Plays

by Anton Chekhov

  [A pause.]

  SONYA [coming back]: The answer’s no.

  [Curtain.]

  Act Three

  A drawing-room in Serebryakov’s house. Three doors, left, right and centre. Daytime.

  [VOYNITSKY and SONYA, seated, and YELENA ANDREYEVNA, walking about the stage, thinking ofsomething.]

  VOYNITSKY: The Herr Professor has expressed a wish that all of us assemble here in this drawing-room today at one p.m. [Looks at his watch.] Quarter to one. He wants to tell the world something.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Probably some matter of business.

  VOYNITSKY: He has none. He writes rubbish, grumbles and is jealous, that’s all.

  SONYA[in a reproachful tone]: Uncle!

  VOYNITSKY: Yes, yes, I’m sorry. [Points at Yelena Andreyevna.] Just look at her: she walks about reeling with indolence. Very nice! Very!

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: You’ve been droning and droning all day long — haven’t you had enough! [In an anguished voice] I’m dying of boredom, I don’t know what to do.

  SONYA [shrugging her shoulders]: There’s plenty to do. You just need to want to.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: For instance?

  SONYA: Help run the estate, teach, treat the sick. Is that not enough? When Papa and you weren’t here, Uncle Vanya and I ourselves went to market to sell the flour.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: I can’t. And it isn’t interesting. It’s only in novels of ideas that people teach the peasants or treat them — how can I all of a sudden go and give them medical treatment or lessons?

  SONYA: But I don’t understand why you don’t go and teach. Just wait a bit and you’ll get the habit. [Embraces her.] Don’t be bored, dearest. [Laughing] You’re bored, you can’t find a role for yourself, and boredom and inactivity are infectious. Look: Uncle Vanya does nothing and just follows you round like a shadow, I’ve left my work and come running to you to talk. I’ve got lazy, I can’t do it! Doctor Mikhail Lvovich used to visit us very seldom, once a month, it was difficult to persuade him, but now he drives over here every day, he’s left his woods and his practice. You must be a sorceress.

  VOYNITSKY: Why languish? [Animatedly] Well, my dear, splendid creature, do something clever! In your veins flows a mermaid’s blood, so be a mermaid. For once in your life let yourself go, fall head over heels in love with some water sprite — and plop, head first, into a whirlpool, so the Herr Professor and all of us just raise our hands in amazement!

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [in anger]: Leave me in peace! You’re so cruel! [Starts to go.]

  VOYNITSKY [preventing her]: There, there, joy of my heart, forgive me ... I apologize. [Kisses her hand.] Peace.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: You must agree, you’d try the patience of an angel.

  VOYNITSKY: As a sign of peace and concord I’ll now bring you a bouquet of roses; I made it for you this morning ... Autumn roses — lovely melancholy roses ... [Exit.]

  SONYA: Autumn roses — lovely melancholy roses ...

  [Both of them look out of the window.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: It’s already September. Somehow we’ll get through the winter here.

  [A pause.]

  Where’s the Doctor?

  SONYA: In Uncle Vanya’s room. He’s writing something. I’m glad Uncle Vanya’s gone, I need to talk to you.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: What about?

  SONYA: What about? [Lays her head on Yelena Andreyevna’s breast.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: There, there ... [Strokes Sonya’s hair.] There.

  SONYA: I’m so plain.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: You have lovely hair.

  SONYA: No! [Turns round to look at herself in a mirror.] No! When a woman is plain, people say to her, ‘You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair’ ... I’ve loved him for six years now, I love him more than my mother; every minute I hear him, I feel the pressure of his handshake; and I look at the door, I wait, I always think he’s about to walk in. And, you see, I keep on coming to you to talk about him. Now he’s here every day, but he doesn’t look at me, he doesn’t see me ... It’s such torment! I have no hope, none, none! [Desperately] O God, send me strength ... I prayed all night ... I often go up to him, I open conversations with him, I look him in the eye ... I’ve no pride now, no strength for self-control ... I gave in and yesterday I confessed to Uncle Vanya that I love ... And all the servants know that I love him. Everyone knows.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: And what about him?

  SONYA: No. He doesn’t notice me.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [thinking]: He’s a strange man ... Do you know what? Let me talk to him ... I’ll do it carefully, obliquely ...

  [A pause.]

  How long can you remain in uncertainty ... Let me!

  [SONYA nods her head in affirmation.]

  Excellent. It won’t be hard to find out whether he loves you or not. Don’t be embarrassed, my dear, don’t worry ... I’ll question him carefully, he won’t even notice. We only need to find out: is it yes or no?

  [A pause.]

  If it’s no, then he shouldn’t be here, should he?

  [SONYA nods her head in affirmation.]

  It’s easier if you don’t see him. We won’t put it off, we’ll question him now. He was going to show me some plans ... Go and tell him that I want to see him.

  SONYA [in great agitation]: You will tell me the whole truth, won’t you?

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Yes, of course. I think that the truth, whatever it is, is not as frightening as uncertainty. Rely on me, my dear.

  SONYA: Yes ... yes ... I’ll say that you want to see his plans ... [Goes and stops by the door.] No, uncertainty is better ... There’s still hope ...

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: What are you saying?

  SONYA: Nothing. [Exit.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [alone]: There’s nothing worse than knowing someone else’s secret and being unable to help. [Reflecting] He isn’t in love with her — that’s clear, but why shouldn’t he marry her? She’s plain, but for a country doctor, at his age, she would be a splendid wife. She’s a clever girl, so kind, so pure ... No, that’s not it, that’s not it at all ...

  [A pause.]

  I understand the poor girl. In the midst of this desperate boredom, where some kind of grey blobs wander about instead of human beings, where you only hear vulgarity and where people do nothing but eat, drink and sleep, sometimes there comes this man, a man unlike others, handsome, interesting, attractive, like a bright moon rising in the darkness ... To give in to the charm of such a man and to forget yourself ... I think I myself have been a little carried away ... Yes, I’m bored when he isn’t around, I’m smiling now I’m thinking of him ... That Uncle Vanya says I have a mermaid’s blood in my veins. ‘For once in your life let yourself go’ ... So? Perhaps I should ... Should fly away from all of you free as a bird, away from your sleepy faces, your conversations, should forget that all of you exist on the earth ... But I am cowardly, timid ... I’m tormented by conscience ... He’s here every day, I guess why he’s here and now I feel guilty, ready to fall on my knees before Sonya and apologize and weep ...

  ASTROV [coming in with a map]: Good afternoon. [Shakes her hand.] Do you want to look at my picture?

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Yesterday you promised to show me your work ... Are you free?

  ASTROV: Oh, of course. [Spreads out the map on a card table and fixes it with drawing-pins.] Where were you born?

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [helping him]: In Petersburg.

  ASTROV: And educated?

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: At the Conservatoire.1

  ASTROV: So this probably isn’t very interesting for you.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Why? It’s true I don’t know about the countryside but I’ve read a lot about it.

  ASTROV: I have my own desk here in the house ... In Ivan Petrovich’s room. When I’m worn out, in a complete stupor, I drop everything and escape here and amuse myself with this thing for an hour or two ... Ivan Petrovich and Sofya Aleksandrovna click away on the abacus,2 and I sit by them at my desk and
daub away — and I’m warm and at peace, and the cricket chirps. But I don’t allow myself this pleasure often, just once a month ... [Pointing to the map.] Now look here. A portrait of our district as it was fifty years ago. The dark and light green indicate forest; half of the whole area is covered by forest. Where there’s a red grid over the green, there were elk and wild goats ... I show here both flora and fauna ... This lake had swans, geese, duck, and as old folk say, a mighty eyeful of all kinds of wildfowl, which used to take off in a great storm cloud. Besides villages and hamlets, you can see scattered here and there various settlements, farmsteads, schismatic monasteries, watermills ... There were a lot of cattle and horses. You can tell that by the blue colour. For example, this unit of land has a thick layer of blue: here there were whole herds of horses and every household had three.

  [A pause.]

  Now let’s look lower down, that’s as it was twenty-five years ago. There’s only a third of the whole area under forest. No more goats, but there are still elk. The green and blue are paler. And so on and so forth. Let’s move on to the third part: the district today. There’s green here and there, but not all over, just in patches; the swans and elk and wood grouse have disappeared ... There isn’t a trace of the settlements, farms, monasteries, mills there once were. In general terms a picture of gradual and definite decline, which clearly will take some ten to fifteen years to become total. You may say that these are cultural influences, that the old life was naturally bound to give way to the new. Yes, I understand that: if in place of these destroyed forests they had laid highways and railroads, if we had here factories, mills, schools, the people would be healthier, richer, better educated - but there’s nothing of the kind! The district has the same swamps and mosquitoes, the same lack of roads, poverty, typhus, diphtheria, fires ... We have here a decline which is the consequence of an impossible struggle for existence; a degeneration arising from stagnation, ignorance, a total lack of self-awareness, when a frozen, hungry, sick man, in order to preserve the remnants of life, to protect his children, instinctively, unconsciously grasps at anything to relieve his hunger and get warm, and destroys everything around without a thought for tomorrow. Now almost everything is destroyed, but nothing has yet been created to take its place. [Coldly] I see by your expression this doesn’t interest you.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: But I understand so little of it ...

  ASTROV: There’s nothing here to understand, it’s simply not interesting you.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: To be frank, my mind is elsewhere. I’m sorry. I need to give you a little interrogation, and I’m embarrassed, I don’t know how to begin.

  ASTROV: An interrogation?

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Yes, an interrogation, but ... a quite harmless one. Let’s sit down.

  [They sit down.]

  It concerns a young person. We will speak in plain terms, like honest people, like friends. We will talk and forget what we talked about. Yes?

  ASTROV: Yes.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: It concerns my stepdaughter Sonya. Do you like her?

  ASTROV: Yes, I respect her.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Are you attracted to her as a woman?

  ASTROV [after a pause]: No.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Just two or three words more — and that’s it. Haven’t you noticed anything?

  ASTROV: No, I haven’t.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [taking him by the hand]: You don’t love her, I can see it in your eyes ... She is suffering ... You must understand that and ... stop coming here.

  ASTROV [getting up]: My time’s up ... I’m too busy ... [Shrugging his shoulders.] When can I? [He is embarrassed.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Phew, what an unpleasant conversation! I’m in such a state I feel I’ve been carrying a thousand pud load. Well, thank God, it’s over. We will forget, as if we hadn’t talked at all, and ... now leave. You’re an intelligent man, you will understand ...

  [A pause.]

  I’m blushing all over.

  ASTROV: If you’d said this to me a month or two ago, I probably would still have thought about it, but now ... [Shrugs.] But if she is suffering, then of course ... Only I don’t understand one thing: why did you need to have this interrogation? [Looks her in the eye and wags his finger at her.] You’re a sly one!

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: What does that mean?

  ASTROV [laughing]: Sly! We say Sonya is suffering, I readily admit that, but why these questions of yours? [Stopping her speaking, animatedly] Please don’t look surprised, you know very well why I come here every day ... Why and for whom I come, you know full well. Dear predator, don’t look at me like that, I’m an old sparrow ...

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [bewildered]: Predator? I don’t understand.

  ASTROV: Beautiful fluffy polecat ... You need victims! For a whole month I’ve been idle, I’ve dropped everything, I hungrily look for you ... and you’re terribly pleased by that, terribly ... So? I am conquered, you knew that without any questions. [Crossing his arms and bowing his head] I submit. There, eat me up!

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: You’ve gone out of your mind!

  ASTROV [laughing through clenched teeth]: You’re being coy ...

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Oh, I’m better and more principled than you think! I swear to you! [Tries to go.]

  ASTROV [blocking her way]: I will leave today, I won’t come here, but ... [Takes her by the hand and looks round.] Where shall we meet? Tell me quickly, where? Tell me quickly, someone might come in. [Passionately] What a marvellous voluptuous woman ... One kiss ... Let me just kiss your scented hair ...

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: I swear to you ...

  ASTROV [stopping her from speaking]: Why swear? No need to swear. You mustn’t swear. No need for superfluous words. What beauty! What hands! [Kisses her hands.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Stop, enough ... go away ... [Pulls away her hands.] You’ve forgotten yourself.

  ASTROV: Tell me, tell me where we’ll meet tomorrow. [Puts his arm round her waist.] You see, it can’t be avoided, we must see one another. [Kisses her; at this moment VOYNITSKY enters with a bouquet of flowers and stops by the door.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [not seeing Voynitsky]: Spare me ... leave me ... [Lays her head on Astrov’s breast.] No! [Tries to leave.]

  ASTROV [holding her by the waist]: Come tomorrow to the forestry station ... about two ... Yes? Yes? You’ll come?

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [seeing Voynitsky]: Let me go! [Overcome by embarrassment, moves away towards the window.] This is dreadful.

  VOYNITSKY [puts the bouquet on a chair; in his agitation wipes his face and inside his collar with a handkerchief]: Don’t worry ... No ... It doesn’t matter ...

  ASTROV [sulkily]: My dear Ivan Petrovich, the weather isn’t too bad today. The morning was overcast, as if it was going to rain, but now there’s sunshine. It really has turned out to be a beautiful autumn ... and the winter crop is all right. [Rolls up the map.] The only thing is the days have become short ... [Goes out.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [quickly going towards Voynitsky]: Try and use all your influence to see that I and my husband leave today! Do you hear? Today!

  VOYNITSKY [wiping his face]: Ah? Yes ... very well ... Hélène, I saw everything, everything ...

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [irritably]: Do you hear! I must leave here today!

  [Enter SEREBRYAKOV, SONYA, TELEGIN and MARINA]

  TELEGIN: I myself am not very well, Your Excellency. It’s the second day now that I’ve been feeling ill. My head sort of..

  SEREBRYAKOV: Where are the others? I don’t like this house. It’s like a maze. Twenty-six huge rooms, everyone wanders off and you never find them. [Rings.] Ask Mariya Vasilyevna and Yelena Andreyevna to come here!

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: I’m here.

  SEREBRYAKOV: Please sit down, ladies and gentlemen.

  SONYA [going up to Yelena Andreyevna, impatiently]: What did he say?

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Later.

  SONYA: Are you shivering? You’re upset? [Looks inquiringly into her face.] I unders
tand ... He said that he won’t come here any more ... yes?

  [A pause.]

  Tell me, did he?

  [YELENA ANDREYEVNA nods her head.]

  SEREBRYAKOV [to Telegin]: Whatever the circumstances, one can accommodate oneself to ill health, but I can’t cope with this way of life in the country. I feel as if I’d fallen from earth onto another planet. Please sit down, ladies and gentlemen. Sonya!

  [SONYA doesn’t hear him, and stands sadly hanging her head.]

  Sonya!

  [A pause.]

  She’s deaf. [To Marina] Nyanya, you sit down too.

  [The nyanya sits down and knits a stocking.]

  Please, ladies and gentlemen. Hang up your ears, so to speak, on a peg of attention. [Laughs.]

  VOYNITSKY [agitated]: Perhaps you don’t need me? Can I go?

  SEREBRYAKOV: No, you’re needed here more than anyone.

  VOYNITSKY: What do you want from me, Serebryakov?

  SEREBRYAKOV: ‘Serebryakov’ ... ? Why are you angry, Vanya?3

  [A pause.]

  If I’ve offended you in anything, please forgive me.

  VOYNITSKY: Do drop that tone. Let’s move on to business. What do you want?

  [Enter MARIYA VASILYEVNA.]