Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series

dinner--comes into the dining-room and combs his beard. He then sits by the table and takes a newspaper from his pocket.] MASHA. Here he is.... Has he paid his rent? IRINA. [Laughs] No. He’s been here eight months and hasn’t paid a copeck. Seems to have forgotten. MASHA. [Laughs] What dignity in his pose! [They all laugh. A pause.] IRINA. Why are you so silent, Alexander Ignateyevitch? VERSHININ. I don’t know. I want some tea. Half my life for a tumbler of tea: I haven’t had anything since morning. CHEBUTIKIN. Irina Sergeyevna! IRINA. What is it? CHEBUTIKIN. Please come here, Venez ici. [IRINA goes and sits by the table] I can’t do without you. [IRINA begins to play patience.] VERSHININ. Well, if we can’t have any tea, let’s philosophize, at any rate. TUZENBACH. Yes, let’s. About what? VERSHININ. About what? Let us meditate... about life as it will be after our time; for example, in two or three hundred years. TUZENBACH. Well? After our time people will fly about in balloons, the cut of one’s coat will change, perhaps they’ll discover a sixth sense and develop it, but life will remain the same, laborious, mysterious, and happy. And in a thousand years’ time, people will still be sighing: “Life is hard!”--and at the same time they’ll be just as afraid of death, and unwilling to meet it, as we are. VERSHININ. [Thoughtfully] How can I put it? It seems to me that everything on earth must change, little by little, and is already changing under our very eyes. After two or three hundred years, after a thousand--the actual time doesn’t matter--a new and happy age will begin. We, of course, shall not take part in it, but we live and work and even suffer to-day that it should come. We create it--and in that one object is our destiny and, if you like, our happiness. [MASHA laughs softly.] TUZENBACH. What is it? MASHA. I don’t know. I’ve been laughing all day, ever since morning. VERSHININ. I finished my education at the same point as you, I have not studied at universities; I read a lot, but I cannot choose my books and perhaps what I read is not at all what I should, but the longer I love, the more I want to know. My hair is turning white, I am nearly an old man now, but I know so little, oh, so little! But I think I know the things that matter most, and that are most real. I know them well. And I wish I could make you understand that there is no happiness for us, that there should not and cannot be.... We must only work and work, and happiness is only for our distant posterity. [Pause] If not for me, then for the descendants of my descendants. [FEDOTIK and RODE come into the dining-room; they sit and sing softly, strumming on a guitar.] TUZENBACH. According to you, one should not even think about happiness! But suppose I am happy! VERSHININ. No. TUZENBACH. [Moves his hands and laughs] We do not seem to understand each other. How can I convince you? [MASHA laughs quietly, TUZENBACH continues, pointing at her] Yes, laugh! [To VERSHININ] Not only after two or three centuries, but in a million years, life will still be as it was; life does not change, it remains for ever, following its own laws which do not concern us, or which, at any rate, you will never find out. Migrant birds, cranes for example, fly and fly, and whatever thoughts, high or low, enter their heads, they will still fly and not know why or where. They fly and will continue to fly, whatever philosophers come to life among them; they may philosophize as much as they like, only they will fly.... MASHA. Still, is there a meaning? TUZENBACH. A meaning.... Now the snow is falling. What meaning? [Pause.] MASHA. It seems to me that a man must have faith, or must search for a faith, or his life will be empty, empty.... To live and not to know why the cranes fly, why babies are born, why there are stars in the sky.... Either you must know why you live, or everything is trivial, not worth a straw. [A pause.] VERSHININ. Still, I am sorry that my youth has gone. MASHA. Gogol says: life in this world is a dull matter, my masters! TUZENBACH. And I say it’s difficult to argue with you, my masters! Hang it all. CHEBUTIKIN. [Reading] Balzac was married at Berdichev. [IRINA is singing softly] That’s worth making a note of. [He makes a note] Balzac was married at Berdichev. [Goes on reading.] IRINA. [Laying out cards, thoughtfully] Balzac was married at Berdichev. TUZENBACH. The die is cast. I’ve handed in my resignation, Maria Sergeyevna. MASHA. So I heard. I don’t see what good it is; I don’t like civilians. TUZENBACH. Never mind.... [Gets up] I’m not handsome; what use am I as a soldier? Well, it makes no difference... I shall work. If only just once in my life I could work so that I could come home in the evening, fall exhausted on my bed, and go to sleep at once. [Going into the dining-room] Workmen, I suppose, do sleep soundly! FEDOTIK. [To IRINA] I bought some coloured pencils for you at Pizhikov’s in the Moscow Road, just now. And here is a little knife. IRINA. You have got into the habit of behaving to me as if I am a little girl, but I am grown up. [Takes the pencils and the knife, then, with joy] How lovely! FEDOTIK. And I bought myself a knife... look at it... one blade, another, a third, an ear-scoop, scissors, nail-cleaners. RODE. [Loudly] Doctor, how old are you? CHEBUTIKIN. I? Thirty-two. [Laughter] FEDOTIK. I’ll show you another kind of patience.... [Lays out cards.] [A samovar is brought in; ANFISA attends to it; a little later NATASHA enters and helps by the table; SOLENI arrives and, after greetings, sits by the table.] VERSHININ. What a wind! MASHA. Yes. I’m tired of winter. I’ve already forgotten what summer’s like. IRINA. It’s coming out, I see. We’re going to Moscow. FEDOTIK. No, it won’t come out. Look, the eight was on the two of spades. [Laughs] That means you won’t go to Moscow. CHEBUTIKIN. [Reading paper] Tsitsigar. Smallpox is raging here. ANFISA. [Coming up to MASHA] Masha, have some tea, little mother. [To VERSHININ] Please have some, sir... excuse me, but I’ve forgotten your name.... MASHA. Bring some here, nurse. I shan’t go over there. IRINA. Nurse! ANFISA. Coming, coming! NATASHA. [To SOLENI] Children at the breast understand perfectly. I said “Good morning, Bobby; good morning, dear!” And he looked at me in quite an unusual way. You think it’s only the mother in me that is speaking; I assure you that isn’t so! He’s a wonderful child. SOLENI. If he was my child I’d roast him on a frying-pan and eat him. [Takes his tumbler into the drawing-room and sits in a corner.] NATASHA. [Covers her face in her hands] Vulgar, ill-bred man! MASHA. He’s lucky who doesn’t notice whether it’s winter now, or summer. I think that if I were in Moscow, I shouldn’t mind about the weather. VERSHININ. A few days ago I was reading the prison diary of a French minister. He had been sentenced on account of the Panama scandal. With what joy, what delight, he speaks of the birds he saw through the prison windows, which he had never noticed while he was a minister. Now, of course, that he is at liberty, he notices birds no more than he did before. When you go to live in Moscow you’ll not notice it, in just the same way. There can be no happiness for us, it only exists in our wishes. TUZENBACH. [Takes cardboard box from the table] Where are the pastries? IRINA. Soleni has eaten them. TUZENBACH. All of them? ANFISA. [Serving tea] There’s a letter for you. VERSHININ. For me? [Takes the letter] From my daughter. [Reads] Yes, of course... I will go quietly. Excuse me, Maria Sergeyevna. I shan’t have any tea. [Stands up, excited] That eternal story.... MASHA. What is it? Is it a secret? VERSHININ. [Quietly] My wife has poisoned herself again. I must go. I’ll go out quietly. It’s all awfully unpleasant. [Kisses MASHA’S hand] My dear, my splendid, good woman... I’ll go this way, quietly. [Exit.] ANFISA. Where has he gone? And I’d served tea.... What a man. MASHA. [Angrily] Be quiet! You bother so one can’t have a moment’s peace.... [Goes to the table with her cup] I’m tired of you, old woman! ANFISA. My dear! Why are you offended! ANDREY’S VOICE. Anfisa! ANFISA. [Mocking] Anfisa! He sits there and... [Exit.] MASHA. [In the dining-room, by the table angrily] Let me sit down! [Disturbs the cards on the table] Here you are, spreading your cards out. Have some tea! IRINA. You are cross, Masha. MASHA. If I am cross, then don’t talk to me. Don’t touch me! CHEBUTIKIN. Don’t touch her, don’t touch her.... MASHA. You’re sixty, but you’re like a boy, always up to some beastly nonsense. NATASHA. [Sighs] Dear Masha, why use such expressions? With your beautiful exterior you would be simply fascinating in good society, I tell you so directly, if it wasn’t for your words. _Je vous prie, pardonnez moi, Marie, mais vous avez des manières un peu grossières_. TUZENBACH. [Restraining his laughter] Give me... give me... there’s some cognac, I think. NATASHA. _Il parait, que mon Bobick déjà ne dort pas_, he has awakened. He isn’t well to-day. I’ll go to him, excuse me... [Exit.] IRINA. Where has Alexander Ignateyevitch gone? MASHA. Home. Something extraordinary has happened to his wife again. TUZENBACH. [Goes to SOLENI with a cognac-flask in his hands] You go on sitting by yourself, thinking of something--goodness knows what. Come and let’s make peace. Let’s have some cognac. [They drink] I expect I’ll have to play the piano all night, some rubbish most likely... well, so be it! SOLENI. Why make peace? I haven’t quarrelled with you. TUZENBACH. You always make me feel as if something has taken place between us. You’ve a strange character, you must admit. SOLENI. [Declaims] “I am strange, but who is not? Don’t be angry, Aleko!” TUZENBACH. And what has Aleko to do with it? [Pause.] SOLENI. When I’m with one other man I behave just like everybody else, but in company I’m dull and shy and... talk all manner of rubbish. But I’m more honest and more honourable than very, very many people. And I can prove it. TUZENBACH. I often get angry with you, you always fasten on to me in company, but I like you all the same. I’m going to drink my fill to-night, whatever happens. Drink, now! SOLENI. Let’s drink. [They drink] I never had anything against you, Baron. But my character is like Lermontov’s [In a low voice] I even rather resemble Lermontov, they say.... [Takes a scent-bottle from his pocket, and scents his hands.] TUZENBACH. I’ve sent in my resignation. Basta! I’ve been thinking about it for five years, and at last made up my mind. I shall work. SOLENI. [Declaims] “Do not be angry, Aleko... forget, forget, thy dreams of yore....” [While he is speaking ANDREY enters quietly with a book, and sits by the table.] TUZENBACH. I shall work. CHEBUTIKIN. [Going with IRINA into the dining-room] And the food was also real Caucasian onion soup, and, for a roast, some chehartma. SOLENI. Cheremsha [Note: A variety of garlic.] isn’t meat at all, but a plant something like an onion. CHEBUTIKIN. No, my angel. Chehartma isn’t onion, but roast mutton. SOLENI. And I tell you, chehartma--is a sort of onion. CHEBUTIKIN. And I tell you, chehartma--is mutton. SOLENI. And I tell you, cheremsha--is a sort of onion. CHEBUTIKIN. What’s the use of arguing! You’ve never been in the Caucasus, and never ate any chehartma. SOLENI. I never ate it, because I hate it. It smells like garlic. ANDREY. [Imploring] Please, please! I ask you! TUZENBACH. When are the entertainers coming? IRINA. They promised for about nine; that is, quite soon. TUZENBACH. [Embraces ANDREY]