The Big Book of Christmas

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by Anton Chekhov


  OLIVIA

  In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?

  * * *

  VIOLA

  To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  O, I have read it: it is heresy. Have you no more to say?

  * * *

  VIOLA

  Good madam, let me see your face.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate

  with my face? You are now out of your text: but

  we will draw the curtain and show you the picture.

  Look you, sir, such a one I was this present: is't

  not well done?

  Unveiling

  * * *

  VIOLA

  Excellently done, if God did all.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.

  * * *

  VIOLA

  'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white

  Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:

  Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive,

  If you will lead these graces to the grave

  And leave the world no copy.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give

  out divers schedules of my beauty: it shall be

  inventoried, and every particle and utensil

  labelled to my will: as, item, two lips,

  indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to

  them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were

  you sent hither to praise me?

  * * *

  VIOLA

  I see you what you are, you are too proud;

  But, if you were the devil, you are fair.

  My lord and master loves you: O, such love

  Could be but recompensed, though you were crown'd

  The nonpareil of beauty!

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  How does he love me?

  * * *

  VIOLA

  With adorations, fertile tears,

  With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him:

  Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,

  Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;

  In voices well divulged, free, learn'd and valiant;

  And in dimension and the shape of nature

  A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him;

  He might have took his answer long ago.

  * * *

  VIOLA

  If I did love you in my master's flame,

  With such a suffering, such a deadly life,

  In your denial I would find no sense;

  I would not understand it.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  Why, what would you?

  * * *

  VIOLA

  Make me a willow cabin at your gate,

  And call upon my soul within the house;

  Write loyal cantons of contemned love

  And sing them loud even in the dead of night;

  Halloo your name to the reverberate hills

  And make the babbling gossip of the air

  Cry out 'Olivia!' O, You should not rest

  Between the elements of air and earth,

  But you should pity me!

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  You might do much.

  What is your parentage?

  * * *

  VIOLA

  Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:

  I am a gentleman.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  Get you to your lord;

  I cannot love him: let him send no more;

  Unless, perchance, you come to me again,

  To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well:

  I thank you for your pains: spend this for me.

  * * *

  VIOLA

  I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse:

  My master, not myself, lacks recompense.

  Love make his heart of flint that you shall love;

  And let your fervor, like my master's, be

  Placed in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.

  Exit

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  'What is your parentage?'

  'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:

  I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art;

  Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit,

  Do give thee five-fold blazon: not too fast:

  soft, soft!

  Unless the master were the man. How now!

  Even so quickly may one catch the plague?

  Methinks I feel this youth's perfections

  With an invisible and subtle stealth

  To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.

  What ho, Malvolio!

  Re-enter MALVOLIO

  * * *

  MALVOLIO

  Here, madam, at your service.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  Run after that same peevish messenger,

  The county's man: he left this ring behind him,

  Would I or not: tell him I'll none of it.

  Desire him not to flatter with his lord,

  Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him:

  If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,

  I'll give him reasons for't: hie thee, Malvolio.

  * * *

  MALVOLIO

  Madam, I will.

  Exit

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  I do I know not what, and fear to find

  Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.

  Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;

  What is decreed must be, and be this so.

  Exit

  Part II

  Scene I. The Sea-Coast.

  Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN

  ANTONIO

  Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you?

  * * *

  SEBASTIAN

  By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over

  me: the malignancy of my fate might perhaps

  distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your

  leave that I may bear my evils alone: it were a bad

  recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you.

  * * *

  ANTONIO

  Let me yet know of you whither you are bound.

  * * *

  SEBASTIAN

  No, sooth, sir: my determinate voyage is mere

  extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a

  touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me

  what I am willing to keep in; therefore it charges

  me in manners the rather to express myself. You

  must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian,

  which I called Roderigo. My father was that

  Sebastian of Messaline, whom I know you have heard

  of. He left behind him myself and a sister, both

  born in an hour: if the heavens had been pleased,

  would we had so ended! but you, sir, altered that;

  for some hour before you took me from the breach of

  the sea was my sister drowned.

  * * *

  ANTONIO

  Alas the day!

  * * *

  SEBASTIAN

  A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled

  me, was yet of many accounted beautiful: but,

  though I could not with such estimable wonder

  overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly

  publish her; she bore a mind that envy could not but

  call fair. She is drowned already, sir, with salt

  water, though
I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.

  * * *

  ANTONIO

  Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.

  * * *

  SEBASTIAN

  O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.

  * * *

  ANTONIO

  If you will not murder me for my love, let me be

  your servant.

  * * *

  SEBASTIAN

  If you will not undo what you have done, that is,

  kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not.

  Fare ye well at once: my bosom is full of kindness,

  and I am yet so near the manners of my mother, that

  upon the least occasion more mine eyes will tell

  tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino's court: farewell.

  Exit

  * * *

  ANTONIO

  The gentleness of all the gods go with thee!

  I have many enemies in Orsino's court,

  Else would I very shortly see thee there.

  But, come what may, I do adore thee so,

  That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.

  Exit

  Scene II. A Street.

  Enter VIOLA, MALVOLIO following

  MALVOLIO

  Were not you even now with the Countess Olivia?

  * * *

  VIOLA

  Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since

  arrived but hither.

  * * *

  MALVOLIO

  She returns this ring to you, sir: you might have

  saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself.

  She adds, moreover, that you should put your lord

  into a desperate assurance she will none of him:

  and one thing more, that you be never so hardy to

  come again in his affairs, unless it be to report

  your lord's taking of this. Receive it so.

  * * *

  VIOLA

  She took the ring of me: I'll none of it.

  * * *

  MALVOLIO

  Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her

  will is, it should be so returned: if it be worth

  stooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be

  it his that finds it.

  Exit

  * * *

  VIOLA

  I left no ring with her: what means this lady?

  Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!

  She made good view of me; indeed, so much,

  That sure methought her eyes had lost her tongue,

  For she did speak in starts distractedly.

  She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion

  Invites me in this churlish messenger.

  None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none.

  I am the man: if it be so, as 'tis,

  Poor lady, she were better love a dream.

  Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,

  Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.

  How easy is it for the proper-false

  In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!

  Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we!

  For such as we are made of, such we be.

  How will this fadge? my master loves her dearly;

  And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;

  And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.

  What will become of this? As I am man,

  My state is desperate for my master's love;

  As I am woman,—now alas the day!—

  What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!

  O time! thou must untangle this, not I;

  It is too hard a knot for me to untie!

  Exit

  Scene III. Olivia's House.

  Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and SIR ANDREW

  SIR TOBY BELCH

  Approach, Sir Andrew: not to be abed after

  midnight is to be up betimes; and 'diluculo

  surgere,' thou know'st,—

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  Nay, my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up

  late is to be up late.

  * * *

  SIR TOBY BELCH

  A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfilled can.

  To be up after midnight and to go to bed then, is

  early: so that to go to bed after midnight is to go

  to bed betimes. Does not our life consist of the

  four elements?

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists

  of eating and drinking.

  * * *

  SIR TOBY BELCH

  Thou'rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.

  Marian, I say! a stoup of wine!

  Enter Clown

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  Here comes the fool, i' faith.

  * * *

  Clown

  How now, my hearts! did you never see the picture

  of 'we three'?

  * * *

  SIR TOBY BELCH

  Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I

  had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg,

  and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In

  sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last

  night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the

  Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus: 'twas

  very good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy

  leman: hadst it?

  * * *

  Clown

  I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose

  is no whipstock: my lady has a white hand, and the

  Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  Excellent! why, this is the best fooling, when all

  is done. Now, a song.

  * * *

  SIR TOBY BELCH

  Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  There's a testril of me too: if one knight give a—

  * * *

  Clown

  Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?

  * * *

  SIR TOBY BELCH

  A love-song, a love-song.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  Ay, ay: I care not for good life.

  * * *

  Clown

  [Sings]

  O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

  O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,

  That can sing both high and low:

  Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

  Journeys end in lovers meeting,

  Every wise man's son doth know.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  Excellent good, i' faith.

  * * *

  SIR TOBY BELCH

  Good, good.

  * * *

  Clown

  [Sings]

  What is love? 'tis not hereafter;

  Present mirth hath present laughter;

  What's to come is still unsure:

  In delay there lies no plenty;

  Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,

  Youth's a stuff will not endure.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.

  * * *

  SIR TOBY BELCH

  A contagious breath.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.

  * * *

  SIR TOBY BELCH

  To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion.

  But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? shall we

  rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three

&nbs
p; souls out of one weaver? shall we do that?

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  An you love me, let's do't: I am dog at a catch.

  * * *

  Clown

  By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  Most certain. Let our catch be, 'Thou knave.'

  * * *

  Clown

  'Hold thy peace, thou knave,' knight? I shall be

  constrained in't to call thee knave, knight.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to

  call me knave. Begin, fool: it begins 'Hold thy peace.'

  * * *

  Clown

  I shall never begin if I hold my peace.

  * * *

  SIR ANDREW

  Good, i' faith. Come, begin.

  Catch sung

  Enter MARIA

 

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