FERAPONT. What?
IRINA [more loudly]. Thank him from me!
OLGA. Nanny dear, give him something to eat. Ferapont, go along, they will give you something to eat.
FERAPONT. Eh?
ANFISA. Come along, Ferapont Spiridonitch, my good soul, come along. . . [goes out with FERAPONT].
MASHA. I don't like that Protopopov, that Mihail Potapitch or Ivanitch. He ought not to be invited.
IRINA. I didn't invite him.
MASHA. That's a good thing.
[Enter CHEBUTYKIN, followed by an orderly with a silver samovar; a hum of surprise and displeasure.]
OLGA [putting her hands over her face]. A samovar! How awful! [Goes out to the table in the dining-room.]
IRINA. My dear Ivan Romanitch, what are you thinking about!
TUZENBAKH [laughs]. I warned you!
MASHA. Ivan Romanitch, you really have no conscience!
CHEBUTYKIN. My dear girls, my darlings, you are all that I have, you are the most precious treasures I have on earth. I shall soon be sixty, I am an old man, alone in the world, a useless old man. . . . There is nothing good in me, except my love for you, and if it were not for you, I should have been dead long ago. . . . [To IRINA] My dear, my little girl, I've known you from a baby. . . I've carried you in my arms. . . . I loved your dear mother. . . .
IRINA. But why such expensive presents?
CHEBUTYKIN [angry and tearful]. Expensive presents. . . . Get along with you! [To the orderly] Take the samovar in there. . . [Mimicking] Expensive presents . . . [The orderly carries the samovar into the dining-room.]
ANFISA [crossing the room]. My dears, a colonel is here, a stranger. . . . He has taken off his overcoat, children, he is coming in here. Irinushka, you must be nice and polite, dear. . . [As she goes out] And it's time for lunch already. . . mercy on us. .
TUZENBAKH. Vershinin, I suppose.
[Enter VERSHININ.]
TUZENBAKH. Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin.
VERSHININ [to MASHA and IRINA]. I've the honour to introduce myself, my name is Vershinin. I'm very, very glad to be in your house at last. How you've grown up! Oh! Oh!
IRINA. Please sit down. We are delighted to see you.
VERSHININ [with animation]. How glad I am, how glad I am! But there are three of you sisters. I remember three little girls. I don't remember your faces, but that your father, Colonel Prozorov, had three little girls I remember perfectly, and saw them with my own eyes. How time passes! Hey-ho, how it passes!
TUZENBAKH. Alexandr Ignatyevitch has come from Moscow.
IRINA. From Moscow? You have come from Moscow?
VERSHININ. Yes. Your father was in command of a battery there, and I was an officer in the same brigade. [To MASHA] Your face, now, I seem to remember.
MASHA. I don't remember you.
IRINA. Olya! Olya! [Calls into the dining-room] Olya, come!
[OLGA comes out of the dining-room into the drawing-room.]
IRINA. Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin is from Moscow, it appears.
VERSHININ. So you are Olga Sergeyevna, the eldest. . . . And you are Marya. . . . And you are Irina, the youngest. . . .
OLGA. You come from Moscow?
VERSHININ. Yes. I studied in Moscow. I began my service there, I served there for years, and at last I've been given a battery here -- I have moved here as you see. I don't remember you exactly, I only remember you were three sisters. I remember your father. If I shut my eyes, I can see him as though he were living. I used to visit you in Moscow. . . .
OLGA. I thought I remembered everyone, and now all at once. . .
VERSHININ. My name is Alexandr Ignatyevitch.
IRINA. Alexandr Ignatyevitch, you've come from Moscow. . . . What a surprise!
OLGA. We're going to move there, you know.
IRINA. We're hoping to be there by the autumn. It's our native town, we were born there. . . . In Old Basmannaya Street . . . [both laugh with delight].
MASHA. To see some one from our own town unexpectedly! [Eagerly] Now I remember! Do you remember, Olya, they used to talk of the "love-sick major"? You were a lieutenant at that time and were in love, and for some reason everyone called you major to tease you. . . .
VERSHININ [laughs]. Yes, yes. . . . The love-sick major, that was it.
MASHA. You only had a moustache then. . . . Oh, how much older you look! [through tears] how much older!
VERSHININ. Yes, when I was called the love-sick major I was young, I was in love. Now it's very different.
OLGA. But you haven't a single grey hair. You've grown older but you're not old.
VERSHININ. I'm in my forty-third year, though. Is it long since you left Moscow?
IRINA. Eleven years. But why are you crying, Masha, you foolish girl?. . . [through her tears] I shall cry too. . . .
MASHA. I'm all right. And in which street did you live?
VERSHININ. In Old Basmannaya.
OLGA. And that's where we lived too. . . .
VERSHININ. At one time I lived in Nyemetsky Street. I used to go from there to the Red Barracks. There is a gloomy-looking bridge on the way, where the water makes a noise. It makes a lonely man feel melancholy [a pause]. And here what a broad, splendid river! A marvellous river!
OLGA. Yes, but it is cold. It's cold here and there are mosquitoes. . . .
VERSHININ. How can you! You've such a splendid healthy Russian climate here. Forest, river. . . and birches here too. Charming, modest birches, I love them better than any other trees. It's nice to live here. The only strange thing is that the railway station is fifteen miles away. . . . And no one knows why it's so.
SOLYONY. I know why it is. [They all look at him.] Because if the station had been near it would not have been so far, and if it is far, it's because it's not near.
[An awkward silence.]
TUZENBAKH. He's fond of his joke, Vassily Vassilyevitch.
OLGA. Now I recall you, too. I remember.
VERSHININ. I knew your mother.
CHEBUTYKIN. She was a fine woman, the Kingdom of Heaven be hers.
IRINA. Mother is buried in Moscow.
OLGA. In the Novo-Dyevitchy. . . .
MASHA. Would you believe it, I'm already beginning to forget her face. So people won't remember us either; they'll forget us.
VERSHININ. Yes. They'll forget us. Such is our fate, there is no help for it. What seems to us serious, significant, very important, will one day be forgotten or will seem unimportant [a pause]. And it's curious that we can't possibly tell what exactly will be considered great and important, and what will seem petty and ridiculous. Didn't the discoveries of Copernicus or Columbus, let's say, seem useless and ridiculous at first, while the nonsensical writings of some fool seemed true? And it may be that our present life, which we accept so readily, will in time seem strange, inconvenient, stupid, not clean enough, perhaps even sinful. . . .
TUZENBAKH. Who knows? Perhaps our age will be called a great one and remembered with respect. Now we have no torture-chamber, no executions, no invasions, but at the same time how much suffering there is!
SOLYONY [in a high-pitched voice]. Chook, chook, chook. . . . It's bread and meat to the baron to talk about ideas.
TUZENBAKH. Vassily Vassilyevitch, I ask you to let me alone . . . [moves to another seat]. It gets boring, at last.
SOLYONY [in a high-pitched voice]. Chook, chook, chook. . . . . .
TUZENBAKH [to VERSHININ]. The suffering which one observes now -- there is so much of it -- does indicate, however, that society has reached a certain moral level. . . .
VERSHININ. Yes, yes, of course.
CHEBUTYKIN. You said just now, Baron, that our age will be called great; but people are small all the same. . . [gets up]. Look how small I am. [A violin is played behind the scenes.]
MASHA. That's Andrey playing, our brother.
IRINA. He's the scholar of the family. We expect him to become a professor. Father was a military man, but his son has gone in for a scholarly
career.
MASHA. It was father's wish.
OLGA. We've been teasing him today. We think he's a little in love.
IRINA. With a young lady living here. She'll come in today most likely.
MASHA. Oh, how she dresses! It's not that her clothes are merely ugly or out of fashion, they're simply pitiful. A weird gaudy yellowish skirt with some sort of vulgar fringe and a red blouse. And her cheeks scrubbed till they shine! Andrey is not in love with her -- I won't admit that, he has some taste after all -- it's simply for fun, he is teasing us, playing the fool. I heard yesterday that she is going to be married to Protopopov, the chairman of our District Council. And a very good thing too. . . . [At the side door] Andrey, come here, dear, for a minute!
[Enter ANDREY.]
OLGA. This is my brother, Andrey Sergeyevitch.
VERSHININ. My name is Vershinin.
ANDREY. And mine is Prozorov [mops his perspiring face]. You're our new battery commander?
OLGA. Can you believe, Alexandr Ignatyevitch comes from Moscow.
ANDREY. Really? Well, then, I congratulate you. My sisters will let you have no peace.
VERSHININ. I've had time to bore your sisters already.
IRINA. See what a pretty picture-frame Andrey has given me today! [Shows the frame] He made it himself.
VERSHININ [looking at the frame and not knowing what to say]. Yes. ., it is a thing. . . .
IRINA. And that frame above the piano, he made that too!
[ANDREY waves his hand in despair and moves away.]
OLGA. He's a scholar, and he plays the violin, and he makes all sorts of things with the fretsaw. In fact he's good all round. Andrey, don't go! That's a way he has -- he always tries to make off! Come here!
[MASHA and IRINA take him by the arms and, laughing, lead him back.]
MASHA. Come, come!
ANDREY. Leave me alone, please!
MASHA. How funny he is! Alexandr Ignatyevitch used to be called the love-sick major at one time, and he wasn't a bit offended.
VERSHININ. Not in the least!
MASHA. And I'd like to call you the love-sick violinist!
IRINA. Or the love-sick professor!
OLGA. He's in love! Andryusha is in love!
IRINA [claps her hands]. Bravo, bravo! Encore! Andryusha is in love!
CHEBUTYKIN [comes up behind ANDREY and puts both arms round his waist]. Nature our hearts for love created! [Laughs, then sits down and reads the newspaper which he takes out of his pocket.]
ANDREY. Come, that's enough, that's enough. . . [mops his face]. I haven't slept all night and this morning I don't feel quite myself, as they say. I read till four o'clock and then went to bed, but it was no use. I thought of one thing and another, and then it gets light so early; the sun simply pours into my bedroom. I want while I'm here during the summer to translate a book from the English. . . .
VERSHININ. You read English then?
ANDREY. Yes. Our father, the Kingdom of Heaven be his, oppressed us with education. It's funny and silly, but it must be confessed I began to get fatter after his death, and I've grown too fat in one year, as though a weight had been taken off my body. Thanks to our father we all know English, French and German, and Irina knows Italian too. But what it cost us!
MASHA. In this town to know three languages is an unnecessary luxury! Not even a luxury, but an unnecessary encumbrance, like a sixth finger. We know a great deal that's unnecessary.
VERSHININ. What next! [laughs] You know a great deal that's unnecessary! I don't think there can be a town so dull and dismal that intelligent and educated people are unnecessary in it. Let's suppose that of the hundred thousand people living in this town, which is, of course, uncultured and behind the times, there are only three of your sort. It goes without saying that you cannot conquer the mass of darkness round you; little by little, as you go on living, you'll be lost in the crowd. You'll have to give in to it. Life will get the better of you, but still you'll not disappear without a trace. After you there may appear perhaps six like you, then twelve and so on until such as you form a majority. In two or three hundred years, life on earth will be unimaginably beautiful, marvellous. Man needs such a life and, though he hasn't got it yet, he must have a presentiment of it, expect it, dream of it, prepare for it; for that he must see and know more than his father and grandfather [laughs]. And you complain of knowing a great deal that's unnecessary.
MASHA [takes off her hat]. I'll stay to lunch.
IRINA [with a sigh]. All that really ought to be written down. . . .
[ANDREY has slipped away unobserved.]
TUZENBAKH. You say that after many years life on earth will be beautiful and marvellous. That's true. But in order to have any share, however far off, in it now we must be preparing for it, we must be working. . . .
VERSHININ [gets up]. Yes. What a lot of flowers you have! [Looking round] And delightful rooms. I envy you! I've been knocking about all my life from one wretched lodging to another, always with two chairs and a sofa and stoves which smoke. What I've been lacking all my life is just such flowers . . . [rubs his hands]. But there, it's no use thinking about it!
TUZENBAKH. Yes, we must work. No doubt you think the German is getting sentimental. But on my honour I am Russian and I can't even speak German. My father belonged to the Orthodox Church. . . [a pause].
VERSHININ [walks about the stage]. I often think, what if you were to begin life over again, knowing what you're doing! If one life, which has been already lived, were only a rough sketch so to speak, and the second were the final copy! Then, I think, every one of us would try before anything else not to repeat himself, anyway he would create a different setting for his life; would have a house like this with plenty of light and masses of flowers. . . . I have a wife and two little girls, my wife is in delicate health and so on and so on, but if I were to begin life over again I would not marry. . . . No, no!
[Enter KULYGIN in the uniform of a teacher.]
KULYGIN [goes up to IRINA]. Dear sister, allow me to congratulate you on your name-day and with all my heart to wish you good health and everything else that one can desire for a girl of your age. And to offer you as a gift this little book [gives her a book]. The history of our high-school for fifty years, written by myself. An insignificant little book, written because I had nothing better to do, but still you can read it. Good day, friends. [To VERSHININ] My name is Kuligin, teacher in the high-school here, court councilor. [To IRINA] In that book you'll find a list of all who have finished their studies in our high-school during the last fifty years. Feci, quod potui, faciant meliora potentes [kisses MASHA]. IRINA. Why, but you gave me a copy of this book at Easter.
KULYGIN [laughs]. Impossible! If that's so, give it me back, or better still, give it to the Colonel. Please accept it, Colonel. Some day when you're bored you can read it.
VERSHININ. Thank you [is about to take leave]. I'm extremely glad to have made your acquaintance. . . .
OLGA. You are going? No, no!
IRINA. You must stay for lunch with us. Please do.
OLGA. Pray do!
VERSHININ [bows]. I believe I have intruded on a name-day party. Forgive me, I didn't know and haven't congratulated you. . . [Walks away with OLGA into the dining-room.]
KULYGIN. Today, ladies and gentlemen, is Sunday, a day of rest. Let's all rest and enjoy ourselves each in accordance with our age and our position. The carpets should be taken up for the summer and put away till the winter. . . . Persian powder or naphthaline. . . . The Romans were healthy because they knew how to work and they knew how to rest, they had mens sana in corpore sano. Their life was moulded into a certain framework. Our headmaster says that the most important thing in every life is its framework. . . . What loses its framework, comes to an end -- and it's the same in our everyday life. [Puts his arm round MASHA'S waist, laughing.] Masha loves me. My wife loves me. And the window curtains, too, ought to be put away together with the carpets. . . . Today I feel cheerful and in the best o
f spirits. Masha, at four o'clock this afternoon we have to be at the headmaster's house. An excursion has been arranged for the teachers and their families.
MASHA. I'm not going.
KULYGIN [grieved]. Dear Masha, why not?
MASHA. We'll talk about it afterwards. . . [Angrily] Very well, I'll go, only let me alone, please. . . [walks away].
KULYGIN. And then we shall spend the evening at the head-master's house. In spite of the delicate state of his health that man tries before all things to be sociable. He's an excellent, noble personality. A splendid man. Yesterday, after the meeting, he said to me, "I'm tired, Fyodor Ilyitch, I'm tired." [Looks at the clock, then at his watch] Your clock is seven minutes fast. "Yes," he said, "I'm tired."
[Sounds of a violin behind the scenes.]
OLGA. Come to lunch, please. There's a pie!
KULYGIN. Ah, Olga, my dear Olga! Yesterday I was working from early morning till eleven o'clock at night and was tired out, and today I feel happy [goes up to the table in the dining-room]. My dear. . . .
CHEBUTYKIN [puts the newspaper in his pocket and combs his beard]. Pie? Splendid!
MASHA [to CHEBUTYKIN, sternly]. Only mind you don't drink today! Do you hear? It's bad for you to drink.
CHEBUTYKIN. Oh, come, that's a thing of the past. It's two years since I got drunk. [Impatiently] But there, my good girl, what does it matter!
MASHA. Anyway, don't you dare to drink. Don't dare. [Angrily, but so as not to be heard by her husband] Oh, to hell with it, I'm going to be bored a whole evening at the headmaster's!
TUZENBAKH. I wouldn't go if I were you. . . . It's very simple.
CHEBUTYKIN. Don't go, my love.
MASHA. Oh, yes, don't go! . . . It's a damnable life, insufferable. . . [goes to the dining-room].
CHEBUTYKIN [following her]. Come, come. . . .
SOLYONY [going to the dining-room]. Chook, chook, . . . . . . . . .
TUZENBAKH. Enough, Vassily Vassilyevitch! Stop it!
SOLYONY. Chook, chook, . . . . . . . . .
KULYGIN [gaily]. Your health, Colonel! I am a teacher and one of the family here, Masha's husband. . . . She's very kind, really, very kind. . . .
VERSHININ. I'll have some of this dark-coloured vodka. . . [drinks]. To your health! [To OLGA] I feel so happy with all of you!
Selected plays Page 7
