribly to blame. You can think of anything you like to punish me, I’ll bear anything, but … don’t question me. … I am not equal to talking. |
| Anna Petrovna | Angrily. What has she been here for? A pause. Ah, so that’s what you are like! Now I understand you. At last I see what sort of man you are. Dishonourable, mean. … Do you remember you came and told a lie, saying that you loved me. … I believed you; I gave up my father and mother and my religion and followed you. … You told me lies about truth and goodness and your noble plans. I believed every word. … |
| Ivanov | Anyuta, I’ve never told you a lie. |
| Anna Petrovna | I have lived with you five years. I have been depressed and ill, but I have loved you, and have never left you for a moment. … You have been my idol. … And all the while you have been deceiving me in the most shameless way. … |
| Ivanov | Anyuta, don’t say what is untrue. I have made mistakes, yes, but I have never told a lie in my life. … You dare not reproach me with that. … |
| Anna Petrovna | I see it all now. … You married me thinking my father and mother would forgive me and give me money … that was what you expected. … |
| Ivanov | Oh, my God! Anyuta, to try my patience like this … weeps. |
| Anna Petrovna | Hold your tongue! When you saw the money was not coming, you started a fresh game. … Now I remember it all and understand weeps. You never loved me, and were never faithful to me. … Never! |
| Ivanov | Sarra, that’s a lie! Say what you like, but don’t insult me with lies. … |
| Anna Petrovna | Mean, dishonourable man! … You are in debt to Lebedyev, and now to wriggle out of your debt you are trying to turn his daughter’s head, to deceive her as you did me. Isn’t that true? |
| Ivanov | Gasping. For God’s sake, hold your tongue! I can’t answer for myself. … I am choking with rage, and I … I may say something to hurt you. … |
| Anna Petrovna | You have always shamelessly deceived people, not only me. You put down everything discreditable to Borkin, but now I know who is responsible. |
| Ivanov | Sarra, be quiet! Go away, or I may say something! I feel tempted to say to you something horrible, insulting. … Shouts. Hold your tongue, Jewess! |
| Anna Petrovna | I won’t be silent. You’ve deceived me too long, and I must speak. … |
| Ivanov | So you won’t hold your tongue struggling with himself. For God’s sake … |
| Anna Petrovna | Now you can go and deceive the Lebedyev girl. … |
| Ivanov | Well, let me tell you that you … are going to die. … The doctor told me that you can’t last long. … |
| Anna Petrovna | Sits down; in a sinking voice. When did he say that? A pause. |
| Ivanov | Clutches his head. What a brute I am! My God, what a brute! Sobs. |
Curtain.
Between the Third and the Fourth Acts about a year elapses.