Act IV
A drawing-room in Lebedyev’s house. In foreground an arch dividing the front drawing-room from the back drawing-room; doors to right and to left. Old bronzes, family portraits. Everything has a festive look. A piano; lying on it a violin; near it stands a cello. Throughout the act Guests cross the stage dressed as for a ball.
| Lvov | Comes in, looking at his watch. It’s past four. I suppose it is just time for the blessing. … They will bless her, and take her to church to be married. Here is the triumph of virtue and justice! He did not succeed in robbing Sarra; he worried her into her grave, and now he has found another. He will play a part to her too until he has plundered her, and then he will lay her in her grave like poor Sarra. It’s the old money-grubbing story … a pause. He is in the seventh heaven of bliss: will live happily to old age, and will die with an easy conscience. No, I’ll expose you! When I tear off your damnable mask and all learn what sort of a creature you are, you will fall headlong from the seventh heaven into depths such as the very devil cannot pull you out of! I am an honest man: it’s my duty to interfere and open their blind eyes. I will do my duty, and tomorrow leave this cursed district forever! Muses. But how am I to do it? Talking to the Lebedyevs is waste of time. Challenge him to a duel? Make a row? My God, I am as nervous as a schoolboy and have quite lost all power of reflection! What am I to do? A duel? |
| Kossih | Coming in, joyfully to Lvov. Yesterday I declared a little slam in clubs and took a grand slam. Only that Barabanov spoiled it all again! We were playing. I said “No trumps.” He said “Pass.” I played the two of clubs. He said “Pass.” I played the two of diamonds … the three of clubs … and would you believe it—can you imagine it!—I declared a slam, and he did not show his ace! If he had shown his ace—the blackguard!—I could have declared a grand slam on no trumps. … |
| Lvov | Excuse me, I don’t play cards, and so I cannot share your enthusiasm. Will the blessing be soon? |
| Kossih | It must be soon. They are bringing Zyuzushka to her senses. … She is howling like a calf: she is sorry to lose the dowry. |
| Lvov | And not her daughter? |
| Kossih | It’s the dowry. Besides, it’s galling for her. If he marries into the family, he won’t pay what he owes her. You cannot summon your own son-in-law. |
| Madame Babakin | Grandly dressed, with a dignified air, walks across the stage past Lvov and Kossih; the latter guffaws into his fist; she looks round. How stupid! |
| Kossih touches her waist with his finger and laughs. | |
| Madame Babakin | You lout! Goes out. |
| Kossih | Laughs. The silly woman has gone right off her head! Before she set her cap at a title she was a woman like any other, and now there is no approaching her. Mimicking her. “You lout!” |
| Lvov | Agitated. I say, tell me honestly, what is your opinion of Ivanov? |
| Kossih | He is no good. He plays like a cobbler. I’ll tell you what happened last year in Lent. We were all sitting down to cards—the Count, Borkin, he and I—and I was dealing … |
| Lvov | Interrupting. Is he a good man? |
| Kossih | He? He is a shark! He is a tricky fellow; he has seen some ups and downs. … The Count and he—they are a pair of them. They have a keen scent for what they can lay their hands on. He put his foot in it with the Jewess, came a cropper, and now he has got his eye on Zyuzushka’s moneybags. I’ll bet anything, damn my soul, if he does not bring Zyuzushka to beggary within a year. He’ll do for Zyuzushka and the Count for the widow. They’ll grab the money and live happy ever afterwards. Doctor, why are you so pale today? You don’t look like yourself. |
| Lvov | Oh, it’s nothing! I drank a little too much yesterday. |
| Enter Lebedyev and Sasha. | |
| Lebedyev | Coming in with Sasha. We can talk here to Lvov and Kossih. You can go and join the ladies, you Zulus. We want to talk secrets. |
| Kossih | Snaps his fingers enthusiastically as he passes Sasha. A picture! A queen of trumps. |
| Lebedyev | Run along, you caveman—run along! |
| Lvov and Kossih go out. | |
| Lebedyev | Sit down, Sasha; that’s right … sits down and looks round. Listen attentively and with befitting reverence. It’s like this: your mother has told me to make this communication. … You understand, I am not going to say this from myself: it’s your mother’s orders. |
| Sasha | Father, do be brief! |
| Lebedyev | You are to have fifteen thousand roubles at your marriage. There. … Mind that there is no talk about it afterwards! Wait a minute, be quiet! There are more treats to come. Your portion is fifteen thousand, but, since Nikolay Alexeyevitch owes your mother nine thousand, that is to be deducted from your dowry. … Well, besides that … |
| Sasha | What are you telling me this for? |
| Lebedyev | Your mother told me to. |
| Sasha | Do leave me alone! If you had the slightest respect for me or for yourself, you could not bring yourself to speak to me in this way. I don’t want your dowry! I did not ask for it, and do not ask for it! |
| Lebedyev | Why do you fly out at me? In Gogol the two rats first sniffed, then went away, but you are so advanced you fly at me without sniffing. |
| Sasha | Leave me alone! Don’t insult my ears with your reckonings of halfpence! |
| Lebedyev | Firing up. Tfoo! The way you all go on will drive me to murder someone or stick a knife into myself! One is howling from morning to night, nagging and jawing away, counting her farthings, while the other’s so clever, and humane and emancipated—dash it all!—she can’t understand her own father! I insult her ears! Why, before coming here to insult your ears, out there points to the door I was torn to pieces, hacked into bits. She cannot understand! Her head is turned, and she has lost all sense. … Confound you all! Goes to the door and stops. I dislike it—I dislike everything in you! |
| Sasha | What do you dislike? |
| Lebedyev | I dislike everything—everything! |
| Sasha | What everything? |
| Lebedyev | Do you suppose I am going to sit down and begin telling you? There is nothing I like about it, and I can’t bear to see your wedding! Goes up to Sasha and says caressingly. Forgive me, Sasha, perhaps your marriage is all very clever, honourable, elevated, full of high principles, but there is something all wrong in it—all wrong! It’s not like other marriages. You are young and fresh and clear as a bit of glass, and beautiful, while he is a widower, rather frayed and shabby, and I don’t understand him, God bless the man! Kisses his daughter. Sasha, forgive me, but there is something not quite straight. People are saying all sorts of things. The way his Sarra died, and then the way he was set on marrying you all at once … briskly. But there, I am an old woman—an old woman! I am as womanish as an old crinoline. Don’t listen to me. Listen to no one but yourself. |
| Sasha | Father, I feel myself that there is something wrong. … There is—there is! If only you knew how heavy my heart is! It’s unbearable! I am ashamed and frightened to admit it. Father darling, do help me to be brave, for God’s sake … tell me what to do. |
| Lebedyev | What is it? What is it? |
| Sasha | I am frightened as I have never been before looks round. It seems as though I don’t understand him and never shall. All the while I have been engaged to him he has never once smiled, has never looked me straight in the face. He is full of complaints, remorse for something, shudderings, hints at some wrong he has done. … I am exhausted. There are minutes when I even fancy that I … that I don’t love him as I ought. And when he comes to us or talks to me I am bored. What does it all mean, father? I am frightened. |
| Lebedyev | My darling, my only one, listen to your old father. Break it off. |
| Sasha | In alarm. What are you saying? |
| Lebedyev | Yes, really, Sasha. There will be a scandal, all the countryside will be wagging their tongues, but it is better to face a scandal than to ruin your whole life. |
| Sasha | Don’t speak of it, father. I won’t listen. I must struggle against gloomy thoughts. He is a fine man, unhappy and misunderstood. I will love him; I will understand him; I will set him on his feet; I will carry out my task. That’s settled! |
| Lebedyev | It’s not a task—it’s neurosis. |
| Sasha | That’s enough. I have confessed to you what I would not admit to myself. Don’t tell anyone. Let us forget it. |
| Lebedyev | I can’t make head or tail of it. Either I’ve gone dotty with old age, or you have all grown too clever. Anyway, I can make nothing of it; I’ll be hanged if I can. |
| Shabelsky | Entering. The devil take them all and me into the bargain. It’s revolting. |
| Lebedyev | What’s wrong with you? |
| Shabelsky | No, seriously, come what may, I must play some dirty, shabby trick so that other people may be as sick as I am. And I will too. Honour bright! I’ve told Borkin to announce my engagement today laughs. Everyone is a scoundrel, and I’ll be a scoundrel too. |
| Lebedyev | Oh, you bore me! Do you know what, Matvey?—you will talk yourself into such a state that, excuse my saying so, they will clap you into a madhouse. |
| Shabelsky | And is a madhouse worse than any other house? You can take me there today if you like; I don’t care. Everyone is mean, petty, trivial and dull. I am disgusting to myself; I don’t believe a word I say. … |
| Lebedyev | I tell you what, Matvey—you should take some tow in your mouth, put a match to it, and breathe out fire and flame. Or, better still, take your cap and go home. This is a wedding; everyone is making merry, while you croak like a crow. Yes, really. … |
| Shabelsky bends over the piano and sobs. | |
| Lebedyev | Holy saints! Matvey! Count! What is the matter with you? Matyusha, my dear … my angel … I have offended you? Come, you must forgive an old dog like me … Forgive a drunkard … have some water. |
| Shabelsky | I don’t want it raises his head. |
| Lebedyev | Why are you crying? |
| Shabelsky | Oh, it’s nothing! … |
| Lebedyev | Come, Matyusha, don’t tell stories. What’s the reason? |
| Shabelsky | I happened to look at that cello … and thought of the poor little Jewess. … |
| Lebedyev | Phew! you’ve pitched on the right minute to think of her! The kingdom of heaven and eternal peace be hers! But this is not the time to remember her. |
| Shabelsky | We used to play duets together. … She was a wonderful, splendid woman! |
| Sasha sobs. | |
| Lebedyev | What’s the matter with you now? Give over! Lord, they are both howling! And I—I … You might at least go somewhere else; people may see you. |
| Shabelsky | Pasha, when the sun shines it’s merry in the churchyard. If one has hope one may be happy in old age. But I have no hopes left, not one! |
| Lebedyev | Yes, things really aren’t very bright for you. … You’ve no children, no money, no work. … Well, it can’t be helped. To Sasha. And what’s the matter with you? |
| Shabelsky | Pasha, give me some money. We’ll settle accounts in the next world. I’ll go to Paris and look at my wife’s grave. I’ve given away a lot in my day: I gave away half my property, and so I have a right to ask. Besides, I am asking a friend. … |
| Lebedyev | In a fluster. My dear boy, I haven’t a penny! But all right, all right! That is, I don’t promise anything, but you understand … very good, very good! … Aside. They worry the life out of me. |
| Madame Babakin | Coming in. Where is my partner? Count, how dare you leave me alone? Ah, horrid man! Taps the Count on the hand with her fan. |
| Shabelsky | Shrinking away. Leave me alone! I hate you! |
| Madame Babakin | Aghast. What? … Eh? … |
| Shabelsky | Go away! |
| Madame Babakin | Sinks into a chair. Oh! Weeps. |
| Zinaida Savishna | Enters, weeping. Somebody has arrived. … I believe it’s the best man. It’s time for the blessing sobs. |
| Sasha | In a voice of entreaty. Mother! |
| Lebedyev | Well, they are all howling! It’s a quartet! Oh, leave off, you are making the place so damp! Matvey … Marfa Yegorovna! … Why, I shall cry myself in a minute … weeps. My goodness! |
| Zinaida | Well, since you don’t care for your mother, since you are disobedient … I’ll comply with your wishes and give you my blessing. |
| Ivanov comes in; he is in a dress-suit and gloves. | |
| Lebedyev | This is the last straw! What is it? |
| Sasha | Why have you come? |
| Ivanov | I am sorry. May I speak to Sasha alone? |
| Lebedyev | That’s not at all the thing for you to come to the bride before the wedding! You ought to be on your way to the church! |
| Ivanov | Pasha, I beg you … |
| Lebedyev shrugs his shoulders; he, Zinaida Savishna, Shabelsky and Madame Babakin go out. | |
| Sasha | Severely. What do you want? |
| Ivanov | I am choking with fury, but I can speak coolly. Listen! Just now I was dressing for the wedding. I looked in the glass and saw that I had grey hairs on my temples. … Sasha, it’s not right! While there is still time we ought to break off this senseless farce. … You are young and pure, your life is before you, while I … |
| Sasha | That’s all stale. I have heard it a thousand times and I am sick of it! Go to the church! Don’t keep people waiting. |
| Ivanov | I am going home at once, and you tell your people that there will be no wedding. Give them some explanation. We have been foolish long enough. I’ve played the Hamlet and you the noble maiden, and that will do. |
| Sasha | Flaring up. What do you mean by speaking like that? I won’t listen. |
| Ivanov | But I am speaking, and I will speak. |
| Sasha | What have you come for? Your whining is turning into jeering. |
| Ivanov | No, I am not whining now. Jeering? Yes, I am jeering. And if I could jeer at myself a thousand times more bitterly and set the whole world laughing, I would do it. I looked at myself in the looking-glass and it was as though a shell exploded in my conscience! I laughed at myself and almost went out of my mind with shame laughs. Melancholy! Noble sorrow! Mysterious sadness! To crown it all I ought to write verses. … To whine, to lament, to make people miserable, to recognise that vital energy is lost forever, that I have gone to seed, outlived my day, that I have given in to weakness and sunk over my ears in this loathsome apathy—to feel all this when the sun is shining brightly, when even the ant is dragging his little load and is satisfied with himself—no, thanks! To see some people thinking you a fraud, others sorry for you, others holding out a helping hand, while some—worst of all—listen with reverence to your sighs, look upon you as a prophet, and are all agog for you to reveal some new religion. … No, thank God I have still some pride and conscience! As I came here, I laughed at myself and felt as though the very birds, the trees, were laughing at me. … |
| Sasha | This is not anger, it’s madness. |
| Ivanov | Do you think so? No, I am not mad. Now I see things in their true light and my mind is as clear as your conscience. We love each other, but we shall never be married! I can rave and be melancholy as much as I like, but I have no right to ruin other people. I poisoned the last year of my wife’s life with my whining. While you have been engaged to me, you have forgotten how to laugh and have grown five years older. Your father, to whom everything in life was clear, is at a loss to understand people, thanks to me. Whether I go to a meeting, or on a visit, or shooting, wherever I am, I bring boredom, depression, and dissatisfaction with me. Wait, don’t interrupt me! I am harsh and savage, but forgive me, I am choked with fury and cannot speak in any other way. I used never to tell lies about life or abuse it, but now that I have become an old grumbler I unconsciously abuse life falsely, repine against destiny and complain, and everyone who hears me is affected by the distaste for life and begins abusing it too. And what an attitude! As though I were doing a favour to nature by living! Damnation take me! |
| Sasha | Wait a minute. … From what you said just now it follows that you are weary of repining and that it’s time to begin a new life! … And a good thing too. … |
| Ivanov | I see nothing good, and what’s the use of talking about a new life? I am lost beyond all hope! It is time for us both to realise it. A new life! |
| Sasha | Nikolay, pull yourself together! What makes you think that you are lost? Why this cynicism? No, I won’t speak or listen. … Go to the church! |
| Ivanov | I am lost! |
| Sasha | Don’t shout like that, the visitors will hear you! |
| Ivanov | If an educated, healthy man who is not a fool begins, for no apparent reason, lamenting and rolling downhill, he will roll down without stopping, and nothing can save him! Come, where can I look for help? In what? I can’t drink—wine makes my head ache; I can’t write bad verse; I can’t worship my spiritual sloth and see something lofty in it. Sloth is sloth, weakness is weakness—I have no other names for them. I am done for, done for—and it’s no good talking about it! Looks round. We may be interrupted. Listen! If you love me, help me. This very minute, at once, break it off with me. Make haste! … |
| Sasha | Oh, Nikolay, if you knew how you exhaust me! How you weary my soul! You are a good, clever man: judge for yourself, how can you set me such tasks? Every day there is some fresh problem, each harder than the one before. … I wanted active love, but this is martyrdom! |
| Ivanov | And when you are my wife the problems will be more complicated still. Break it off! You must understand; it is not love but the obstinacy of an honest nature that is working in you. You’ve made it your aim at all costs to make a man of me again, to save me. It flattered you to think you were doing something heroic. … Now you are ready to draw back but are hindered by a false sentiment. Do understand that! |
| Sasha | What queer, mad logic! Why, can I break it off with you? How can I break it off? You have neither mother, nor sister, nor friends. … You are ruined, you have been robbed right and left, everyone is telling lies about you. … |
| Ivanov | It was stupid of me to have come here … I ought to have done as I meant. … |
| Enter Lebedyev. | |
| Sasha | Runs to her father. Father, for mercy’s sake! He has rushed here as though he were frantic and is torturing me! He insists on my breaking it off; he doesn’t want to spoil my life. Tell him that I won’t accept his generosity. I know what I am doing. |
| Lebedyev | I can’t make head or tail of it. … What generosity? |
| Ivanov | There will be no marriage! |
| Sasha | There shall be! Father, tell him that there shall be! |
| Lebedyev | Wait a minute, wait a minute! … Why don’t you want to marry her? |
| Ivanov | I told her why, but she refuses to understand. |
| Lebedyev | No, don’t explain to her, but to me, and explain it so that I can understand! Ah, Nikolay Alexeyevitch, God be your judge! You’ve brought such a lot of muddle into our life that I feel as though I were living in a museum of curiosities: I look about and I can make nothing of it. … It is an infliction. … What is an old man to do with you? Challenge you to a duel or what? |
| Ivanov | There’s no need of a duel. All that is needed is to have a head on your shoulders and to understand Russian. |
| Sasha | Walks up and down the stage in agitation. This is awful, awful! Simply like a child. … |
| Lebedyev | One can only throw up one’s hands in amazement, that’s all. Listen, Nikolay! To you all this seems clever, subtle, and according to all the rules of psychology, but to me it seems a scandal and a misfortune. Listen to an old man for the last time! This is what I advise you: give your mind a rest! Look at things simply, like everyone else! Everything is simple in this world. The ceiling is white, the boots are black, sugar is sweet. You love Sasha, she loves you. If you love her—stay; if you don’t love her—go; we won’t make a fuss. Why, it’s so simple! You are both healthy, clever, moral, and you have food to eat and clothes to wear, thank God. … What more do you want? You’ve no money? As though that mattered. … Money does not give happiness. … Of course I understand … your estate is mortgaged, you have no money to pay the interest, but I am a father, I understand. … Her mother can do as she likes, bless the woman; if she won’t give the money, she need not. Sasha says she does not want a dowry. Principles, Schopenhauer. … That’s all tosh … I have a private ten thousand in the bank looks round. Not a dog in the house knows of it. … Granny’s money … that is for you too. … Take it, only on one condition: give Matvey two thousand. … |
| Guests assemble in the back drawing-room. | |
| Ivanov | Pasha, it’s no use talking. I shall act as my conscience tells me. |
| Sasha | And I shall act as my conscience tells me. You can say what you like, I won’t give you up. I’ll go and call mother goes out. |
| Lebedyev | I can’t make head or tail of it. |
| Ivanov | Listen, poor fellow. … I am not going to tell you what I am—honest or a fraud, healthy or a neurotic. There is no making you understand. I used to be young, ardent, earnest, and not a fool: I loved, I hated, and I believed not as others do; I hoped and did the work of ten; I fought with windmills, I knocked my head against the wall; not measuring my strength, not considering, knowing nothing of life, I took up a burden which broke my back and strained my muscles; I made haste to spend all of myself in my youth; I was intoxicated, I worked myself up, I toiled, I knew no moderation. And tell me, could I have done otherwise? We are few, you know, and there is so much to do, so much! My God! how much! And see how cruelly the life with which I struggled has paid me out! I have overstrained myself. At thirty came the awakening, I was already old and slothful. Exhausted, overstrained, broken, with my head heavy and my soul indolent, without faith, without love, without an object in life, I linger like a shadow among men and don’t know what I am, what I am living for, what I want. … And I fancy that love is nonsense and tenderness, mawkish, that there is no sense in work, that songs and words of enthusiasm are vulgar and stale, and everywhere I bring with me misery, chilly boredom, dissatisfaction, distaste for life. … I am lost beyond all hope! Before you stands a man worn out at thirty-five; disillusioned, crushed by his own paltry efforts; he is burning with shame, mocking at his own feebleness. … Oh, how my pride revolts, how I choke with rage! Staggering. There, what I have brought myself to! I am simply reeling. … I feel ill. Where is Matvey? Let him take me home. |
| Voices in the back room: “The best man has come!” | |
| Shabelsky | Entering. In a shabby, borrowed coat … with no gloves … and how many jeering looks, silly jokes, vulgar grins on account of it! … Disgusting cads! |
| Borkin | Enters hurriedly, with a bouquet; he is in evening dress and wearing a flower as the badge of the best man. Ough! Where is he? To Ivanov. They have been waiting for you at the church for ever so long and here you are airing your views. He is a funny chap! He really is a funny chap! You mustn’t go to church with your bride, but separately, with me, and I will come back from the church and fetch the bride. Do you mean to say you don’t even know that? He really is a funny chap! |
| Lvov | Entering, to Ivanov. Ah, you are here? Loudly. Nikolay Alexeyevitch Ivanov, I proclaim in the hearing of all that you are a scoundrel! |
| Ivanov | Coldly. I am very much obliged to you. |
| General perturbation. | |
| Borkin | To Lvov. Sir, this is contemptible! I challenge you to a duel! |
| Lvov | Mr. Borkin, I regard it as degrading not only to fight, but even to speak with you! But Mr. Ivanov may receive satisfaction whenever he chooses. |
| Shabelsky | Sir, I shall fight you! |
| Sasha | To Lvov. What have you insulted him for? What is it for? Gentlemen, please, let him tell me what made him do it. |
| Lvov | Alexandra Pavlovna, I did not insult him without grounds. I came here as an honest man to open your eyes, and I beg you to hear me. |
| Sasha | What can you say? That you are an honest man? The whole world knows that! You had better tell me on your conscience whether you understand yourself or not! You have come in here just now as an honest man and flung at him a terrible insult which has almost killed me; in old days, when you used to follow him about like a shadow and poisoned his life, you were convinced that you were doing your duty, that you were an honest man. You have meddled in his private life, you have blackened his name and condemned him; whenever you could you pelted me and all his friends with anonymous letters—and all the time you thought you were a conscientious man. You, a doctor, thought it honourable and did not spare even his sick wife; you gave her no peace with your suspicions. And whatever outrage, whatever cruel meanness you may commit, you will always believe that you are a conscientious and advanced man! |
| Ivanov | Laughing. This is not a wedding, but a debate! Bravo, bravo! |
| Sasha | To Lvov. So now think a little: do you understand yourself or not? Dull-witted, heartless people! Takes Ivanov by the hand. Come away, Nikolay! Father, come! |
| Ivanov | Come where? Wait a minute, I will make an end of it all! My youth is awakened in me, my old self is roused! Takes out his revolver. |
| Sasha | Screams. I know what he means to do! Nikolay, for God’s sake! |
| Ivanov | I’ve been rolling down hill long enough, now a halt! It’s time to know when to take leave! Stand back! Thanks, Sasha! |
| Sasha | Screams. Nikolay, for God’s sake! Hold him! |
| Ivanov | Let me alone! Runs aside and shoots himself. |
Curtain.