NADENKA. Look, Alexander Fyodorovich, shall I hit that bug with a drop, that one crawling along the path? Oh dear, I hit her. Poor thing, she’ll die! (She picks up the bug, puts it on the palm of her hand and breathes on it. )
ALEXANDER. How taken you are with the bug!
NADENKA. Poor thing! Look, she’ll die… What have I done! (The bug starts to crawl on her hand and Nadenka throws it on the ground with a sharp jerk, then crushes it with her foot. )Nasty bug! So where were you?
ALEXANDER. I told you…
NADENKA. Oh yes, at your uncle’s… ( She sets off towards the house. )
ALEXANDER. Where are you going?
NADENKA. Where? What do you mean where? That’s good! To see Mama.
ALEXANDER. Why? Perhaps we’ll bother her. (They stand in silence looking at each other. Enter Nadenka’s mother, Marya Mikhailovna. )
MARYA MIKHAILOVNA. Alexander Fyodorovich!
ALEXANDER. How do you do, Marya Mikhailovna. (Kisses her hand. )
MARYA MIKHAILOVNA. Why didn’t you come to dinner? We waited for you till five o’clock.
ALEXANDER. I was held up at the office. I beg you never to wait for me later than four o’clock.
MARYA MIKHAILOVNA. That’s just what I said. But Nadenka here kept saying, “Let’s wait.”
NADENKA. I! Mama, what do you mean! It was I who kept saying, “It’s time for dinner, Mama.” But you said, “No, we must wait a bit, Alexander Fyodorovich hasn’t been to see us for a long time. Probably he’ll come to dinner today.”
MARYA MIKHAILOVNA. Hear, hear! Oh, she really has no conscience! Putting her words in my mouth. I said, “Wherever can Alexander Fyodorovich be now? It’s already four-thirty.” “No,” says she, “we must wait, Mama…”
ALEXANDER. Nadezhda Alexandrovna! Am I really so fortunate that you were thinking of me?
NADENKA. Don’t come near me! Mama’s joking, and you’re ready to believe her!
MARYA MIKHAILOVNA. Don’t believe her, Alexander Fyodorovich! Why are you pretending? Probably Alexander Fyodorovich is happy to hear you were thinking of him. I’ll order you something to eat. (Exits. )
NADENKA. You don’t deserve it! To keep us waiting so long!
ALEXANDER. Nadenka! (They embrace and kiss. )Like a dream!
NADENKA. What are you doing! You forget yourself! I shall tell Mama!
ALEXANDER. Nadezhda Alexandrovna! Don’t destroy my bliss with reproach.
NADENKA. Do you love me very much?
ALEXANDER. Very much. (They kiss again. )
NADENKA. Can there be sorrow in the world?
ALEXANDER. Unfortunately there is.
NADENKA. What sorrow?
ALEXANDER. There is poverty.
NADENKA. Poverty? Can the poor possibly not feel what we felt just now! So then they’re not poor. (Laughs. )
ALEXANDER. Angel! Angel! (Squeezes her hand. )
NADENKA. Ouch, you’re squeezing so hard it hurts! (Alexander covers her hand with kisses. ) Do you know, people say that what happens once can never happen again! Therefore this moment will never be repeated!
ALEXANDER. Oh no! That’s not so! We’ll be close all our lives…
NADENKA ( interrupting ). Oh stop, stop… I get frightened when you talk like that…
ALEXANDER. What is there to be afraid of? Can’t we believe in ourselves?
NADENKA. I don’t know.
ALEXANDER. Why? We must believe! Nothing will get the better of us, just as now in this garden no sound disturbs the solemn silence.
VOICE OF MARYA MIKHAILOVNA ( Off-stage ). Alexander Fyodorovich! The clotted milk’s been on the table for a long time.
NADENKA. At the moment of our inexpressible bliss suddenly the clotted milk is served. (Laughs, runs off. )
ALEXANDER ( alone ). And Uncle tries to tell me that happiness is an illusion, that you mustn’t believe in anything unconditionally, that life is without conscience! Why did he want to deceive me so cruelly! No, this is life! This is the way I imagined it. This is the way it ought to be, the way it is and will be. This is the way I myself will make it! Otherwise it isn’t life! (Runs out in pursuit of Nadenka. )
SCENE 6
Pyotr Ivanovich’s study. He’s working at his desk.
ALEXANDER ( rushes in, excited and cheerful. ) Hello, Uncle!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Hello, Alexander! How is it I haven’t seen you for a long time? Why, what’s the matter with you? You have such a festive look. Have you been promoted or given a medal? (Alexander shakes his head. ) Or you’ve come into money?
ALEXANDER. No.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Why do you look like the commander of a regiment?
ALEXANDER. Don’t you notice anything in my expression?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. A kind of silly look… Wait… Are you in love? There, I guessed it, didn’t I? That’s it. Why didn’t I guess it right off! So that’s why you’ve gotten so lazy…
ALEXANDER. I’m not lazy. I’m young.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Therefore stupid.
ALEXANDER. In love with Nadenka Lyubetskaya.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. I didn’t ask who… Whoever, they’re all the same kind of silly fool… What Lyubetskaya? The one with the wart?
ALEXANDER. What wart?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Right by her nose. Haven’t you noticed it yet?
ALEXANDER. You’re confusing things. It’s the mother, you mean, who has a wart near her nose.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Well, no matter.
ALEXANDER. No matter! Nadenka! You really didn’t notice her? To see her once and not notice!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. What’s so special about her? What’s there to notice? She doesn’t have a wart, you say?…
ALEXANDER. Haven’t you talked enough about that wart! How can you say she’s like those wooden, affected debutantes? You won’t hear any vulgar commonplaces in her conversation… Will some corset indeed forever inhibit the sigh of love and the cry of a tormented heart? Will there never be room for feeling?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Everything will be revealed later to her husband. There are foolish girls who prematurely reveal what they should hide or repress, and then later make up for it with tears and tears… There’s no counting them!
ALEXANDER. Is this a matter for calculation too, Uncle?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. As everything, my dear fellow.
ALEXANDER. In your opinion you have to control even feeling like steam: now let out a little, now suddenly stop, open the valve, shut it off…
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Yes, nature gave man that valve for a purpose–it’s his reason. And you don’t always use it–that’s too bad!
ALEXANDER. Really, Uncle, it’s sad to listen to you! Things aren’t like that! Life is beautiful! (With a sweeping gesture he embraces Pyotr Ivanovich. )
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Alexander! Close the steam valve! You’ve let all the steam escape! Look what you’ve done! In one second two stupidities–mussed up my hair and spattered my letter with ink… Look at yourself in the mirror for God’s sake. Well, can there be a stupider face? And you’re not stupid!
ALEXANDER ( laughs ). I’m happy!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. So what should I do now with my letter?
ALEXANDER. I’ll scrape off the spots and it won’t be noticeable. (Throws himself at the desk, and bumps it so that a small statue falls and breaks. )
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Third stupidity, Alexander, and it’s worth fifty rubles.
ALEXANDER. I’ll pay for it, I’ll pay!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. “I’ll pay,” you say! That would be the fourth stupidity… I see you want to tell about your happiness. Well, it can’t be helped. (Sits down in the armchair. ) Tell your story, but be quick about it.
ALEXANDER. No, Uncle, these things can’t be told.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Still, I see you want to tell. But on the other hand… stop, I’ll tell it myself.
ALEXANDER. That’ll be amusing!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Very amusing! Listen. Yesterday you and your beauty had some time alo
ne.
ALEXANDER ( impressed ). Did you have me followed?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. What’s this, you think I keep spies in my pay to watch you?
ALEXANDER. How do you know then?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Sit down, sit down, for God’s sake, and don’t come near my desk–you’ll break something… Everything’s written on your face. I’ll read from there… So you declared your love. You both were very silly in the usual way. It began from some little thing when you were left alone, from some embroidery…
ALEXANDER. You didn’t guess right! We were in the garden…
PYOTR IVANOVICH. A flower then, maybe a yellow one. You asked whether she liked the flower. She answered yes. “Why?” you said. “I don’t know,” she said, and you both were silent because you wanted to say something quite different. Then you looked at each other, smiled, and blushed.
ALEXANDER. Oh, Uncle, Uncle, how can you!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Then you began to talk about how only now had you realized the value of life when you saw her… what’s her name? Marya, is it?
ALEXANDER. Nadenka…
PYOTR IVANOVICH. And how you were waving your arms, I imagine! You probably broke a cherry tree or a whole apple tree.
ALEXANDER. Uncle! You were spying on us!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Yes, I was sitting behind a bush there.
ALEXANDER. How do you know everything?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Since Adam and Eve it’s been the same old story for everyone, with slight variations. Know the character of the actors and you’ll know the variants. It’s all happened again and again… And it’s stupid!
ALEXANDER. How many times have I vowed to keep what goes on in my heart a secret from you!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Why didn’t you keep your vow? Here you’ve come and bothered me…
ALEXANDER. No, let me be forever stupid in your eyes, but I cannot live with your notions of life and people. If they’re true, I don’t want to live. I don’t want to live under such conditions, do you hear? I don’t want it!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. I hear you, but what am I to do? After all, I can’t deprive you of life… I have the feeling you’ll still break a lot more of my things. But it really doesn’t matter: love is love, no one’s keeping you from it. It’s not our custom that at your age one should be so preoccupied with love; still, it shouldn’t happen to such a degree that you abandon work…
ALEXANDER. But my work–it’s like some kind of bureaucratic machine which grinds away without pause or rest, as if there were no people but only wheels and springs… And my literary work consists of translating “How to Derive Molasses from Potatoes” and “Abstracts from German Economists.”
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Enough said, you’re not working on abstracts… Oh my, what I think of love at age twenty!
ALEXANDER. What kind of love do you want, Uncle? Love at forty?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. I don’t know how love is at forty, but at forty-two…
ALEXANDER. Like yours?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. If you will, like mine.
ALEXANDER. That is, no love.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. How do you know?
ALEXANDER. As if you could love!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Why not? Don’t you think I’m human? Only I love with reason.
ALEXANDER. Reasonable love! That’s a fine love that keeps its head!
PYOTR IVANOVICH ( interrupting sharply ). Wild animal love loses its head, but a reasonable love must keep it; otherwise, it isn’t love…
ALEXANDER. What is it then?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Something vile, as you say.
ALEXANDER. You… love? (Laughs. ) Whom then, Uncle?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. You’d like to know?
ALEXANDER. I would.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. My fiancée.
ALEXANDER. Not… a fiancée! (Walks up to his uncle. )
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Not too close, not too close, Alexander; close the valve!
ALEXANDER. That means you’re getting married?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. So I am.
ALEXANDER. And not a word to me! You didn’t share it with me…
PYOTR IVANOVICH. I avoid sharing in general and have long been against it, especially in marriage.
ALEXANDER. You’re so calm… and so hellishly cold in discussing love.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Hellish coldness–that’s something new! People say it’s hot in hell.
ALEXANDER. Do you know what, Uncle? Perhaps… No, I can’t keep a secret from you… I might be getting married too!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Close the valve, Alexander!
ALEXANDER. Go on joking, go on joking, Uncle!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Ought you to be marrying?
ALEXANDER. What do you mean?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. At your age!
ALEXANDER. I’m twenty-three.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. A fine time! At that age only peasants marry when they need a woman to work in the house.
ALEXANDER. But if I’m in love with a girl…
PYOTR IVANOVICH. By no means do I advise you to marry a woman you’re in love with.
ALEXANDER. This is something new–I’ve never heard that…
PYOTR IVANOVICH. There are a lot of things you’ve never heard of!
ALEXANDER. I’ve always thought there shouldn’t be marriage without love.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Marriage is one thing and love another. You have to look, choose…
ALEXANDER. Choose?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Yes, choose. That’s the reason I don’t advise you to marry when you fall in love. You see, love passes–that’s the horrid truth.
ALEXANDER. That’s the rudest lie and slander.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Love will pass, I repeat, and then the woman who seemed the ideal of perfection to you will seem very imperfect perhaps, and then there’s nothing you can do. Love prevents you from seeing that she lacks certain qualities necessary in a wife.
ALEXANDER. So you’re getting married by calculation?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. With calculation, but not calculating… But you shouldn’t get married at all now. Tell me, why are you getting married?
ALEXANDER. What do you mean why? Nadenka–is my wife! (Covers his face with his hands from happiness. )
PYOTR IVANOVICH. There, you see, you don’t know yourself.
ALEXANDER. My heart stops beating at the very thought… But she says we must wait a year, that we are young and must test ourselves…
PYOTR IVANOVICH. She’s the one who suggested it? How old is she?
ALEXANDER. Eighteen.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. And you’re twenty-three. Well, my boy, she’s twenty-three times more intelligent than you. A year from now! By then she’ll deceive you!
ALEXANDER. Uncle, with whom have you been living your whole life?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. I’ve lived with people, loved women.
ALEXANDER. She deceive me! A woman who is sincerity and purity incarnate…
PYOTR IVANOVICH. But a woman all the same, so probably she’ll deceive.
ALEXANDER. And now will you say that I’ll cheat on her too?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. It’s not out of the question.
ALEXANDER. Who do you think I am?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. A human being.
ALEXANDER. They’re not all alike.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. I know! I know! A decent person doesn’t doubt the sincerity of an oath when he gives it to a woman, but then he betrays her, or grows cold toward her, and doesn’t know why himself. This does not happen by intent, and there’s nothing vile about it. Nature hasn’t allowed us to love forever.
ALEXANDER. I’m happy now and I thank God. And I don’t want to know what lies ahead.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. The first half of your phrase is so reasonable that a man in love shouldn’t say it. But the second half, pardon me, won’t get you anywhere. “I don’t want to know what lies ahead.”
ALEXANDER. So what do you advise, Uncle? When a moment of bliss arrives, must one take a magnifying glass and examine it?
&n
bsp; PYOTR IVANOVICH. No, the opposite; reduce it so as not to make a fool of yourself for joy…
ALEXANDER. And if a moment of sorrow comes, should that also be examined in your miniaturizing glass?
PYOTR IVANOVICH. No, magnify it. A sorrow is easier to overcome when you imagine the unpleasantness twice as large as it is… But what’s the use of explaining to you when you’re delirious… Oh dear, it’s almost one o’clock. Not another word, Alexander. Run along… I shan’t listen. Dine with me tomorrow, there’ll be something interesting.
ALEXANDER. Tomorrow, Uncle, I…
PYOTR IVANOVICH. What?
ALEXANDER. I’ve been invited to the country.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Probably to the Lyubetskys?
ALEXANDER. Yes.
PYOTR IVANOVICH. Well, as you wish! Remember about your work, Alexander. I’ll tell the editor what you’re busy with…
ALEXANDER. I’ll finish the abstracts of the German economists without fail!
PYOTR IVANOVICH. You’d best begin them first…
ALEXANDER ( laughing and throwing open his arms, goes up to his uncle to embrace him ). Uncle!
PYOTR IVANOVICH ( escaping behind the desk ). Run along, run along, you unfortunate fellow! You’re not going to make it in life, you just won’t! (Alexander leaves. ) But one could envy him. No, that’s stupid! (Sits down and writes. A moment later he comes to his senses and tears up what he was writing. Starts writing again. ) Phooey! He’s confused me.
SCENE 7
The Lyubetsky garden, the same as in scene 5. Nadenka and Alexander are standing near a bench.
NADENKA. No, no, you can’t speak to Mama today; that nasty Count is sitting with her!
ALEXANDER. Count? What Count?
NADENKA. You don’t know what Count! Count Novinsky, you know, our neighbor. His country home is here; how many times you yourself have praised his garden!
ALEXANDER. Count Novinsky at your house! What has he come for?
NADENKA. I really don’t know yet myself.
ALEXANDER. Is he… an old man?
NADENKA. An old man! What are you talking about? He’s young and handsome!
ALEXANDER. You’ve already managed to notice he’s handsome!
NADENKA. That’s nice! Does it take long to notice that? I’ve already talked with him. He’s very charming. He asked what I do, talked about music, asked me to sing something, but I know almost nothing. This winter without fail I’ll ask Mama to get me a singing teacher.
An Ordinary Story Page 41
