Ivanov

By Anton Chekhov.

Translated by Constance Garnett.

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Characters in the Play

The action takes place in one of the provinces of Central Russia.

Ivanov

A Play in Four Acts

Act I

The garden on Ivanov’s estate. On the left, the front of the house with the verandah. One window is open. In front of the verandah is a wide semicircular space, from which an avenue at right angles to the house, and another to the right, run into the garden. On the right side of the verandah are garden seats and tables. On one of the latter a lamp is burning. Evening is coming on. As the curtain rises there is the sound of a duet of piano and cello being practised indoors.

Ivanov is sitting at a table reading. Borkin, wearing high boots and carrying a gun, comes into sight at the further end of the garden⁠—he is a little drunk; seeing Ivanov, he advances on tiptoe towards him, and when he reaches him aims his gun at his face.

Ivanov Seeing Borkin, starts and jumps up. Misha, what are you about?⁠ ⁠… You gave me a fright.⁠ ⁠… I am worried as it is, and then you come with your stupid jokes⁠ ⁠… sits down. He has frightened me, and is delighted⁠ ⁠…
Borkin Laughs. There, there.⁠ ⁠… I am sorry, I am sorry sits down beside him. I won’t do it again, I really won’t⁠ ⁠… takes off his cap. I’m hot. Would you believe it, my dear soul, I’ve done nearly twelve miles in three hours!⁠ ⁠… Just feel how my heart is beating!⁠ ⁠…
Ivanov Reading. All right, presently.⁠ ⁠…
Borkin No, feel now takes Ivanov’s hand and lays it on his chest. Do you hear? Too-too-too-too-too-too.⁠ ⁠… It shows I’ve got heart-disease, you know. I might die suddenly, any minute. I say, will you be sorry if I die?
Ivanov I am reading⁠ ⁠… presently.⁠ ⁠…
Borkin No, seriously, will you be sorry if I die? Nikolay Alexeyevitch, will you be sorry if I die?
Ivanov Don’t pester me!
Borkin My dear fellow, do tell me whether you will be sorry.
Ivanov I am sorry you smell of vodka. Misha, it’s disgusting!
Borkin Laughs. Do I smell of it? How surprising!⁠ ⁠… Though there is nothing surprising in it, really. At Plesniki I met the examining magistrate, and I must own we put away eight glasses or so each. Drinking is very bad for one, really. I say, it is bad for one, isn’t it? It is, isn’t it?
Ivanov This is really intolerable.⁠ ⁠… You must see that it’s simply maddening.⁠ ⁠…
Borkin There, there.⁠ ⁠… I am sorry, I am sorry.⁠ ⁠… God bless you; sit still⁠ ⁠… gets up and walks away. Queer people; there’s no talking to them! Comes back. Oh yes, I was almost forgetting.⁠ ⁠… Give me the eighty-two roubles.
Ivanov What eighty-two roubles?
Borkin To pay the labourers tomorrow.
Ivanov I haven’t got it.
Borkin Very much obliged! Mimicking. I haven’t got it.⁠ ⁠… But the labourers must be paid, mustn’t they?
Ivanov I don’t know. I haven’t the money today. Wait till the first of next month, when I get my salary.
Borkin Much good it is talking to such a specimen!⁠ ⁠… The labourers won’t come for the money on the first; they will come tomorrow morning!⁠ ⁠…
Ivanov Well, what am I to do? You may cut my throat, hack me to pieces.⁠ ⁠… And what a revolting habit it is of yours to pester me just when I am reading or writing, or⁠ ⁠…
Borkin I ask you, must the labourers be paid or not? But what’s the use of talking to you! Waves his hand. And he is a country gentleman⁠—hang it all, a landowner!⁠ ⁠… Up-to-date agricultural methods.⁠ ⁠… Three thousand acres, and not a penny in his pocket!⁠ ⁠… There is a wine-cellar, and no corkscrew.⁠ ⁠… I’ll go and sell the three horses tomorrow! Yes! I have sold the standing oats, and now I’ll sell the rye! Strides about the stage. Do you suppose I’d hesitate? Eh? No; you’ve hit on the wrong man for that.⁠ ⁠…
Shabelsky’s voice inside: “It is impossible to play with you.⁠ ⁠… You have no more ear than a stuffed pike, and your touch is appalling!”
Anna Petrovna Appears at the open window. Who was talking here just now? Was it you, Misha? Why are you striding about like that?
Borkin Your Nicolas-voilà is enough to drive one to anything!
Anna Petrovna I say, Misha, tell them to bring some hay on to the croquet lawn.
Borkin Waving her off. Please let me alone.⁠ ⁠…
Anna Petrovna Goodness! what a way to speak!⁠ ⁠… That tone doesn’t suit you at all. If you want women to like you, you must never let them see you cross or standing on your dignity. To her husband. Nikolay, let us roll about on the hay!
Ivanov It’s bad for you to stand at an open window, Anyuta. Please go in⁠ ⁠… Calls. Uncle, shut the window. The window is shut.
Borkin Don’t forget that in two days’ time you have to pay Lebedyev his interest.
Ivanov I remember. I shall be at Lebedyev’s today, and I will ask him to wait looks at his watch.
Borkin When are you going?
Ivanov Directly.
Borkin Eagerly. Wait a minute! I do believe it is Sasha’s birthday today⁠ ⁠… tut⁠—tut⁠—tut⁠ ⁠… and I forgot it.⁠ ⁠… What a memory! Skips about. I am going⁠—I am going sings. I am going.⁠ ⁠… I’ll go and have a bathe, chew some paper, take three drops of spirits of ammonia⁠—and I shall be ready to begin all over again.⁠ ⁠… Nikolay Alexeyevitch darling, my precious, angel of my heart, you are always in a state of nerves, complaining, and in the dismal doldrums, and yet the devil only knows what we two might bring off together! I am ready to do anything for you.⁠ ⁠… Would you like me to marry Marfusha Babakin for you? Half her dowry shall be yours⁠ ⁠… no, not half, all, all shall be yours!
Ivanov Do shut up with your silly rot.
Borkin No, seriously! Would you like me to marry Marfusha? We’ll go halves over the dowry.⁠ ⁠… But there, why do I talk about it to you? As though you would understand! Mimicking. “Shut up with your silly rot.” You are a fine man, an intelligent man, but you’ve none of that streak in you, you know⁠—none of that go⁠ ⁠… To have a fling to make the devils sick with envy.⁠ ⁠… You are a neurotic, a drooper, but if you were a normal man you would have a million in a year. For instance, if I had at this moment two thousand three hundred roubles, I would have twenty thousand in a fortnight. You don’t believe it? You call that silly rot too? No, it’s not silly rot.⁠ ⁠… There, give me two thousand three hundred roubles and in a week I’ll bring you twenty thousand. On the other side of the river Ovsyanov is selling a strip of land just opposite us for two thousand three hundred roubles. If we were to buy that strip, both sides of the river would be ours, and if both banks were ours, you know, we should have the right to dam up the river, shouldn’t we? We’d set about building a mill, and, as soon as we let people know we were going to make a dam, all the people living down the river would make a hullaballoo, and we’d say⁠—kommen sie hier, if you don’t want to have a dam, buy us off. Do you understand? Zarevsky’s factory would give us five thousand, Korolkov three thousand, the monastery five thousand.⁠ ⁠…
Ivanov That’s all stuff and nonsense, Misha.⁠ ⁠… If you don’t want to quarrel with me, keep such schemes to yourself.
Borkin Sits down to the table. Of course!⁠ ⁠… I knew it would be so!⁠ ⁠… You won’t do anything yourself, and you won’t let me.
Enter Shabelsky and Lvov.
Shabelsky Coming out of the house with Lvov. Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that the lawyers rob you, and the doctors rob you and murder you.⁠ ⁠… I am not speaking of present company sits down on the garden-seat. Charlatans, exploiters.⁠ ⁠… Perhaps in Arcadia there may be some exceptions to the general rule, but⁠ ⁠… In the course of my life I’ve spent twenty thousand or so on doctors, and I never met a single one who did not seem to me a licensed swindler.
Borkin To Ivanov. Yes, you do nothing yourself, and you won’t let me do anything. That’s why we have no money.⁠ ⁠…
Shabelsky I repeat that I am not speaking of present company.⁠ ⁠… Perhaps there are exceptions, though indeed⁠ ⁠… yawns.
Ivanov Shutting his book. What do you say, doctor?
Lvov Looking round towards the window. What I said to you this morning: she must go to the Crimea at once paces about the stage.
Shabelsky Giggles. Crimea!⁠ ⁠… Why don’t you and I go in for being doctors, Misha? It’s so simple.⁠ ⁠… As soon as some Madame Angot or Ophelia begins wheezing and coughing because she has nothing better to do, you’ve to take a sheet of paper and prescribe according to the rules of your science: first, a young doctor, then a trip to the Crimea, a Tatar guide in the Crimea.⁠ ⁠…
Ivanov To Shabelsky. Oh, do stop it! How you do keep on! To Lvov. To go to the Crimea one must have money. Even if I do manage to get it, she absolutely refuses to go.
Lvov Yes, she does a pause.
Borkin I say, doctor, is Anna Petrovna really so ill that it is necessary for her to go to the Crimea?
Lvov Looking round towards the window. Yes, it’s consumption.
Borkin Ss⁠—ss!⁠ ⁠… That’s bad.⁠ ⁠… For some time past I’ve thought she looked as though she wouldn’t last long.
Lvov But⁠ ⁠… don’t talk so loud⁠ ⁠… you will be heard in the house a pause.
Borkin Sighing. Such is life.⁠ ⁠… The life of man is like a flower growing luxuriantly in a field: a goat comes and eats it, and the flower is no more.
Shabelsky It’s all nonsense, nonsense, nonsense⁠ ⁠… yawns. Nonsense and fraud a pause.
Borkin And here, gentlemen, I keep showing Nikolay Alexeyevitch how to make money. I’ve just given him a glorious idea, but as usual he throws cold water on it. There’s no moving him.⁠ ⁠… Just look at him: melancholy, spleen, depression, hypochondria, dejection.⁠ ⁠…
Shabelsky Stands up and stretches. You’ve got some scheme for everyone, you genius; you teach everyone how to live, you might try it on me for once.⁠ ⁠… Give me a lesson, you brainy person, show me a way of escape.⁠ ⁠…
Borkin Getting up. I’m going to bathe.⁠ ⁠… Goodbye, gentlemen. To the Count. There are twenty things you could do.⁠ ⁠… If I were in your place I would have twenty thousand within a week is going.
Shabelsky Follows him. How’s that? Come, show me how to do it.
Borkin It doesn’t need showing. It’s very simple coming back. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, give me a rouble!
Ivanov gives him the money in silence.
Borkin Merci! To the Count. You’ve still lots of trump cards in your hand.
Shabelsky Following him. Well, what are they?
Borkin If I were in your place, within a week I would have thirty thousand, if not more goes out with the Count.
Ivanov After a pause. Superfluous people, superfluous words, the necessity of answering foolish questions⁠—all this has so exhausted me that I am quite ill, doctor. I have grown irritable, hasty, harsh, and so petty that I don’t know myself. For days together my head aches; I cannot sleep, there’s a noise in my ears.⁠ ⁠… And there’s no getting away from it all⁠ ⁠… simply nothing I can do.⁠ ⁠…
Lvov I want to talk to you seriously, Nikolay Alexeyevitch.
Ivanov What is it?
Lvov It’s about Anna Petrovna sits down. She won’t consent to go to the Crimea, but with you she would go.
Ivanov Pondering. To go together we must have the means to do it. Besides, they won’t give me a long leave. I’ve taken my holiday this year already⁠ ⁠…
Lvov Well, supposing that is so. Now for the next point. The most important condition for the treatment of consumption is absolute peace of mind, and your wife never has a moment’s peace of mind. She is in continual agitation over your attitude to her. Forgive me, I am excited and am going to speak frankly to you. Your conduct is killing her a pause. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, allow me to think better of you!
Ivanov It’s all true, quite true.⁠ ⁠… I expect I am terribly to blame, but my thoughts are in a tangle, my soul is paralysed by inertia, and I am incapable of understanding myself. I don’t understand others or myself⁠ ⁠… looks at the window. We may be overheard, let us go for a stroll. They get up. I’d tell you the whole story from the beginning, my dear fellow, but it’s a long story and so complicated that I shouldn’t be finished by tomorrow morning. They are walking away. Anyuta is a remarkable, exceptional woman.⁠ ⁠… For my sake she has changed her religion, given up her father and mother, abandoned wealth, and if I wanted a hundred more sacrifices she would make them without the quiver of an eyelash. Well, and I am in no way remarkable, and I have made no sacrifices. But it’s a long story.⁠ ⁠… The point of it all is, dear doctor hesitates, is that⁠ ⁠… The long and the short of it is that I was passionately in love when I married and vowed I would love her forever; but⁠ ⁠… five years have passed, she still loves me, and I⁠ ⁠… makes a gesture of despair. Here you tell me that she is soon going to die, and I feel neither love nor pity, but a sort of emptiness and weariness.⁠ ⁠… If one looks at me from outside it must be horrible. I don’t myself understand what is happening in my soul. They go out along the avenue.
Enter Shabelsky.
Shabelsky Laughing. Upon my honour, he is no common rascal, he is a genius, an expert! We ought to put up a statue to him. He combines in himself every form of modern rottenness: the lawyer’s and the doctor’s, and the huckster’s and the cashier’s sits down on the lowest step of the verandah. And yet I believe he has never finished his studies! That’s what is so surprising.⁠ ⁠… What a rascal of genius he would have been if he had absorbed culture and learning! “You can have twenty thousand in a week,” says he. “You’ve still the ace of trumps in your hands,” says he, “your title.” Laughs. “Any girl with a dowry would marry you.⁠ ⁠…”
Anna Petrovna opens the window and looks down.
Shabelsky “Would you like me to make a match for you with Marfusha?” says he. Qui est-ce que c’est Marfusha? Ah, it’s that Balabalkin⁠ ⁠… Babakalkin⁠ ⁠… who looks like a washerwoman.⁠ ⁠…
Anna Petrovna Is that you, Count?
Shabelsky What is it?
Anna Petrovna laughs.
Shabelsky With a Jewish accent. Vot for you laugh?
Anna Petrovna I thought of something you said. Do you remember what you said at dinner: “A thief that is forgiven, a horse⁠ ⁠…” What is it?
Shabelsky A Jew that is christened, a thief that isis forgiven, a horse that is doctored⁠—are worth the same price.
Anna Petrovna Laughs. You can’t make even a simple joke without spite in it. You are a spiteful man. Earnestly. Joking apart, Count, you are very spiteful. It’s dull and dreadful living with you. You are always snarling and grumbling. You think all men are scoundrels and rascals. Tell me honestly, have you ever said anything good about anyone?
Shabelsky Why this cross-examination?
Anna Petrovna We’ve been living under the same roof for five years and I’ve never once heard you speak of people calmly, without malice and derision. What harm have people done you? And do you really imagine that you are better than anyone else?
Shabelsky I don’t imagine it at all. I am just as great a blackguard and pig in a skullcap as everyone else, mauvais ton and an old rag. I always abuse myself. Who am I? What am I? I was rich, free and rather happy, but now⁠ ⁠… I am a dependant, a hanger-on, a degraded buffoon. I am indignant, I am contemptuous, and people laugh at me: I laugh and they shake their heads at me mournfully and say the old chap is cracked⁠ ⁠… and most often they don’t hear me, don’t heed me.⁠ ⁠…
Anna Petrovna Calmly. It is screeching again.
Shabelsky Who is screeching?
Anna Petrovna The owl. It screeches every evening.
Shabelsky Let it screech. Nothing can be worse than what is now stretching. Ah, my dear Sarra, if I were to win a hundred or two hundred thousand I’d show you a thing or two! You’d see no more of me here. I’d get away from this hole, away from the bread of charity⁠ ⁠… and wouldn’t set foot here again till the day of judgment.⁠ ⁠…
Anna Petrovna And what would you do if you did win a lot of money?
Shabelsky After a moment’s thought. First of all I would go to Moscow to hear the gypsies. Then⁠ ⁠… then I should be off to Paris. I should take a flat there, I should go to the Russian church.⁠ ⁠…
Anna Petrovna And what else?
Shabelsky I should sit for days together on my wife’s grave and think. I should sit there till I died. My wife is buried in Paris.⁠ ⁠… a pause.
Anna Petrovna How awfully dull it is! Shall we play another duet?
Shabelsky Very well, get the music ready.
Anna Petrovna goes out. Enter Ivanov and Lvov.
Ivanov Comes into sight with Lvov in the avenue. You took your degree only last year, my dear friend, you are still young and vigorous while I am five and thirty. I have the right to advise you. Don’t marry a Jewess nor a neurotic nor a blue stocking, but choose what is commonplace, grey, with no vivid colours or superfluous flourishes. In fact, build your whole life on the conventional pattern. The greyer and the more monotonous the background the better, my dear boy. Don’t fight with thousands single-handed, don’t wage war on windmills, don’t batter your head against the wall.⁠ ⁠… God preserve you from all sorts of scientific farming, wonderful schools, enthusiastic speeches.⁠ ⁠… Shut yourself up in your shell, do the humble duty God has laid upon you.⁠ ⁠… That’s snugger, happier and more honest. But the life that I have led, how tiring it is! Ah, how tiring!⁠ ⁠… How many mistakes, how much that was unjust and absurd.⁠ ⁠… Seeing the Count, irritably. You are always in the way, Uncle, you never let one have a talk in peace!
Shabelsky In a tearful voice. Oh, the devil take me, there’s no refuge for me anywhere! Jumps up and goes into the house.
Ivanov Calls after him. Oh, I am sorry! To Lvov. What made me hurt his feelings? Yes, I must be out of gear. I must do something with myself, I really must.⁠ ⁠…
Lvov In agitation. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, I have listened to you and⁠ ⁠… and forgive me, I will speak plainly, without beating about the bush. Your voice, your intonation, to say nothing of your words, are full of such soulless egoism, such cold heartlessness.⁠ ⁠… Someone very near to you is dying through her love for you, her days are numbered, and you⁠ ⁠… you can be cold to her, can walk about and give advice, and pose.⁠ ⁠… I cannot tell you, I have no gift for words, but⁠ ⁠… but you are intensely repulsive to me!
Ivanov Very likely, very likely.⁠ ⁠… You can see it all more clearly from outside.⁠ ⁠… It’s very possible that you understand.⁠ ⁠… I daresay I am horribly to blame, horribly⁠ ⁠… listens. I fancy I hear the carriage. I am going to get ready⁠ ⁠… goes to the house and stops. You dislike me, doctor, and don’t conceal your dislike. It does credit to your heart⁠ ⁠… goes into the house.
Lvov Alone. My cursed weakness! Again I’ve missed the chance and haven’t said what I ought to have said.⁠ ⁠… I cannot speak to him calmly! As soon as I open my mouth and say a word I feel such a suffocation, such a heaving here points to his chest, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I hate this Tartuffe, this highflown scoundrel, I hate him.⁠ ⁠… Here he is going away.⁠ ⁠… His poor wife’s only happiness is to have him near her, she lives in him, she implores him to spend one evening with her, and he⁠ ⁠… he cannot! He feels stifled and cramped at home, if you please. If he were to spend a single evening at home, he’d be so depressed that he’d blow his brains out. Poor fellow⁠ ⁠… he must have freedom to contrive some new villainy.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I know why you go to these Lebedyevs every evening! I know!
Enter Ivanov in his hat and overcoat, Anna Petrovna and Shabelsky.
Shabelsky As he comes out of the house with Anna Petrovna and Ivanov. Really, Nicolas, this is positively inhuman! You go out every evening and we are left alone. We are so bored we go to bed at eight o’clock. It’s hideous, it’s not life at all! And why is it that you can go and we mayn’t? Why?
Anna Petrovna Leave him alone! Let him go, let him.⁠ ⁠…
Ivanov To his wife. How can you go when you are ill? You are ill and you mustn’t be out after sunset.⁠ ⁠… Ask the doctor. You are not a child, Anyuta, you must be sensible.⁠ ⁠… To the Count. And what do you want to go there for?
Shabelsky I’d go to hell, into the jaws of a crocodile, so long as I need not stay here! I am bored! I am bored to stupefaction! Everybody is sick of me. You leave me at home so that she should not be bored alone, but I do nothing but snap and nag at her!
Anna Petrovna Leave him alone, Count, leave him alone! Let him go if he enjoys it.
Ivanov Anyuta, why do you speak like that? You know I am not going for pleasure! I have to speak about the loan.
Anna Petrovna I don’t know why you justify yourself! Go! No one is keeping you!
Ivanov Come, don’t let us nag at each other! Surely it isn’t necessary?
Shabelsky In a tearful voice. Nicolas, dear boy, I implore you, take me with you! I shall have a look at the knaves and fools there and perhaps it will amuse me! I haven’t been anywhere since Easter!
Ivanov Irritably. Oh, very well, come along! How sick I am of you all!
Shabelsky Yes? Oh, merci, merci⁠ ⁠… cheerfully takes him by the arm and leads him aside. May I wear your straw hat?
Ivanov Yes, only make haste!
The Count runs indoors.
Ivanov How sick I am of you all! But, good God, what am I saying? Anyuta, I talk to you in an unpardonable way. I never used to be like this before. Well, goodbye, Anyuta, I shall be back by one.
Anna Petrovna Kolya, darling, stay at home!
Ivanov Agitated. My precious, my poor unhappy darling, I entreat you, don’t prevent my going out in the evening. It’s cruel and unfair of me, but let me be unfair! I feel miserably depressed at home! As soon as the sun sets, I am overcome by acute misery. Such misery! Don’t ask why it is. I don’t know myself. I swear I don’t! Here it is misery; I go to the Lebedyevs and there it is worse still; I come back and here misery again, and it goes on like that all night.⁠ ⁠… It’s simply desperate!
Anna Petrovna Kolya⁠ ⁠… but if you stay? We will talk as we used to.⁠ ⁠… We’ll have supper together; we will read.⁠ ⁠… The old grumbler and I have learned a lot of duets for you⁠ ⁠… puts her arms round him. Do stay! A pause. I don’t understand you. This has been going on for a whole year. Why have you changed?
Ivanov I don’t know, I don’t know.⁠ ⁠…
Anna Petrovna And why don’t you want me to go with you in the evening?
Ivanov If you will have it, I’ll tell you. It’s rather cruel to say it, but it is better to speak out.⁠ ⁠… When I am depressed I⁠ ⁠… I begin not to love you. I run away even from you at such times. In short, I must get away from home.
Anna Petrovna Depression! I understand⁠—I understand.⁠ ⁠… Do you know what, Kolya? Try to sing, to laugh, to get cross, as you used to.⁠ ⁠… Stay, we will laugh, drink homemade wine, and we’ll drive away your depression in an instant. Shall I sing to you? Or we’ll go and sit in your study in the dark as we used to, and you shall tell me about your depression.⁠ ⁠… Your eyes are so full of suffering! I will look into them and weep, and we shall both feel better⁠ ⁠… she laughs and cries. Or, Kolya, what is it? The flowers come again every spring, but joys do not? Yes? Well, go, go.⁠ ⁠…
Ivanov Pray for me, Anyuta! He moves forward, stops, and ponders. No, I cannot goes out.
Anna Petrovna Go⁠ ⁠… sits down at the table.
Lvov Pacing up and down the stage. Anna Petrovna, you must make it a rule as soon as the clock strikes six to come indoors and stay there till morning. The damp of the evening is bad for you.
Anna Petrovna Yes, sir!
Lvov What do you mean by that? I am speaking seriously.
Anna Petrovna And I don’t want to be serious coughs.
Lvov There, you see, you are coughing already.
Enter Shabelsky.
Shabelsky Comes out in a hat and overcoat. Where is Nikolay? Is the carriage there? Goes up quickly and kisses Anna Petrovna’s hand. Good night, my charmer! Grimacing. Gewalt! Vill you pardon me? Goes out quickly.
Lvov The buffoon!
A pause; the sound of a concertina far away.
Anna Petrovna How dull it is! The coachmen and the cooks have got up a ball, while I⁠ ⁠… I seem to be forsaken.⁠ ⁠… Yevgeny Konstantinitch, why are you striding up and down? Come here, sit down!
Lvov I can’t sit still a pause.
Anna Petrovna

They are playing the “Greenfinch” in the kitchen.

Sings. Greenfinch, greenfinch, where have you been?
Drinking vodka under the hill?

A pause. Doctor, have you got a father and mother?
Lvov My father is dead, but I have a mother.
Anna Petrovna Do you miss your mother?
Lvov I have no time to miss her.
Anna Petrovna Laughs. The flowers come again every spring, but joys do not. Who was it said that to me? Let me see.⁠ ⁠… I believe it was Nikolay himself listens. There’s the owl screeching again!
Lvov Well, let it screech.
Anna Petrovna I begin to think, doctor, that fate has been unfair to me. Numbers of people who are perhaps no better than I are happy and pay nothing for their happiness. I have paid for everything, absolutely everything! And what a price! Why take from me such terribly high interest?⁠ ⁠… My good friend, you are all on your guard with me⁠—you are so considerate, you are afraid to tell me the truth; but do you suppose I don’t know what’s the matter with me? I know very well. But it’s boring to talk about it. In a Jewish accent. Vill you pardon me, please? Can you tell funny stories?
Lvov No.
Anna Petrovna Nikolay can. And I begin to be surprised at people’s injustice. Why don’t they return love for love, and why do they repay truth with falsehood? Tell me, how long will my father and mother hate me? They live forty miles from here, but day and night, even in my sleep, I feel their hatred. And what would you have me make of Nikolay’s depression? He says that he doesn’t love me only in the evenings, when he is overwhelmed with depression. That I understand and can allow for. But only imagine if he should tire of me altogether! Of course it’s impossible, but⁠—if he did? No, no, I must not even think about it. Sings. Greenfinch, greenfinch, where have you been?⁠ ⁠… starts. What dreadful ideas come into my mind! You are not married, doctor, and there are many things you can’t understand.⁠ ⁠…
Lvov You are surprised⁠ ⁠… sits down beside her. No, I⁠ ⁠… I am surprised⁠—I am surprised at you! Come, explain, make me understand, how is it that you, intelligent, honest, almost a saint, have allowed yourself to be so shamelessly deceived and dragged into this owl’s nest? Why are you here? What have you in common with this cold, soulless⁠ ⁠… but let us leave your husband out! What have you in common with these vulgar, empty surroundings? Oh, good heavens!⁠ ⁠… that everlastingly grumbling, rusty, mad Count, that knave Misha⁠—a scoundrel if ever there was one⁠—with his revolting countenance.⁠ ⁠… Explain to me what you are here for. How did you come here?
Anna Petrovna Laughs. That’s just how he used once to talk. Word for word.⁠ ⁠… But his eyes are larger, and when he began talking of anything with excitement they glowed like coals.⁠ ⁠… Go on, go on!
Lvov Gets up with a wave of his hand. What am I to say? Go indoors!
Anna Petrovna You say that Nikolay is this and that, one thing and another. How do you know him? Do you suppose that you can get to know a man in six months? He is a remarkable man, doctor, and I am sorry that you did not meet him two or three years ago. Now he is depressed and melancholy, he doesn’t talk or do anything; but in the old days⁠ ⁠… how charming he was! I loved him at first sight laughs. I looked and the mousetrap went bang! He said “Come”⁠ ⁠… I cut off everything as, you know, one cuts off dead leaves with scissors, and followed him a pause. But now it is different. Now he goes to the Lebedyevs to distract his mind with other women, while I⁠ ⁠… sit in the garden and listen to the owl screeching⁠ ⁠… A watchman’s tap. And have you any brothers, doctor?
Lvov No.
Anna Petrovna breaks into sobs.
Lvov Well, what now? What’s the matter?
Anna Petrovna Gets up. I can’t bear it, doctor⁠ ⁠… I am going.⁠ ⁠…
Lvov Where he is⁠ ⁠… I am going. Tell them to put the horses in runs into the house.
Lvov No, I must absolutely decline to treat a patient under such conditions! It’s not enough that they don’t pay me a farthing, but they turn my soul inside out as well!⁠ ⁠… No, I decline! It’s too much⁠ ⁠… goes into the house.

Curtain.

Act II

A drawing-room in Lebedyev’s house; facing the stage a door into the garden; doors on right and left. Old-fashioned expensive furniture. A chandelier, candelabras, and pictures⁠—all under covers.

Zinaida Savishna, Kossih, Avdotya Nazarovna, Yegorushka, Gavril, a Maidservant, Old Lady Visitors, Young People, and Madame Babakin.

Zinaida Savishna is sitting on the sofa. Old Ladies are sitting in armchairs on either side of her, and Young People on ordinary chairs. In the background, near the way out into the garden, they are playing cards; among the players are Kossih, Avdotya Nazarovna and Yegorushka. Gavril is standing by the door on right; a Maidservant carries round a tray full of sweets. Throughout the act Guests pass across the stage from the garden to door on right and back again. Madame Babakin comes in from door on right and goes up to Zinaida Savishna.

Zinaida Joyfully. My darling Marfa Yegorovna!
Madame Babakin How are you, Zinaida Savishna? I have the honour to congratulate you on your daughter’s birthday. They kiss. God grant that⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida Thank you, darling, I am so glad.⁠ ⁠… Well, how are you?
Madame Babakin Thank you very much indeed sits down beside her on the sofa. How do you do, young people?
The Guests get up and bow.
First Guest Laughs. Young people!⁠ ⁠… Why, are you old, then?
Madame Babakin With a sigh. Well, I am sure I don’t claim to be young.⁠ ⁠…
First Guest Laughing respectfully. Upon my word, what next! You don’t look like a widow; you can give points to any young girl.
Gavril hands Madame Babakin tea.
Zinaida To Gavril. Why do you bring it like that? Fetch some jam. Gooseberry or something.
Madame Babakin Please don’t trouble. Thanks ever so much.⁠ ⁠…
A pause.
First Guest Did you drive through Mushkino, Marfa Yegorovna?
Madame Babakin No, through Zaimishtche. The road is better that way.
First Guest To be sure.
Kossih Two spades.
Yegorushka Pass.
Avdotya Pass.
Second Guest Pass.
Madame Babakin Lottery tickets have gone up shockingly, Zinaida Savishna, darling. It’s unheard of: the first drawings are worth two hundred and seventy and the second nearly two hundred and fifty. It has never been so much before.⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida Sighs. It’s a good thing for those who have plenty of them.
Madame Babakin Don’t say that, darling. Though the price is so high, it does not pay to put one’s money into them. The insurance alone is enough to drive you crazy.
Zinaida That may be so; but still, my dear, one has hopes⁠ ⁠… she sighs. God is merciful.
Third Guest From my point of view, mesdames, I maintain that it does not pay to have capital at all nowadays. Investments yield a very small dividend and to put money into business is extremely risky. The way I look at it, mesdames, is that the man who has capital in the present day is in a much more critical position than a man who⁠ ⁠…
Madame Babakin Sighing. That’s true!
First Guest yawns.
Madame Babakin Is that the way to behave before ladies?
First Guest Pardon, mesdames, it was an accident.
Zinaida Savishna gets up and goes out at the door on right. Prolonged silence.
Yegorushka Two of diamonds.
Avdotya Pass.
Second Guest Pass.
Kossih Pass.
Madame Babakin Aside. O Lord, how deadly dull it is!
Enter Zinaida Savishna and Lebedyev.
Zinaida Coming out of door on right with Lebedyev, quietly. What do you want to stick there for all alone! As though you were a prima-donna! Sit with your visitors sits down in the same place as before.
Lebedyev Yawns. Oh dear, oh dear! Seeing Madame Babakin. Saints alive, here is strawberry cream! Turkish delight! Shakes hands. How is your precious self?
Madame Babakin All right, thanks ever so much.
Lebedyev Well, thank God for that! Sits down. Yes, yes.⁠ ⁠… Gavril!
Gavril brings him a wineglass of vodka and a tumbler of water; he drinks up the vodka and sips the water.
First Guest To your very good health!
Lebedyev Very good health indeed!⁠ ⁠… I must be thankful I’ve not snuffed it altogether. To his wife. Zyuzushka, where is the queen of the day?
Kossih Plaintively. I should like to know why it is we have taken no tricks jumps up. Why have we lost every game? May the devil flay me entirely!
Avdotya Jumps up and says angrily. Why, because if you can’t play, my good man, you had better not take a hand. Whatever business had you to lead your opponent’s suit? That’s why you were left with your ace in pickle! They both run forward from the table.
Kossih In a tearful voice. Listen.⁠ ⁠… I had the ace, king, queen and eight more diamonds, the ace of spades and one little heart, you know.⁠ ⁠… And she could not declare a little slam⁠—the devil knows why! I said no trumps⁠ ⁠…
Avdotya It was I who said no trumps! You said two and no trumps.⁠ ⁠…
Kossih It’s revolting!⁠ ⁠… Excuse me⁠ ⁠… you had⁠ ⁠… I had⁠ ⁠… you had⁠ ⁠… To Lebedyev. Just think, Pavel Kirillitch⁠ ⁠… I had the ace, king, queen and eight more diamonds.⁠ ⁠…
Lebedyev Putting his fingers in his ears. Let me alone, if you don’t mind⁠ ⁠…
Avdotya Shouts. It was I said no trumps!
Kossih Ferociously. May I be damned and disgraced if I ever sit down again to play with that cross old crab! Goes quickly into the garden. Second Guest goes after him. Yegorushka is left at the table.
Avdotya Ugh! I am hot all over.⁠ ⁠… A crab!⁠ ⁠… You are a crab yourself!
Madame Babakin You are a hasty one, too, Granny.⁠ ⁠…
Avdotya Seeing Madame Babakin, flings up her hands. My joy, my beauty! She is here, and me so blind as not to see her!⁠ ⁠… My darling⁠ ⁠… kisses her on the shoulder and sits down beside her. How delightful! Let me have a look at you, my white swan!⁠ ⁠… I’ll knock on the wood!
Lebedyev Now you are off.⁠ ⁠… You’d much better be finding her a husband.⁠ ⁠…
Avdotya I will find her one! I won’t lay my sinful old bones in my coffin till I have married her off, and Sasha too!⁠ ⁠… I won’t!⁠ ⁠… a sigh. Only where are they to be found nowadays, these husbands? Here they sit ruffling up their feathers like cocks in the rain, our young men!
Third Guest A very unhappy comparison. In my opinion, mesdames, if young men nowadays prefer a bachelor existence, the reason is to be found in social conditions, so to say.⁠ ⁠…
Lebedyev Come, come, no moralising!⁠ ⁠… I don’t care for it⁠ ⁠…
Enter Sasha.
Sasha Goes up to her father. Such glorious weather, and you all sit here in this stuffy room.
Zinaida Sashenka, don’t you see that Marfa Yegorovna is here?
Sasha I am sorry goes up to Madame Babakin and shakes hands.
Madame Babakin You are growing proud, Sasha. You have not been to see me once kisses her. I congratulate you, darling.⁠ ⁠…
Sasha Thank you sits down beside her father.
Lebedyev Yes, Avdotya Nazarovna, it is a difficult job with the young men nowadays. One can’t get a decent best man for a wedding, let alone a husband. Nowadays young people (no offence to present company) are so limp and flabby, God help them!⁠ ⁠… They can’t talk, they can’t dance, they can’t drink.⁠ ⁠…
Avdotya Oh, they are all equal to drinking if they have the chance.
Lebedyev There’s no great art in drinking⁠—even a horse can drink.⁠ ⁠… The thing is to drink like a gentleman. In our time we used to be struggling all day with lectures, and as soon as evening came on we would go off anywhere and be twirling like a top till morning⁠ ⁠… and we danced and amused the young ladies and had a good drink too. We talked nonsense or talked philosophy till our tongues were tired.⁠ ⁠… But the young men nowadays⁠ ⁠… waves his hand. I can’t make them out.⁠ ⁠… Neither a candle to God nor a poker to the devil. There’s only one sensible fellow in the district, and he is married sighs, and I fancy he is beginning to go off his head too.⁠ ⁠…
Madame Babakin Who is that?
Lebedyev Nikolasha Ivanov.
Madame Babakin Yes, he is a nice gentleman makes a grimace. Only unfortunate!⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida How could he be fortunate, my dear? Sighs. What a mistake he made, poor fellow! He married his Jewess and reckoned, poor fellow! that her father and mother would give mountains of gold with her; but it has turned out quite the other way.⁠ ⁠… Ever since she changed her religion her father and mother have cast her off⁠—they cursed her.⁠ ⁠… So he hasn’t got a farthing. Now he is sorry, but it is too late.⁠ ⁠…
Sasha Mother, that’s not true.
Madame Babakin Hotly. Sasha! not true? Why, everybody knows it. If it weren’t for money why ever should he have married a Jewess? There are plenty of Russian girls, aren’t there? He made a mistake, darling, he made a mistake.⁠ ⁠… Eagerly. And, I say, how she catches it from him now! It is simply too funny. As soon as he comes home he is at her at once: “Your father and mother have cheated me! Get out of my house!” And where is she to go? Her father and mother won’t take her; she would go for a housemaid, but she has never been trained to do anything⁠ ⁠… And he goes on from one thing to another till the Count takes her part. If it were not for the Count he would have been the death of her long ago.⁠ ⁠…
Avdotya And sometimes he will shut her in the cellar and make her eat garlic.⁠ ⁠… She will eat it and eat it till she is sick laughter.
Sasha Father, that’s a lie, you know!
Lebedyev Well, what of it? Let them babble as they like⁠ ⁠… Shouts. Gavril!
Gavril hands him vodka and water.
Zinaida That’s how it is he has come to ruin, poor fellow! His affairs are in a bad way, my dear.⁠ ⁠… If Borkin did not look after the estate he and his Jewess would have nothing to eat sighs. And what we have had to put up with on his account, my dear.⁠ ⁠… God only knows what we have had to put up with! Would you believe it, dear, he has been owing us nine thousand for these three years!
Madame Babakin With horror. Nine thousand!
Zinaida Yes.⁠ ⁠… It was my precious Pashenka’s idea to give it to him. He never knows whom one can lend to and whom one can’t. I say nothing of the capital⁠—it’s no good worrying about that⁠—but he might at least pay the interest regularly.
Sasha Hotly. Mother, you have talked of that thousands of times already!
Zinaida What is it to you? Why do you defend him?
Sasha Getting up. But how can you have the face to talk like that about a man who has done you no sort of harm? Why, what has he done to you?
Third Guest Alexandra Pavlovna, allow me to say a couple of words. I respect Nikolay Alexeyevitch, and always considered it an honour⁠ ⁠… but, speaking entre nous, my opinion is that he is an adventurer.
Sasha Well, I congratulate you on your opinion.
Third Guest In support of it I beg to mention the following fact which was reported to me by his attaché or, so to speak, cicerone, Borkin. Two years ago at the time of the cattle plague he bought cattle, insured them⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida Yes, yes, yes! I remember the incident. I was told of it too.
Third Guest Insured them⁠—mark that⁠—then infected them with the cattle plague and got the insurance money.
Sasha Ugh, that’s all such rubbish! No one bought cattle or infected them! That was all Borkin’s invention, and he boasted of the plan everywhere. When Ivanov heard of it, Borkin was begging his pardon for a fortnight before he would forgive him. Ivanov is only to blame for being weak and not having the heart to kick that Borkin out, and he is to blame for putting too much trust in people too! He has been robbed and plundered on all sides: everyone who could made money out of his generous schemes.
Lebedyev Sasha, you little spitfire, shut up!
Sasha Why do they talk such nonsense? It’s so dull⁠—so boring! Ivanov, Ivanov, Ivanov⁠—you talk of nothing else goes to the door and turns back. I wonder! To the young men. I positively wonder at your patience, gentlemen! Aren’t you tired of sitting still like this? The very air is heavy with boredom! Do say something; entertain the young ladies; move about a little! Come, if you have no other subject but Ivanov, laugh, sing, dance or something.⁠ ⁠…
Lebedyev Laughing. Give it to them, give it to them well!
Sasha Come, I say, do something for me! If you don’t care to dance, to laugh, to sing, if all that bores you, I beg you, I entreat you, just for once in your life⁠—as a curiosity⁠—to surprise or amuse us: make a great effort and all together think of something witty and brilliant; say something, even if it is rude or vulgar, so long as it is amusing and new! Or all together do some little thing, however inconspicuous, so long as it is just conceivably worth doing, so that for once in their lives the young ladies may cry “Oh!” as they look at you. You do want to please, don’t you? So why don’t you try to be pleasing? Ah! my friends, you are not up to much⁠—not up to much, any of you.⁠ ⁠… The very flies die of boredom and the lamps begin smoking when they look at you.⁠ ⁠… You are not up to much, any of you.⁠ ⁠… I have told you so a thousand times already, and I shall always say so.
Enter Ivanov and Shabelsky.
Shabelsky Entering with Ivanov by door on right. Who is preaching here? You, Sasha? Laughs and shakes hands with her. Happy returns, my angel. God grant that you die as late as possible and are not born again.⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida Delightedly. Nikolay Alexeyevitch! Count!
Lebedyev Bah! Whom do I see?⁠ ⁠… The Count! Goes to meet him.
Shabelsky Seeing Zinaida Savishna and Madame Babakin, stretches out his hands to them. Two gold mines on one sofa!⁠ ⁠… Delightful spectacle! Shakes hands. To Zinaida Savishna. How do you do, Zyuzushka! To Madame Babakin. How do you do, dumpling!
Zinaida I am glad. You are such a rare visitor, Count! Shouts. Gavril, tea! Please sit down gets up, goes out of door on right and at once returns; she looks extremely preoccupied. Sasha sits down in the same place as before. Ivanov greets everyone in silence.
Lebedyev To Shabelsky. Where have you dropped from? What brought you here? It is a surprise! Kisses him. Count, you are a rascal! Is that the way for decent people to behave? Leads him by the hand to the footlights. Why do you never come and see us? Are you cross, or what?
Shabelsky How can I come and see you? Astride a stick? I have no horses, and Nikolay won’t bring me with him: he tells me to stay with Sarra, to keep her company. Send your horses for me, and then I will come.⁠ ⁠…
Lebedyev With a wave of his hand. Oh, well! Zyuzushka would burst before she’d let me have the horses. You dear creature, you darling, you know you are nearer and dearer to me than anyone! Of all the old set there is no one left but you and me! In you I love my sorrows of past years, and my fair youth so idly flung away.⁠ ⁠… Joking apart, I feel ready to cry! Kisses the Count.
Shabelsky Let go⁠—let go! You smell like a wine-cellar.⁠ ⁠…
Lebedyev My dear soul, you can’t think how I miss my old friends! I could hang myself, I am so miserable softly. Zyuzushka, with her money-grubbing, has driven all decent people away, and as you see we have none but Zulus left⁠ ⁠… these Dudkins and Budkins.⁠ ⁠… Come, drink your tea!
Gavril brings Shabelsky tea.
Zinaida Anxiously to Gavril. What are you doing? Bring some jam⁠ ⁠… gooseberry, or something⁠ ⁠…
Shabelsky Laughs; to Ivanov. There; did I not tell you? To Lebedyev. I bet him on the way that as soon as we got here Zyuzushka would regale us with gooseberry jam.⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida You are just as fond of your joke as ever, Count sits down.
Lebedyev She has made two barrels of gooseberry jam, so what is she to do with it?
Shabelsky Sitting down near the table. You are saving money, Zyuzushka, aren’t you? I suppose you are a millionaire by now, eh?
Zinaida With a sigh. Yes, to outsiders it seems as though we are richer than anyone, but where could we get money from? That’s all gossip.⁠ ⁠…
Shabelsky Come, come! We know all about that!⁠ ⁠… We know what a poor hand you are at the game⁠ ⁠… To Lebedyev. Pasha, tell the truth, have you saved a million?
Lebedyev I don’t know. Ask Zyuzushka.⁠ ⁠…
Shabelsky To Madame Babakin. And our fat little dumpling will soon have a million too! She gets plumper and prettier, not every day, but every hour! That’s what it is to have plenty of money.⁠ ⁠…
Madame Babakin I am very much obliged to your Excellency, but I am not fond of being jeered at.
Shabelsky My dear goldmine, do you suppose it was a jeer? It was simply a cry from the heart. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh.⁠ ⁠… There is no limit to my affection for you and Zyuzushka gaily. It’s rapture, ecstasy! I can’t look at either of you unmoved!
Zinaida You are just the same as ever. To Yegorushka. Yegorushka, put out the candles! Why let them burn for nothing when you are not playing? Yegorushka starts; puts out the candles and sits down. To Ivanov. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, how is your wife?
Ivanov She is very ill. The doctor told us today that it is certainly consumption.
Zinaida Really? What a pity! A sigh. We are all so fond of her.
Shabelsky Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense!⁠ ⁠… There is no consumption at all: it’s all quackery⁠—doctors’ tricks. The learned gentleman likes to hang about the house, so he makes out it’s consumption. Luckily for him the husband is not jealous. Ivanov makes a gesture of impatience. As for Sarra herself, I don’t trust a word she says or a thing she does. All my life I’ve never trusted doctors, lawyers, or women. It’s all nonsense and nonsense, quackery and tricks!
Lebedyev To Shabelsky. You are a strange individual, Matvey!⁠ ⁠… You’ve taken up this affectation of misanthropy and play about with it like a fool with a new hat. You are a man like anyone else, but you are as peevish in your talk as though you had a blister on your tongue, or indigestion.⁠ ⁠…
Shabelsky Why, would you have me kiss rogues and scoundrels, or what?
Lebedyev Where do you see rogues and scoundrels?
Shabelsky I don’t refer to present company, of course, but⁠ ⁠…
Lebedyev There you are with your buts.⁠ ⁠… It’s all affectation.
Shabelsky Affectation?⁠ ⁠… It’s a good thing you’ve no philosophy of life.
Lebedyev What philosophy could I have? I sit every minute expecting to kick the bucket. That’s my philosophy of life. It’s too late for you and me, old man, to talk of philosophies of life. Yes, indeed! Shouts. Gavril!
Shabelsky You have had too much of Gavril as it is.⁠ ⁠… Your nose is like beetroot already.
Lebedyev Drinks. Never mind, my dear soul⁠ ⁠… it’s not my wedding day.
Zinaida It is a long while since Dr. Lvov has been to see us. He has quite deserted us.
Sasha My pet aversion. The walking image of honesty. He can’t ask for a glass of water or smoke a cigarette without displaying his extraordinary honesty. If he walks about or talks, his face is always labelled “I am an honest man.” He bores me.
Shabelsky He is a stiff-necked, narrow-minded individual! Mimicking. “Make way for honest labour!” He shouts like a cockatoo at every step, and he fancies he is really a second Dobrolyubov. If a man does not shout as he does, he is a scoundrel. His views are wonderfully profound. If a peasant is well off and lives like a human being, he is a scoundrel and a bloodsucker. I put on a velvet jacket and am dressed by a valet, so I am a scoundrel and a slave-owner. He is simply bursting with honesty. Nothing is good enough for him. I am positively afraid of him.⁠ ⁠… Yes, indeed! any minute he may slap you in the face or call you a scoundrel from a sense of duty.
Ivanov He wearies me dreadfully, but at the same time I like him; he is so sincere.
Shabelsky Nice sort of sincerity! He came up to me yesterday evening, and apropos of nothing at all: “You are deeply repulsive to me, Count!” I am very much obliged! And all that not simply, but from principle: his voice shakes, his eyes flash, and he is all of a tremor.⁠ ⁠… Damnation take his wooden sincerity! He may find me hateful and disgusting; it’s natural enough. I can see that, but why tell me so to my face? I am a wretched creature, but anyway my hair is grey.⁠ ⁠… A stupid, pitiless honesty!
Lebedyev Come, come, come!⁠ ⁠… You’ve been young yourself, and can make allowances.
Shabelsky Yes, I’ve been young and foolish: I’ve played the Tchatsky in my day. I’ve denounced rascals and blackguards, but never in my life have I called a man a thief to his face, or talked of the gallows in the house of a man who has been hanged. I was decently brought up. But your dull-witted doctor would be in the seventh heaven and feel that he was fulfilling his mission, if fate would grant him the opportunity of publicly slapping me in the face and punching me in the pit of the stomach for the sake of principle and the great ideals of humanity.
Lebedyev Young people are always self-assertive. I had an uncle, a Hegelian⁠ ⁠… he would invite a houseful of visitors, drink with them, stand up on a chair like this and begin: “You are ignorant! You are the powers of darkness! The dawn of a new life,” etc., etc., etc.⁠ ⁠… He would go on and on at them.
Sasha And what did the visitors do?
Lebedyev Oh, nothing⁠ ⁠… they just listened and went on drinking. Once, though, I challenged him to a duel⁠ ⁠… my own uncle. It was about Bacon. I remember, if I am right, I was sitting where Matvey is now, and my uncle and Gerassim Nilitch were standing as it might be here, where Nikolay is.⁠ ⁠… And Gerassim Nilitch, if you please, puts the question⁠ ⁠…
Borkin, foppishly dressed, with a parcel in his hand, comes in at door on right, humming and skipping about. A murmur of approval.
Young Ladies Mihail Mihailitch!
Lebedyev Mihail Mihailitch! My ears tell me⁠ ⁠…
Shabelsky The soul of the party!
Borkin Here I am! Runs up to Sasha. Noble lady! I venture to make so bold as to congratulate the universe on the birth of so marvellous a flower as you.⁠ ⁠… As the tribute of my enthusiasm may I dare to offer you gives her the parcel some fireworks and Bengal fires of my own manufacture? May they illuminate the night as you lighten the gloom of the kingdom of darkness makes a theatrical bow.
Sasha Thank you.⁠ ⁠…
Lebedyev Laughing, to Ivanov. Why don’t you get rid of that Judas?
Borkin To Lebedyev. My respects to Pavel Kirillitch! To Ivanov. To my patron! Sings. Nicolas, voilà, ho-hi-ho. Makes the round of the whole party. To the most honoured Zinaida Savishna! Divine Marfa Yegorovna⁠ ⁠… most ancient Avdotya Nazarovna⁠ ⁠… most illustrious Count.⁠ ⁠…
Shabelsky Laughs. The soul of the party.⁠ ⁠… As soon as he comes in the atmosphere grows lighter. Have you noticed it?
Borkin Ough, I am tired.⁠ ⁠… I believe I have greeted everybody now. Well, what’s the news, ladies and gentlemen? Is there nothing special to wake us up? Briskly to Zinaida Savishna. I say, mamma⁠ ⁠… as I was on the way here⁠ ⁠… To Gavril. Give me some tea, Gavril, but no gooseberry jam! To Zinaida Savishna. As I was on the way here I saw the peasants stripping the bark of your osiers on the river. Why don’t you let a dealer have them?
Lebedyev To Ivanov. Why don’t you get rid of that Judas?
Zinaida Aghast. I might, that’s true, the idea never struck me!
Borkin Does drill exercises with his arms. I can’t get on without exercise.⁠ ⁠… What can I do that’s extra special, mamma? Marfa Yegorovna, I am in form tonight⁠ ⁠… wild with excitement! Sings. “Once more I stand before thee.⁠ ⁠…”
Zinaida Get up something, for we are all bored.
Borkin Really! Why are you all so down in the mouth? You sit like jurymen!⁠ ⁠… Let us do something. What would you like? Forfeits? Hide the ring? Touch third? Dancing? Fireworks?
Young Ladies Clap their hands. Fireworks! Fireworks! They run into the garden.
Sasha To Ivanov. Why are you so depressed this evening?
Ivanov My head aches, Sasha, and I am bored.⁠ ⁠…
Sasha Come into the drawing-room. They go towards door on right; everyone goes into the garden except Zinaida Savishna and Lebedyev.
Zinaida Well, that’s something like a young man⁠—before he has been here a minute he has cheered them all up turns down the big lamp. While they are all out in the garden it is no use wasting the candles puts out the candles.
Lebedyev Following her. Zyuzushka, we ought to give our visitors something to eat.⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida There, what a lot of candles⁠ ⁠… no wonder people think we are rich puts out the candles.
Lebedyev Following her. Zyuzushka, you ought to give the people something to eat.⁠ ⁠… They are young people, I bet they are hungry, poor things.⁠ ⁠… Zyuzushka.⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida The Count has not finished his glass. Simply wasting sugar! Goes towards door on left.
Lebedyev Tfoo! Goes out into the garden.
Enter Ivanov and Sasha.
Sasha Comes in with Ivanov from door on right. They have all gone into the garden.
Ivanov That’s how it is, Sasha. In old days I did a lot of work and a lot of thinking and never got tired; now I do nothing and think of nothing, and I am weary body and soul. My conscience aches night and day, I feel that I am terribly to blame, but exactly in what way I am to blame I don’t know. And then my wife’s illness, no money, the everlasting nagging and gossip, unnecessary talk, that fool Borkin.⁠ ⁠… My home has grown hateful to me, and living in it is worse than torture. I tell you openly, Sasha, even to be with my wife who loves me has become unbearable. You are my old friend, and won’t be angry with me for speaking the truth. I have come to you to distract my mind, but I am bored here too, and I am longing to get home again. Forgive me, I will just slip away.
Sasha Nikolay Alexeyevitch, I understand you. Your misfortune is that you are all alone. You ought to have someone by you whom you love and who understands you. Nothing can renew you but love.
Ivanov What next, Sasha! That would be the last straw for a wretched bedraggled old creature like me to start a new love affair! God preserve me from such a calamity! No, my wise little friend, it is not a case for love affairs. I tell you in all solemnity, I can put up with everything⁠—misery and neurasthenia and bankruptcy and the loss of my wife and my premature old age and my loneliness⁠—but I cannot endure my contempt for myself. I could die with shame at the thought that I, a strong healthy man, have turned into a sort of Hamlet or a Manfred or a superfluous man⁠ ⁠… the devil knows what. There are pitiful creatures who are flattered at being called Hamlets or superfluous men, but to me it is a disgrace! It wounds my pride, I am crushed by shame, and I am miserable.⁠ ⁠…
Sasha Jestingly through tears. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, let us run off to America.
Ivanov I am too lazy to move to this door, and you talk of America⁠ ⁠… They go to the door into the garden. Of course, Sasha, you don’t have an easy time of it here. When I look at the people that surround you, I feel horrified at the thought of whom you can marry. The only hope is that some lieutenant or student will pass this way and carry you off.⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida Savishna comes in from door on left with a jar of jam.
Ivanov Excuse me, Sasha, I will come after you.⁠ ⁠…
Sasha goes out into the garden.
Ivanov Zinaida Savishna, I’ve come to ask you a favour.
Zinaida What is it, Nikolay Alexeyevitch?
Ivanov Hesitates. Well, you see, the fact is that the day after tomorrow the interest on your loan is due. You would very greatly oblige me if you would give me a little longer, or would let me add the interest on to the principal. I have no money at all at the moment.⁠ ⁠…
Zinaida Alarmed. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, how is that possible? That’s not the way to do things! No, don’t think of such a thing. For God’s sake don’t worry me, I have troubles enough.⁠ ⁠…
Ivanov I am sorry, I am sorry⁠ ⁠… goes out into the garden.
Zinaida Ough, he has upset me! I am all of a shake⁠ ⁠… all of a shake⁠ ⁠… goes out at door on right.
Enter Kossih.
Kossih Enters from left door and crosses the stage. I had the ace, king, queen, and eight more diamonds, the ace of spades and just one⁠ ⁠… one little heart, and she could not declare a little slam, the devil take her entirely.⁠ ⁠… goes out at door on right.
Enter Avdotya Nazarovna and First Guest.
Avdotya Coming from the garden with First Guest. I could tear her to pieces, I could tear her to pieces, the old skinflint! It’s no joke. I’ve been sitting here since five o’clock and she has not offered us as much as a stale herring!⁠ ⁠… It is a house!⁠ ⁠… It is a way to manage!
First Guest I am so bored that I could run and bash my head against the wall! They are people, Lord have mercy upon us! One is so hungry and so bored; it’s enough to make one howl like a wolf and begin snapping at people.
Avdotya Couldn’t I tear her to pieces, sinful woman that I am!
First Guest I’ll have a drink, old lady, and get home! I don’t want your eligible young ladies. How the devil is one to think of love when one has not had one glass of wine since dinner?
Avdotya Let’s go and look for something.⁠ ⁠…
First Guest Sh‑sh! Quietly! I believe there is vodka in the sideboard in the dining-room. We’ll get hold of Yegorushka.⁠ ⁠… Sh‑sh! They go out by door on left.
Anna Petrovna and Lvov come out of door on right.
Anna Petrovna It’s all right, they will be pleased to see us. Nobody here. They must be in the garden.
Lvov I wonder why you have brought me here into this nest of vultures? This is no place for you or me. Honest people ought to keep out of this atmosphere!
Anna Petrovna Listen, Mr. Honest Man! It is not polite to take a lady out and to talk to her of nothing but your honesty all the way! It may be honest, but to say the least of it, it is wearisome. You should never talk to women about your virtues. Let them see those for themselves. When my Nikolay was your age he did nothing but sing songs and tell stories in the company of ladies, but they could all see what sort of man he was.
Lvov Oh, don’t talk to me about your Nikolay. I understand him perfectly!
Anna Petrovna You are a good man, but you don’t understand anything. Let us go into the garden. He never used such expressions as “I am honest! I am stifled in this atmosphere! Vultures! Owl’s nest! Crocodiles!” He used to leave the menagerie alone, and when he had been indignant all I heard from him was, “Ah, how unjust I was today!” or “Anyuta, I am sorry for that man!” That’s what he was like, while you⁠ ⁠… They go out.
Enter Avdotya Nazarovna and First Guest.
First Guest Coming in from door on left. It’s not in the dining-room, so it must be somewhere in the larder. We must try Yegorushka. Let us go through the drawing-room.
Avdotya Couldn’t I tear her to pieces! They go out at door on right.
Madame Babakin and Borkin run out of the garden, laughing; Shabelsky comes tripping after them, laughing, and rubbing his hands.
Madame Babakin How dull it is! Laughs. It is dull! They all sit and walk about as though they had swallowed a poker. I am stiff with boredom skips about. I must stretch my legs! Borkin puts his arm round her waist and kisses her on the cheek.
Shabelsky Laughs and snaps his fingers. Dash it all! Clears his throat. After all⁠ ⁠…
Madame Babakin Let go, take away your arm, you shameless fellow, or goodness knows what the Count will think! Leave off!⁠ ⁠…
Borkin Angel of my soul, jewel of my heart!⁠ ⁠… kisses her. Do lend me two thousand three hundred roubles!⁠ ⁠…
Madame Babakin N‑no, n‑no, n‑no.⁠ ⁠… You may say what you like, but as regards money, no thank you.⁠ ⁠… No, no, no! Oh, take your arms away!
Shabelsky Prances round them. The little dumpling.⁠ ⁠… She has her charm.⁠ ⁠…
Borkin Gravely. Come, that’s enough. Let us come to the point. Let us discuss things straightforwardly, in a businesslike way. Give me a direct answer, without any tricks or subtleties: yes or no? Listen points to the Count. He wants money, at least three thousand roubles a year. You want a husband. Would you like to be a Countess?
Shabelsky Laughs. A wonderful cynic!
Borkin Would you like to be a Countess? Yes or no?
Madame Babakin Agitated. Do think what you are saying, Misha, really! And such things aren’t done in this slapdash way.⁠ ⁠… If the Count wishes it he can himself⁠ ⁠… and I don’t know really how, all of a minute.⁠ ⁠…
Borkin Come, come, that’s enough airs and graces! It’s a business matter.⁠ ⁠… Yes or no?
Shabelsky Laughing and rubbing his hands. Yes, really, eh? Dash it all, why not play this dirty trick? What? The dumpling! Kisses Madame Babakin on the cheek. Charmer! Peach!
Madame Babakin Wait a minute, wait a minute.⁠ ⁠… You’ve quite upset me.⁠ ⁠… Go away, go away! No, don’t go!⁠ ⁠…
Borkin Make haste! Yes or no? We’ve no time to waste.⁠ ⁠…
Madame Babakin I tell you what, Count. You come and stay with me for two or three days.⁠ ⁠… You’ll find it jolly, it’s not like this house. Come tomorrow.⁠ ⁠… To Borkin. No, you are joking, aren’t you?
Borkin Angrily. As though one would joke about serious things!
Madame Babakin Wait a minute, wait a minute.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I feel faint! I feel faint! Countess⁠ ⁠… I am fainting.⁠ ⁠… I shall drop.⁠ ⁠… Borkin and the Count, laughing, take her arm-in-arm and, kissing her on the cheek, lead her out by door on right.
Ivanov and Sasha run in from the garden.
Ivanov Clutching his head in despair. It cannot be! Don’t, don’t, Sasha!⁠ ⁠… Oh, don’t!
Sasha Carried away. I love you madly. There is no meaning in life, no joy, no happiness without you! You are everything to me!⁠ ⁠…
Ivanov What’s the use, what’s the use? My God! I don’t understand it! Sasha, don’t!⁠ ⁠…
Sasha In my childhood you were my only joy; I loved you and your soul like myself, but now⁠ ⁠… I love you, Nikolay Alexeyevitch!⁠ ⁠… I’ll go with you to the ends of the earth, where you like, to the grave, if you will, but for God’s sake let it be soon or I shall be stifled.⁠ ⁠…
Ivanov Breaks into a happy laugh. What is it? Beginning life again then, Sasha, yes?⁠ ⁠… My happiness! Draws her to him. My youth, my freshness!⁠ ⁠…
Anna Petrovna comes in from the garden and, seeing her husband and Sasha, stands rooted to the spot.
Ivanov I am to live then? Yes? To get to work again? A kiss. After the kiss Ivanov and Sasha look round and see Anna Petrovna.
Ivanov In horror. Sarra!

Curtain.

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.

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.

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Ivanov
was published in by
Anton Chekhov.
It was translated from Russian in by
Constance Garnett.

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