SCENE III

       Table of Contents

      The same, DYADIN and the guests

      ZHELTOUKHIN: Please help yourselves. Please. (They all stand round the table on which the zakouski are placed.) The Serebryakovs haven’t come. Fyodor Ivanych isn’t here; the Wood Demon, too, has not arrived … people have forgotten us!

      JULIE: Godpa, will you have a drop of vodka?

      ORLOVSKY: The tiniest drop. Just so… That’ll do.

      DYADIN (adjusting the napkin round his neck): How superbly you manage everything, Yulia Stepanovna! Whether I drive across your fields, or walk under the shade of your orchard, or contemplate this table — everywhere I see the mighty power of your bewitching little hand. Your health!

      JULIE: There are all sorts of worries, Ilya Ilyich! Last night, for instance, our Nazarka forgot to shut the young turkeys into the shed, and they spent the night in the garden in the dew, and this morning five young ones gave up the ghost.

      DYADIN: Such a thing oughtn’t to happen. A turkey is a delicate bird.

      VOYNITSKY (to DYADIN): Waffle, cut me a slice of ham!

      DYADIN: With particular pleasure. It is a superb ham. One of the wonders of the Arabian nights. (Cutting) I’m cutting it, Georgie, according to all the rules of art. Beethoven and Shakespeare could not do it better. Only the knife is a bit blunt. (Sharpening the knife on another knife.)

      ZHELTOUKHIN (shuddering): Br-r-r! … Stop it, Waffle! Ican’t bear it!

      ORLOVSKY: Tell us, George Petrovich, about your people. How are you all getting on at home?

      VOYNITSKY: We aren’t getting on at all.

      ORLOVSKY: Any news?

      VOYNITSKY: None. Everything is as it used to be. Just the same now as it was last year. I, as usual, talk a great deal and do very little. My old jackdaw of a mater keeps on jabbering about the emancipation of women: with one eye she’s looking into the grave, and with the other she’s searching in her clever little books for the dawn of a new life!

      ORLOVSKY: And how’s Alexander?

      VOYNITSKY: The professor has, unfortunately, not yet been devoured by moths. As usual, he sits in his study from morning to night. “Straining his wits, knitting his brows, he composes ode after ode, but no heed is paid either to him or to them.” Poor paper! Sonya, as usual, reads clever books and keeps a very clever diary.

      ORLOVSKY: My dear old chap, my dear fellow… .

      VOYNITSKY: With my sense of observation I ought to write a novel. The plot is begging to be written. A retired professor, an old hardtack, a learned owl… Gout, rheumatism, megrims, liver, and all sorts of tricks… He’s as jealous as Othello. He is forced to live on the estate of his first wife, for he can’t afford to live in town. Always grumbling about his misfortunes, although he’s extraordinarily happy!

      ORLOVSKY: Well, now!

      VOYNITSKY: Of course! Only think what luck! I shan’t dwell on the fact that he, the son of a simple sexton, who went to a church school, managed to secure learned degrees and a chair at the university; that he’s now an Excellency, the son-in-law of a senator, etc. All that is of no consequence. But do consider just this. The man has for precisely twenty-five years been lecturing and writing on art, without understanding art in the very least. Precisely for twenty-five years he has been chewing other men’s ideas on realism, tendencies, and various other nonsense. For twenty-five years he has been lecturing and writing on what to sensible people has been ever so long familiar, and what to fools is of no interest; that is, for twenty-five years he has been pouring water into a sieve. And along with that — what success! What popularity! Wherefore? Why? By what right?

      ORLOVSKY (laughing aloud): It’s envy, envy!

      VOYNITSKY: Just so, envy! And what success with women! No Don Juan has known such complete success! His first wife, my sister — a charming, gentle creature, as pure as this blue skv, noble, generous, who had more admirers than he had students — she loved him as ardently as only pure angels are capable of loving just such pure and beautiful angels as themselves. My mother — his motherin-law — adores him to this very day, and he still inspires her with sacred awe. His second wife, a beautiful, clever woman — you’ve seen her — married him when he was already old, she gave him her youth, her beauty, her freedom, her brilliance.… What for? Why? And she so gifted, such an artist!How wonderfully she plays the piano!

      ORLOVSKY: Altogether they are a gifted family. A rare family.

      ZHELTOUKHIN: Yes, Sophie Alexandrovna, for instance, has a most remarkable voice. A wonderful soprano! I have never heard anything like it even in Petersburg. But, you know, she rather strains her upper notes. It’s a great pity. Give me the upper notes! Give me the upper notes! Ah, if she had those notes, I stake my life, she would be wonderful, do you know… I’m sorry, gentlemen, I must have a word with Julie… (Taking JULIE aside.) Send a messenger on horseback to them. Send them a note to say that if they can’t come now, at any rate, let them come to dinner… (In a lower voice) But don’t be stupid, don’t disgrace me, and write correctly. …” Drive “is spelt i-v-e… (Aloud and tenderly) Please, my dear!

      JULIE: Certainly. [Goes out.

      DYADIN: They say that the professor’s spouse, Elena Alexandrovna, whom I have not the honour to know, is distinguished not only by spiritual beauty, but by beauty of countenance as well.

      ORLOVSKY: Just so, she’s a wonderful woman.

      ZHELTOUKHIN: She’s faithful to her professor?

      VOYNITSKY: Unfortunately, she is.

      ZHELTOUKHIN: Why unfortunately?

      VOYNITSKY: Because this faithfulness is wrong from beginning to end. There’s a great deal of rhetoric, but no logic in it at all. To be unfaithful to an old husband, whom you can’t bear — that’s considered immoral; but to try to suppress one’s poor youth and a living feeling — that is not immoral. Damn it all, where’s the logic of it?

      DYADIN (in a tearful voice): Georgie dear, I don’t like you to speak like this. Indeed, please, don’t. … It makes me tremble… Gentlemen, I possess no talent, no flowers of eloquence, but allow me to speak out without elegant phrases, as my conscience prompts me… Gentlemen, one who is unfaithful to a wife or to a husband, is a false person, a person who may be unfaithful even to his country!

      VOYNITSKY: Turn the tap off!

      DYADIN: But allow me, Georgie! … Ivan Ivanych, Lennie, and all of you my dear friends, do take into consideration the vicissitudes of my fate. It is not a secret nor is it enveloped in the darkness of obscurity that my wife, on the day after our wedding, ran away from me with the man she loved, on account of my unattractive appearance.

      VOYNITSKY: And she did quite right.

      DYADIN: But listen, gentlemen! After that incident I did not violate my duty. I love her to this very day and am faithful to her, I help her in every possible way I can, and I have bequeathed my property to the children, whom she has borne to the man she loved. I have not violated my duty, and am proud of it. Yes, I am proud! I was deprived of happiness, but my pride remains. And she? Her youth has gone, her beauty, under the influence of the laws of nature, has faded away, her lover is dead — may he rest in peace. And what’s left to her? (Sitting down.) I speak seriously to you, and you laugh… .

      ORLOVSKY: You’re a kind-hearted man, you’re a great spirit, but your speech is too long and you wave your hands….

      (FYODOR