The Essential Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Novel & Biography. Anton Chekhov
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thousand in two weeks. You don’t believe me? You think it is all nonsense? No, it isn’t nonsense. Give me twenty-three hundred roubles and let me try. Ofsianoff is selling a strip of land across the river for that price. If we buy this, both banks will be ours, and we shall have the right to build a dam across the river. Isn’t that so? We can say that we intend to build a mill, and when the people on the river below us hear that we mean to dam the river they will, of course, object violently and we shall say: If you don’t want a dam here you will have to pay to get us away. Do you see the result? The factory would give us five thousand roubles, Korolkoff three thousand, the monastery five thousand more —
IVANOFF. All that is simply idiotic, Misha. If you don’t want me to lose my temper you must keep your schemes to yourself.
BORKIN. [Sits down at the table] Of course! I knew how it would be! You never will act for yourself, and you tie my hands so that I am helpless.
Enter SHABELSKI and LVOFF.
SHABELSKI. The only difference between lawyers and doctors is that lawyers simply rob you, whereas doctors both rob you and kill you. I am not referring to any one present. [Sits down on the bench] They are all frauds and swindlers. Perhaps in Arcadia you might find an exception to the general rule and yet — I have treated thousands of sick people myself in my life, and I have never met a doctor who did not seem to me to be an unmistakable scoundrel.
BORKIN. [To IVANOFF] Yes, you tie my hands and never do anything for yourself, and that is why you have no money.
SHABELSKI. As I said before, I am not referring to any one here at present; there may be exceptions though, after all — [He yawns.]
IVANOFF. [Shuts his book] What have you to tell me, doctor?
LVOFF. [Looks toward the window] Exactly what I said this morning: she must go to the Crimea at once. [Walks up and down.]
SHABELSKI. [Bursts out laughing] To the Crimea! Why don’t you and I set up as doctors, Misha? Then, if some Madame Angot or Ophelia finds the world tiresome and begins to cough and be consumptive, all we shall have to do will be to write out a prescription according to the laws of medicine: that is, first, we shall order her a young doctor, and then a journey to the Crimea. There some fascinating young Tartar ——
IVANOFF. [Interrupting] Oh, don’t be coarse! [To LVOFF] It takes money to go to the Crimea, and even if I could afford it, you know she has refused to go.
LVOFF. Yes, she has. [A pause.]
BORKIN. Look here, doctor, is Anna really so ill that she absolutely must go to the Crimea?
LVOFF. [Looking toward the window] Yes, she has consumption.
BORKIN. Whew! How sad! I have seen in her face for some time that she could not last much longer.
LVOFF. Can’t you speak quietly? She can hear everything you say. [A pause.]
BORKIN. [Sighing] The life of man is like a flower, blooming so gaily in a field. Then, along comes a goat, he eats it, and the flower is gone!
SHABELSKI. Oh, nonsense, nonsense. [Yawning] Everything is a fraud and a swindle. [A pause.]
BORKIN. Gentlemen, I have been trying to tell Nicholas how he can make some money, and have submitted a brilliant plan to him, but my seed, as usual, has fallen on barren soil. Look what a sight he is now: dull, cross, bored, peevish ——
SHABELSKI. [Gets up and stretches himself] You are always inventing schemes for everybody, you clever fellow, and telling them how to live; can’t you tell me something? Give me some good advice, you ingenious young man. Show me a good move to make.
BORKIN. [Getting up] I am going to have a swim. Goodbye, gentlemen. [To Shabelski] There are at least twenty good moves you could make. If I were you I should have twenty thousand roubles in a week.
[He goes out; SHABELSKI follows him.]
SHABELSKI. How would you do it? Come, explain.
BORKIN. There is nothing to explain, it is so simple. [Coming back] Nicholas, give me a rouble.
IVANOFF silently hands him the money
BORKIN. Thanks. Shabelski, you still hold some trump cards.
SHABELSKI follows him out.
SHABELSKI. Well, what are they?
BORKIN. If I were you I should have thirty thousand roubles and more in a week. [They go out together.]
IVANOFF. [After a pause] Useless people, useless talk, and the necessity of answering stupid questions, have wearied me so, doctor, that I am ill. I have become so irritable and bitter that I don’t know myself. My head aches for days at a time. I hear a ringing in my ears, I can’t sleep, and yet there is no escape from it all, absolutely none.
LVOFF. Ivanoff, I have something serious to speak to you about.
IVANOFF. What is it?
LVOFF. It is about your wife. She refuses to go to the Crimea alone, but she would go with you.
IVANOFF. [Thoughtfully] It would cost a great deal for us both to go, and besides, I could not get leave to be away for so long. I have had one holiday already this year.
LVOFF. Very well, let us admit that. Now to proceed. The best cure for consumption is absolute peace of mind, and your wife has none whatever. She is forever excited by your behaviour to her. Forgive me, I am excited and am going to speak frankly. Your treatment of her is killing her. [A pause] Ivanoff, let me believe better things of you.
IVANOFF. What you say is true, true. I must be terribly guilty, but my mind is confused. My will seems to be paralysed by a kind of stupor; I can’t understand myself or any one else. [Looks toward the window] Come, let us take a walk, we might be overheard here. [They get up] My dear friend, you should hear the whole story from the beginning if it were not so long and complicated that to tell it would take all night. [They walk up and down] Anna is a splendid, an exceptional woman. She has left her faith, her parents and her fortune for my sake. If I should demand a hundred other sacrifices, she would consent to every one without the quiver of an eyelid. Well, I am not a remarkable man in any way, and have sacrificed nothing. However, the story is a long one. In short, the whole point is, my dear doctor — [Confused] that I married her for love and promised to love her forever, and now after five years she loves me still and I — [He waves his hand] Now, when you tell me she is dying, I feel neither love nor pity, only a sort of loneliness and weariness. To all appearances this must seem horrible, and I cannot understand myself what is happening to me. [They go out.]
SHABELSKI comes in.
SHABELSKI. [Laughing] Upon my word, that man is no scoundrel, but a great thinker, a master-mind. He deserves a memorial. He is the essence of modern ingenuity, and combines in himself alone the genius of the lawyer, the doctor, and the financier. [He sits down on the lowest step of the terrace] And yet he has never finished a course of studies in any college; that is so surprising. What an ideal scoundrel he would have made if he had acquired a little culture and mastered the sciences! “You could make twenty thousand roubles in a week,” he said. “You still hold the ace of trumps: it is your title.” [Laughing] He said I might get a rich girl to marry me for it! [ANNA opens the window and looks down] “Let me make a match between you and Martha,” says he. Who is this Martha? It must be that Balabalkina — Babakalkina woman, the one that looks like a laundress.
ANNA. Is that you, Count?
SHABELSKI. What do you want?
ANNA laughs.
SHABELSKI. [With a Jewish accent] Vy do you laugh?
ANNA. I was thinking of something you said at dinner, do you remember? How was it — a forgiven thief, a doctored horse.
SHABELSKI. A forgiven thief, a doctored horse, and a Christianised Jew are all worth the same price.
ANNA. [Laughing] You can’t even repeat the simplest saying without ill-nature. You are a most malicious old man. [Seriously] Seriously, Count you are extremely disagreeable,