The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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restful. Come … I will examine you there … and everything will be all right.
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Do as the doctor says, Alexander. Do go.
KHROUSCHOV: If you find it hard to walk, we will move you there in your chair.
SEREBRYAKOV: I can manage… I’ll walk… (Getting up.) Only they should not have troubled you. (KHROUSCHOV and SONYA support him under the arms.) Besides, I don’t verv much believe in … pharmacy. Why are you supporting me? … I can walk by myself.
[GOES OUT WITH KHROUSCHOV AND SONYA.
SCENE V
ELENA ANDREYEVNA AND VOYNITSKY
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: I’m worn out by him. I can hardly stand.
VOYNITSKY: You’re worn out by him, and I’m worn out by myself. I’ve not slept for three nights.
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: There’s something wrong about this house. Your mother hates everything, except her little books and the professor. The professor is irritable; he doesn’t trust me; he’s afraid of you. Sonya is cross with her father and does not speak to me; you hate my husband and openly despise your mother; my boring self, I too am irritated, and to-day I was twenty times on the point of crying. In a word, it’s a war of all against all. What’s the sense of that war, what’s it for?
VOYNITSKY: Don’t let us philosophize!
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: There’s something wrong about this house. You, George, are well-educated, intelligent, and it seems that you ought to understand that the world perishes not because of murderers and thieves, but from hidden hatred, from hostility among good people, from all those petty squabbles, unseen by those who call our house a haven of intellectuals. Do help me to reconcile everyone! Alone I cannot do it!
VOYNITSKY: You first reconcile me to myself! My dear! … (Clinging to her hand.)
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: You must not! (drawing her hand.) Go away!
VOYNITSKY: The rain will pass presently, and everything in nature will be refreshed and breathe freely. I alone shall not be refreshed by the storm. Day and night I am haunted and oppressed by the idea that my life has been wasted irretrievably. I have no past, it was all stupidly thrown away on trifles; and the present is terrible in its absurdity. Here’s my life and love: what shall I do with them, what use can I make of them? My feelings are wasted, like a sunbeam that falls into a ditch, and I myself am wasted… .
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: When you speak to me of your love, T grow stupid and don’t know what to say. Forgive me, I can’t say anything to you. (Making as if to go) Good night!
VOYNITSKY (barring her way): If only you knew how I suffer from the thought that side by side with me in this house another life is being wasted — your own! What are you waiting for? What cursed philosophy stands in your way? Understand, the highest morality does not consist in putting fetters on your youth and in trying to suppress your thirst for life… .
ELENA ANDREYEVNA (looking fixedly at him): George, you’re drunk!
VOYNITSKY: Maybe, maybe! …
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Is Fyodor Ivanovich stopping here with you?
VOYNITSKY: He’s stopping the night with me. Maybe, maybe… Anything may be!
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: And you’ve been drinking together to-day? Why did you do it?
VOYNITSKY: At any rate, it resembles life… Don’t take it away from me, Elena!
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Formerly you never used to drink, and you never talked so much, as you do now. Go to bed! You bore me. And tell your Fyodor Ivanovich that if he does not stop worrying me I will take steps to stop him! Go!
VOYNITSKY (clinging to her hand): My dear! … Dearest!
ENTER KHROUSCHOV.
SCENE VI
The same and KHROUSCHOV
KHROUSCHOV: Elena Andreyevna, Alexander V’ladimirovich is asking for you.
ELENA ANDREYEVNA (tearing away her hand from VOYNITSKY): In a moment! out.
KHROUSCHOV (to VOYNITSKY): Nothing is sacred to you! You and the dear lady who has just gone out ought to remember that her husband was once the husband of your own sister, and that there is a young girl living under the same roof! The whole district is speaking of the affair. What a disgrace! [Goes out to the patient.
VOYNITSKY (alone): She’s gone… (After a pause.) Ten years ago I used to meet her at the house of my dead sister She was seventeen then, and I thirty-seven. Why didn’t I fall in love with her then and propose to her? It was all so possible! She would now be my wife… Yes… We two would now be awakened by the storm. Frightened of the thunder, she would cling to me, and I should keep her in my embrace and whisper: “Don’t be afraid, I am here with you.” Oh, wonderful thoughts! How fine! I laugh even.… But, my God, my ideas are getting mixed… Why am I old? Why does she not understand me? Her rhetoric, her lazy morality, her absurd lazy ideas of the world’s ruin — all this is profoundly hateful to me. … (A pause.) Why am I so wrongly made? How much I envy that gay dog Fyodor, or that silly Wood Demon! They’re direct, sincere, silly.… They’re free from this cursed, poisonous irony… .
Enter FYODOR IVANOVICH, wrapped in a blanket.
SCENE VII
VOYNITSKY AND FYODOR IVANOVICH
FYODOR (in the doorway): Are you by yourself? No ladies present? (Entering.) I was awakened by the storm. Glorious rain. What’s the time?
VOYNITSKY: The time be damned!
FYODOR: I fancy I heard the voice of Elena Andreyevna.
VOYNITSKY: She was here just now.
FYODOR: Magnificent woman! (Examining the medicines on the table.) What’s this? Peppermint lozenges? (Tasting.) Yes, a magnificent woman! … Is the professor ill, or what?
VOYNITSKY: He’s ill.
FYODOR: I can’t understand such an existei. They say that the ancient Greeks used to throw their weak and ailing children into the abyss from Mont Blanc. Such as he ought to be thrown down too!
VOYNITSKY (irritably): Not Mont Blanc, but the Tarpeian rock. What crass ignorance!
FYODOR: Well, if it’s a rock, let it be a rock. … As if it damned well mattered! Why are you so gloomy now? Are you sorry for the professor, are you?
VOYNITSKY: Let me alone. (A pause.)
FYODOR: Or perhaps you are in love with Mme Professor? Eh? Why, that’s right… Sigh for her… Only listen: if in the rumours, which are circulating in the distruct, there’s a hundredth part of truth, and if I find it out, then don’t ask for mercy, I’ll throw you down from the Tarpeian rock.
VOYNITSKY: She’s my friend!
FYODOR: Already?
VOYNITSKY: What do you mean by “already “?
FYODOR: A woman can be a man’s friend only on this condition: first she’s his acquaintance, then his mistress, and only then his friend.
VOYNITSKY: What a