The Plays of Anton Chekhov

by Anton Chekhov

CHEBUTYKIN: The Baron is a good man, but one baron more or one baron less - what can it matter? Let it be! What can it matter!

  [Beyond the garden is a cry: ‘Hallo-o! Ho-ho!’]

  You can wait. That’s Skvortsov shouting, the second. He’s sitting in a boat.

  [A pause.]

  ANDREY: In my opinion, taking part in a duel and being present at one, even if in the capacity of a doctor, are both simply immoral.

  CHEBUTYKIN : That’s just appearances ... There is nothing in the world, there is no ‘we’, we don’t exist, it just seems we do ... And what can it matter!

  MASHA: That’s how they go on talking and talking the whole day long ... [Starts walking.] We live in this climate, it’ll snow any moment, and on top of that we have these conversations ... [Stops.] I won’t go into the house, I can’t go in there ... When Vershinin comes, will you tell me ... [Walks down the avenue.] And the migrant birds are starting to fly ... [Looks up.] Swans or geese ... Dear birds, happy birds ... [Exit.]

  ANDREY: Our house will be empty. The officers will leave, you will leave, my sister will be married, and I will remain alone in the house.

  CHEBUTYKIN: What about your wife?

  [FERAPONT comes in with some papers.]

  ANDREY: My wife is my wife. She is honest, decent, yes, kind, but all the same there’s something in her which brings her down to the level of a small, blind, horny-skinned animal. At all events, she isn’t human. I’m talking to you as a friend, the only person I can open my soul to. I love Natasha, that is the truth, but sometimes I find her amazingly coarse, and then I get confused, I don’t understand how or why I love her so, or at least did love her ...

  CHEBUTYKIN [getting up]: I, my friend, am going away tomorrow, maybe we shall never meet again, so this is my advice to you. Just put on your hat, take a stick in your hand and leave ... leave and start walking, walk and don’t look round. And the further you walk, the better.

  [SOLYONY walks across the back of the stage with two officers; seeing Chebutykin he turns to him; the officers walk on.]

  SOLYONY: Doctor, it’s time! It’s already half past twelve. [Greets Andrey.]

  CHEBUTYKIN: I’m coming. I’ve had enough of all of you. [To Andrey] If anyone asks for me, Andryusha, tell them I’ll be back soon ... [Sighing.] Oh-oh-oh!

  SOLYONY: ‘He had no time his tale to tell before a bear upon him fell.’9 [Walks off with Chebutykin.10] Why are you groaning, old boy?

  CHEBUTYKIN: Really!

  SOLYONY: How’s the health?

  CHEBUTYKIN [angrily] : Right as rain.

  SOLYONY: There’s no reason for an old chap to get worked up. I’ll allow myself a little latitude, I’ll just wing him like a woodcock. [Takes out his scent and sprinkles some on his hands.] I’ve used up a whole bottle today and my hands still smell. They smell of dead bodies.

  [A pause.]

  Yes ... Do you remember Lermontov’s lines, ‘And he, so restless, seeks the storm clouds, as if the storm can offer calm’ ... ?11

  CHEBUTYKIN: Yes. ‘He had no time his tale to tell before a bear upon him fell.’ [Exit with Solyony.]

  [Cries of ‘Hallo-o!’ can be heard. Enter ANDREY and FERAPONT.]

  FERAPONT: Here are some papers to sign ...

  ANDREY [irritably]: Leave me alone! Leave me! I implore you! [Goes out with the pram.]

  FERAPONT: Papers are meant to be signed. [Goes off to the back of the stage.]

  [Enter IRINA and TUZENBAKH wearing a straw hat; KULYGIN walks across the stage shouting: ‘Hallo-o, Masha, hallo-o!’]

  TUZENBAKH: I think that’s the only man in the town who’s glad that the Army is going.

  IRINA: One can understand that.

  [A pause.]

  Our town will be empty now.

  TUZENBAKH: My dear, I’ll be back straight away.

  IRINA: Where are you going?

  TUZENBAKH: I must go into the town and then ... say goodbye to friends.

  IRINA: That’s not true ... Nikolay, why are you so distracted today?

  [A pause.]

  What happened yesterday by the theatre?

  TUZENBAKH [making an impatient movement]: I’ll be back in an hour and be with you again. [Kissing her hands.] My beloved ... [Looking into her face.] It’s already five years since I came to love you and I still can’t get accustomed to it, and you seem to me more and more beautiful. What wonderful, lovely hair! What eyes! Tomorrow I will take you away, we will work, we’ll be rich, my dreams will come true. You will be happy. There’s just one thing, only one - you don’t love me!

  IRINA: It’s not in my power! I will be your wife, true and obedient, but love - no, what can I do! [Weeps.] I’ve never loved once in my life. Oh, how I dreamed of love, for a long time how I dreamed, day and night, but my soul was like an expensive piano, shut and its key lost.

  [A pause.]

  Your eyes are worried.

  TUZENBAKH: I didn’t sleep all night. In my life there’s nothing so terrible that it can frighten me and only that lost key torments my spirit and stops me sleeping. Say something to me.

  [A pause.]

  Say something to me ...

  IRINA: What? Say what? Everything around us is so mysterious, the old trees are standing there, silent ... [Puts her head on his breast.]

  TUZENBAKH: Say something to me.

  IRINA: What? Say what? What?

  TUZENBAKH: Anything.

  IRINA: That’s enough! Enough!

  [A pause.]

  TUZENBAKH: Sometimes in life trifles, silly little things, all of a sudden acquire significance, and for no good reason. You laugh at them as before and think them trifling, and you just go on because you feel you haven’t the strength to stop. Oh, don’t let’s talk about it! I feel happy. I’m seeing those firs and maples and birches as if for the first time, and everything is watching me with curiosity and waiting. What beautiful trees, and, indeed, how beautiful life should be around them!

  [A shout of ‘Hallo-o! Ho-ho!’]

  I must go, it’s time now ... That tree is withered but it still sways in the wind with the others. In the same way I think that if I die I’ll still be taking part in life somehow or other. Goodbye, my darling ... [Kissing her hands.] Your papers, the ones you gave me, are lying on my writing table under the calendar.

  IRINA: I’ll come with you.

  TUZENBAKH [in alarm]: No, no! [Quickly walks off, then stops in the avenue.] Irina!

  IRINA: What?

  TUZENBAKH [not knowing what to say]: I didn’t have any coffee this morning. Will you ask them to make me some ... [Quickly goes out.]

  [IRINA stands thinking, then she goes to the back of the stage and sits downonaswing.Enter ANDREY with the pram, FERAPONT appears.]

  FERAPONT: Andrey Sergeich, these aren’t my papers, they’re from the Council. I didn’t dream them up.

  ANDREY: Oh where is it now, where has my past gone, the time when I was young, merry, clever, when I had fine thoughts, fine dreams, when my present and my future were lit up by hope? Why is it that no sooner have we begun to live, we become boring, grey, uninteresting, lazy, indifferent, useless, unhappy ... Our town has existed now for two hundred years, it has a hundred thousand inhabitants - and not one of them who isn’t exactly like the others, not one hero, not one scholar, not one artist, not one who stands out in the slightest bit, who might inspire envy or a passionate desire to emulate him. They just eat, drink, sleep, then they die ... others are born and they too eat, drink, sleep, and in order not to be dulled by boredom, they diversify their life with vile gossip, vodka, cards, law suits, and the wives deceive their husbands and the husbands lie, pretend they see nothing and hear nothing, and an irremediably coarse influence weighs down on the children, and the spark of God’s spirit dies in them and they become the same kind of pitiful corpses, one like another, as their mothers and fathers ... [Angrily, to Ferapont] What do you want?

  FERAPONT: What? Sign the papers.

  ANDREY: I’m fed up with you.

&
nbsp; FERAPONT [handing him the papers]: The porter at the Accounts Office was telling me just now ... He said apparently last winter Petersburg had two hundred degrees of frost.

  ANDREY: The present is repulsive, but when I think of the future how wonderful things become! There’s a feeling of ease, of space; and in the distance there’s a glimmer of the dawn, I see freedom, I see myself and my children freed from idleness, from kvass,12 from goose with cabbage, from a nap after dinner, from the ignoble life of a parasite ...

  FERAPONT: Two thousand people froze to death. People were in a state of terror, he said. It was in Petersburg, or in Moscow - I can’t quite remember.

  ANDREY [overcome by feelings of tenderness]: My dear sisters, my wonderful sisters! [With tears in his eyes] Masha, my sister ...

  NATASHA [through the window]: Who is talking so loudly here? Is it you, Andryusha? You’ll wake Sofochka. Il ne faut pas faire du bruit, la Sophie estdormée déjà. Vous êtes unours.13 [Getting angry] If you want to talk, then give the baby and her pram to someone else. Ferapont, take the pram from your master.

  FERAPONT: Yes, madam. [Takes the pram.]

  ANDREY [embarrassed]: I’m talking quietly.

  NATASHA [in the window, playing with her little son]: Bobik! Naughty Bobik! Bad Bobik!

  ANDREY [examining the papers]: Very well, I’ll look through them and sign what I need to, and then you can take them back to the Council ...

  [He goes into the house reading the papers; FERAPONT starts wheeling the pram.]

  NATASHA [in the window]: Bobik, what’s your Mama’s name? Darling, darling! And who’s that? It’s Auntie Olya. Say to Auntie: ‘Hello, Olya!’

  [Travelling musicians come in, a man and a girl; they play the violin and the harp; VERSHININ, OLGA and ANFISA come out of the house and listen in silence for a moment; IRINA comes up.]

  OLGA: Our garden’s like a public thoroughfare, people walk through it and drive through it. Nyanya, give those musicians something! ...

  ANFISA [giving the musicians some money]: Go with God, my friends. [The musicians bow and go off.] Wretched people. You don’t play like that on a full stomach. [To Irina] Good day, Arisha! [Kissing her.] Life is good, my little girl, life is good! In a school apartment in the Gymnasium with Olyushka, my darling - God has granted me this in my old age. I haven’t lived like this in all my born days, sinner that I am ... A big apartment, nothing to pay, and I have a little room all to myself and a bed. All free. I wake up at night - and O Lord, Mother of God, there is no human being happier than me!

  VERSHININ [glancing at his watch]: We’re leaving now, Olga Sergeyevna. It’s time for me to go.

  [A pause.]

  I wish you every, every ... Where is Mariya Sergeyevna?

  IRINA: She’s somewhere in the garden. I’ll go and look for her.

  VERSHININ: That’s kind of you. I’m in a hurry.

  ANFISA: And I’ll go and look for her too. [Shouting] Mashenka, Hallo-o!

  [She and IRINA go out together to the bottom of the garden.]

  Hallo-o, hallo-o!

  VERSHININ: Everything comes to an end. So we too are parting. [Looking at his watch.] The town gave us a sort of luncheon, we drank champagne, the mayor made a speech, I ate and listened, but my heart was here, with you ... [Looking round the garden.] I’ve got accustomed to you.

  OLGA: Will we ever see each other again?

  VERSHININ: Most probably not.

  [A pause.]

  My wife and both girls will stay on here two more months; please, if anything happens or if anything is needed ...

  OLGA: Yes, yes, of course. Don’t worry.

  [A pause.]

  Tomorrow there won’t be a single soldier in the town, everything will be a memory, and of course for us a new life will be beginning ...

  [A pause.]

  Nothing happens as we want it. I didn’t want to become headmistress and all the same I did. So I won’t get to Moscow ...

  VERSHININ: Well ... Thank you for everything. Forgive me if I haven’t quite ... I’ve talked a great deal, a very great deal - forgive me for that too, don’t think ill of me.

  OLGA [wiping her eyes]: Why isn’t Masha coming? ...

  VERSHININ: What else can I say to you as a goodbye? What bit of philosophy? ... [Laughs.] Life is a heavy load. Many of us find it blank, hopeless, but still one has to admit it is becoming brighter and easier every day, and one can see the time is not far off when it will be filled with light. [Looking at his watch.] I must go, I must! Once humanity was occupied with wars, filling the whole of its existence with campaigns, invasions, victories, all that has now had its day, and left behind a huge empty space, which for the time being there is nothing to fill; humanity is passionately seeking that and of course will find it. Oh, if only it could be quick about it!

  [A pause.]

  If we could just combine education with hard work, and hard work with education. [Looking at his watch.] But I must go ...

  OLGA: She’s coming now.

  [Enter MASHA.]

  VERSHININ: I’ve come to say goodbye ...

  [OLGA moves a little away so as not to be in the way oftheirgoodbyes.]

  MASHA [looking into his eyes]: Goodbye ...

  [A long kiss.]

  OLGA: That’ll do ...

  [MASHA sobs loudly.]

  VERSHININ: Write to me ... Don’t forget me! Let go of me ... I must go ... Olga Sergeyevna, take her, now I have to ... I must go ... I’m late ... [Overcome by emotion, kisses Olga’s hands, then embraces Masha once more and quickly goes out.]

  OLGA: That’ll do, Masha! Stop it, darling ...

  [Enter KULYGIN.]

  KULYGIN [embarrassed]: It doesn’t matter, let her cry, just let her ... My sweet Masha, my good Masha ... You are my wife and I am happy in spite of everything ... I’m not complaining, I’m not making one reproach to you ... Olya is my witness ... We will begin to live again as we used to and I won’t say one word to you, not a hint ...

  MASHA [holding back sobs]: ‘An oak in leaf beside the seashore, upon that oak a chain of gold ... upon that oak a chain of gold ...’ I’m going out of my mind ... ‘An oak in leaf ... beside the seashore ...’

  OLGA : Calm down, Masha ... Calm down ... Give her some water.

  MASHA: I’m not crying any more ...

  KULYGIN: She’s not crying any more ... she’s a good girl ...

  [The sound of a muffled shot, far off.]

  MASHA: ‘An oak in leaf beside the seashore, upon that oak a chain of gold ... A cat in leaf14 ... an oak in leaf...’ I’m muddling things ... [Drinks the water.] My life is a failure ... I don’t need anything now ... I’ll calm down right away ... It doesn’t matter ... What does ‘beside the seashore’ mean? Why is that sticking in my head? My thoughts are muddled.

  [Enter IRINA.]

  OLGA: Calm down, Masha. There, good girl ... Let’s go indoors.

  MASHA [angrily]: I won’t go in there. [Sobs but stops at once.] I don’t go into the house any more and I won’t now ...

  IRINA: Let’s sit a moment together, without even talking. You realize I’m leaving tomorrow ...

  [A pause.]

  KULYGIN: Yesterday I confiscated this moustache and beard from a little boy in the third form ... [Putting on the moustache and beard.] Just like the German master ... [Laughing] Isn’t it? Those little boys make one laugh.

  MASHA: It really is like your German.

  OLGA [laughing]: Yes.

  [MASHA cries.]

  IRINA : Masha, that’s enough!

  KULYCIN: It’s very like him ...

  [Enter NATASHA and the MAID.15]

  NATASHA [to the maid]: What? Mr Protopopov, Mikhail Ivanych, will sit for a bit with Sofochka, and Andrey Sergeich can give Bobik a turn. Children are so much trouble ... [To Irina] You’re going tomorrow, Irina ... such a pity. Stay just one week more. [Seeing Kulygin, shrieks; then laughs and takes off his moustache and beard.] Really, you scared me! [To Irina] I’ve got so accustomed to you, d
o you think it will be easy for me to lose you? I’m telling them to move Andrey and his violin into your room - let him scrape away in there! - and we’ll put Sofochka in his room. She’s a marvellous, wonderful baby! What a darling little girl! Today she looked at me with her little eyes and - ‘Mama’!

  KULYGIN: She’s a lovely baby, that’s true.

  NATASHA: So tomorrow I’ll be on my own here. [Sighs.] First I’ll tell them to cut down that avenue of fir trees, and then that maple. In the evenings it’s so frightening and ugly ... [To Irina] Dearest, that belt doesn’t suit you at all ... It’s really tasteless. You must wear something light and pretty. And here I’ll have them plant flowers - flowers, and there’ll be scent ... [Sternly] What is a fork doing here on the bench? [To the maid as she goes into the house] What is a fork doing here on the bench, I’m asking you that! [Shouting] Don’t you say anything!