Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Diary & Letters (Collected Edition). Anton Chekhov
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about on all sides: you’ve got your things on somebody else’s seat. They yell, they call for the conductor, they threaten to have you put out, but what can I do? I just stand and blink my eyes like a whacked donkey. Now listen to this. I get home. You think I’d like to have a nice little drink after my righteous labours and a good square meal — isn’t that so? — but there is no chance of that. My spouse has been on the lookout for me for some time. You’ve hardly started on your soup when she has her claws into you, wretched slave that you are — and wouldn’t you like to go to some amateur theatricals or to a dance? You can’t protest. You are a husband, and the word husband when translated into the language of summer residents in the country means a dumb beast which you can load to any extent without fear of the interference of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So you go and blink at “A Family Scandal” or something, you applaud when your wife tells you to, and you feel worse and worse and worse until you expect an apoplectic fit to happen any moment. If you go to a dance you have to find partners for your wife, and if there is a shortage of them then you dance the quadrilles yourself. You get back from the theatre or the dance after midnight, when you are no longer a man but a useless, limp rag. Well, at last you’ve got what you want; you unrobe and get into bed. It’s excellent — you can close your eyes and sleep…. Everything is so nice, poetic, and warm, you understand; there are no children squealing behind the wall, and you’ve got rid of your wife, and your conscience is clear — what more can you want? You fall asleep — and suddenly… you hear a buzz!… Gnats! [Jumps up] Gnats! Be they triply accursed Gnats! [Shakes his fist] Gnats! It’s one of the plagues of Egypt, one of the tortures of the Inquisition! Buzz! It sounds so pitiful, so pathetic, as if it’s begging your pardon, but the villain stings so that you have to scratch yourself for an hour after. You smoke, and go for them, and cover yourself from head to foot, but it is no good! At last you have to sacrifice yourself and let the cursed things devour you. You’ve no sooner got used to the gnats when another plague begins: downstairs your wife begins practising sentimental songs with her two friends. They sleep by day and rehearse for amateur concerts by night. Oh, my God! Those tenors are a torture with which no gnats on earth can compare. [He sings] “Oh, tell me not my youth has ruined you.” “Before thee do I stand enchanted.” Oh, the beastly things! They’ve about killed me! So as to deafen myself a little I do this: I drum on my ears. This goes on till four o’clock. Oh, give me some more water, brother!… I can’t… Well, not having slept, you get up at six o’clock in the morning and off you go to the station. You run so as not to be late, and it’s muddy, foggy, cold — brr! Then you get to town and start all over again. So there, brother. It’s a horrible life; I wouldn’t wish one like it for my enemy. You understand — I’m ill! Got asthma, heartburn — I’m always afraid of something. I’ve got indigestion, everything is thick before me… I’ve become a regular psychopath…. [Looking round] Only, between ourselves, I want to go down to see Chechotte or Merzheyevsky. There’s some devil in me, brother. In moments of despair and suffering, when the gnats are stinging or the tenors sing, everything suddenly grows dim; you jump up and race round the whole house like a lunatic and shout, “I want blood! Blood!” And really all the time you do want to let a knife into somebody or hit him over the head with a chair. That’s what life in a summer villa leads to! And nobody has any sympathy for me, and everybody seems to think it’s all as it should be. People even laugh. But understand, I am a living being and I want to live! This isn’t farce, it’s tragedy! I say, if you don’t give me your revolver, you might at any rate sympathize.
MURASHKIN. I do sympathize.
TOLKACHOV. I see how much you sympathize…. Goodbye. I’ve got to buy some anchovies and some sausage… and some tooth-powder, and then to the station.
MURASHKIN. Where are you living?
TOLKACHOV. At Carrion River.
MURASHKIN. [Delighted] Really? Then you’ll know Olga Pavlovna Finberg, who lives there?
TOLKACHOV. I know her. We are even acquainted.
MURASHKIN. How perfectly splendid! That’s so convenient, and it would be so good of you…
TOLKACHOV. What’s that?
MURASHKIN. My dear fellow, wouldn’t you do one little thing for me? Be a friend! Promise me now.
TOLKACHOV. What’s that?
MURASHKIN. It would be such a friendly action! I implore you, my dear man. In the first place, give Olga Pavlovna my very kind regards. In the second place, there’s a little thing I’d like you to take down to her. She asked me to get a sewing-machine but I haven’t anybody to send it down to her by…. You take it, my dear! And you might at the same time take down this canary in its cage… only be careful, or you’ll break the door…. What are you looking at me like that for?
TOLKACHOV. A sewing-machine… a canary in a cage… siskins, chaffinches…
MURASHKIN. Ivan Ivanovitch, what’s the matter with you? Why are you turning purple?
TOLKACHOV. [Stamping] Give me the sewing-machine! Where’s the bird-cage? Now get on top yourself! Eat me! Tear me to pieces! Kill me! [Clenching his fists] I want blood! Blood! Blood!
MURASHKIN. You’ve gone mad!
TOLKACHOV. [Treading on his feet] I want blood! Blood!
MURASHKIN. [In horror] He’s gone mad! [Shouts] Peter! Maria! Where are you? Help!
TOLKACHOV. [Chasing him round the room] I want blood! Blood!
Curtain.
UNCLE VANYA
CHARACTERS
ALEXANDER SEREBRAKOFF, a retired professor
HELENA, his wife, twenty-seven years old
SONIA, his daughter by a former marriage
MME. VOITSKAYA, widow of a privy councilor, and mother of Serebrakoff’s first wife
IVAN (VANYA) VOITSKI, her son
MICHAEL ASTROFF, a doctor
ILIA (WAFFLES) TELEGIN, an impoverished landowner
MARINA, an old nurse
A WORKMAN
The scene is laid on SEREBRAKOFF’S country place
ACT I
A country house on a terrace. In front of it a garden. In an avenue of trees, under an old poplar, stands a table set for tea, with a samovar, etc. Some benches and chairs stand near the table. On one of them is lying a guitar. A hammock is swung near the table. It is three o’clock in the afternoon of a cloudy day.
MARINA, a quiet, grey-haired, little old woman, is sitting at the table knitting a stocking.
ASTROFF