The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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day…. Tara-ra… boom-deay.”
[MASHA approaches, ANDREY is wheeling a perambulator at the back.]
MASHA. Here you are, sitting here, doing nothing.
CHEBUTIKIN. What then?
MASHA. [Sits] Nothing…. [Pause] Did you love my mother?
CHEBUTIKIN. Very much.
MASHA. And did she love you?
CHEBUTIKIN. [After a pause] I don’t remember that.
MASHA. Is my man here? When our cook Martha used to ask about her gendarme, she used to say my man. Is he here?
CHEBUTIKIN. Not yet.
MASHA. When you take your happiness in little bits, in snatches, and then lose it, as I have done, you gradually get coarser, more bitter. [Points to her bosom] I’m boiling in here…. [Looks at ANDREY with the perambulator] There’s our brother Andrey…. All our hopes in him have gone. There was once a great bell, a thousand persons were hoisting it, much money and labour had been spent on it, when it suddenly fell and was broken. Suddenly, for no particular reason…. Andrey is like that….
ANDREY. When are they going to stop making such a noise in the house? It’s awful.
CHEBUTIKIN. They won’t be much longer. [Looks at his watch] My watch is very old-fashioned, it strikes the hours…. [Winds the watch and makes it strike] The first, second, and fifth batteries are to leave at one o’clock precisely. [Pause] And I go tomorrow.
ANDREY. For good?
CHEBUTIKIN. I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll return in a year. The devil only knows… it’s all one…. [Somewhere a harp and violin are being played.]
ANDREY. The town will grow empty. It will be as if they put a cover over it. [Pause] Something happened yesterday by the theatre. The whole town knows of it, but I don’t.
CHEBUTIKIN. Nothing. A silly little affair. Soleni started irritating the Baron, who lost his temper and insulted him, and so at last Soleni had to challenge him. [Looks at his watch] It’s about time, I think…. At half-past twelve, in the public wood, that one you can see from here across the river…. Piff-paff. [Laughs] Soleni thinks he’s Lermontov, and even writes verses. That’s all very well, but this is his third duel.
MASHA. Whose?
CHEBUTIKIN. Soleni’s.
MASHA. And the Baron?
CHEBUTIKIN. What about the Baron? [Pause.]
MASHA. Everything’s all muddled up in my head…. But I say it ought not to be allowed. He might wound the Baron or even kill him.
CHEBUTIKIN. The Baron is a good man, but one Baron more or less — what difference does it make? It’s all the same! [Beyond the garden somebody shouts “Co-ee! Hallo! “] You wait. That’s Skvortsov shouting; one of the seconds. He’s in a boat. [Pause.]
ANDREY. In my opinion it’s simply immoral to fight in a duel, or to be present, even in the quality of a doctor.
CHEBUTIKIN. It only seems so…. We don’t exist, there’s nothing on earth, we don’t really live, it only seems that we live. Does it matter, anyway!
MASHA. You talk and talk the whole day long. [Going] You live in a climate like this, where it might snow any moment, and there you talk…. [Stops] I won’t go into the house, I can’t go there…. Tell me when Vershinin comes…. [Goes along the avenue] The migrant birds are already on the wing…. [Looks up] Swans or geese…. My dear, happy things…. [Exit.]
ANDREY. Our house will be empty. The officers will go away, you are going, my sister is getting married, and I alone will remain in the house.
CHEBUTIKIN. And your wife?
[FERAPONT enters with some documents.]
ANDREY. A wife’s a wife. She’s honest, well-bred, yes; and kind, but with all that there is still something about her that degenerates her into a petty, blind, even in some respects misshapen animal. In any case, she isn’t a man. I tell you as a friend, as the only man to whom I can lay bare my soul. I love Natasha, it’s true, but sometimes she seems extraordinarily vulgar, and then I lose myself and can’t understand why I love her so much, or, at any rate, used to love her….
CHEBUTIKIN. [Rises] I’m going away tomorrow, old chap, and perhaps we’ll never meet again, so here’s my advice. Put on your cap, take a stick in your hand, go… go on and on, without looking round. And the farther you go, the better.
[SOLENI goes across the back of the stage with two officers; he catches sight of CHEBUTIKIN, and turns to him, the officers go on.]
SOLENI. Doctor, it’s time. It’s half-past twelve already. [Shakes hands with ANDREY.]
CHEBUTIKIN. Half a minute. I’m tired of the lot of you. [To ANDREY] If anybody asks for me, say I’ll be back soon…. [Sighs] Oh, oh, oh!
SOLENI. “He didn’t have the time to sigh. The bear sat on him heavily.” [Goes up to him] What are you groaning about, old man?
CHEBUTIKIN. Stop it!
SOLENI. How’s your health?
CHEBUTIKIN. [Angry] Mind your own business.
SOLENI. The old man is unnecessarily excited. I won’t go far, I’ll only just bring him down like a snipe. [Takes out his scent-bottle and scents his hands] I’ve poured out a whole bottle of scent to-day and they still smell… of a dead body. [Pause] Yes…. You remember the poem
“But he, the rebel seeks the storm,
As if the storm will bring him rest…”?
CHEBUTIKIN. Yes.
“He didn’t have the time to sigh,
The bear sat on him heavily.”
[Exit with SOLENI.]
[Shouts are heard. ANDREY and FERAPONT come in.]
FERAPONT. Documents to sign….
ANDREY. [Irritated]. Go away! Leave me! Please! [Goes away with the perambulator.]
FERAPONT. That’s what documents are for, to be signed. [Retires to back of stage.]
[Enter IRINA, with TUZENBACH in a straw hat; KULIGIN walks across the stage, shouting “Co-ee, Masha, co-ee!”]
TUZENBACH. He seems to be the only man in the town who is glad that the soldiers are going.
IRINA. One can understand that. [Pause] The town will be empty.
TUZENBACH. My dear, I shall return soon.
IRINA. Where are you going?
TUZENBACH. I must go into the town and then… see the others off.
IRINA. It’s not true… Nicolai, why are you so absentminded to-day? [Pause] What took place by the theatre yesterday?
TUZENBACH. [Making a movement of impatience] In an hour’s time I shall return and be with you again. [Kisses her hands] My darling… [Looking her closely in the face] it’s five years now since I fell in love with you, and still I can’t get used to it, and you seem to me to grow more and more beautiful. What lovely, wonderful hair! What eyes! I’m going to take you away tomorrow. We shall work, we shall be rich, my dreams will come true. You will be happy. There’s only one thing, one thing only: you don’t love me!
IRINA. It isn’t in my power! I shall be your wife, I shall be true to you, and obedient to you, but I can’t love you. What can I do! [Cries] I have never been in love in my life. Oh, I used to think so much of love, I have been thinking about it for so long by day and by night, but my soul is like an expensive piano which is locked and the key lost. [Pause] You seem so unhappy.
TUZENBACH. I didn’t sleep at night. There is nothing in my life so awful as to be able to frighten me, only that lost key torments my soul