IRINA: Is he an interesting man?
TUZENBAKH: Yes, quite, only he has a wife, a mother-in-law and two little girls. And it’s his second marriage. He pays calls and says everywhere that he has a wife and two little girls. And he’ll say it here. His wife is sort of crazy, she has a long plait of hair like a young girl, she dabbles in philosophy, only talking about high-flown things, and often attempts suicide, clearly to spite her husband. I would have left a woman like that long ago, but he bears it and only complains about it.
SOLYONY [coming into the drawing-room from the hall with Chebutykin ]: With one hand I can only lift one and a half puds, but with two I can do five or even six. From that I conclude that two men are stronger than one by a factor not of two but of three or even more ...
CHEBUTYKIN [reading the newspaper as he walks]: For falling hair, two zolotniks of naphthaline to half a bottle of spirit ... dissolve and use daily ... [Makes a note in a notebook.] We’ll make a note of that. [To Solyony] So, as I was saying to you, you put a cork into a little bottle with a glass tube stuck through it ... Then you take a pinch of simple, ordinary alum ...
IRINA: Ivan Romanych, dear Ivan Romanych!
CHEBUTYKIN: What is it, dear girl, my joy?
IRINA: Tell me why I’m so happy today. It’s as if I had sails and above me great white birds were flying in the wide blue sky. Why is this? Why?
CHEBUTYKIN [kissing both her hands, tenderly]: My white bird ...
IRINA: When I woke today and got up and washed, I suddenly started to think that everything in this world is clear to me, and that I know the way to live. Dear Ivan Romanych, I know everything. A man, whoever he may be, must work, must toil by the sweat of his brow, and in that alone lie the sense and the goal of our life, its happiness, its joys. How good to be a labourer who gets up at dawn and breaks stones on the street, or a shepherd, or a schoolteacher teaching children, or an engine-driver on the railway ... My God, better even not to be a man, better to be an ox, a simple horse, if only to work, than a young woman who gets up at midday, then drinks coffee in bed, then spends two hours dressing ... Oh, how awful that is! Sometimes, in hot weather, you long for a drink — that’s how I long to work. And if I don’t get up early and work hard, then, Ivan Romanych, you must refuse me your friendship ...
CHEBUTYKIN [tenderly]: I will refuse it, I will ...
OLGA: Father taught us to get up at seven. Now Irina wakes at seven and lies there till nine at least, thinking about something. And her expression is so serious! [Laughs.]
IRINA: You’ve got accustomed to seeing me as a little girl and you find it strange when I have a serious expression. I’m twenty years old!
TUZENBAKH: God, how I understand the longing for work! I’ve never worked in my life, not once. I was born in cold and empty Petersburg, in a family which didn’t know about work, didn’t know about worries. I remember, when I came home from cadet school,2 a footman used to pull off my boots. I was difficult at that time but my mother revered me and was surprised when others had a different view of me. I was protected from work. Only not wholly successfully, not wholly! This time has come, a great mass is moving towards all of us, a mighty, healthy storm is rising, it’s coming, it’s already near, and soon it will blow sloth, indifference, contempt for work, this festering boredom right out of our society. I will work and in some twenty-five or thirty years’ time everyone will work. Everyone!
CHEBUTYKIN: I won’t work.
TUZENBAKH: You don’t count.
SOLYONY: In twenty-five years you won’t be in this world, thank God. In two or three years you’ll die of a stroke, or else I shall lose my temper, dear boy, and put a bullet through your forehead. [He takes a scent bottle out of his pocket and sprinkles his chest and hands.]
CHEBUTYKIN [laughing]: But I’ve really never done anything. Since I finished university I haven’t lifted a finger, I haven’t even read a single book, I’ve just read the newspapers ... [Takes another paper out of his pocket.] Here ... I know from the papers that a writer called Dobrolyubov,3 say, existed, but what he wrote - I’ ve no idea ... God knows ...
[There’s the sound of banging on the ceiling of the floor below.]
There ... They’re calling me downstairs, someone has come to see me. I’m coming right away ... wait a moment ... [Hurriedly goes out combing his beard.]
IRINA: He’s made that up.
TUZENBAKH: Yes. He went out with a solemn expression. He’s obviously now going to bring you a present.
IRINA: How tiresome!
OLGA: Yes, it’s terrible. He’s always doing silly things.
MASHA: ‘An oak in leaf beside the seashore, upon that oak a chain of gold’ . . . ‘upon that oak a chain of gold’4 ... [Gets up and sings softly.]
OLGA: You’re not very cheerful today, Masha.
[MASHA puts on her hat, still singing.]
Where are you going?
MASHA: Home.
IRINA: Odd ...
TUZENBAKH: Leaving us on her name-day!
MASHA: It doesn’t matter ... I’ll come back this evening. Goodbye, my dear ... [Kisses Irina.] Let me again wish you health and happiness. In the old days, when Father was alive, thirty or forty officers used to come on each of our name-days, it was really noisy, but today there are only one and a half people and it’s quiet as the desert ... I’m going ... Today I’m in a melancholy mood, I’m feeling depressed, so don’t listen to me, Irina. [Laughing with tears in her eyes.] We’ll talk later, but goodbye for now, my dear, I’m going somewhere.
IRINA [crossly]: Really, you are a ...
OLGA [in tears]: I understand you, Masha.
SOLYONY: If a man talks philosophy, you get philosophistry, or at least sophistry; but if a woman talks philosophy, or two women, you’ll end up with — I won’t say it.
MASHA: What do you mean by that? You’re being terribly scary.
SOLYONY: Nothing. ‘He had no time his tale to tell before the bear upon him fell.’5
[A pause.]
MASHA [to Olga, angrily]: Do stop blubbing!
[Enter ANFISA and FERAPONT with a cake.]
ANFISA: In here, old man. Come in, your feet are clean. [To Irina] From the Council, from Mikhail Ivanych Protopopov ... A cake.
IRINA: Thank you. Thank him for me. [Takes the cake.]
FERAPONT: What?
IRINA [louder]: Thank him!
OLGA: Nyanya dear, give him some cake. Ferapont, go, they’ll give you some cake in there.
FERAPONT: What?
ANFISA: Let’s go, old Ferapont Spiridonych. Let’s go ... [She and FERAPONT go out.]
MASHA: I don’t like that Protopopov, that Mikhail Potapych or Ivanych. We shouldn’t invite him.
IRINA: I haven’t invited him.
MASHA: Well done.
[Enter CHEBUTYKIN, followed by an orderly carrying a silver samovar; there’s a buzz of surprise and annoyance.]
OLGA [covering her face with her hands]: A samovar! It’s terrible! [Goes into the hall towards the table.]
IRINA: Dear Ivan Romanych, what are you up to?
TUZENBAKH [laughing]: I told you.
MASHA: Ivan Romanych, you simply have no shame.
CHEBUTYKIN: My good girls, my dear girls, you are all I have, you are the dearest thing that exists in the world for me. I shall soon be sixty, I am an old man, a lonely, worthless old man ... There’s no good in me except for this love I have for you, and if it weren’t for you, I would long ago have ceased to live in this world ... [To Irina] My darling child, I’ve known you since the day you were born ... I carried you in my arms ... I loved your late mother ...
IRINA: But why do you give such expensive presents?
CHEBUTYKIN [angrily, with tears in his eyes]: Expensive presents ... Really! [To the orderly] Take the samovar in there ... [Mimics her.] Expensive presents ...
[The orderly carries the samovar into the hall.]
ANFISA [passing through the drawing-room]: My dears, there’s a colonel we don’t kno
w! He’s already taken his coat off, girls, he’s coming in here. Arinushka, be nice and polite ... [Going out.] And it’s long past lunch time ... heavens above ...
TUZENBAKH: It must be Vershinin.
[Enter VERSHININ.]
Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin!
VERSHININ [to Masha and Irina]: May I have the honour of introducing myself: Vershinin. I am very, very pleased to be in your house at last. How you’ve grown! Goodness!
IRINA: Sit down, please. We’re delighted.
VERSHININ [gaily]: How pleased I am, how pleased! But you are three sisters. I remember — three little girls. I don’t remember the faces any longer, but I do remember very well that your father, Colonel Prozorov, had three little girls and I saw them with my own eyes. How time passes! Oh yes, how time passes!
TUZENBAKH: Aleksandr Ignatyevich is from Moscow.
IRINA: From Moscow? You are from Moscow?
VERSHININ: Yes, from Moscow. Your late father commanded a battery there and I was an officer in the same brigade. [To Masha] Now I think I remember your face a little.
MASHA: But I don’t remember you.
IRINA: Olya! Olya! [Shouts to the hall] Olya, come here!
[OLGA comes from the hall into the drawing-room.]
It turns out Colonel Vershinin is from Moscow.
VERSHININ: You must be Olga Sergeyevna, the eldest ... And you Mariya ... And you are Irina — the youngest ...
OLGA: You’re from Moscow?
VERSHININ: Yes. I studied in Moscow and I went into the army in Moscow, I served there a long time, finally I got a battery here — I’ve moved here as you can see. I don’t remember you clearly, I remember only that you were three sisters. Your father has stayed in my memory, I just have to close my eyes and I see him as if he were alive. I used to come to your house in Moscow ...
OLGA: I thought I remembered everyone, and now ...
VERSHININ: My name is Aleksandr Ignatyevich ...
IRINA: Aleksandr Ignatyevich, you are from Moscow ... What a surprise!
OLGA: You see, we’re moving there.
IRINA: We think we’ll be there by the autumn. It’s our home town, we were born there ... In Staraya Basmannaya Street ...
[Both of them laugh with happiness.]
MASHA: What a surprise to see someone else from Moscow. [Animatedly ] Now I remember! Do you remember, Olya, we used to talk of ‘the Lovesick Major’? You were a subaltern then and in love with someone, and everyone used to tease you for some reason as ‘Major’ ...
VERSHININ [laughing]: Yes, yes ... The Lovesick Major, exactly ...
MASHA: Only then you had a moustache ... Oh how you’ve aged! [With tears in her eyes] How you’ve aged!
VERSHININ: Yes, when you used to call me the Lovesick Major, I was still young, I was in love. It’s different now.
OLGA: But still you don’t have a single grey hair. You’ve aged but you’re not yet old.
VERSHININ: However, I’m already forty-two. Did you leave Moscow a long time ago?
IRINA: Eleven years ago. Now, Masha, why are you crying, you funny thing? ... [With tears in her eyes] I’m going to start crying too ...
MASHA: It’s nothing. And what street did you live in?
VERSHININ: Staraya Basmannaya.
OLGA: And so did we ...
VERSHININ: At one time I lived in Nemetskaya Street. From Nemetskaya I used to walk to the Krasnye Barracks. There’s a grim bridge on the way there, the water makes a noise under the bridge. A melancholy place for a man on his own.
[A pause.]
But what a wide, splendid river you have here! A wonderful river!
OLGA: Yes, only it’s cold. It’s cold here and there are mosquitoes ...
VERSHININ: What! You’ve got such a good, healthy Slav climate here. The forest, the river ... and there are birches here too. Dear humble birches, I love them best of all trees. It’s good to live here. Only it’s odd the railway station is twenty-five versts away ... And no one knows why.
SOLYONY: But I do know why.
[Everyone looks at him.]
Because if the station were near by, it wouldn’t be far away, and if it’s far away that means it isn’t near by.
[An awkward silence.]
TUZENBAKH: What a joker you are, Vasily Vasilyich.
OLGA: Now I’ve remembered you too. I remember.
VERSHININ: I knew your Mama.
CHEBUTYKIN: She was a good woman, God rest her soul.
IRINA: Mama is buried in Moscow.
OLGA: In the Novodevichy Cemetery6 . . .
MASHA: Just think, I’m already beginning to forget her face. They won’t remember us either. We’ll be forgotten.
VERSHININ: Yes. We’ll be forgotten. That’s our destiny, we can’t do anything about it. What seems to us serious and significant and really important — a time will come when it’ll be forgotten or seem unimportant.
[A pause.]
And it’s interesting that we absolutely can’t know what exactly will be regarded as sublime and important and what will be thought pathetic and ridiculous. Didn’t the discoveries of Copernicus or, say, Columbus, seem unnecessary at first, ridiculous, and didn’t some vacuous nonsense written by a crank seem the truth? And maybe our life today, with which we are so comfortable, with the passage of time will come to seem strange, awkward, stupid, not pure enough, even sinful ...
TUZENBAKH: Who knows? Perhaps people will talk about our lofty existence and recall it with reverence. There are no tortures now, no executions, no invasions, but all the same, how much suffering!
SOLYONY [in a piping voice]: Cluck, cluck, cluck ... Don’t give the Baron anything to eat, just let him talk philosophy.
TUZENBAKH: Vasily Vasilyich, I beg you to leave me in peace ... [Sits down in another place.] It becomes a bore.
SOLYONY [in a high-pitched voice]: Cluck, cluck, cluck ...
TUZENBAKH [to Vershinin]: But still, the suffering we see now — there’s so much of it — shows that at this stage society has reached a certain moral development ...
VERSHININ: Yes, yes, of course.
CHEBUTYKIN: You just said, Baron, that people will talk about our lofty existence; but men are still small ... [Gets up.] Look how small I am. Of course, to console me people call my existence lofty.
[Offstage someone is playing the violin.]
MASHA: That’s Andrey playing, our brother.
IRINA: He’s our scholar. He’ll probably get a university chair. Father was a soldier but his son chose an academic career.
MASHA: As Papa wanted.
OLGA: We teased him quite a lot today. I think he’s a little in love.
IRINA: With a local young lady. She’ll very probably be here today.
MASHA: Oh dear, her clothes! It’s not that they’re ugly or unfashionable, they’re simply pathetic. Some odd, bright-coloured, yellowish skirt with a kind of horrid little fringe and a red blouse. And those cheeks scrubbed shiny clean! Andrey isn’t in love — I won’t admit that, he still has some taste, but he just seems to be teasing us, playing the fool. Yesterday I heard that she’s marrying Protopopov, the chairman of the local Council. Just right ...
[Speaking through the side door] Andrey, come in here! Only for a moment, dear.
[Enter ANDREY.]
OLGA: This is my brother Andrey Sergeich.
VERSHININ: Vershinin.
ANDREY: Prozorov. [Wipes his perspiring face.] Are you our new battery commander?
OLGA: Imagine, Aleksandr Ignatyich is from Moscow.
ANDREY: Really? Well, congratulations, now my sisters will give you no peace.
VERSHININ: I’ve already had time to bore your sisters.
IRINA: Look what a dear little portrait frame Andrey gave me today. [Shows him the frame.] He made it himself.
VERSHININ [looking at the frame and not knowing what to say]: Yes ... that’s something ...
IRINA : And he also made that little frame above the piano.
[ANDREY throw
s up a hand and moves off.]
OLGA: Our brother is a scholar and plays the violin and makes all kinds of bits of woodwork — in short, he’s master of all trades. Andrey, don’t go off. He has a way of always walking off. Come here.
[MASHA andIRINA take him by the arms and, laughing, bring him back.]
MASHA: Come, come.
ANDREY : Leave me alone, please.
MASHA: What a funny man you are. Aleksandr Ignatyich once used to be called the Lovesick Major, and he wasn’t cross at all.
VERSHININ: Not at all.
MASHA: And I’m going to call you the Lovesick Violinist.
IRINA: Or the Lovesick Professor ...
OLGA: He’s in love! Andryusha is in love!
CHEBUTYKIN [coming up to Andrey from behind and taking him by the waist with both hands]: ‘For what does Nature bear us? For love, and love alone.’ [Roars with laughter; the whole time he is carrying his newspaper.]
ANDREY: Well, that’s enough, enough ... [Wiping his face.] I didn’t sleep all night and now, as people say, I’m not quite myself. I read until four, then I went to bed, but it was no good. I thought of this and that, and then it was early light, the sun really shines into my bedroom. While I’m here in the summer I want to translate a book from English.
VERSHININ : So you know English?
ANDREY: Yes. My father, God rest his soul, piled education onto us. It’s funny and silly but I have to admit that after his death I began to fill out and in a year I’ve become fat, as if my body had been liberated. Thanks to my father, my sisters and I speak French, German and English, and Irina speaks Italian as well. But at what cost!
MASHA: In this town to know three languages is an unnecessary luxury. Not even a luxury but some kind of unnecessary appendage, like a sixth finger. We have a lot of superfluous knowledge.
The Plays of Anton Chekhov Page 24
