by Maxim Gorky
Liza I’ll get it.
Boris I’ll help.
She goes. Quiet.
Boris and Protasov sort through the supplies.
Melaniya You handle the distractions very well.
People talking all the time.
Interrupting with their nonsense. People can’t seem to stop themselves. They haven’t anything better. Just rubbish when you have so much to do. So much. To give.
Boris Pavel? My sister wanted me to ask. Atomic wait.
Melaniya What? Me? / No.
Boris How long did the poor Atomic have to wait?
Protasov Sorry …?
Melaniya What? / I didn’t … Boris?
Boris How long did the poor, lonely Atomic have to wait for the Periodic bloody Table?
The scientists laugh.
Melaniya The Atomic what? I didn’t … What? / Ask what? Boris I never / said that about waiting. What?
Protasov Atomic weight.
You two are a fascinating biological study. I don’t mean to be rude but. You’re so smart and you’re so … completely different. It’s very, very interesting.
Melaniya We are basically strangers, in the end. He grew up with an aunt in Poltava. I grew up in Yaroslav with my grandparents.
Somewhere in this Liza appears with the tea.
We didn’t meet till we were adults. We just don’t. Get on. Boris doesn’t like anyone though. Because he is a failure and it’s made him bitter.
Boris And success has made you so sweet.
Liza Boris Nikolayevich.
Boris Too far?
Silence.
Melaniya Would you, Pavel? Would you please show me the, um. The stuff you said, under the microscope? Now?
Protasov The algae. Yes. Why not. Shall we?
Melaniya Please. Yes.
Protasov It’s a bit smelly in / here.
Melaniya I like it.
Leaving Liza and Boris alone with their tea.
Boris Bullshit. It stinks! Like everything you say, you pretend. It stinks! Why does he talk to her? He talks to her more than he talks to us.
Liza Boris Nikolayevich, you are so much better than this.
Boris Liza, have you ever thought you could be so sensitive because no one has told you the horrible truth about life? Everybody has protected and mollycoddled you. It’s all a sham. That’s the bottom line with me. And? With everybody.
Liza No. No, life is / better …
Boris You know it in your heart. The problem is pretending it is otherwise. You read the papers. You follow the world … see reality for what it is. Struggling to love people? That’s what causes all the confusion. Forgiving them. Trying again. People? Are disgusting.
Liza Why are you talking like this?
Boris To help you see. To see, that what you see in people – what scares you about them – is actually the truth. They are foul, blood-soaked murderers. People. We are foul. And … perhaps in telling you, I can be forgiven … or we can … you might … see … that I want … I don’t know – to be cleaner or …
Liza You need to find someone you can love.
Boris Yes. Yes, exactly. Well? Here I am. Here I am waiting for you. Two years now. Hanging around like a toothache waiting for some kind of … fucking balm. / Some kind of relief.
Liza I am not. I cannot. I am incapable of those kinds of. You are fickle. Too / fickle to marry.
Boris I am stubborn, Liza. And loyal. I’m an orphan. Orphans are really, really stubborn when it comes to love.
Liza No. My condition is …
Boris And my condition? Is it any less terminal? Permanent? Curable?
What were you going to say, sorry? Liza?
Should we talk about something else? Sorry, I got a bit …
I go for people with impossible conditions. I’ll just say that. I do.
I seek disappointment.
Liza Stop.
Boris I would be disappointed not / to be disappointed.
Liza Stop, Boris. STOP.
Quiet.
Boris Don’t be afraid. I’m sorry. Of me.
Liza Why do you talk like that about your sister?
Boris I don’t trust her. She wants something and it’ll all be about her.
Liza And we are any better?
Boris She leads her life – completely – as a lie. A lie, to trick others.
She married an old. A rich, old, miser who treated her. Who had her, like some kind of free servant for years. Loveless, childless, hate-filled marriage. She tried to kill herself, she was so depressed. I cut her down from the stovepipe in the kitchen, she had tried to hang herself. I cut her down. Then, six weeks later, she drank ammonia. I mean. This is my sister and her emotional. Mess. And now he’s dead, she’s looking for some other shit relationship to get buried in. She’s dangerous. A fool. And mean. Mean with it, Liza. What is she doing here?
Liza She might just want some love.
Boris Love? She doesn’t know the meaning of the word. I loved her. I cut her down from the stove / pipe. Broken.
Liza You judge everyone. I / had no idea.
Boris I? Everyone. Everyone judges everyone. Everyone judges. Welcome to the human race, Liza. It’s horrible in here. But expect less, expect to be judged, misunderstood, exploited, loathed, degraded. Expect less.
Melaniya and Protasov enter from the laboratory.
Protasov Happiness is only possible when you embrace truth.
Melaniya You are extraordinary. I see at last. I see. How truth and happiness / are … The meaning of life.
Protasov The rococo trappings of desire create a veil to the simple precision of truth. The elaborate games of emotion – fear, anger, passion, joy – these are all obstacles to encountering truth. Happiness can only come for mankind when he is set to the task – his great cosmic task – of revealing the meaning and the shape of order, of life – aside from, apart from, the darkness, the ignorance, the surrounding chaos. Of death.
Without Truth … understanding, knowledge, reason, man can never be happy. Or good. Anyway. I have to go and distil this before it loses too much heat.
Melaniya I get it. Yes. Yes.
Protasov is gone.
Boris, it’s not funny. Liza – I know you probably all think I am a fool and I am an idiot and I’m not saying. I’m not saying, Boris, that I understand his science and his formulaes and his books. I’m not saying I understand that stuff, but I do. I do understand what it means to him and where we all fit in this picture of his, and how I could help him, how I could give myself to him, to his great purpose. And how his purpose could become my purpose and that purpose would be kind of the purpose and so I would be happy and be … something. Somebody. Something at last. Somebody’s / thing at last.
Boris What are you crapping on about?
Liza Here’s some tea – Boris, please, sit down and have some tea.
Melaniya No, no tea. I’d better go. I feel so. Tell him I had to just go. And that. And that. I am grateful just to be near him. Humbled. I love you. I think love is everything.
She goes.
Boris Jesus. Another convert.
Liza I know what she means. Pavel. Pavel sees this force and sees that it is completely random, really … and the world of God. The world of human order, that we all rely on? Once he has told you, that world just falls away. And you are left. Alone. Alone in the cold void. That’s the real. The ‘real thing’ you talk about facing. And that. Is terrifying. I went to hospital and my head was crowded with the hugest emptiness, stretched out in a … the coldest, darkest … / emptiest –
Boris Hospital. Don’t. You don’t, you won’t need to go back there. Just. Here, have some tea. Look, and here is your sister-in-law and that man. I’m going to have to go. / Will you be all right?
Yelena Boris. Is Pavel in here? Liza, good morning.
Yelena enters the laboratory. Vageen is standing waiting.
Boris Dimitri Sergeyevich.
Vageen Boris Nikolayevich.
Have you been writing this morning, Liza?
Liza Not today, / sorry, no.
Vageen Pity. Creation soothes the nerves.
Boris You’d never have guessed.
Vageen I have other worries.
Yelena is out from the lab.
Yelena Of course, Pavel.
Quiet.
Liza We’re all a bit / out of sorts.
Boris Hungry. We are all terribly hungry, and for lunch I am going to boil crayfish, drink beer and smoke. We have a gap to fill and I, for one, am going to cram it. Too much, I think, is what’s needed. Farewell, Liza. Farewell, Yelena.
Liza sees Boris out. Quiet.
Vageen How’s the homunculus?
He’s a pedant and worse. His treatment of you. What is it with these / experiments?
Yelena I wish I’d never said anything to you.
Vageen As an artist, if that’s what you want to be, you should be free. The door is there. Walk.
Yelena I will.
Vageen When?
Yelena I’m not doing anything until I know what he feels for me.
Vageen He feels nothing.
Yelena If our relationship has ended then so much the better that I know now and can move on. If, however, the love he feels for me is deeper. Then I will. Stay.
Vageen You what?
Yelena I can’t leave him if he loves me. I can’t be the one who breaks his heart.
Vageen What are you scared of?
Yelena I will not wilfully destroy another life.
Vageen And yours? Your life?
Yelena Animals. Animals spend their lives worried about their own survival. A person can only distinguish themselves from animals by leading a life that makes the world a better place. Regardless.
Vageen Always leave the bathroom cleaner than you found it? And other petty / bourgeois pomposities?
Yelena And your world? Of impassioned self-serving? / What does –
Vageen You have the soul of a slave locked inside your fabulous. That fabulous.
You’re fabulous – and you give yourself to this tinkering pedant who would happily reduce the definition of your fabulousness to a series of chemical interactions. What of art? Of culture? Of the very fabric of our humanity?
Yelena Your fabric is too sheer for me. My sense of art / demands I –
Vageen Your sense of art has only just begun. Your ignorance and confusion scare you. You are scared of the way artists love.
Yelena If artists love passion for its own sake, yes.
Vageen Cold. So cold.
Yelena I’m too honest for passion. I am too old, and so are you.
Liza has returned.
Liza Poor Pavel, all day.
Yelena Who?
Liza Everybody.
Vageen Terrible.
Liza I think you should. I think he needs you to be here …
Yelena Did he say that? Liza?
Liza No. He would never say that. He might find it hard to talk to you, properly. Have you ever thought of that?
Yelena Me? Liza? Me … really? Liza? Liza?
Liza has left.
Vageen Your guilt is the only thing keeping you here.
He goes. Feema enters.
Feema Ma’am?
Yelena Yes.
Feema Melaniya Nikolayevna.
Yelena Yes?
Feema It seems very wrong.
Yelena Well, keep it to yourself then.
Feema No. Well, no, she asked me to keep an eye on you.
Yelena Who?
Feema Melaniya Nikolayevna.
Yelena On me? Rubbish.
Feema She said, tell her if I saw anything untoward between you and the … Mr Vageen.
Honestly.
Yelena Get out of here.
Feema She gave me a / rouble. Look.
Yelena GET OUT OF HERE. NOW!
Protasov comes in from the laboratory.
Protasov There you are. How’s your morning?
Yelena Fine. No different from yesterday.
Vageen re-enters, smoking.
Vageen I’m going to paint this garden of yours. I’ll do it one day as well. At dawn.
Protasov Dimitri, you look furious.
Vageen I bet it is beautiful here, at dawn.
Protasov And that makes you angry?
Vageen You’re a fool. You can’t see what’s right here. Right here. In your face. Now.
Yelena Tea?
Protasov God, what a couple of grumps.
He exits to the kitchen. Feema is hovering around. Watching.
Vageen Maybe it’s an experiment? Maybe he’s experimenting on us.
Yelena Shut up.
Vageen I’ve never loved anyone like you. And it’s not base desire. It’s not some childish ‘passion’. Whatever you think.
Yelena I / don’t.
Vageen With you. For you? All I want is the best and the purest. The right. The right.
Yelena Great.
Vageen Yelena Nikolayevna … I implore you.
Protasov races on, shouting back at the kitchen as he goes.
Protasov Oh God, would you stop nagging me? Rent? Land? Wife-beating? Maids? I. DON’T. GIVE. / A. DAMN.
Yelena Oh Nanny, really.
He exits as Nanny enters.
Nanny. / I asked you.
Nanny Who do you think runs this place? He’s busy with his experiments, his sister’s losing her mind and you … you’re. Off. Painting around the place.
Yelena He doesn’t need to be troubled / with these trivialities.
Nanny It’s all right for you. Trivialities? I’d happily entrust those to you.
Yelena I beg your pardon?
Nanny Poor Pavloosha in this madhouse and no one to care for him.
Yelena Nanny. Go.
Nanny Someone has to say it. / Someone has to.
Yelena Go. Please.
Nanny Their father and mother’s memory, that’s where my loyalty lies. The great Protasov family.
She leaves.
Yelena What’s so funny?
Vageen The lives of fools and idiots. You need to get out of here. You need to be free of this drudgery and garbage.
Yelena Garbage? It’s easy for you to stand in judgement. This is the man I married. This is what we have made together. Yes, sure you can see problems. Everything comes apart if you look close enough. But Pavel and I … We are trying to. Make / something important.
Protasov appears in a rage at the door.
Protasov It’s incredible. You wouldn’t believe it. You wouldn’t … HOW DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME?
Yelena Pavel what? What happened?
Protasov The whole environment. The whole bloody thing is contaminated … Why? … WHY? WHY?!
Blackout.
Act Two
The garden, later.
Misha Thirty-five and an apartment.
Feema I’m not interested in the apartment.
Misha You know, this could be … you know. I know a couple of other fellows. Zotnikov, he’s handsome, he’s rich. You know you could increase your income, with the apartment.
Feema Ivan Zotnikov? / Lovely.
Misha You’re driving me crazy, Feema. Seventy-five a week but then where would we go? You know, to do it. I don’t want to spend seventy-five a week just to take you for a walk, Feema. Feema, please. God, I’d marry you, I’d marry you tomorrow if you had a dowry. Feema, Feema, Feema, I’m fucking begging you.
