Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series

MASHA. Everything’s all muddled up in my head… But I say it ought not to be allowed. He might wound the Baron or even kill him.

CHEBUTIKIN. The Baron is a good man, but one Baron more or less – what difference does it make? It’s all the same! [Beyond the garden somebody shouts “Co-ee! Hallo! “] You wait. That’s Skvortsov shouting; one of the seconds. He’s in a boat. [Pause.]

ANDREY. In my opinion it’s simply immoral to fight in a duel, or to be present, even in the quality of a doctor.

CHEBUTIKIN. It only seems so… We don’t exist, there’s nothing on earth, we don’t really live, it only seems that we live. Does it matter, anyway!

MASHA. You talk and talk the whole day long. [Going] You live in a climate like this, where it might snow any moment, and there you talk… [Stops] I won’t go into the house, I can’t go there… Tell me when Vershinin comes… [Goes along the avenue] The migrant birds are already on the wing… [Looks up] Swans or geese… My dear, happy things… [Exit.]

ANDREY. Our house will be empty. The officers will go away, you are going, my sister is getting married, and I alone will remain in the house.

CHEBUTIKIN. And your wife?

[FERAPONT enters with some documents.]

ANDREY. A wife’s a wife. She’s honest, well-bred, yes; and kind, but with all that there is still something about her that degenerates her into a petty, blind, even in some respects misshapen animal. In any case, she isn’t a man. I tell you as a friend, as the only man to whom I can lay bare my soul. I love Natasha, it’s true, but sometimes she seems extraordinarily vulgar, and then I lose myself and can’t understand why I love her so much, or, at any rate, used to love her…

CHEBUTIKIN. [Rises] I’m going away to-morrow, old chap, and perhaps we’ll never meet again, so here’s my advice. Put on your cap, take a stick in your hand, go… go on and on, without looking round. And the farther you go, the better.

[SOLENI goes across the back of the stage with two officers; he catches sight of CHEBUTIKIN, and turns to him, the officers go on.]

SOLENI. Doctor, it’s time. It’s half-past twelve already. [Shakes hands with ANDREY.]

CHEBUTIKIN. Half a minute. I’m tired of the lot of you. [To ANDREY] If anybody asks for me, say I’ll be back soon… [Sighs] Oh, oh, oh!

SOLENI. “He didn’t have the time to sigh. The bear sat on him heavily.” [Goes up to him] What are you groaning about, old man?

CHEBUTIKIN. Stop it!

SOLENI. How’s your health?

CHEBUTIKIN. [Angry] Mind your own business.

SOLENI. The old man is unnecessarily excited. I won’t go far, I’ll only just bring him down like a snipe. [Takes out his scent-bottle and scents his hands] I’ve poured out a whole bottle of scent to-day and they still smell… of a dead body. [Pause] Yes… You remember the poem

“But he, the rebel seeks the storm,
As if the storm will bring him rest…”?

CHEBUTIKIN. Yes.

“He didn’t have the time to sigh,
The bear sat on him heavily.”

[Exit with SOLENI.]

[Shouts are heard. ANDREY and FERAPONT come in.]

FERAPONT. Documents to sign…

ANDREY. [Irritated]. Go away! Leave me! Please! [Goes away with the perambulator.]

FERAPONT. That’s what documents are for, to be signed. [Retires to back of stage.]

[Enter IRINA, with TUZENBACH in a straw hat; KULIGIN walks across the stage, shouting “Co-ee, Masha, co-ee!”]

TUZENBACH. He seems to be the only man in the town who is glad that the soldiers are going.

IRINA. One can understand that. [Pause] The town will be empty.

TUZENBACH. My dear, I shall return soon.

IRINA. Where are you going?

TUZENBACH. I must go into the town and then… see the others off.

IRINA. It’s not true… Nicolai, why are you so absentminded to-day? [Pause] What took place by the theatre yesterday?

TUZENBACH. [Making a movement of impatience] In an hour’s time I shall return and be with you again. [Kisses her hands] My darling… [Looking her closely in the face] it’s five years now since I fell in love with you, and still I can’t get used to it, and you seem to me to grow more and more beautiful. What lovely, wonderful hair! What eyes! I’m going to take you away to-morrow. We shall work, we shall be rich, my dreams will come true. You will be happy. There’s only one thing, one thing only: you don’t love me!

IRINA. It isn’t in my power! I shall be your wife, I shall be true to you, and obedient to you, but I can’t love you. What can I do! [Cries] I have never been in love in my life. Oh, I used to think so much of love, I have been thinking about it for so long by day and by night, but my soul is like an expensive piano which is locked and the key lost. [Pause] You seem so unhappy.

TUZENBACH. I didn’t sleep at night. There is nothing in my life so awful as to be able to frighten me, only that lost key torments my soul and does not let me sleep. Say something to me [Pause] say something to me…

IRINA. What can I say, what?

TUZENBACH. Anything.

IRINA. Don’t! don’t! [Pause.]

TUZENBACH. It is curious how silly trivial little things, sometimes for no apparent reason, become significant. At first you laugh at these things, you think they are of no importance, you go on and you feel that you haven’t got the strength to stop yourself. Oh don’t let’s talk about it! I am happy. It is as if for the first time in my life I see these firs, maples, beeches, and they all look at me inquisitively and wait. What beautiful trees and how beautiful, when one comes to think of it, life must be near them! [A shout of Co-ee! in the distance] It’s time I went… There’s a tree which has dried up but it still sways in the breeze with the others. And so it seems to me that if I die, I shall still take part in life in one way or another. Good-bye, dear… [Kisses her hands] The papers which you gave me are on my table under the calendar.

IRINA. I am coming with you.

TUZENBACH. [Nervously] No, no! [He goes quickly and stops in the avenue] Irina!

IRINA. What is it?

TUZENBACH. [Not knowing what to say] I haven’t had any coffee to-day. Tell them to make me some… [He goes out quickly.]

[IRINA stands deep in thought. Then she goes to the back of the stage and sits on a swing. ANDREY comes in with the perambulator and FERAPONT also appears.]

FERAPONT. Andrey Sergeyevitch, it isn’t as if the documents were mine, they are the government’s. I didn’t make them.

ANDREY. Oh, what has become of my past and where is it? I used to be young, happy, clever, I used to be able to think and frame clever ideas, the present and the future seemed to me full of hope. Why do we, almost before we have begun to live, become dull, grey, uninteresting, lazy, apathetic, useless, unhappy… This town has already been in existence for two hundred years and it has a hundred thousand inhabitants, not one of whom is in any way different from the others. There has never been, now or at any other time, a single leader of men, a single scholar, an artist, a man of even the slightest eminence who might arouse envy or a passionate desire to be imitated. They only eat, drink, sleep, and then they die… more people are born and also eat, drink, sleep, and so as not to go silly from boredom, they try to make life many-sided with their beastly backbiting, vodka, cards, and litigation. The wives deceive their husbands, and the husbands lie, and pretend they see nothing and hear nothing, and the evil influence irresistibly oppresses the children and the divine spark in them is extinguished, and they become just as pitiful corpses and just as much like one another as their fathers and mothers… [Angrily to FERAPONT] What do you want?

FERAPONT. What? Documents want signing.

ANDREY. I’m tired of you.