by Maxim Gorky
Liza and Boris are returning.
To … you know, these chemicals can affect the dampcoursing in the house. Even. They get, you know. Stuck. And go rotten and breed all sorts of … cholera apparently. They reckon. In town. So don’t just … throw them out of the window. There’s a good girl. Think. Use your brains. Think. Carefully.
Boris You should leave.
Misha Absolutely.
He goes.
Liza Horrible little man.
Boris You know if Pavel did create life – just say – could he guarantee that it would be any good? How could he? I mean, I can’t even demand that of myself any more?
Liza Let’s finish the game. Sit down. 6. 23.
Boris 10 … there’s 29.
Liza I don’t understand you … 8. 31. You are healthy. And have work.
Boris 7.
36.
Liza You need interests. 5. When life gets full of … 34. You know when life is wasted … That’s when anxiety takes root.
Boris 36?
10. 41.
Liza My days are better when I don’t think about it too much. 8. 44. That’s the point of work.
Boris I’m forty years old. What have you got? 7 already? There’s 48.
Liza Forty years old is not too bad. 20. 54.
Boris You say that, but my biggest problem is you.
Liza Me?
Boris 3 … 51. Yes. And your brother. / Yelena. This house.
Liza 28. Bingo.
Another one?
How is it our fault?
Boris I used to just live. I had questions and interests but no doubts. No lingering. I read books. I was interested in new philosophies. Say I came upon someone getting a beating in the street? I would be concerned, I would wonder what I could do. When I did veterinary science? I loved it. Animals and people need help living together. I had a simple basic belief in getting on with things.
Nanny Liza. Your drops.
Liza Yes, yes. / Have you that?
Nanny And your milk. The samovar / is ready but no one seems to care.
Boris I had a sense that I was cleverer than most and could make better decisions. Which I took personally as some kind of mark of distinction. Not as a snob, mind. I could see some people did have it hard, you know, thicker than pigs and ugly, ugly lives. I understood that it was hard to rise above a situation like that. I understood it was chance as much as it was anything good in me per se.
Liza What are you saying?
Boris I don’t know.
I remember life like that. I could see for the most part life was horrible but for some reason my own life made sense to me, and so was tolerable. It held together. I did my degree. I got my practice out here. I met you. I met the legendary Protasov family. The heroes of the district.
I actually met you. And this house and I lost all my comfort. My ease. My success in life – moderate as it was, was suddenly nothing.
Liza How is that our fault? Bingo.
Boris I don’t know exactly, but it is. Well done.
Liza Another?
Boris I think initially I was seduced by the depth. Yes, go on.
Profound engagement and constant enquiry. That’s the atmosphere you feel at first. I didn’t drink for the whole of that first year nearly, I was drunk on the … the incredible. Ideas. The flow. Conversation. And I loved my time with Pavel. Talking with him about his experiments. Remember? I helped out in the laboratory. A devotee. But now I look at it … there’s Pavel; isolated, obsessed with his quest; his wife believing this sham of a marriage, and you torn apart with a … your demons. Something here is broken and awkward and living with it, you finally see that if this wonderful place could go so rotten, then all our lives are compromised, contingent, and the effort? … For so little, real result.
It’s …
Protasov comes in.
Protasov Where’s Yelena?
Liza Garden.
Protasov You’re losing.
Boris Deliberately.
Protasov You look well this morning, Liza my pet.
He goes.
Liza I think people like me being sick so they can patronise me.
Boris He talks to everyone like that.
Now all I think about … My ambition if you like – because I do have ambition, I did have then and I still have the habit of it – so, I lie in bed imagining this great heroic. Great heroic act I would do for you. I lay my life down, every night these days.
Liza Are they your numbers?
Boris Yes.
It’s got absurd, this heroism. Last night I saved a pig. In a dream. Little pig, squealing on this great, rolling ice floe. Abandoned there, squealing helplessly, plunging to an inevitable gruesome, lonely death. But I dived into the freezing white water and hauled that poor little piggy to safety on my shoulder.
No one cared. No one saw the river raging or the terror of the little piglet. No one said – anything. So I ate it. With horseradish.
Liza That’s very funny.
Boris Not for the pig.
Liza Tea?
Boris Elizavetta Fyodorovna? Marry me.
Liza Boris Nikolayevich, again? Stop this. I am a cripple. I am emotionally deformed.
Boris Bingo?
Liza No, no, no. It’s not a joke.
Yelena, Vageen and Protasov wander in.
Protasov No, Dimitri, everything has a purpose.
Boris Even inconsequence?
Liza Oh please. Can we all talk together. Seriously? About things, not about ourselves.
Yelena Dimitri? Life? Life is difficult and awkward. Inconsequential at times. Barren at times. Coarse and harsh. Beauty is rare among all this, but when it comes – true beauty – it warms the soul, it is a break in the clouds, a clearing amongst the bracken. And it is in praise, in service, in pursuit of that pure moment. That glimpse of beauty. It is there that morality is born, that social action is possible.
Protasov And that beauty is in art, Lena? No better purpose. See?
Vageen Purpose? I sing the song for myself.
Yelena Any dilettante can feel. The true artist imparts it. The only point is communication. Then it is art, otherwise it is just indulgence, pleasure, / gratification.
Protasov A definition at last.
Yelena My point’s this – I have begun to see … this painting. I have this painting I see in my mind. I want to paint it, I want to bring it into the world. I see … a ship on the wide ocean, the waves sucking at the prow, that’s the eternal miasma desperate to drag the vessel under. But there, there, ranged along the deck stand these, great … great people. But standing simply, proudly, determined – Not, not Napoleons and Caesars, no – people. Simpler, real people. And they are looking beyond the immediate squall and the danger, to the future – to some shared, understood, sought-after beyond.
Somewhere in here Yakov Trosheen appears, wobbling drunkenly in the garden door.
Vageen A heroic / tableau.
Protasov All eyes on / the future?
Yelena I’ve seen it under a burning sun, in / a raging tempest.
Liza I see things, Yelena. How do you see good things?
Yelena It is good. Yes … Because it does something. And through that you can see how greatness of purpose separates us from the animals, the weather, place and time. And puts us where only we can be. Among the / gods. Immortal.
Vageen It’s kind of fabulous. If I painted that. I / can see it.
Protasov It’s incredible. You should paint it. It’s so. I’ve never heard you talk like this before.
Yelena You should listen more often.
Yakov Indeed we should all listen closely, friends. Particularly to / strangers in need.
Boris Who are / you? Who are you?
Vageen What are you doing here?
Yakov Gentles, allow me. I played the flute in a very similar story.
Boris What are you doing here?
Yakov Second Lieutenant Yakov Trosheen. That same Yakov Trosheen wh
o lost a wife and a child to the Iron Road. Crushed like bugs. The Lord giveth and He taketh away – I still have a couple of children but no wife. No sir. To whom do I have the honour. Your / honours?
Protasov Fascinating what alcohol / does to the mind.
Liza Pavel, really.
Yelena What can we do for you?
Yakov Madame. A man without boots is more honest than a man without a name … To whom am I speaking?
Yelena I am the / wife of …
Vageen Who do you think you are?
Yakov A fool to be sure, but God’s fool. Like Job. I’m looking for a Yegor … A Yegor – whose last name I can’t …? And indeed he may perhaps not exist having been such a wild companion in the heat of the drink – last night was a big one. But ‘metal work’ and ‘Yegor’ seem to point towards the phantom. / Best.
Yelena Down the road about a mile. Past the station and the clock.
Yakov Pointing me this way, pointing me that. But I smelt the sulphurous gases. I smelt the exit out of hell. The bottom of your garden is a wicked place. The smell here is awful. Terrible. The honourable are sometimes in disguise. So. Down the road. An acquaintance can only become a friend with time. And time is my intention with this Yegor. Down the road. Straight on?
Boris Clown shoes would be the end of him.
Liza Boris please.
Yakov Too polite to be rude is the rudest thing of all. I know what I know. Know what you think. Very simple; down the road beyond the clock … and away from this place I go.
He leaves.
Protasov Superstition and alcohol.
Boris Welcome to Russia.
Protasov I can’t see him on deck in your / picture, Yelena.
Vageen He’s the seaweed and the barnacles / dragging at the sucking ocean.
Protasov Not the ideal passenger.
Liza And their lot is what? Yelena? Death. Abandoned to the elements?
Yelena The ship sails on, Liza. That’s / what happens.
Boris Man overboard.
Vageen The sea is relentless.
Protasov It’s survival, Liza, the shedding of dead cells, the disposal of waste. It’s all around us from the single cell to the planet / itself. Everything, progress …
Liza This is where your talk always stalls. This endless, bleak. So cruel. Can’t you see the way you talk? People are still people.
Boris We’re just talking. We’re just …
Liza goes and Boris hurries after her.
Protasov This illness of hers makes it impossible to say anything. I mean, of course it’s a pity most people are a waste of oxygen – but it’s not the end of the world.
Yelena Life terrifies her.
Vageen When I paint it, there will be one man apart on the prow of your ship, Yelena.
Protasov / A man of science.
Vageen A man who has risen above hope. No – a man who burns with an inner / strength, who goes forth into the future charged with the new world – the better world.
Protasov I don’t think it needs to be a storm, Yelena. No, really, hang on. Listen. It’s the sun. Listen. The light of the sun that they sail into. ‘To the Sun’. / You could call it. The source of life. Fantastic.
Vageen No, no. The sun, no. It’s a woman. A woman they sail / towards – the source of life. No, no, I see it. I’m the painter.
Protasov Why a woman? No. It’s more … the ship is manned by the greats, you see. Lavoisier, Darwin, you know … I mean. The men who stand alone. Others maybe. The greats. I better just. Dimitri, can you help me with the seal on my jar?
Seeing Melaniya fussing around, he goes.
Vageen Every day something new about you becomes apparent to me. You are a revelation.
Yelena Thus it is from the confusion of desire that icons are born.
Vageen I will paint that painting.
Protasov (off) Dimitri!
Yelena Just go and help Pavel?
The women are alone.
Melaniya, are you OK?
Melaniya Yelena Nikolayevna? You’re home?
Yelena Yes.
Melaniya I have his eggs. He asked me to bring him eggs. He said the eggs here are stale.
Yelena He doesn’t eat eggs.
Melaniya laughs.
Melaniya They are for his work.
Yelena Are they?
Melaniya His work demands so much support.
Yelena It does.
Melaniya How are your art lessons?
Yelena Vageen is a friend.
Melaniya I don’t rate art very highly. Compared to Pavel’s work, say, it seems so selfish and deceitful.
Yelena Things aren’t always as they seem. As Pavel would tell you himself.
Melaniya Where is he?
Yelena Working.
Melaniya It’s hard to be diligent when everyone around is idle.
Yelena I beg your pardon?
Melaniya You don’t do anything. It’s getting in the way of his work, of his greatness. When I first met you I thought you were so … amazing. But you drag him down with your petty affairs. Can’t you see? He can’t work / in this environment.
Nanny storms through.
Nanny Wake up! Wake up! You’re all asleep. Wake up and dream together, that’s how we avoid nightmares. Samovar’s on! Come in. Come on. Come through. Sit down.
Yelena Is this really the place / for this –
Melaniya I don’t care. I love him. I love Pavel Fyodorovich. I would be his maid, his cook, his slave. You love another. / Give him to me.
Yelena Please. Really. Don’t.
Melaniya I have money – I can build him a laboratory, I would clean it on my knees, shield him, clean him. Keep him safe and protect his wisdom.
Yelena What are you saying?
Melaniya This is not a game for me. I have never known love … You? You take it for granted, but now I see what I want. Don’t play with me. I am not / playing a game here, I am playing for keeps.
Liza (off) Please, Nanny, leave / me please.
Nanny (off) Strength enough to whinge and complain. Come on! Tea!
She bustles on, with Liza and Boris coming in. From the lab Protasov and Vageen make their way into the room.
Boris She only wants what’s best for you.
Liza You can’t tell. It could just be habit. Years we’ve tried to help her and teach her, play her fine music and encourage her to think finer things. But she is still the same blunt object.
Protasov When they get to the bottom of this chemical treatment we could be hearing of oak-based waistcoats or underwear spun from pinewood fibres.
Vageen This future of yours sounds bloody uncomfortable.
Protasov What do you / mean by that?
Boris My sister is here, Pavel. I can smell her.
Protasov She’s a keen student. What do you have there?
Melaniya / Eggs.
Yelena She has / eggs. For you.
Protasov I can’t do the experiment today. I need them fresh.
Melaniya They’re fresh. Ten fresh eggs. Here you are.
Boris But be careful. One of them is a cuckoo.
Yelena A cuckoo? Is it this one?
Boris It could be … Let me see?
Yelena Or / this one?
Boris Oops.
Yelena Boris.
Vageen It’s not that one.
Protasov Don’t let / Nanny see.
Liza Yelena, / stop this waste. Pavel?
Vageen I love the way the / yokes shimmer as they burst.
Yelena It’s just fun. Isn’t it, Pavel? Relaxing fun.
Protasov It’s a / bit sticky.
Boris Look at this one.
Yelena No that / one’s. Oh.