Act IV

Voynitsky’s room: it is his bedroom and also his office. In the window there is a big table covered with account books and papers of all sorts; a bureau, bookcases, scales. A smaller table, for Astrov; on that table there are paints and drawing materials; beside it a big portfolio. A cage with a starling in it. On the wall a map of Africa, obviously of no use to anyone. A big sofa covered with American leather. To the left a door leading to other apartments. On the right a door into the hall; near door, on right, there is a doormat, that the peasants may not muddy the floor. An autumn evening. Stillness.

Telyegin and Marina sitting opposite each other winding wool.
Telyegin You must make haste, Marina Timofeyevna, they will soon be calling us to say goodbye. They have already ordered the horses.
Marina Tries to wind more rapidly. There is not much left.
Telyegin They are going to Harkov. They’ll live there.
Marina Much better so.
Telyegin They’ve had a fright.⁠ ⁠… Yelena Andreyevna keeps saying, “I won’t stay here another hour. Let us get away; let us get away.” “We will stay at Harkov,” she says; “we will have a look round and then send for our things.⁠ ⁠…” They are not taking much with them. It seems it is not ordained that they should live here, Marina Timofeyevna. It’s not ordained.⁠ ⁠… It’s the dispensation of Providence.
Marina It’s better so. Look at the quarrelling and shooting this morning⁠—a regular disgrace!
Telyegin Yes, a subject worthy of the brush of Aivazovsky.
Marina A shocking sight it was a pause. We shall live again in the old way, as we used to. We shall have breakfast at eight, dinner at one, and sit down to supper in the evening; everything as it should be, like other people⁠ ⁠… like Christians with a sigh. It’s a long while since I have tasted noodles, sinner that I am!
Telyegin Yes, it’s a long time since they have given us noodles at dinner a pause. A very long time.⁠ ⁠… As I was walking through the village this morning, Marina Timofeyevna, the man at the shop called after me, “You cadger, living upon other people.” And it did hurt me so.
Marina You shouldn’t take any notice of that, my dear. We all live upon God. Whether it’s you or Sonya or Ivan Petrovitch, none of you sit idle, we all work hard! All of us.⁠ ⁠… Where is Sonya?
Telyegin In the garden. She is still going round with the doctor looking for Ivan Petrovitch. They are afraid he may lay hands on himself.
Marina And where is his pistol?
Telyegin In a whisper. I’ve hidden it in the cellar!
Marina With a smile. What goings-on!
Enter Voynitsky and Astrov from outside.
Voynitsky Let me alone. To Marina and Telyegin. Go away, leave me alone⁠—if only for an hour! I won’t endure being watched.
Telyegin Certainly, Vanya goes out on tiptoe.
Marina The gander says, ga-ga-ga! Gathers up her wool and goes out.
Voynitsky Let me alone!
Astrov I should be delighted to. I ought to have gone away ages ago, but I repeat I won’t go till you give back what you took from me.
Voynitsky I did not take anything from you.
Astrov I am speaking in earnest, don’t detain me. I ought to have gone long ago.
Voynitsky I took nothing from you. Both sit down.
Astrov Oh! I’ll wait a little longer and then, excuse me, I must resort to force. We shall have to tie your hands and search you. I am speaking quite seriously.
Voynitsky As you please a pause. To have made such a fool of myself: to have fired twice and missed him! I shall never forgive myself for that.
Astrov If you wanted to be playing with firearms, you would have done better to take a pop at yourself.
Voynitsky Shrugging his shoulders. It’s queer. I made an attempt to commit murder and I have not been arrested; no one has sent for the police. So I am looked upon as a madman with a bitter laugh. I am mad, but people are not mad who hide their crass stupidity, their flagrant heartlessness under the mask of a professor, a learned sage. People are not mad who marry old men and then deceive them before the eyes of everyone. I saw you kissing her! I saw!
Astrov Yes, I did kiss her, and that’s more than you ever have!
Voynitsky Looking towards the door. No, the earth is mad to let you go on living on it!
Astrov Come, that’s silly.
Voynitsky Well, I am mad. I am not responsible. I have a right to say silly things.
Astrov That’s a stale trick. You are not a madman: you are simply a crank. A silly fool. Once I used to look upon every crank as an invalid⁠—as abnormal; but now I think it is the normal condition of man to be a crank. You are quite normal.
Voynitsky Covers his face with his hands. I am ashamed! If you only knew how ashamed I am! No pain can be compared with this acute shame miserably. It’s unbearable bends over the table. What am I to do? What am I to do?
Astrov Nothing.
Voynitsky Give me something! Oh, my God! I am forty-seven. If I live to be sixty, I have another thirteen years. It’s a long time! How am I to get through those thirteen years? What shall I do? How am I to fill them up? Oh, you know⁠ ⁠… squeezing Astrov’s hand convulsively; you know, if only one could live the remnant of one’s life in some new way. Wake up on a still sunny morning and feel that one had begun a new life, that all the past was forgotten and had melted away like smoke weeps. To begin a new life.⁠ ⁠… Tell me how to begin it⁠ ⁠… what to begin.⁠ ⁠…
Astrov With vexation. Oh, get away with you! New life, indeed! Our position⁠—yours and mine⁠—is hopeless.
Voynitsky Yes?
Astrov I am convinced of it.
Voynitsky Give me something.⁠ ⁠… Pointing to his heart. I have a scalding pain here.
Astrov Shouts angrily. Leave off! Softening. Those who will live a hundred or two hundred years after us, and who will despise us for having lived our lives so stupidly and tastelessly⁠—they will, perhaps, find a means of being happy; but we⁠ ⁠… There is only one hope for you and me. The hope that when we are asleep in our graves we may, perhaps, be visited by pleasant visions with a sigh. Yes, old man, in the whole district there were only two decent, well-educated men: you and I. And in some ten years the common round of the trivial life here has swamped us, and has poisoned our life with its putrid vapours, and made us just as despicable as all the rest. Eagerly. But don’t try to put me off: give me what you took away from me.
Voynitsky I took nothing from you.
Astrov You took a bottle of morphia out of my travelling medicine-chest a pause. Look here, if you insist on making an end of yourself, go into the forest and shoot yourself. But give me back the morphia or else there will be talk and conjecture. People will think I have given it you. It will be quite enough for me to have to make your postmortem. Do you think I shall find it interesting?
Enter Sonya.
Voynitsky Leave me alone.
Astrov To Sonya. Sofya Alexandrovna, your uncle has taken a bottle of morphia out of my medicine-chest, and won’t give it back. Tell him that it’s⁠ ⁠… really stupid. And I haven’t the time to waste. I ought to be going.
Sonya Uncle Vanya, did you take the morphia? A pause.
Astrov He did. I am certain of it.
Sonya Give it back. Why do you frighten us? Tenderly. Give it back, Uncle Vanya! I am just as unhappy, perhaps, as you are; but I am not going to give way to despair. I am bearing it, and will bear it, till my life ends of itself.⁠ ⁠… You must be patient too a pause. Give it back! Kisses his hands. Dear, good uncle, darling! give it back! Weeps. You are kind, you will have pity on us and give it back. Be patient, uncle!⁠—be patient!
Voynitsky Takes the bottle out of the table-drawer and gives it to Astrov. There, take it! To Sonya. But we must make haste and work, make haste and do something, or else I can’t⁠ ⁠… I can’t bear it.
Sonya Yes, yes, work. As soon as we have seen our people off, we’ll sit down to work. Nervously turning over the papers on the table. We have let everything go.
Astrov Puts the bottle into his case and tightens the straps. Now I can set off.
Enter Yelena.
Yelena Ivan Petrovitch, are you here? We are just starting. Go to Alexandr, he wants to say something to you.
Sonya Go, Uncle Vanya. Takes Voynitsky by the arm. Let us go. Father and you must be reconciled. That’s essential.
Sonya and Voynitsky go out.
Yelena I am going away. Gives Astrov her hand. Goodbye.
Astrov Already?
Yelena The carriage is waiting.
Astrov Goodbye.
Yelena You promised me today that you would go away.
Astrov I remember. I am just going a pause. You have taken fright? Takes her hand. Is it so terrible?
Yelena Yes.
Astrov You had better stay, after all! What do you say? Tomorrow in the plantation⁠—
Yelena No. It’s settled. And I look at you so fearlessly just because it is settled. I have only one favour to ask of you: think better of me. I should like you to have a respect for me.
Astrov Ugh! Makes a gesture of impatience. Do stay, I ask you to. Do recognise, you have nothing to do in this world, you have no object in life, you have nothing to occupy your mind, and sooner or later you will give way to feeling⁠—it’s inevitable. And it had better not be at Harkov, or somewhere in Kursk, but here, in the lap of nature.⁠ ⁠… It’s poetical, anyway, even the autumn is beautiful.⁠ ⁠… There is the forest plantation here, half-ruined homesteads in the Turgenev style.⁠ ⁠…
Yelena How absurd you are.⁠ ⁠… I am angry with you, but yet⁠ ⁠… I shall think of you with pleasure. You are an interesting, original man. We shall never meet again, and so⁠—why conceal it?⁠—I was really a little bit in love with you. Come, let us shake hands and part friends. Don’t remember evil against me.
Astrov Pressing her hand. Yes, you had better go⁠ ⁠… musing. You seem to be a good, warmhearted creature, and yet there is something strange about your whole personality, as it were. You came here with your husband, and all of us who were at work, toiling and creating something, had to fling aside our work and attend to nothing all the summer but your husband’s gout and you. The two of you have infected all of us with your idleness. I was attracted by you and have done nothing for a whole month, and, meanwhile, people have been ill, and the peasants have pastured their cattle in my woods, of young, half-grown trees.⁠ ⁠… And so, wherever you and your husband go, you bring destruction everywhere.⁠ ⁠… I am joking, of course, yet⁠ ⁠… it is strange. And I am convinced that if you had stayed here, the devastation would have been immense. I should have been done for⁠ ⁠… and you wouldn’t have fared well either! Well, go away. Finita la comedia!
Yelena Taking a pencil from his table and hurriedly putting it in her pocket. I shall take this pencil as a keepsake.
Astrov It is strange.⁠ ⁠… We have been friends and all at once for some reason⁠ ⁠… we shall never meet again. So it is with everything in this world.⁠ ⁠… While there is no one here⁠—before Uncle Vanya comes in with a nosegay⁠—allow me to kiss you at parting.⁠ ⁠… Yes? Kisses her on the cheek. That’s right.
Yelena I wish you all happiness. Looks round. Well, so be it! For once in my life! Embraces him impulsively and both simultaneously draw rapidly apart from each other. I must go⁠—I must go!
Astrov Make haste and go. Since the carriage is there, you had better set off.
Yelena There’s someone coming, I believe. Both listen.
Astrov Finita!
Enter Serebryakov, Voynitsky, Marya Vassilyevna, with a book; Telyegin and Sonya.
Serebryakov To Voynitsky. Let bygones be bygones. After what has happened, I have gone through and experienced so much in these few hours, that I believe I could write a whole treatise on the art of living for the benefit of posterity. I gladly accept your apologies and apologise myself. Goodbye! He and Voynitsky kiss each other three times.
Voynitsky You shall receive regularly the same sum as hitherto. Everything shall be as before.
Yelena Andreyevna embraces Sonya.
Serebryakov Kisses Marya Vassilyevna’s hand. Maman.⁠ ⁠…
Marya Kissing him. Alexandr, have your photograph taken again and send it to me. You know how dear you are to me.
Telyegin Goodbye, your Excellency! Don’t forget us!
Serebryakov Kissing his daughter. Goodbye goodbye, everyone. Shaking hands with Astrov. Thanks for your pleasant company. I respect your way of thinking, your enthusiasms, your impulses, but permit an old man to add one observation to his farewell message: you must work, my friends! you must work! He bows to them all. I wish you all things good!
Goes out, followed by Marya Vassilyevna and Sonya.
Voynitsky Warmly kisses Yelena Andreyevna’s hand. Goodbye.⁠ ⁠… Forgive me.⁠ ⁠… We shall never meet again.
Yelena Moved. Goodbye, dear Ivan Petrovitch kisses him on the head and goes out.
Astrov To Telyegin. Waffles, tell them, by the way, to bring my carriage round too.
Telyegin Certainly, my dear soul goes out.
Only Astrov and Voynitsky remain.
Astrov Clearing his paints from the table and putting them away in his portmanteau. Why don’t you go and see them off?
Voynitsky Let them go, I⁠ ⁠… I can’t. My heart is too heavy. I must make haste and occupy myself with something.⁠ ⁠… Work! Work! Rummages among his papers on the table.
A pause; there is the sound of bells.
Astrov They’ve gone. The Professor is glad, I’ll be bound. Nothing will tempt him back.
Marina Enters. They’ve gone sits down in an easy chair and knits her stocking.
Sonya Enters. They’ve gone wipes her eyes. Good luck to them. To her uncle. Well, Uncle Vanya, let us do something.
Voynitsky Work, work.⁠ ⁠…
Sonya It’s ever so long since we sat at this table together lights the lamp on the table. I believe there is no ink takes the inkstand, goes to the cupboard, and fills it with ink. But I feel sad that they have gone.
Marya Vassilyevna comes in slowly.
Marya They’ve gone sits down and becomes engrossed in reading.
Sonya Sits down to the table and turns over the pages of the account book. First of all, Uncle Vanya, let us make out our accounts. We’ve neglected it all dreadfully. Someone sent for his account again today. Make it out. If you will do one account, I will do another.
Voynitsky Writes. “Delivered⁠ ⁠… to Mr.⁠ ⁠…”Both write in silence.
Marina Yawning. I am ready for bye-bye.
Astrov How quiet it is! The pens scratch and the cricket churrs. It’s warm and snug. I don’t want to go. There is the sound of bells. There are my horses.⁠ ⁠… There is nothing left for me but to say goodbye to you, my friends⁠—to say goodbye to my table⁠—and be off! Packs up his maps in the portfolio.
Marina Why are you in such a hurry? You might as well stay.
Astrov I can’t.
Voynitsky Writes. “Account delivered, two roubles and seventy-five kopecks.”
Enter a Labourer.
Labourer Mihail Lvovitch, the horses are ready.
Astrov I heard them. Hands him the medicine-chest, the portmanteau and the portfolio. Here, take these. Mind you don’t crush the portfolio.
Labourer Yes, sir.
Astrov Well? Goes to say goodbye.
Sonya When shall we see you again?
Astrov Not before next summer, I expect. Hardly in the winter.⁠ ⁠… Of course, if anything happens, you’ll let me know, and I’ll come shakes hands. Thank you for your hospitality, for your kindness⁠—for everything, in fact. Goes up to nurse and kisses her on the head. Goodbye, old woman.
Marina You are not going without tea?
Astrov I don’t want any, nurse.
Marina Perhaps you’ll have a drop of vodka?
Astrov Irresolutely. Perhaps.
Marina goes out.
Astrov After a pause. My trace-horse has gone a little lame. I noticed it yesterday when Petrushka was taking it to water.
Voynitsky You must change his shoes.
Astrov I shall have to call in at the blacksmith’s in Rozhdestvennoye. It can’t be helped. Goes up to the map of Africa and looks at it. I suppose in that Africa there the heat must be something terrific now!
Voynitsky Yes, most likely.
Marina Comes back with a tray on which there is a glass of vodka and a piece of bread. There you are.
Astrov drinks the vodka.
Marina To your good health, my dear makes a low bow. You should eat some bread with it.
Astrov No, I like it as it is. And now, good luck to you all. To Marina. Don’t come out, nurse, there is no need.
He goes out; Sonya follows with a candle, to see him off; Marina sits in her easy chair.
Voynitsky Writes. “February the second, Lenten oil, twenty pounds. February sixteenth, Lenten oil again, twenty pounds. Buckwheat⁠ ⁠…” A pause.
The sound of bells.
Marina He has gone a pause.
Sonya Comes back and puts the candle on the table. He has gone.
Voynitsky Counts on the beads and writes down. “Total⁠ ⁠… fifteen⁠ ⁠… twenty-five⁠ ⁠…”
Sonya sits down and writes.
Marina Yawns. Lord have mercy on us!
Telyegin comes in on tiptoe, sits by the door and softly tunes the guitar.
Voynitsky To Sonya, passing his hand over her hair. My child, how my heart aches! Oh, if only you knew how my heart aches!
Sonya There is nothing for it. We must go on living! A pause. We shall go on living, Uncle Vanya! We shall live through a long, long chain of days and weary evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials which fate sends us; we shall work for others, both now and in our old age, and have no rest; and when our time comes we shall die without a murmur, and there beyond the grave we shall say that we have suffered, that we have wept, that life has been bitter to us, and God will have pity on us, and you and I, uncle, dear uncle, shall see a life that is bright, lovely, beautiful. We shall rejoice and look back at these troubles of ours with tenderness, with a smile⁠—and we shall rest. I have faith, uncle; I have fervent, passionate faith. Slips on her knees before him and lays her head on his hands; in a weary voice. We shall rest!
Telyegin softly plays on the guitar.
Sonya We shall rest! We shall hear the angels; we shall see all Heaven lit with radiance; we shall see all earthly evil, all our sufferings, drowned in mercy which will fill the whole world, and our life will be peaceful, gentle and sweet as a caress. I have faith, I have faith wipes away his tears with her handkerchief. Poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying. Through her tears. You have had no joy in your life, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait. We shall rest puts her arms round him. We shall rest! The watchman taps.
Telyegin plays softly; Marya Vassilyevna makes notes on the margin of her pamphlet; Marina knits her stocking.
Sonya We shall rest!
Curtain drops slowly.