MASHA. Nikolay Lvovitch, go away!
TUZENBAKH [laughing]. Are you here? I didn't see you . . . [kisses IRINA'S hand]. Good-bye, I'm going. . . . I look at you now, and I remember as though it were long ago how on your name-day you talked of the joy of work, and were so cheerful and confident. . . . And what a happy life I was dreaming of then! What has become of it? [Kisses her hand.] There're tears in your eyes . Go to bed, it's getting light . . . it's nearly morning. . . . . . . . . If only I could give my life for you!
MASHA. Nikolay Lvovitch, do go! Really, this is too much. . . .
TUZENBAKH. I'm going [goes out].
MASHA [lying down]. Are you asleep, Fyodor?
KULYGIN. Eh?
MASHA. You'd better go home.
KULYGIN. My darling Masha, my precious girl! . . .
IRINA. She's tired out. Let her rest, Fedya.
KULYGIN. I'll go at once, . . . My dear, charming wife! . . . I love you, my only one! . . .
MASHA [angrily]. Amo, amas, amat; amamus, amatis, amant.
KULYGIN [laughs]. Yes, really she's wonderful. You've been my wife for seven years, and it seems to me as though we were only married yesterday. Honour bright! Yes, really you are a wonderful woman! I'm content, I'm content, I'm content!
MASHA. I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored! . . . [Gets up and speaks, sitting down] And there's something I can't get out of my head. . . . It's simply revolting. It sticks in my head like a nail; I must speak of it. I mean about Andrey, . . . He has mortgaged this house to the bank and his wife has grabbed all the money, and you know the house doesn't belong to him alone, but to us four! He ought to know that, if he's a decent man.
KULYGIN. Why do you want to bother about it, Masha? What's got into you? Andryusha is in debt all round, so there it is.
MASHA. It's revolting, anyway [lies down].
KULYGIN. We're not poor. I work -- I go to the high-school, and then I give private lessons, . . . I do my duty. . . . There's no nonsense about me. Omnia mea mecum porto, as the saying is.
MASHA. I want nothing, but it's the injustice that revolts me [a pause]. Go, Fyodor.
KULYGIN [kisses her]. You're tired, rest for half an hour, and I'll sit and wait for you. . . . Sleep . . . [goes]. I'm content, I'm content, I'm content [goes out].
IRINA. Yes, how petty our Andrey has grown, how dull and old he has become beside that woman! At one time he was working to get a professorship and yesterday he was boasting of having succeeded at last in becoming a member of the District Council. He's a member, and Protopopov is chairman. . . . The whole town is laughing and talking of it and he's the only one who sees and knows nothing. . . . And here everyone has been running to the fire while he sits still in his room and takes no notice. He does nothing but play his violin . . . [nervously]. Oh, it's awful, awful, awful! [Weeps] I can't bear it any more, I can't! I can't, I can't!
[OLGA comes in and begins tidying up her table.]
IRINA [sobs loudly]. Throw me out, throw me out, I can't bear it any more!
OLGA [alarmed]. What is it? What is it, darling?
IRINA [sobbing]. Where? Where has it all gone? Where is it? Oh, my God, my God! I've forgotten everything, everything . . . everything is in a tangle in my mind. . . I don't remember the Italian for window or ceiling . . . I'm forgetting everything; every day I forget something more and life is slipping away and will never come back, we'll never, never go to Moscow. . . . I see that we won't go. . . .
OLGA. Darling, darling, . . .
IRINA [restraining herself]. Oh, I'm miserable. . . . I can't work, I'm not going to work. I've had enough of it, enough of it! I've been a telegraph clerk and now I have a job in the town council and I hate and despise every bit of the work they give me. . . . I'm already twenty-three, I've been working for years, my brains are drying up, I'm getting thin and old and ugly and there's nothing, nothing, not the slightest satisfaction, and time is passing and you feel that you are moving away from a real, a beautiful life, moving farther and farther away and being drawn into the depths. I'm in despair and I don't know how it is I'm alive and haven't killed myself yet. . . .
OLGA. Don't cry, my child, don't cry. It makes me miserable.
IRINA. I'm not crying, I'm not crying. . . . It's over, . . . There, I'm not crying now. I won't . . . I won't.
OLGA. Darling, I'm speaking to you as a sister, as a friend, if you care for my advice, marry the baron!
[IRINA weeps quietly.]
OLGA. You know you respect him, you think highly of him. . . . It's true he isn't good-looking, but he is such a thoroughly nice man, so good. . . . A person doesn't marry for love, but to do her duty. . . . That's what I think, anyway, and I would marry without love. Whoever proposed to me I'd marry him, if only he were a good man. . . . I'd even marry an old man. . . .
IRINA. I kept expecting we should move to Moscow and there I should meet my true love. I've been dreaming of him, loving him. . . . But it seems that was all nonsense, nonsense. . . .
OLGA [puts her arms round her sister]. My darling, lovely sister, I understand it all; when the baron left the army and came to us in a plain coat, I thought he looked so ugly that it positively made me cry. . . . He asked me, "Why are you crying?" How could I tell him! But if God brought you together I should be happy. That's a different thing, you know, quite different.
[NATASHA with a candle in her hand walks across the stage from door on right to door on left without speaking.]
MASHA [sits up]. She walks about as though it were she who set fire to the town.
OLGA. Masha, you're silly. The very silliest of the family, that's you. Please forgive me [a pause].
MASHA. I want to confess my sins, dear sisters. My soul is yearning. I'm going to confess to you and never again to anyone. . . . I'll tell you this minute [softly]. It's my secret, but you must know everything. . . . I can't be silent . . . [a pause]. I'm in love, I'm in love, . . . I love that man. . . . You have just seen him. . . . Well, I may as well say it straight out. I love Vershinin.
OLGA [going behind her screen]. Stop it. I'm not listening anyway.
MASHA. But what am I to do? [Clutches her head.] At first I thought him strange . . . then I was sorry for him . . . then I came to love him . . . to love him with his voice, his words, his misfortunes, his two little girls. . . .
OLGA [behind the screen]. I'm not listening anyway. Whatever silly things you say I won't hear them.
MASHA. Oh, Olya. you are silly. I love him -- so that's my fate. It means that that's my lot, . . . And he loves me. . . . It's all terrifying. Yes? Is it wrong? [Takes IRINA by the hand and draws her to herself] Oh, my darling, . . . How are we going to live our lives, what will become of us? . . . When you read a novel it all seems trite and obvious, but when you're in love yourself you see that no one knows anything and we all have to settle things for ourselves, . . . My darlings, my sisters. . . . I've confessed it to you, now I'll hold my tongue. . . . I'll be like Gogol's madman . . . silence . . . silence. . . .
[Enter ANDREY and after him FERAPONT.]
ANDREY [angrily]. What do you want? I can't make it out.
FERAPONT [in the doorway, impatiently]. I've told you ten times already, Andrey Sergeyevitch.
ANDREY. In the first place I'm not Andrey Sergeyevitch, but your honour, to you!
FERAPONT. The firemen ask permission, your honour, to go through the garden on their way to the river. Or else they have to go round and round, an awful nuisance for them.
ANDREY. All right. Tell them, all right. [FERAPONT goes out.] I'm sick of them. Where's Olga? [OLGA comes from behind the screen.] I've come to ask you for the key of the cupboard, I have lost mine. You've got one, it's a little key.
[OLGA gives him the key in silence; IRINA goes behind her screen; a pause.]
ANDREY. What a tremendous fire! Now it's begun to die down. Damn it all, that Ferapont made me so cross I said something silly to him. Your honour . . . [a pause]. Why don't you speak, Olya? [a pause] It's time to dr
op this foolishness and sulking all about . . . . . . . . . You're here, Masha, and you too, Irina -- very well, then, let us have things out thoroughly, once and for all. What have you got against me? What is it?
OLGA. Stop it, Andryusha. Let's talk tomorrow [nervously]. What an agonising night!
ANDREY [greatly confused]. Don't excite yourself. I ask you quite calmly, what have you against me? Tell me straight out.
[VERSHININ'S voice: "Tram-tam-tam!"]
MASHA [standing up, loudly]. Tra-ta-ta! [To OLGA] Good night, Olga, God bless you . . . [Goes behind the screen and kisses IRINA.] Sleep well. . . . Good night, Andrey. You'd better leave them now, they're tired out . . . you can go into things tomorrow [goes out].
OLGA. Yes, really, Andryusha, let's put it off till tomorrow . . . [goes behind her screen]. It's time we were in bed.
ANDREY. I'll say what I have to say and then go. Directly. . . . First, you have something against Natasha, my wife, and I've noticed that from the very day of my marriage. Natasha is a splendid woman, conscientious, straightforward and honourable -- that's my opinion! I love and respect my wife, do you understand? I respect her, and I insist on other people respecting her too. I repeat, she is a conscientious, honourable woman, and all your disagreements are simply caprice. . . [a pause]. Secondly, you seem to be cross with me for not being a professor, not working at something scholarly. But I'm in the service of the Zemstvo, I'm a member of the District Council, and I consider this service just as sacred and elevated as the service of learning. I'm a member of the District Council and I'm proud of it, if you care to know . . . [a pause]. Thirdly . . . there's something else I have to say. . . . I've mortgaged the house without asking your permission. . . . For that I am to blame, yes, and I ask your pardon for it. I was driven to it by my debts . . . thirty-five thousand. . . . I'm not gambling now -- I gave up cards long ago; but the chief thing I can say in self-defence is that you girls -- you get a pension . . . while I don't get . . . my wages, so to speak . . . [a pause].
KULYGIN [at the door] . Isn't Masha here? [Perturbed] Where is she? It's strange . . . [goes out].
ANDREY. They won't listen. Natasha is an excellent, conscientious woman [paces up and down the stage in silence, then stops]. When I married her, I thought we should be happy . . . happy, all of us. . . . But, my God! [Weeps] Dear sisters, darling sisters, you must not believe what I say, you mustn't believe it . . . [goes out].
KULYGIN [at the door, uneasily]. Where is Masha? Isn't Masha here? How strange! [Goes out.]
[The firebell rings in the street. The stage is empty.]
IRINA [behind the screen]. Olya! Who is that knocking on the floor?
OLGA. It's the doctor, Ivan Romanitch. He's drunk.
IRINA. What a troubled night! [a pause] Olya! [Peeps out from behind the screen.] Have you heard? The brigade is going to be taken away; they are being transferred to some place very far off.
OLGA. That's only a rumour.
IRINA. Then we shall be alone, . . . Olya!
OLGA. Well?
IRINA. My dear, my darling, I respect the baron, I think highly of him, he's a fine man -- I'll marry him, I consent, only let's go to Moscow! I implore you, please let's go! There's nothing in the world better than Moscow! Let's go, Olya! Let's go!
CURTAIN. Act IV
Old garden of the PROZOROVS' house. A long avenue of fir trees, at the end of which is a view of the river. On the farther side of the river there is a wood. On the right the verandah of the house; on the table in it are bottles and glasses; evidently they have just been drinking champagne. It is twelve o'clock noon. People pass occasionally from the street across the garden to the river; five soldiers pass rapidly.
CHEBUTYKIN, in an affable mood, which persists throughout the act, is sitting in an easy chair in the garden, waiting to be summoned; he is wearing a military cap and has a stick. IRINA, KULYGIN with a decoration on his breast and with no moustache, and TUZENBAKH, standing on the verandah, are saying good-bye to FEDOTIK and RODE, who are going down the steps; both officers are in marching uniform.
TUZENBAKH [kissing FEDOTIK] . You're a good fellow; we've got on so happily together. [Kisses RODE.] Once more. . . . Good-bye, my dear boy. . . .
IRINA. Till we meet again!
FEDOTIK. No, it's good-bye for good; we'll never meet again.
KULYGIN. Who knows! [Wipes his eyes, smiles.] Here I am crying too.
IRINA. We'll meet some day.
FEDOTIK. In ten years, or fifteen perhaps? But then we shall scarcely recognise each other -- we'll greet each other coldly . . . [Takes a snapshot] Stand still. . . . Once more, for the last time.
RODE [embraces TUZENBAKH]. We'll never see each other again, . . . [Kisses IRINA'S hand.] Thank you for everything, everything. . . .
FEDOTIK [with vexation]. Oh, can't you stand still for a minute?
TUZENBAKH. Please God we shall meet again. Write to us. Be sure to write to us.
RODE [taking a long look at the garden] . Good-bye, trees! [Shouts] Halloo! [a pause] Good-bye, echo!
KULYGIN. I shouldn't wonder if you get married in Poland. . . . Your Polish wife will clasp you in her arms and call you kochany! [Laughs]
FEDOTIK [looking at his watch]. We have less than an hour. Of our battery only Solyony is going on the barge; we're going with the rank and file. Three divisions of the battery are going today and three more tomorrow -- and peace and quiet will descend upon the town.
TUZENBAKH. And dreadful boredom too.
RODE. And where is Marya Sergeyevna?
KULYGIN. Masha is in the garden.
FEDOTIK. We must say good-bye to her.
RODE. Good-bye. We better go, or I'll begin to cry . . . [Hurriedly embraces TUZENBAKH and KULYGIN and kisses IRINA'S hand.] We've had a splendid time here.
FEDOTIK [to KULYGIN]. This is a little souvenir for you . . . a note-book with a pencil. . . . We'll go down this way to the river . . . [As they go away both look back.]
RODE [shouts]. Halloo-oo!
KULYGIN [shouts]. Good-bye!
[RODE and FEDOTIK meet MASHA in the background and say good-bye to her; she walks away with them.]
IRINA. They've gone . . . [Sits down on the bottom step of the verandah.]
CHEBUTYKIN. They have forgotten to say good-bye to me.
IRINA.Well, what about you?
CHEBUTYKIN. Why, I somehow forget, too. But I'll see them again soon, I'm setting off tomorrow. Yes . . . I have one day more. In a year I shall be on the retired list. Then I'll come here again and I'll spend the rest of my life near you. . . . There's only one year now before I get my pension. [Puts a newspaper into his pocket and takes out another.] I'll come here to you and arrange my life quite differently. . . . I'll become such a quiet . . . hon. . . honorable . . . well-behaved person.
IRINA. Well, you do need to arrange your life differently, dear Ivan Romanitch. You certainly ought to somehow.
CHEBUTYKIN. Yes, that's the way I feel. [Softly hums] "Tarara-boom-dee-ay -- Tarara-boom-dee-ay."
KULYGIN. Ivan Romanitch is incorrigible! Incorrigible!
CHEBUTYKIN. You ought to take me in hand. Then I would reform.
IRINA. Fyodor has shaved off his moustache. I can't bear to look at him!
KULYGIN. Why, what's wrong?
CHEBUTYKIN. I might tell you what your face looks like now, but I better not.
KULYGIN. Well! It's the thing now, modus vivendi. Our headmaster is clean-shaven and now I'm second to him I've taken to shaving too. Nobody likes it, but I don't care. I'm content. With moustache or without moustache I'm equally content [sits down].
[In the background ANDREY is wheeling a baby asleep in a baby carriage.]
IRINA. Ivan Romanitch, darling, I'm dreadfully uneasy. You were on the boulevard yesterday, tell me what was it that happened?
CHEBUTYKIN. What happened? Nothing. Nothing much [reads the newspaper]. It doesn't matter!
KULYGIN. The story is that Solyony and the baron met yesterday on
the boulevard near the theatre. . . .
TUZENBAKH. Oh, stop it! Really . . . [with a wave of his hand walks away into the house].
KULYGIN. Near the theatre. . . . Solyony began pestering the baron and he couldn't keep his temper and said something offensive, . . .
CHEBUTYKIN. I don't know. It's all nonsense.
KULYGIN. A teacher at a divinity school wrote "nonsense" at the bottom of an essay and the pupil puzzled over it thinking it was a Latin word . . . [laughs]. It was terribly funny . . . . . . . . They say Solyony is in love with Irina and hates the baron. . . . That's natural. Irina is a very nice girl.
[From the background behind the scenes, "Aa-oo! Halloo!"]
IRINA [shudders]. Everything frightens me somehow today [a pause]. All my things are ready, after dinner I'll send off my luggage. The baron and I are to be married tomorrow, tomorrow we go to the brick factory and the day after that I'll be in the school. A new life is beginning. God will help me! How will it fare with me? When I passed my exam as a teacher I felt so happy, so blissful, that I cried . . . [a pause]. The cart will soon be coming for my things. . . .
KULYGIN. That's all very well, but it does not seem serious. It's all nothing but ideas and very little that is serious. However, I wish you success with all my heart.
CHEBUTYKIN [moved to tenderness]. My good, delightful darling. . . . My heart of gold. . . .
KULYGIN. Well, today the officers will be gone and everything will go on in the old way. Whatever people may say, Masha is a true, good woman. I love her dearly and am thankful for my lot! . . . People have different lots in life, . . . There is a man called Kozyrev serving in the Excise here. He was at school with me, but he was expelled from the fifth form because he could never understand ut consecutivum. Now he's frightfully poor and ill, and when I meet him I say, "How are you, ut consecutivum?" "Yes," he says, "just so -- consecutivum" . . . and then he coughs. . . . Now I've always been successful, I'm fortunate, I've even got the order of the Stanislav of the second degree and I'm teaching others that ut consecutivum. Of course I'm clever, cleverer than very many people, but happiness doesn't lie in that . . . [a pause].
Selected plays Page 11