The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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We go away, and not a soul remains behind.
LOPAKHIN. Till the spring.
VARYA. [Drags an umbrella out of a bundle, and seems to be waving it about. LOPAKHIN appears to be frightened] What are you doing?… I never thought…
TROFIMOV. Come along, let’s take our seats… it’s time! The train will be in directly.
VARYA. Peter, here they are, your goloshes, by that trunk. [In tears] And how old and dirty they are….
TROFIMOV. [Putting them on] Come on!
GAEV. [Deeply moved, nearly crying] The train… the station…. Cross in the middle, a white double in the corner….
LUBOV. Let’s go!
LOPAKHIN. Are you all here? There’s nobody else? [Locks the side-door on the left] There’s a lot of things in there. I must lock them up. Come!
ANYA. Goodbye, home! Goodbye, old life!
TROFIMOV. Welcome, new life! [Exit with ANYA.]
[VARYA looks round the room and goes out slowly. YASHA and CHARLOTTA, with her little dog, go out.]
LOPAKHIN. Till the spring, then! Come on… till we meet again! [Exit.]
[LUBOV ANDREYEVNA and GAEV are left alone. They might almost have been waiting for that. They fall into each other’s arms and sob restrainedly and quietly, fearing that somebody might hear them.]
GAEV. [In despair] My sister, my sister….
LUBOV. My dear, my gentle, beautiful orchard! My life, my youth, my happiness, goodbye! Goodbye!
ANYA’S VOICE. [Gaily] Mother!
TROFIMOV’S VOICE. [Gaily, excited] Coo-ee!
LUBOV. To look at the walls and the windows for the last time…. My dead mother used to like to walk about this room….
GAEV. My sister, my sister!
ANYA’S VOICE. Mother!
TROFIMOV’S VOICE. Coo-ee!
LUBOV. We’re coming! [They go out.]
[The stage is empty. The sound of keys being turned in the locks is heard, and then the noise of the carriages going away. It is quiet. Then the sound of an axe against the trees is heard in the silence sadly and by itself. Steps are heard. FIERS comes in from the door on the right. He is dressed as usual, in a short jacket and white waistcoat; slippers on his feet. He is ill. He goes to the door and tries the handle.]
FIERS. It’s locked. They’ve gone away. [Sits on a sofa] They’ve forgotten about me…. Never mind, I’ll sit here…. And Leonid Andreyevitch will have gone in a light overcoat instead of putting on his fur coat…. [Sighs anxiously] I didn’t see…. Oh, these young people! [Mumbles something that cannot be understood] Life’s gone on as if I’d never lived. [Lying down] I’ll lie down…. You’ve no strength left in you, nothing left at all…. Oh, you… bungler!
[He lies without moving. The distant sound is heard, as if from the sky, of a breaking string, dying away sadly. Silence follows it, and only the sound is heard, some way away in the orchard, of the axe falling on the trees.]
Curtain.
ON THE HARMFULNESS OF TOBACCO
A Stage Monologue in One Act
THE CHARACTER:
Ivan Ivanovich Nyukhin, a hen-pecked husband, whose wife keeps a music school and boarding-school for girls.
The scene represents a platform in a provincial club.
On the Harmfulness of Tobacco
NYUKHIN. [With long side whiskers and clean-shaven upper lip, in an old, well’ worn frock coat, entering with great dignity, bowing and adjusting his waistcoat.] Ladies and gentlemen, so to say! [Smoothing down his whiskers.] It has been suggested to my wife that I should read here, for a charitable object, a popular lecture. Well, if I must lecture, I must — it is absolutely no matter to me. Of course, I am not a professor and hold no learned degrees, yet and nevertheless for the last thirty years, without stopping, I might even say to the injury of my own health and so on, I have been working on questions of a strictly scientific nature. I am a thinking man, and, imagine, at times even I compose scientific contributions; I mean, not precisely scientific, but, pardon my saying so, they are almost in the scientific line. By the way, the other day I wrote a long article entitled ‘On the Harmfulness of Certain Insects.’ My daughters like it immensely, especially the references to bugs; but after reading it I tore it to pieces. Surely, no matter how well you write, dispense with Persian powder you cannot. We have got bugs even in our piano… . For the subject of my present lecture I have taken, so to say, the harm caused to mankind by the consumption of tobacco. I myself smoke, but my wife ordered me to lecture to-day on the harmfulness of tobacco, and therefore there is no help for it. On tobacco, well, let it be on tobacco — it is absolutely no matter to me; but to you, gentlemen, I suggest that you should regard my present lecture with all due seriousness, for fear that something unexpected may happen. Yet those who are afraid of a dry, scientific lecture, who do not care for such things, need not listen to it and may even leave. [Adjusting his waistcoat.] I particularly crave the attention of the members of the medical profession here present, who may gather from my lecture a great deal of useful information, since tobacco, apart from its harmful effects, is also used in medicine. Thus, for instance, if you place a fly in a snuff-box, it will probably die from derangement of the nerves. Tobacco, essentially, is a plant… . When I lecture I usually wink my right eye, but you must take no notice: it is through sheer nervousness. I am a very nervous man, generally speaking; and I started to wink my eye as far back as 1889, to be exact, on 13th September, on the very day when my wife gave birth to our, so to say, fourth daughter, Varvara. All my daughters were born on the 13th. Though [looking at his watch] in view of the short time at our disposal, I must not digress from the subject of the lecture. I must observe, by the way, that my wife keeps a music school and a private boarding-school; I mean to say, not exactly a boarding-school, but something in the nature of one. Between ourselves, my wife loves to complain of straitened circumstances; but she has put away in a safe nook some forty or fifty thousand roubles; as to myself, I have not a penny to bless myself with, not a sou — but, well, what’s the good of dwelling on that? In the boarding-school it is my duty to look after the housekeeping. I buy the provisions, keep an eye on the servants, enter the expenses in a ledger, stitch together the exercise-books, exterminate bugs, take my wife’s pet dog for a walk, catch mice… . Last night I had to give out flour and butter to the cook, as we were going to have pancakes to-day. Well, to be brief, to-day, when the pancakes were ready, my wife came into the kitchen to say that three of her pupils would have no pancakes, as they had swollen glands. So it happened that we had a few pancakes extra. What would you do with them? My wife first ordered those pancakes to be taken to the larder but then she thought for a while, and after deliberation she said: ‘You can have those pancakes, you scarecrow… .’ When she is out of humour, she always addresses me like that: ‘scarecrow’ or ‘viper’ or ‘Satan.’ You see what a Satan I am. She’s always out of humour. But I didn’t masticate them properly, I just gulped them down, for I am always hungry. Yesterday, for instance, she gave me no dinner. ‘It’s no use,’ she says, ‘feeding you, scarecrow that you are …’ However [looking at his watch], I have strayed from my subject, and have digressed somewhat from my theme. Let us continue. Though, of course, you would rather hear now a romance, or symphony, or some aria… . [Singing.] ‘In the heat of the battle we shan’t budge… ,’ I don’t remember where that comes from… . By the way, I have forgotten to tell you that in my wife’s music school, apart from looking after the housekeeping, my duties also include the teaching of mathematics, physics, chemistry, geography, history, solfeggio, literature, etc. For dancing,