Plays

by Anton Chekhov

  SEREBRYAKOV: Here’s Maman. I shall start.

  [A pause.]

  I’ve asked you to come here, ladies and gentlemen, to make an announcement to you, the Inspector-General is coming to us.4 But jokes aside. The matter is a serious one. I have assembled you, my friends, to ask for your help and advice, and knowing your continued indulgence I hope that I will receive them. I am a scholar, a man of books, and have always been a stranger to the practical life. I cannot do without the views of well-informed people, and so I am asking you, Ivan Petrovich, you, Ilya Ilyich, you, Maman ... The fact is that manet omnes una nox,5 that is, we are all God’s creatures; I am old and sick, and so I find it timely to regulate my property arrangements insofar as they affect my family. My life is now over, I’m not thinking of myself, but I have a young wife and an unmarried daughter.

  [A pause.]

  I cannot go on living in the country. We are not made for the country. But we cannot live in the city on the income we receive from this estate. Were we to sell, say, the forest, that would be an extraordinary measure which we could not utilize every year. We must find ways of guaranteeing a more or less fixed sum of income. I have thought of one such and humbly submit it for your consideration. I shall pass over the details and outline it in general terms. Our estate produces on average not more than two per cent. I propose to sell it. If we convert the receipts into interest-bearing bonds, then we shall receive four to five per cent, and I think there will be a surplus of several thousand roubles which will allow us to buy a small dacha6 in Finland.7

  VOYNITSKY: Wait ... I think my ears are failing me. Repeat what you said.

  SEREBRYAKOV: Convert the monies into interest-bearing bonds and buy a dacha in Finland with the surplus.

  VOYNITSKY: Not Finland ... You said something else too.

  SEREBRYAKOV: I’m proposing selling the estate.

  VOYNITSKY: Exactly. You’ll sell the estate, excellent, a splendid idea ... And where would you like me and my old mother and Sonya here to go?

  SEREBRYAKOV: We will discuss all that at the appropriate time. Not now.

  VOYNITSKY: Wait a minute. Clearly until now I haven’t had an ounce of common sense. Until now I’ve been stupid enough to think this estate belongs to Sonya. My late father bought this estate as a dowry for my sister. Up till now I’ve been naïve, I assumed we weren’t living under Turkish law and I thought the estate had passed from my sister to Sonya.

  SEREBRYAKOV: Yes, the estate belongs to Sonya. Who is disputing that? Without Sonya’s consent I would not decide to sell it. Furthermore, I am proposing to do this in Sonya’s interest.

  VOYNITSKY: This is incomprehensible, incomprehensible! Either I have gone mad, or ... or ...

  MARIYA VASILYEVNA: Jean, don’t contradict Aleksandr. Believe me, he knows what’s good and what’s bad for us better than we do.

  VOYNITSKY: No, give me some water. [Drinks the water.] Say whatever you want, whatever you want!

  SEREBRYAKOV: I do not understand why you’re upset. I don’t say that my plan is ideal. If everyone finds it inappropriate, then I won’t insist on it.

  [A pause.]

  TELEGIN [embarrassed]: Your Excellency, for scholarship I have not just reverence but feelings of kinship. My brother Grigory Ilyich’s wife’s brother — perhaps you know him — Konstantin Trofimovich Lakedemonov, had a master’s degree ...

  VOYNITSKY: Waffle, do stop, we’re talking business ... Wait a moment, later ... [To Serebryakov] Now ask him. This estate was bought from his uncle.

  SEREBRYAKOV: Oh, why should I ask him? To what end?

  VOYNITSKY: This estate was bought then for ninety-five thousand roubles. My father only paid down seventy and had a mortgage for twenty-five thousand. Now listen ... This estate would not have been bought if I had not given up my inheritance in favour of my sister, whom I dearly loved. What’s more, I worked like an ox for ten years and paid off the entire mortgage ...

  SEREBRYAKOV: I regret having started this conversation.

  VOYNITSKY: The estate is free of debt and in good order only thanks to my personal efforts. And now in my old age I’m to be thrown out of here on my neck!

  SEREBRYAKOV: I don’t understand what you’re getting at!

  VOYNITSKY: For twenty-five years I’ve managed this estate, worked, sent you money like the most conscientious steward and over that whole time you haven’t thanked me once. The whole time — both when I was young and now — I’ve been getting a salary of five hundred roubles a year from you — a beggar’s wage — and you haven’t once thought of increasing my salary by a single rouble!

  SEREBRYAKOV: Ivan Petrovich, how should I have known? I am not a practical man and I don’t understand anything. You could have added as much as you wanted.

  VOYNITSKY: Why didn’t I steal, you mean? Why don’t you all despise me for not stealing? It would have been fair, and today I wouldn’t be a pauper!

  MARIYA VASILYEVNA [sternly]: Jean!

  TELEGIN [upset]: Vanya, dear friend, you mustn’t, you mustn’t ... I’m trembling ... Why spoil good relations? [Kisses him.] You mustn’t.

  VOYNITSKY: For twenty-five years I’ve sat with my mother here within these four walls — like a mole ... All our thoughts and feelings belonged to you alone. By day we talked about you, about your work, we were proud of you, we uttered your name with reverence: we ruined our nights reading magazines and books which I now deeply despise!

  TELEGIN: You mustn’t, Vanya, you mustn’t ... I can’t ...

  SEREBRYAKOV [angrily]: I do not understand what you want.

  VOYNITSKY: For us you were a being of a higher order, and we knew your articles by heart ... But now my eyes have been opened! I see it all! You write about art but you understand nothing about art! All your works, which I used to love, are not worth a brass farthing! You fooled us!

  SEREBRYAKOV: All of you, stop him now! I am going!

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Ivan Petrovich, I insist you stop! Do you hear?

  VOYNITSKY: I will not be silent! [Blocking Serebryakov’s way.] Stay here, I haven’t finished! You have destroyed my life! I haven’t lived, I haven’t lived! Thanks to you I wasted, I destroyed the best years of my life! You are my worst enemy!

  TELEGIN: I can’t ... I can’t ... I’m going ... [Goes out in great agitation.]

  SEREBRYAKOV: What do you want of me? And what right do you have to speak to me in this tone? You are nothing! If the estate is yours, take it, I don’t need it!

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: I am leaving this hell this very minute. [She is shouting.] I can’t stand it any longer!

  VOYNITSKY: My life is over! I am talented, clever, ambitious ... If I’d lived normally, I might have been a Schopenhauer, a Dostoyevsky ... I’m babbling! I’m losing my mind ... Mother, I’m desperate! Mother!

  MARIYA VASILYEVNA [sternly]: Listen to Aleksandr!

  SONYA [kneeling in front of the nyanya and clinging to her]: Nyanya! Dearest Nyanya!

  VOYNITSKY: Mother! What am I to do! No, don’t speak. I know myself what I must do! [To Serebryakov] You will remember me! [Goes out of the middle door.]

  [MARIYA VASILYEVNA follows him.]

  SEREBRYAKOV: Ladies and gentlemen, what on earth is all this? Take this madman away from me! I cannot live under the same roof as him! He is there [points at the middle door], almost in the next room to me ... Let him move into the village or the wing, or else I’ll move out of here, but I cannot remain in the same house as him ...

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [to her husband]: We will leave here today! You must give the instructions this minute.

  SEREBRYAKOV: What a worthless fellow!

  SONYA [on her knees, turns to her father; nervously, with tears in her eyes]: You must be merciful, Papa! Uncle Vanya and I are so unhappy! [Trying to control her despair] You must be merciful! Do you remember, when you were younger, Uncle Vanya and Grandmother used to translate books for you at night, used to transcribe your papers ... every night, every night! I and Uncle Vanya worked without any re
st, we were afraid to spend a kopeck on ourselves and sent everything to you ... We earned our keep! I don’t mean that, I’m not saying it right, but you must understand us, Papa. You must be merciful!

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [in distress, to her husband]: Aleksandr, for God’s sake have a talk to him ... I beseech you.

  SEREBRYAKOV: Very well, I will have it out with him ... I am not accusing him of anything, I am not angry, but you must admit his behaviour is strange at the very least. All right, I will go to him. [Goes out by the middle door.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Be gentle with him, calm him ... [Goes out after him.]

  SONYA [clinging to the nyanya]: Nyanya! Dearest Nyanya!

  MARINA: It’s all right, darling. Just geese — they’ll cackle away a bit — and then stop ... Cackle away — and then stop ...

  SONYA: Nyanya!

  MARINA [stroking her head]: You’re shivering like when there’s a frost. There, there, my motherless child, God is merciful. Some lime or raspberry tea, and it’ll go ... Don’t get upset, my little motherless girl ... [Looking at the middle door, withfeeling] How those wretched geese got going!

  [Offstage a shot; YELENA ANDREYEVNA is heard to cry out; SONYA shudders.]

  Oh, curse you!

  SEREBRYAKOV [running in, stumbling in fright]: Hold him! Hold him! He’s gone mad!

  [YELENA ANDREYEVNA and VOYNITSKY are struggling in the doorway.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [trying to take a revolver from him]: Give it to me! Give it to me, I order you!

  VOYNITSKY: Let me go, Hélène! Let me go! [Freeing himself, he runs in and looks for Serebryakov.] Where is he? There he is! [Shoots at him.] Bang!

  [A pause.]

  Haven’t I hit him? Missed again? [Angrily] The devil, devil ... devil take you. [Hurls the revolver on the floor and sits down on a chair exhausted. SEREBRYAKOV is in shock; YELENA ANDREYEVNA leans against a wall, she is feeling faint.]

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Take me away from here! Take me, kill me, but ... I can’t stay here, I can’t.

  VOYNITSKY [desperately]: Oh what am I doing! What am I doing! SONYA [quietly]: Nyanya! Dearest Nyanya!

  [Curtain.]

  Act Four

  Voynitsky’s room, which is where he sleeps but is also the estate office. By the window is a large table with ledgers and papers of all kinds on it, a bureau, cupboards and a pair of scales. There is a smaller table for Astrov; on it are drawing materials and paints; by it is a portfolio. A cage with a starling. On the wall is a map of Africa, obviously not needed by anyone here. An outsize sofa covered in oilcloth. Left — an internal door; right — a door to the outside lobby; by the right-hand door a mat is laid so that the peasants don’t bring in mud. An autumn evening. Quiet.

  [TELEGIN and MARINA: they are sitting opposite one another, winding wool for stockings.]

  TELEGIN: You must go a bit quicker, Marina Timofeyevna, they’ll be calling us to say goodbye any minute. They’ve already asked for the horses.

  MARINA [trying to windfaster]:There’s not much left.

  TELEGIN: They’re leaving for Kharkov. They’re going to live there.

  MARINA: That’ll be better.

  TELEGIN: They got frightened ... Yelena Andreyevna was saying, ‘I don’t want to live here one single hour more ... let’s just go ... We’ll stay a while in Kharkov,’ she said, ‘and take stock, and then send for our things ...’ They’re leaving with no luggage. So, Marina Timofeyevna, they were fated not to live here. Fated ... A disposition of fate.

  MARINA: It’ll be better. They were making such a row, and shooting ... A disgrace!

  TELEGIN: Yes, a subject for the brush of Ayvazovsky.1

  MARINA: I wish I hadn’t seen it.

  [A pause.]

  We’ll live again as we used to, in the old days. Tea at eight in the morning, dinner at one, sitting down to supper in the evening; everything in its proper order, just as people do it ... Christian people. [With a sigh] It’s been a long time, for my sins, since I’ve eaten noodles.

  TELEGIN: Yes, it’s a while since we had noodles.

  [A pause.]

  Quite a while ... This morning, Marina Timofeyevna, I was walking in the village, and a shopkeeper called out after me, ‘You old sponger!’ And I was upset!

  MARINA: Don’t you take any notice, dear. We are all spongers on God. You and Sonya and Ivan Petrovich — none of you sit with nothing to do, we all work! All of us ... Where’s Sonya?

  TELEGIN: In the garden. She’s still with the Doctor. She’s looking for Ivan Petrovich. They’re afraid he might do something to himself.

  MARINA: But where’s his gun?

  TELEGIN [in a whisper]: I hid it in the cellar.

  MARINA [with a smile]: Naughty!

  [Enter VOYNITSKY and ASTROV from outside.]

  VOYNITSKY: Leave me. [To Marina and Telegin] Go away from here, leave me alone for just one hour! I can’t stand this supervision.

  TELEGIN: At once, Vanya. [Goes out on tiptoe.]

  MARINA: Old goose! Go-go-go! [Gathers up the wool and goes out.]

  VOYNITSKY: Leave me!

  ASTROV: With great pleasure, I should have gone hours ago, but, I repeat, I will not go until you return what you’ve taken from me.

  VOYNITSKY: I’ve taken nothing from you.

  ASTROV: I’m being serious — don’t make me late. I should have left long ago.

  VOYNITSKY: I’ve taken nothing from you.

  [Both sit down.]

  ASTROV: Really? Well, I’ll wait a little longer, and then, I’m sorry, I’ll have to use force. We’ll tie you up and search you. I mean that quite seriously.

  VOYNITSKY: As you please.

  [A pause.]

  What a fool — to shoot twice and not score a single hit! I’ll never forgive myself for that!

  ASTROV: If you had the urge to shoot, why didn’t you put a bullet through your own head?

  VOYNITSKY [shrugging]: It’s odd. I attempted murder but no one is arresting me or going to prosecute me. So they must think I’m mad. [A sour laugh.] I’m mad, unlike those who hide their lack of talent, their dullness, their crying heartlessness under the mask of professors, wise men. Unlike those who marry old men and then deceive them under the eyes of everyone. I saw, I saw you embracing her!

  ASTROV: Yes, I embraced her. And this is for you. [Thumbs his nose at him.]

  VOYNITSKY [looking at the door]: No, it’s a mad world, with all of you in it!

  ASTROV: That’s silly.

  VOYNITSKY: Well, I’m mad, I have no responsibility for my actions, I have the right to say silly things.

  ASTROV: An old trick. You aren’t mad but simply an eccentric. A buffoon. I used to consider all eccentrics sick, abnormal, but I’m now of the opinion that the normal condition of man is to be eccentric. You’re quite normal.

  VOYNITSKY [covering his face with his hands]: I’m ashamed! If you knew how ashamed I am! This sharp feeling of shame can’t be compared with any pain. [Anguished] It’s unbearable! [Bows his head over the table.] What am I to do? What am I to do?

  ASTROV: Nothing.

  VOYNITSKY: Give me something! Oh my God ... I’m forty-seven; if I live, say, to sixty, I’ve still got thirteen years. A long time! How will I get through those thirteen years? What shall I do, how will I fill them? Oh, you have to understand ... [convulsively shakes Astrov’s hand] you have to understand, if only I could live the rest of my life somehow afresh. Could wake to a bright calm morning and feel that I’d begun to live anew, that all the past was forgotten, dissolved like smoke. [Weeps.] Begin a new life ... Advise me how to begin ... where to begin ...

  ASTROV [irritatedly]: What a fool you are! What new life out there! Our situation, yours and mine, is hopeless.

  VOYNITSKY: Is it?

  ASTROV: I’m sure of it.

  VOYNITSKY: Give me something ... [Pointing to his heart.] There’s a burning feeling here.

  ASTROV [shouting angrily]: Stop it! [Calming down.] Those who will live after us in a hundred or two
hundred years’ time and who will despise us for living our lives so foolishly and with such a lack of taste — they may find a way of being happy, but we ... You and I have only one hope. The hope that when we lie in our coffins we’ll be visited by visions, perhaps even agreeable ones. [Sighing.] Yes, my friend. In the whole District there used to be only two decent intelligent human beings — myself and you. But in the space of ten years or so the ordinary life we despise has dragged us down; it has poisoned our blood with its putrid exhalations and we’ve become as commonplace as everyone else. [Animatedly] But don’t try and get round me. Give me back what you took from me.

  VOYNITSKY: I’ve taken nothing from you.

  ASTROV: You took a jar of morphine from my travelling medicine chest.

  [A pause.]

  Look, if you are absolutely set on committing suicide, then go into the woods and shoot yourself. But give back the morphine or there’ll be talk and conjecture and people will think that I gave it to you ... It’ll be quite enough having to do your autopsy ... Do you think I’ll find that interesting?

  [Enter SONYA.]

  VOYNITSKY: Leave me alone!

  ASTROV [to Sonya]: Sofya Aleksandrovna, your uncle has taken a jar of morphine from my travelling medicine chest and won’t give it back. Tell him that it’s ... actually, not very clever. And I have no more time. I must leave.

  SONYA: Uncle Vanya, did you take the morphine?

  [A pause.]

  ASTROV: He took it. I’m sure of it.

  SONYA: Give it back. Why do you frighten us? [Tenderly] Give it back, Uncle Vanya! I may be no less unhappy than you, but I don’t become desperate. I endure and will endure until my life comes to a natural end ... You must endure.