Selected plays

by Anton Chekhov

  [No one is left in the drawing-room but IRINA and TUZENBAKH.]

  IRINA. Masha is in low spirits today. She was married at eighteen, when she thought him the cleverest of men. But now it's not the same now. He's the kindest of men, but he's not the cleverest.

  OLGA [impatiently]. Andrey, come on!

  ANDREY [behind the scenes]. I'm coming [comes in and goes to the table].

  TUZENBAKH. What are you thinking about?

  IRINA. Nothing. I don't like that Solyony of yours, I'm afraid of him. He keeps on saying such stupid things. . . .

  TUZENBAKH. He's a strange man. I'm sorry for him and annoyed by him, but more sorry. I think he's shy. . . . When there's just the two of us he is very intelligent and friendly, but in company he's rude, a bully. Don't go yet, let them sit down to the table. Let me be by you. What are you thinking of? [a pause] You're twenty, I'm not yet thirty. How many years have we got before us, a long, long chain of days full of my love for you. . . .

  IRINA. Nikolay Lvovitch, don't talk to me about love.

  TUZENBAKH [not listening]. I have a passionate craving for life, for struggle, for work, and that craving is mingled in my soul with my love for you, Irina, and just because you're beautiful it seems to me that life too is beautiful! What are you thinking of?

  IRINA. You say life is beautiful. . . . Yes, but what if it only seems so! Life for us three sisters hasn't been beautiful yet, we've been stifled by it as plants are choked by weeds. . . . I'm starting to cry. . . . I mustn't do that [hurriedly wipes her eyes and smiles]. I must work, I must work. The reason we are depressed and take such a gloomy view of life is that we know nothing of work. We come of people who despised work. . . .

  [Enter NATALYA IVANOVNA; she is wearing a pink dress with a green sash.]

  NATASHA. They're sitting down to lunch already. . . . I'm late. . . [Steals a glance at herself in the mirror and puts herself straight] I think my hair is all right. [Seeing IRINA] Dear Irina Sergeyevna, I congratulate you! [Gives her a vigorous and prolonged kiss.] You have a lot of visitors, I really feel embarrassed. . . . Good day, Baron!

  OLGA [coming into the drawing-room]. Well, here's Natalya Ivanovna! How are you, my dear? [Kisses her.]

  NATASHA. Congratulations on the name-day. You have such a big party and I feel awfully embarrassed. . . .

  OLGA. Nonsense, we have only our own people. [In an undertone, in alarm] You've got on a green sash! My dear, that's not done!

  NATASHA. Why, is that a bad omen?

  OLGA. No, it's only that it doesn't go with your dress. . . and it looks odd. . . .

  NATASHA [in a tearful voice]. Really? But you know it's not green exactly, it's more a dull colour [follows OLGA into the dining-room].

  [In the dining-room they are all sitting down to lunch; there is no one in the drawing-room.]

  KULYGIN. I wish you a good fiancé, Irina. It's time for you to think of getting married.

  CHEBUTYKIN. Natalya Ivanovna, I hope we may hear of your engagement, too.

  KULYGIN. Natalya Ivanovna has got a suitor already.

  MASHA. I'll have another little glass of wine! You only live once -- what the hell.

  KULYGIN. You deserve three bad marks for conduct.

  VERSHININ. How nice this cordial is! What is it made of?

  SOLYONY. Cockroaches.

  IRINA [in a tearful voice]. Ugh, ugh! How disgusting.

  OLGA. We're going to have roast turkey and apple pie for supper. Thank God I'm at home all day and will be at home in the evening. . . . Friends, won't you come again this evening?

  VERSHININ. Allow me to come too.

  IRINA. Please do.

  NATASHA. They don't stand on ceremony here.

  CHEBUTYKIN. Nature our hearts for love created! [Laughs]

  ANDREY [angrily]. Stop it, gentlemen! Aren't you tired of it yet?

  [FEDOTIK and RODE come in with a big basket of flowers.]

  FEDOTIK. Why, they're at lunch already.

  RODE [speaking loudly, with a lisp]. At lunch? Yes, they are at lunch already. . . .

  FEDOTIK. Wait a minute [takes a snapshot]. One! Wait another minute. . . [takes another snapshot]. Two! Now it's ready. [They take the basket and walk into the dining-room, where they are greeted noisily.]

  RODE [loudly]. My congratulations! I wish you everything, everything! The weather is delightful, perfectly magnificent. I've been out all the morning for a walk with the high-school boys. I teach them gymnastics.

  FEDOTIK. You may move, Irina Sergeyevna, you may move [taking a photograph]. You look charming today [taking a top out of his pocket]. Here is a top, by the way. . . . It has a wonderful sound. . . .

  IRINA. How lovely!

  MASHA. By the sea-shore an oak-tree green. . . . Upon that oak a chain of gold. . . [Tearfully] Why do I keep saying that? That phrase has been haunting me all day. . . .

  KULYGIN. Thirteen at table!

  RODE [loudly]. Surely you don't attach importance to such superstitions? [Laughter]

  KULYGIN. If there are thirteen at table, it means that someone present is in love. It's not you, Ivan Romanovitch, by any chance? [Laughter]

  CHEBUTYKIN. I'm an old sinner, but why Natalya Ivanovna is blushing, I can't imagine. . .

  [Loud laughter; NATASHA runs out from the dining-room into the drawing-room followed by ANDREY.]

  ANDREY. Come, don't take any notice! Wait a minute. . . stop, please. . . .

  NATASHA. I feel ashamed. . . . I don't know what's the matter with me and they make fun of me. I know it's improper for me to leave the table like this, but I can't help it. . . . I can't. . . [covers her face with her hands].

  ANDREY. My dear girl, please, I implore you, don't be upset. I assure you they're only joking, they do it in all kindness. My dear, my sweet, they're all kind, warm-hearted people and they're fond of me and of you. Come here to the window, here they can't see us. . . [looks round].

  NATASHA. I'm so unaccustomed to society! . . .

  ANDREY. Oh youth, lovely, marvellous youth! My dear, my sweet, don't be so distressed! Believe me, believe me. . I feel so happy, my soul is full of love and ecstasy. . . . Oh, they can't see us, they can't see us! Why, why, I love you, when I first loved you -- oh, I don't know. My dear, my sweet, pure one, be my wife! I love you, I love you. . . as I have never loved anyone. . . [a kiss].

  [Two officers come in and, seeing the pair kissing, stop in amazement.]

  CURTAIN. Act II

  The same scene as in the First Act. Eight o'clock in the evening. Behind the scenes in the street there is the faintly audible sound of an accordion. There is no light. NATALYA IVANOYNA enters in a dressing-gown, carrying a candle; she comes in and stops at the door leading to ANDREY'S room.

  NATASHA. What are you doing, Andryusha? Reading? Never mind, I only just asked . . . [goes and opens another door and peeping into it, shuts it again]. Is there a light?

  ANDREY [enters with a book in his hand]. What is it, Natasha?

  NATASHA. I was looking to see whether there was a light, . . . It's Carnival, the servants aren't acting normally; you've always got to be on the lookout in case something goes wrong. Last night at twelve o'clock I passed through the dining-room, and there was a candle left burning. I couldn't find out who had lighted it [puts down the candle]. What's the time?

  ANDREY [looking at his watch]. A quarter past eight.

  NATASHA. And Olga and Irina aren't in yet. They haven't come in. Still at work, poor dears! Olga is at the faculty meeting and Irina at the telegraph office . . . [sighs]. I was saying to your sister this morning, "Take care of yourself, Irina darling," said I. But she won't listen. A quarter past eight, you say? I am afraid our Bobik is not at all well. Why is he so cold? Yesterday he was feverish and today he is cold all over, . . . I am so anxious!

  ANDREY. It's all right, Natasha. The boy is quite well.

  NATASHA. We'd better be careful about his food, anyway. I'm anxious. And I'm told that the mummers are going to be here for the Carniv
al at nine o'clock this evening. It would be better for them not to come, Andryusha.

  ANDREY. I really don't know. They've been invited, you know.

  NATASHA. Baby woke up this morning, looked at me, and all at once he gave a smile; so he knew me. "Good morning, Bobik!" said I. "Good morning, darling!" And he laughed. Children understand; they understand very well. So I'll tell them, Andryusha, not to let the Carnival party come in.

  ANDREY [irresolutely]. That's for my sisters to say. It's for them to give orders, since it's their house.

  NATASHA. Yes, for them too; I'll speak to them. They are so kind . . . [going] . I've ordered yogurt for supper. The doctor says you must eat nothing but yogurt, or you will never get thinner [stops]. Bobik is cold. I'm afraid his room is chilly, perhaps. We ought to put him in a different room till the warm weather comes, anyway. Irina's room, for instance, is just right for a nursery: it's dry and the sun shines there all day. I must tell her; she might share Olga's room for the time. . . . She's never at home, anyway, except for the night . . . [a pause]. Andryushantchik, why don't you speak?

  ANDREY. Nothing. I was . . . . . . . . Besides, I have nothing to say.

  NATASHA. Yes . . . what was it I meant to tell you? . . . Oh, yes; Ferapont has come from the District Council, and is asking for you.

  ANDREY [yawns]. Send him in.

  [NATASHA goes out; ANDREY, bending down to the candle which she has left behind, reads. Enter FERAPONT; he wears an old shabby overcoat, with the collar turned up, and has a scarf over his ears.]

  ANDREY. Good evening, my good man. What is it?

  FERAPONT. The Chairman has sent a book and a paper of some sort here . . . [gives the book and an packet].

  ANDREY. Thanks. Very good. But why have you come so late? It's past eight.

  FERAPONT. Eh?

  ANDREY [louder]. I say, you have come late. It's past eight o'clock.

  FERAPONT. Just so. I came before it was dark, but they wouldn't let me see you. The master is busy, they told me. Well, of course, if you are busy, I'm in no hurry [thinking that ANDREY has asked him a question]. Eh?

  ANDREY. Nothing [examines the book]. Tomorrow is Friday. We don't have a meeting, but I'll come all the same . . . and do my work. It's boring at home . . . [a pause]. Dear old man, how strangely life changes and deceives you! Today I was so bored and had nothing to do, so I picked up this book -- old university lectures -- and I laughed. . . . Good heavens! I'm the secretary of the District Council of which Protopopov is the chairman. I am the secretary, and the most I can hope for is to become a member of the Board! Me, a member of the local District Council, while I dream every night I'm professor at the University of Moscow -- a distinguished man, of whom all Russia is proud!

  FERAPONT. I can't say, sir. . . . I don't hear well. . . .

  ANDREY. If you did hear well, perhaps I shouldn't talk to you. I must talk to somebody, and my wife doesn't understand me. My sisters I'm somehow afraid of -- I'm afraid they will laugh at me and make me ashamed. . . . I don't drink, I'm not fond of restaurants, but how I'd enjoy sitting at Tyestov's or the Bolshoy Moskovsky at this moment, dear old man!

  FERAPONT. A contractor was saying at the Board the other day that there were some merchants in Moscow eating pancakes; one who ate forty, it seems, died. It was either forty or fifty, I don't remember.

  ANDREY. In Moscow you sit in a huge room at a restaurant; you know no one and no one knows you, and at the same time you don't feel a stranger. . . . But here you know everyone and everyone knows you, and yet you are a stranger -- a stranger. . . . A stranger, and lonely, . . .

  FERAPONT. Eh? [a pause] And the same contractor says -- maybe it's not true -- that there's a rope stretched right across Moscow.

  ANDREY. What for?

  FERAPONT. I can't say, sir. The contractor said so.

  ANDREY. Nonsense [reads]. Have you ever been to Moscow?

  FERAPONT [after a pause]. No, never. It wasn't God's will I should [a pause]. Mind if I go?

  ANDREY. You can go. Take care of yourself. [FERAPONT goes out.] Take care [reading]. Come tomorrow morning and pick up some papers here. . . . Go. . . . [a pause]. He's gone [a ring]. Yes, it's work . . . [stretches and goes slowly into his own room].

  [Behind the scenes a nanny is singing, rocking a baby to sleep. Enter MASHA and VERSHININ. While they are talking a maidservant is lighting a lamp and candles in the dining-room.]

  MASHA. I don't know [a pause]. I don't know. Of course habit means a great deal. After father's death, for instance, it was a long time before we could get used to having no orderlies in the house. But apart from habit, I think it's a feeling of justice makes me say so. Perhaps it's not so in other places, but in our town the most decent, honourable, and well-bred people are all in the army.

  VERSHININ. I'm thirsty. I'd like some tea.

  MASHA [glancing at the clock]. They'll soon be bringing it. I was married when I was eighteen, and I was afraid of my husband because he was a teacher, and I had only just left school. In those days I thought him an awfully scholarly, clever, and important person. And now it's not the same, unfortunately. . . .

  VERSHININ. Yes. . . . I see. . . .

  MASHA. I'm not speaking of my husband -- I'm used to him; but among civilians generally there are so many rude, ill-mannered, badly-brought-up people. Rudeness upsets and distresses me: I'm unhappy when I see that a man is not refined, not gentle, not polite enough. When I have to be among the teachers, my husband's colleagues, it makes me quite miserable.

  VERSHININ. Yes. . . . But, to my mind, it makes no difference whether they are civilians or military men -- they are equally uninteresting, in this town anyway. It's all the same! If one listens to a man of the educated class here, civilian or military, he's worried to death by his wife, worried to death by his house, worried to death by his estate, worried to death by his horses. . . . A Russian is peculiarly given to exalted ideas, but why is it he always falls so short in life? Why?

  MASHA. Why?

  VERSHININ. Why is he worried to death by his children and by his wife? And why are his wife and children worried to death by him?

  MASHA. You are rather depressed this evening.

  VERSHININ. Perhaps. . . . I've had no dinner today, and had nothing to eat since the morning. My daughter is not quite well, and when my little girls are ill I am consumed by anxiety; my conscience reproaches me for having given them such a mother. Oh, if you had seen her today! What a fool she is! We began quarrelling at seven o'clock in the morning, and at nine I slammed the door and went away [a pause]. I never talk about it. Strange, it's only to you I complain [kisses her hand]. Don't be angry with me. . . . Except for you I have no one -- no one . . . [a pause].

  MASHA. What a noise in the stove! Before father died there was howling in the chimney. There, just like that.

  VERSHININ. Are you superstitious?

  MASHA. Yes.

  VERSHININ. That's strange [kisses her hand]. You're a splendid, wonderful woman. Splendid! Wonderful! It's dark, but I see the light in your eyes.

  MASHA [moves to another chair]. It's lighter here.

  VERSHININ. I love you -- love you, love you, . . . I love your eyes, your movements, I see them in my dreams. . . . Splendid, wonderful woman!

  MASHA [laughing softly]. When you talk to me like that, for some reason I laugh, though I am frightened. . . . Please don't do it again . . . [In an undertone] You may say it, though; I don't mind . . . [covers her face with her hands]. I don't mind, . . . Someone is coming. Talk of something else.

  [IRINA and TUZENBAKH come in through the dining-room.]

  TUZENBAKH. I've got a three-barrelled name. My name is Baron Tusenbach-Krone-Altschauer, but I belong to the Orthodox Church and am just as Russian as you. There is very little of the German left in me -- nothing, perhaps, but the patience and obstinacy with which I bore you. I walk you home every evening.

  IRINA. How tired I am!

  TUZENBAKH. And every day I'll come to the telegraph offi
ce and walk you home. I'll do it for ten years, for twenty years, till you drive me away . . . [Seeing MASHA and VERSHININ, delightedly] Oh, it's you! How are you?

  IRINA. Well, I'm home at last. [To MASHA] A lady came just now to telegraph to her brother in Saratov that her son died today, and she couldn't think of the address. So she sent it without an address -- simply to Saratov. She was crying. And I was rude to her for no reason. Told her I had no time to waste. It was so stupid. Are the Carnival people coming to-night?

  MASHA. Yes.

  IRINA [sits down in an arm-chair]. I must rest. I'm tired.

  TUZENBAKH [with a smile]. When you come from the office you seem so young, so forlorn . . . [a pause].

  IRINA. I'm tired. No, I don't like telegraph work, I don't like it.

  MASHA. You've grown thinner . . . [whistles]. And you look younger, rather like a boy in the face.

  TUZENBAKH. That's the way she does her hair.

  IRINA. I must find some other job, this does not suit me. What I so longed for, what I dreamed of is the very thing that it's lacking in, . . . It is work without poetry, without meaning. . . . [a knock on the floor]. There's the doctor knocking. . . . [To TUZENBAKH] Knock back, dear. . . . I can't. . . . I am tired.

  [TUZENBAKH knocks on the floor.]

  IRINA. He will come directly. We ought to do something about it. The doctor and our Andrey were at the Club yesterday and they lost again. I am told Andrey lost two hundred roubles.

  MASHA. [indifferently]. Well, it can't be helped now.

  IRINA. Two weeks ago he lost money, in December he lost money. I wish he'd hurry up and lose everything, then perhaps we'd go away from this town. My God, every night I dream of Moscow, it's perfect madness [laughs]. We'll move there in June and there's still left February, March, April, May . . . almost half a year.

  MASHA. The only thing is Natasha must not hear of his losses.

  IRINA. I don't suppose she cares.

  [CHEBUTYKIN, who has only just got off his bed -- he has been resting after dinner -- comes into the dining-room combing his beard, then sits down to the table and takes a newspaper out of his pocket.]