by Maxim Gorky
Protasov Hang on a minute? Stop right there. Are you saying … What are you saying?
Vageen You don’t. You.
Protasov Are you. Have you talked about this? Seriously?
Vageen What?
Protasov This?
Did you tell her you …? Have these …? That you? Have you talked to her? About all this? Sexual …?
Vageen Yes.
Protasov And …?
Vageen What?
Protasov What?
Vageen What?
Protasov Yes. What?
Quiet.
Vageen You have suffocated … with neglect. You have.
Protasov Is that what she said?
Vageen No.
Protasov What did she say?
Vageen That’s private.
Protasov What in God’s name is going on here? This place? Today?
Yelena enters.
This man claims that he loves you.
Yelena So what?
Vageen I said … It was.
Protasov He also seems to be claiming that you have expressed … something unhappy.
Yelena Yegor’s wife, his children … They’re all sick. Other people in town. That Yakov character has some kind of disease he brought with him. It’s a mess, Pavel.
Vageen Yelena …?
I felt it needed to be said.
Yelena Did it? Goodbye.
Vageen Yes.
Protasov See you tomorrow.
Vageen Yes.
Vageen leaves. Quiet.
Protasov Darling, I think we need to talk.
Yelena We need to do something, people are sick.
Protasov What can we do? They refuse to see doctors. I couldn’t get a doctor anyway. What can we do?
Yelena There’s cholera in town and the cesspit has cracked. Your chemicals are leaking into the water supply.
Protasov My chemicals … But there’s copper. They’ve been stored in copper.
Yelena It’s cracked, Pavel. We are poisoning the town.
Liza bursts into the room, staring, straining. Stricken with horror. Unable to speak.
Liza Someone has done something.
Something terrible is happening somewhere. I can feel it. I / can feel it. No, believe me.
Yelena Water. Calm down. Water! You imagined it. Calm down, Liza.
Liza BELIEVE ME. BELIEVE ME.
Blackout.
Act Four
The garden, again. Later. Loosha is working, Misha is smoking.
Loosha People are still very angry.
Misha Sure. But my dad got the poison fixed. Thanks to him we fixed it all up.
Loosha They’re saying the doctors did it to experiment on us.
Misha It’s true, what do you think he’s doing here? He’s doing chemistry. And that makes him? An alchemist. Thank God for my dad, I say.
Loosha And Roman.
Misha Yeah. And Roman. Do you like Roman?
Loosha He’s very handsome.
Misha All the girls go for him. What is it?
Loosha He’s strong.
Misha He’s got no money.
Loosha Money?
Misha Well, you like nice clothes?
Loosha Sure.
Misha You like a good square meal. And dessert?
Loosha I like jelly.
Misha You ever had a big night out?
Loosha No.
Misha Get up late the next day. Whenever. Someone brings you jelly on a plate?
Loosha Tea and sugar?
Misha Whatever you want, money gets you, and looks don’t count a bit. See, Roman is a dead end.
Loosha He’s pretty funny.
Misha I tell jokes.
Protasov is in. Misha scuttles off with a wink.
Protasov Here is the new maid. What’s your name?
Loosha Me? Lookyeriya. Loosha.
Protasov Can you read?
Loosha No sir, never. I pray.
Liza is in.
Protasov Are you married?
Loosha I’m young. I’m only –
Protasov Straight from the farm?
Loosha I don’t know. Sorry. I’ll do my best.
Protasov It’s all right. I’m sure you will. We aren’t as bad as they say in town. We won’t poison you.
Loosha No please, don’t.
She goes.
Protasov It’s OK. I was being friendly.
Liza You’ve been in a silly mood all day.
Protasov It’s relief.
Liza I don’t feel relief.
Protasov Liza, it is important for balance in life, you must enjoy things when they are going well because sure enough they’ll go to shit.
Sorry, Liza. The whole thing with the town was a real lesson in the dangers absolutely but, finally, the greater value of scientific progress.
Liza I thought everything was coming apart yesterday.
Protasov Everything is coming apart. That is the nature of the universe. But thankfully the universe is so big and does things so slowly that we can keep things together in our neck of the woods for at least another million or so years. See? That’s the good news.
Liza Are you and Yelena going to be all right?
Protasov Did you know that Vageen thinks he’s in love with her?
Liza It crossed my mind. Is she in love with him?
Protasov She’s my wife.
Liza You need to talk.
Protasov Plenty of time for talk.
Liza No. Make sure you tell her everything and really talk to each other. Really say everything that has to be said, even the painful and the saddest things. Those are the things, Pavel – the unsaid things – that come between us all, over time. The missed things, the misunderstood things. The hurtful things. Pavel? We have all been here for you and your work. And … it is important to us. That you.
Protasov I will.
Liza What?
Protasov I will make the breakthrough. I will.
Liza No, no, no. Of course. Of course you will. But it is important that you see that what you do is important to us. That we are here for you. That …
Protasov Don’t be sad, that’s what makes things / worse for you.
Liza Don’t put everything down to that. My sadness is because I want to live. I want to join you all and live.
Protasov Yes. Of course. Yes. LENA! Here she comes, the towering matriarch. The town saviour.
Yelena appears from the house.
Liza So, you do love my brother?
Yelena I will always …
Liza Thank heavens. I have something to say. Something I realised in my weakness. I love Boris Nikolayevich.
I want to say it. I thought about him all night. I think about him all the time. I always refuse him and / yesterday amidst the confusion I told him outright. But now I see the / truth. I love him and that love fills me with fear but never more than the fear of losing him.
Nazar (off) ROMAN! (Pause.) ROMAN!!
Yelena Darling Liza. Yes. Happiness. / Happiness. Yes.
Protasov Well, this is great. This’ll be great for your … It’ll cheer you up no / end. And Boris, what a character. Yes. We like him.
Nazar (off) Roman, goddammit!!
Roman WHAT!
Liza I’m so happy. Now I see it. I thought about it all night, we will just go away together and live quietly. And all I ask is, we walk together an hour or so every day. And / everything will be beautiful between us.
Nazar (off) ROMAN, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!
Roman What do you want?
Nazar You idiot.
Pavel, sir, sorry. Secure all the gates.
Protasov What’s wrong with the gates?
Nazar People are angry in town.
Protasov Rubbish. We fixed / that all yesterday.
Yelena People got sick, they are / worried.
Nazar They say it’s coming from here. For the protection of property and peace of mind. I’m locking up the house and grounds.
Pro
tasov Seems / a bit extreme.
Nazar They bashed a doctor to death last night. / That’s extreme. He was found this morning.
Liza A doctor to death? Who was it? Who was it?
Yelena It’s / all right, Liza. It won’t be Boris.
Nazar I don’t know who. I heard, that’s all. I wouldn’t / worry about it.
As Yelena and Liza go.
Yelena Nanny!
Nazar Didn’t mean to frighten the ladies / but I think there’s trouble brewing.
Misha DAD! The welder is here. Honoured, sir.
Protasov Good evening.
Nazar I’m away.
Nazar and Misha go. Yelena returns.
Yelena Liza’s very delicate.
Protasov She’s always like that after an attack.
Yelena Do you have to work today?
Protasov Well …
Yelena We need to talk.
Protasov To do with Vageen? That stuff yesterday that he …?
Yelena Yes. That stuff. Yes. And / what happened in town.
Protasov What do you want to do? About him. I mean, he’s a fool.
Yelena It’s complicated.
Protasov Is it?
Yelena Isn’t it?
Protasov Well, no. We’re the married ones. Round here.
Yelena So that’s it? Is it?
Protasov What?
Yelena That’s it? For any kind of … relationship? Because we are married? That is our relationship? Nothing else to be done?
Protasov Lena?
Yelena I feel exactly this, that you’ve put me in a jar and I’m on the shelf with all the other bits of your life and you don’t need to deal with me any more. I don’t play any role. You are distant and alien. Who am I for you? You never ask how I am, what I think?
Protasov Ask …?
Yelena I’m not going to beg. For what is my right, as your wife. As another human being, for God’s sakes.
Like some. Stranger.
I decided anyway. In town. I’m going to leave you.
I’ve already said goodbye.
Protasov No. No, Yelena. Please, don’t leave me.
Is this for Dimitri? Is / this …?
Yelena No, I’m not going to him. This / is for me.
Protasov But you love me still, don’t you?
Yelena Have you understood a word I’ve said?
Protasov I love you.
Yelena No, you don’t, Pavel.
Protasov I do and if I don’t express it sometimes, it is because my work. My work has overtaken me because I feel so close to something great, Lena, and the only way there is to keep … keep searching and, God, if you left me right now …? It would kill me and I would never. I could never complete my work. Don’t do that to me, Lena?
Yelena To you? Do that to you? And your work? And your life? What about / me and mine?
Protasov No, but you don’t see. No, what I mean is … You are part of my life and without you? I can’t.
Yelena What is in it for me?
Protasov For you?
Yelena For me.
Protasov I didn’t know you were so selfish.
Yelena Selfish? Selfish … Self … Me? Selfish to … what? Want. Something. That’s …
You’ve got galoshes on?
Protasov Yes. It’s all I could find. How can you be so hard on me, Lena?
Yelena You made a beggar of me; forcing me to wait for the scraps.
Protasov No, I … was.
Yelena It is the power of your mind that is my rival for your attention.
Melaniya catches them as they talk.
Melaniya Hello …?
Protasov Melaniya? How lovely to see you.
Melaniya Not sarcasm. / Please.
Protasov No, no. Really. I feel like / it’s been …
Melaniya I needed to see you after … after all … our. Yesterday.
But not to be scorned.
Protasov No. God. Yesterday? Yesterday …? NO. That was. That could happen to anyone. That stuff happens. All over the place round here. Inappropriate, unwanted / declarations of …
Yelena Pavel?
Protasov I was …
Yelena Change your shoes.
Protasov Righty-ho.
He heads off.
Yelena He’s …
Melaniya I went over and over it, all night – and the thing I can’t get to the bottom of is, why he didn’t just take the money? Just pretend to tolerate me and take my money …?
Yelena Well … there’s all sorts of.
Liza wanders in.
Liza That wasn’t Boris?
Yelena No, dear. He’ll come.
She leaves again.
Melaniya Is she all right?
Yelena She had an attack. Last night.
Melaniya You say there’s all sorts of reasons. I know that. I know it up here, but I cannot … fathom it, in here. All I come up with is what a slut I am. What good is that to me? What can I do with that knowledge?
I want to live. Better but. I don’t know what it is you do.
Yelena We’re all chasing our tails.
Melaniya You have had it easy. You have everything on a plate. But my life? I have been beaten, I have been battered, I have been raped lovelessly for ten years. My best ten years of youth.
Yelena Melaniya.
Melaniya He says he is married to you but you don’t serve him. You don’t give him money.
What is love?
Yelena I don’t know.
Melaniya And then, Yelena Nikolayevna – I’m scared … I’d never give up my money. Do you / see? Yelena?
Yelena That doesn’t matter, see what / happens. Later, tomorrow.
Melaniya I’m such a terrible. Dirty thing. Help me, Yelena Nikolayevna. Please.
Liza returns.
Liza Is he here? Yet? I heard something.
Yelena No, dear. I’ll call you when he comes.
Liza I’m so horribly sad. All the time.
She goes into the garden.
Melaniya Everyone is so sad, it seems to me.
Yelena It’ll be all right. I think she will be engaged to Boris today.
Melaniya Boris, really? … That’ll be nice, won’t it? Does it help?
Yelena It should, it can.
Melaniya I’ll go and sit with her. Keep her company till he comes.
Yelena It’s not only you, Melaniya … Pavel is very difficult to love.
Melaniya goes into the garden. Nanny enters.
Nanny This new maid is useless. I think she’s been sent by a dating agency.
Yelena Nanny. Work for us today. Our way. Not your way. / Our house. Our friends.
Nanny It only works when everything is a machine behind the scenes. All she’s doing is flirting with the other servants. She drinks buckets of tea.
Yelena Tea is mostly water.
Nanny Not the way she takes it, it’s all sugar.
The artist is here.
There.
Nanny continues off. Vageen is waiting, fragile.
