by Brian Friel
Bazarov (not listening) No.
Nikolai It was unknown to me, too, I must confess. Anyhow it transpires that the young lady’s mother, may she rest in peace, and my good wife, may she rest in peace, were very close friends when they were young girls. But, as so often happens, they lost touch with one another shortly after they got married. But to cut a long story short. Anna Sergeyevna was rummaging in an attic in her home –
Pavel Could I have sugar?
Nikolai – and she came across a bundle of letters written by your good mother, Maria, to her old friend – well, her young friend then. And Anna Sergeyevna had the kind thought that I might like to have these letters since they contain many references to myself. (to Bazarov) Arkady’s mother and I were, as we say, walking out at the time.
Bazarov (not listening) Yes?
Pavel Cream, please.
Nikolai I’d be delighted to have the letters, I said. So the following week Anna Sergeyevna Odintsov called on us again and handed over Maria’s epistles and spent a very agreeable couple of hours with us – didn’t she, Pavel?
Pavel I found her very … measured.
Nikolai Did you think so?
Pavel And emotionally dehydrated.
Arkady Uncle Pavel!
Pavel Oh yes.
Nikolai Well, I liked her very much.
Arkady What age is she?
Nikolai I’m very bad at that sort of thing. I would imag ine she might –
Pavel Twenty-nine.
Arkady Interesting.
Nikolai Oh yes, an interesting lady.
Pavel Enormously wealthy. With a huge estate. And a widow.
Arkady Very interesting.
Nikolai Very …? Oh, I see what you mean now. Very good. Very good. What else do we know about her? She lives with an eccentric old aunt, Princess Something-or-other.
Pavel Olga.
Nikolai Olga. And she has a young sister called – what’s the young sister’s name?
Pavel Katerina.
Nikolai That’s it – Katya. All three are coming on Monday week. (Pause.) And we’ll have a wonderful party. (Pause.) And we’ll all have a wonderful time. (Pause.) Won’t we?
Pavel If you’ll excuse me. I get a headache when I sit too long in the sun.
Nikolai We have a meeting with the new estate manager in half an hour, Pavel.
Pavel I’ll be in my room.
Nikolai I’ll join you in a few minutes.
As he exits Pavel puts his hand on Arkady’s shoulder and pats it. Then he leaves.
Nothing Pavel likes better than a vigorous discussion, plenty of thrust and parry. We’re inclined to go to seed here in the wilds, Yevgeny.
Bazarov Yes.
Arkady (quickly) What were the letters like?
Nikolai Letters?
Arkady The letters Mother wrote to her friend about you.
Nikolai Oh, they were … oh-ho, I’m afraid they were a bit naughty in places … very naughty in fact … in fact a few of them were very naughty indeed … You never really know what people are like, do you? We all have our codes. We all have our masks.
Piotr enters left. He is nineteen, exceedingly cocky and self-assured. He knows Nikolai is fond of him and he plays on that. He wears a single ear-ring and his hair is done in various vivid colours.
Piotr You wanted me, sir?
Nikolai Yes, Piotr?
Piotr You sent for me, sir.
Nikolai I did?
Piotr Dunyasha said you wanted me.
Nikolai I’m sure I did, Piotr; and I’m sure you didn’t hear me. (to Bazarov) Piotr’s hearing is erratic.
Piotr (aggrieved) My hearing is perfect, sir. I was slaving in the stables. You could scream and I wouldn’t hear you there, sir.
Nikolai Never mind now, Piotr. Look who’s here.
Piotr I know. I saw the carriage. Welcome home, Arkady.
Arkady Thank you, Piotr.
Nikolai And this is another young graduate – well, almost a graduate – Yevgeny Vassilyich.
Piotr Sir.
Bazarov Hello.
Nikolai Do you like his multicoloured hair?
Arkady It’s what all the young dudes in Petersburg are wearing, Piotr.
Piotr I know that. But nobody around this place does.
Nikolai And his single blue ear-ring?
Piotr Pardon me, sir – turquoise.
Nikolai Forgive me, Piotr – turquoise. I beg your pardon. (waving him away) No, I don’t want you now. Yes, I do. Take this tray away with you. And get the carriage out and bring it round to the back.
Piotr Certainly, sir. No sooner said.
Nikolai ‘No sooner said!’ He has my heart broken.
Piotr exits.
And I’m very fond of him – he’s so cheeky. (Looks at watch.) Five thirty. I must run. Show Yevgeny where the guest-room is. Have a wash. Walk around. Take a rest. Do whatever pleases you. We’ll eat at seven. And welcome again – both of you. (He leaves.)
Arkady is annoyed with his friend: he thinks his exchange with Pavel was too personal. Bazarov is unaware of this. He goes to the samovar.
Bazarov How did your father get that limp?
Arkady Broken leg when he was young. Badly set.
Bazarov I like him. He’s a decent man. An astute bird, too. What’s the relationship between him and the blonde woman?
Arkady Fenichka. She’s his mistress.
Bazarov Ah. I got a whiff of something there.
Arkady I suppose that’s one way of putting it.
Bazarov Have they known each other long?
Arkady She has a child by him.
Bazarov Good-looking woman. A nice self-awareness about her. Fenichka.
Arkady He should marry her.
Bazarov Who needs marriage? Your father’s a lot more progressive than you, my friend. I suspect – just glancing round the yard – I suspect he’s not the most organized landowner in Russia. But his heart’s in the right place. Tea?
Arkady I thought you were a bit severe on Uncle Pavel.
Bazarov God, what a freak that is!
Arkady It sounded like a personal attack – cliché French – all that stuff.
Bazarov Have you any idea of the shock it is to walk into a place like this, miles from anywhere, and to be confronted by that – that decaying dandy? And all those archaic theories about ‘civilization’ and a ‘basis of conduct’! He’s a bloody absurdity!
Arkady He was considered to be the most handsome officer in the army in his day; and the best gymnast.
Bazarov No, he’s not absurd – he’s grotesque.
Arkady He was made a captain when he was only twenty-one. Women just threw themselves at him. And he has travelled everywhere and read everything. And he speaks three or four languages. And he dined once with Louis Philippe; and he and the Duke of Wellington corresponded on and off for years.
Bazarov (imitating Pavel) Good heavens.
Arkady And then, when he was in his mid-twenties, he fell in love – one of those passions that consumes totally. I remember hearing the story when I was very young. She was a princess; married; with a child.
Dunyasha appears on the veranda and shakes out a table-cloth. Bazarov pretends to think she is waving at him and waves back at her. Dunyasha withdraws coyly.
Bazarov That Dunyasha lady has a sporty eye.
Arkady And she had this radiant golden hair and when she let it down ‘it fell to below her knees’, like Rapunzel in the fairy story. They lived together for a while. Then she got tired of him. Cleared off to Germany, France, somewhere. Just disappeared. He followed her, of course; pursued her frantically for ten years all over Europe. Then he got word that she had died, apparently in some kind of demented state, in some shabby boarding-house in Paris.
Bazarov Where else.
Arkady Oh yes, there was another detail.
Bazarov (pretending eagerness) What was that?
Arkady Early in their affair he gave her a ring with a sphinx engraved
on the stone. And the family legend has it that she said to him, “Why the sphinx?’
Bazarov ‘You are that sphinx.’
Arkady That’s right! That’s what he said! And exactly seven weeks after she died a package was delivered to his club. He opened it up and inside –
Bazarov – was the ring.
Arkady Yes. That was in 1848, the year Mother died. Father was alone here then, lost without his Maria. He asked Uncle Pavel to join him. And he came. And he has lived here, really like a recluse, ever since, in a sort of profound and perpetual melancholy … I’m very fond of him. I think he’s a good man, Uncle Pavel.
Pause.
Bazarov You astonish me at times, Arkady. I tell myself that you are maturing politically, intellectually, emotionally. And then you come out with the greatest load of romantic hogwash that quite honestly alarms me. Rapunzel – radiant golden hair – passions that consume totally –
Arkady If you knew Pavel as well as I –
Bazarov Look at him dispassionately. The shape and character of his entire life was determined by a single, ridiculous passion. And when that ridiculous passion wasn’t reciprocated – what happens? He sinks into a ‘profound and perpetual melancholy’! For the rest of his life! Because of a crazy woman! That’s the behaviour of an imbecile! (He is beginning to win Arkady over.) Let me give you Dr Bazarov’s Principles Concerning the Proper Ordering of the Relationships between Men and Women.
Arkady I must write these deathless words down.
Bazarov One. Romantic love is a fiction.
Two. There is nothing at all mysterious between the sexes. The relationship is quite simply physical.
Three. To believe that the relationship should be dressed up in the trappings of chivalry is crazy. The troubadours were all lunatics.
Four. If you fancy a woman, any woman, always, always try to make love to her. If you want to dissipate, dissipate.
Arkady Poor old Father – I was a bit sharp with him.
Bazarov And if you can’t make love to that particular woman, so what? Believe Dr Bazarov – there are plenty more fish in the sea.
Arkady You’re a bastard, Bazarov. You know that?
Bazarov Admit it. Am I not right?
Arkady (thawing) A perverse bastard – that’s what you are.
Bazarov Draw up a list of all the women you’d like to make love to – no commitment, no responsibilities – just for the sheer pleasure of it.
Arkady Keep your voice down, man.
Bazarov No complications of ‘love’, romance, none of that rubbish.
Arkady That’s a game for undergraduates. I’m a graduate – remember?
Bazarov A quick roll in the hay – great fun – goodbye.
Arkady All gross pigs, you medicals.
Bazarov I’ll start you off. Natasha Petrova.
Arkady Natasha who?
Bazarov The inconstancy of the man! Your first year in Petersburg – the landlady’s big red-headed daughter – Natasha the Greyhound!
Arkady Come on, Bazarov. There was nothing at all to that.
Bazarov You wrote a sonnet to her.
Arkady I never did!
Bazarov
‘Could I outstrip the beauty of that form
That haunts these dark and wretched hours called life –’
Arkady All right – all right! That was just a passing –
Bazarov Exactly. Quick roll – great fun – goodbye. She’s number one. Dunyasha?
Arkady Dunyasha? – here?
Bazarov On the list or not?
Arkady I never really thought about her in that –
Bazarov A sporty eye, an open heart, a great armful.
Arkady Now that you mention her, I suppose she –
Bazarov She’s elected; number two. Anna Sergeyevna?
Arkady Who’s she?
Bazarov The woman who’s coming for the party on Monday week.
Arkady We’ve never seen her.
Bazarov Who cares?
Arkady She’s wealthy.
Bazarov Twenty-nine years of age.
Arkady A huge estate.
Bazarov And a widow.
Arkady Is that important?
Bazarov The experience, man.
Arkady Good point. What do you say?
Bazarov If only for the experience – number three. And her young sister – Katya?
Arkady I think so.
Bazarov Vote. Yes or no.
Arkady Katya? I like Katya. I fancy Katya. Yes.
Bazarov Elected. Good. Four so far.
Fenichka appears on the veranda.
Fenichka Yevgeny Vassilyich!
Bazarov Hello.
Fenichka The baby has some kind of a rash on the back of his neck. Would you take a look at it for me?
Bazarov It would be a pleasure. Where is he?
Fenichka He’s back here in the kitchen.
Bazarov I’m on my way. (to Arkady) My first professional job.
Arkady I’d be sure to get a second opinion, Fenichka.
Bazarov (softly) Would you say that Fenichka is a possible number five?
Arkady Bazarov, you –!
Bazarov In jest, my friend, in jest.
He goes towards the veranda where Fenichka is waiting for him.
Arkady (calls) Even in jest! Bazarov, for God’s sake, man.
Bazarov turns at the steps and smiles back at him. Then he and Fenichka go into the house.
SCENE TWO
Early June. After dinner.
Nikolai and Katya are playing duets on the piano in the living-room. Katya is eighteen, open, spirited, garrulous. Fenichka is standing beside the piano turning the pages on Nikolai’s instructions. Bazarov is outside on the veranda, leaning across the rail, slowly eating a dish of ice-cream. Pavel is sitting alone and remote downstage right; reading. Anna is sitting downstage left, listening to the music. She is an elegant, carefully groomed, circumspect woman. She deliberately lives within certain emotional limits and is wary of any intrusion inside them or any excursion outside them. The Princess is sitting upstage right, beneath an enormous parasol which partly conceals her. Now and then she emerges from behind it. She is very old, very eccentric, very energetic. She constantly and vigorously masticates imaginary food and every so often brushes imaginary crumbs from her sleeve and skirt. Just before the music comes to an end Nikolai calls:
Nikolai Wonderful, Katya. Terrific. Don’t stop. Let’s do it again from the beginning. Splendid. Two-and-three-and –
They begin the piece again and keep playing throughout the early part of the scene.
Arkady rushes through the living-room and out into the garden, carrying a dish of ice-cream. He is very elated.
Arkady (as he passes behind Bazarov) Get yourself some more ice-cream before it all melts. (He leaps down the steps.)
Bazarov (as Arkady crosses before him) I think the dehydrated widow fancies you.
Arkady Doing well, amn’t I?
Bazarov Give her a message for me.
Arkady What?
Bazarov Tell her I’d like to do my anatomy practical on her.
Arkady Cut that out, Bazarov.
Bazarov I’m sure she’d agree.
Arkady crosses over to the Princess.
Arkady Can I get you anything, Princess Olga?
Princess (emerging) Cat.
Arkady Sorry?
Princess I smell cat.
Arkady Cat?
Princess Cat-cat-cat. Damn place must be overrun with them. Shoot them all! Shoot them! Shoot them! They’ll overrun you if you don’t. My father told me that.
She vanishes behind the parasol. He goes to Anna.
Anna It’s best to pay no attention to her.
Arkady She sounds so furious.
Anna Ignore her. She lives quite contentedly in her own world.
Arkady There you are. (He offers her ice-cream.) I’m afraid it’s gone a bit soft.
Anna You have it.
Arkady I�
�ve had enough. Go ahead. There’s plenty more. Loads of it. We eat it all the time here. In the summer. God, she’s really a magnificent pianist, Katya.
Anna She’s very competent; no more than that.
Arkady And she can sight-read brilliantly. I love that piece. I remember Father and Mother playing it together when I was very small. I’m sure you play, too?
Anna No.
Arkady Yes, you do. You’re being modest.
Anna I don’t, Arkady.
Arkady I’m sure you’re a brilliant pianist.
Anna No.
Arkady I don’t believe you. And I’m told you’re a painter.
She shakes her head.
Yes, you are. Katya told me. She says you’re terrific with water-colours.
Anna Katerina exaggerates.
Arkady Bazarov and I are going to visit his parents soon, maybe at the end of next week. I was wondering if we could call on you on our way there?
Anna We’d be glad to see you.
Arkady Great! Tomorrow, maybe? Are you sure that’s all right?
Anna He looks like a painter. Is he artistic?
Arkady Uncle Pavel?
Anna Your friend – who believes in nothing.
Arkady Bazarov? He’s a total philistine! (He calls.) We’re talking about you!
Bazarov points to his ears, points into the living-room: he cannot hear above the music.
(shouting) Anna Sergeyevna wants to know – (He gives up.) It doesn’t matter.
Anna (beckoning) Come and join us.
Arkady Keep him off politics or he’ll give you a boring lecture. I’m a Nihilist, too, you know; like Bazarov.
Anna (watching Bazarov approach) Really?
Arkady We’ve a very active cell in Petersburg. There aren’t all that many of us but we’re absolutely, totally dedicated. Anna wants to know if you’re artistic!
Anna Arkady says you’re a philistine.
Arkady He’s the worst kind of philistine – he’s a scientist.
Bazarov What is art for?
Arkady (to Anna) I told you.
Bazarov Is it necessary?
Anna’s attention has switched to Bazarov. In an attempt to hold her Arkady launches into his monologue. While he lectures, Anna and Bazarov conduct a mute dialogue; ‘Sit here’ – ‘No, thanks’ – – ‘I’m fine’ – etc.
Arkady And the answer to that is: what does the word necessary mean in that context? Is that dish necessary? – that tree? – that cloud formation? We’re not exactly in unison on this issue, Bazarov and I. He believes that Nihilism and art are seldom compatible. I don’t. But I believe that at this point in our history and in our sociological development it would be wrong for us now to channel our depleted energies into artistic endeavour, not because there is anything intrinsically wrong, or indeed right, with artistic endeavour – but I believe that whatever energies we can muster now have got to be poured into the primary and enormous task of remaking an entire society and that imperative is not only a social obligation but perhaps even a moral obligation and indeed it is not improbable that the execution of that task may even have elements of … of artistic pursuit … or so it seems to me …