The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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husband.
(Listening.) Someone’s coming in a carriage. (Getting up.)
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: I’ll go in.
DYADIN: I dare not trouble you any more with my presence… I’ll go to the mill to have a little nap. … I rose this morning before Aurora.
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: After you’ve had your nap, come and we’ll have tea together. (Goes into the house.)
DYADIN (alone): If I lived in an intellectual centre, they could draw a caricature of me for a magazine, with a very funny satirical inscription. Gracious! I, at my time of life and with an unattractive appearance, to have carried off a famous professor’s young wife! That is fascinating!
[Goes away.
SCENE II
SEMYON carrying buckets and JULIE coining in JULIE: Good day, Semyon! God assist you! Is Ilya Ilyich at home?
SEMYON: Yes. He’s gone to the mill.
JULIE: Will you go and call him?
SEMYON: Yes. [Goes away.
JULIE (alone): He must be asleep! … (Sitting down on the bench under the window and sighing deeply.) Some sleep, others lounge about, and I all day long am running about, running about. … God won’t end my life. (With a still deeper sigh.) Good God, that there can be such foolish people as that Waffle! As I drove by his barn a black pig came out of th^ door… It’ll serve him right if the pigs tear the sacks which aren’t his… .
ENTER DYADIN.
SCENE III
JULIE AND DYADIN
DYADIN (putting on his coat): It is you, Yulia Stepanovna! Excuse my deshabille. … I wanted to rest awhile in the embraces of Morpheus.
JULIE: How do you do?
DYADIN: Excuse me for not asking you in… The rooms aren’t tidied, etc. Perhaps you will come with me to the mill? …
JULIE: I shall be all right here. This is what I’ve come for, Ilya Ilyich. Lennie and the professor, to amuse themselves, wish to have a picnic hefe at the mill, to have tea… .
DYADIN: I’m delighted!
JULIE: I came in advance… They’ll be here presently. Please order a table to be brought out here, and of course the samovar… Tell Semyon to get the provision baskets out of the carriage.
DYADIN: Certainly. (A pause.) Well? How are you all getting on?
JULIE: Badly, Ilya Ilyich… Believe me, all this worry has made me ill. You know, the professor and Sonechka are living with us now!
DYADIN: Yes, I know.
JULIE: After George laid hands on himself, they could not stay in the house… They’re afraid. In the daytime they don’t mind it so much, but when night falls, they all gather in one room and sit there until dawn. They are afraid of George’s appearing in the darkness… .
DYADIN: Superstitions! … And do they mention Elena Andreyevna?
JULIE: Of course they do. (A pause.) Vanished!
DYADIN: Yes, it’s a subject worthy of Aivasovsky’s brush… Just gone and vanished!
JULIE: And now nobody knows where she is… Perhaps she has run away, or perhaps, in despair …
DYADIN: God is merciful, Yulia Stepanovna! All will be well.
Enter KHROUSCHOV with a portfolio and drawing-case.
SCENE IV
The same and KHROUSCHOV
KHROUSCHOV: Hi! Is there anybody here? Semyon!
DYADIN: Have a look round.
KHROUSCHOV: Oh! … How do you do, Julie?
JULIE: How do you do, Mikhail Lvovich?
KHROUSCHOV: I’ve come again to you, Ilya Ilyich, to work here. I can’t sit at home. Tell them to place my table under this tree, as they did yesterday, and to have two lamps ready. It’ll soon be dark… .
DYADIN: At your service, your worship. [Goes out.
KHROUSCHOV: How are you getting on, Julie?
JULIE: So-so. … (A pause.)
KHROUSCHOV: The Serebryakovs are staying with you?
JULIE: Yes.
KHROUSCHOV: H’m! … And what’s your Lennie doing?
JULIE: He sits at home. … All the time with Sonechka… .
KHROUSCHOV: Of course! (A pause.) Why doesn’t he marry her?
JULIE: Well? (Sighs.) God bless him! He’s well educated, a nobleman; she, too, is of a good family… . Ihave always wished it for her… .
KHROUSCHOV: She’s a fool! …
JULIE: Now, you mustn’t say that.
KHROUSCHOV: And your Lennie is a bright one. too. All your people are a picked lot! A palace of wisdom!
JULIE: Probably you’ve had no lunch to-day.
KHROUSCHOV: What makes you think so?
JULIE: You’re so very cross.
Enter DYADIN and SEMYON carrying a table.
SCENE V
THE SAME, DYADIN AND SEMYON
DYADIN: You’ve an eye, Misha, for the right place. You’ve chosen an exquisite spot to work in. It’s an oasis! A pure oasis! Imagine that you are surrounded with palm trees, Julie here — a gentle hind, you — a lion, I — a tiger! …
KHROUSCHOV: You’re a good fellow, a gentle soul, Ilya Ilyich, but your manners! Treacly words, shuffling feet, hunched shoulders! … If a stranger were to see you, he’d think that you weren’t a man, but the devil knows what! … It is annoying! …
DYADIN: I think this must be my destiny… Fatal predestination.
KHROUSCHOV: At it again … fatal predestination! Stop it all. (Fixing a chart on the table.) I’m going to stay the night with you here.
DYADIN: I’m extremely glad… Now, Misha, you are cross, while in my soul there’s inexpressible joy! As though a bird were sitting in my heart and singing a song.
KHROUSCHOV: Rejoice then. (A pause.) There’s a bird in your heart, but there’s a frog in mine. Twenty thousand scandals! Shimansky has sold his forest for timber. That’s one! Elena Andreyevna has run away from her husband, and nobody knows now where she is. That’s two! I feel that every day I’m getting more foolish, petty, and stupid… . That’s three! I meant to tell you yesterday, but I lacked the courage. You may congratulate me. George left a diary. That diary got first into Orlovsky’s hands; I went over and read it a dozen times… .
JULIE: