Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Diary & Letters (Collected Edition). Anton Chekhov
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SEREBRAKOFF. No, you are needed now more than any one.
VOITSKI. What is it you want of me?
SEREBRAKOFF. You — but what are you angry about? If it is anything I have done, I ask you to forgive me.
VOITSKI. Oh, drop that and come to business; what do you want?
MME. VOITSKAYA comes in.
SEREBRAKOFF. Here is mother. Ladies and gentlemen, I shall begin. I have asked you to assemble here, my friends, in order to discuss a very important matter. I want to ask you for your assistance and advice, and knowing your unfailing amiability I think I can count on both. I am a book-worm and a scholar, and am unfamiliar with practical affairs. I cannot, I find, dispense with the help of well-informed people such as you, Ivan, and you, Telegin, and you, mother. The truth is, manet omnes una nox, that is to say, our lives are in the hands of God, and as I am old and ill, I realise that the time has come for me to dispose of my property in regard to the interests of my family. My life is nearly over, and I am not thinking of myself, but I have a young wife and daughter. [A pause] I cannot continue to live in the country; we were not made for country life, and yet we cannot afford to live in town on the income derived from this estate. We might sell the woods, but that would be an expedient we could not resort to every year. We must find some means of guaranteeing to ourselves a certain more or less fixed yearly income. With this object in view, a plan has occurred to me which I now have the honour of presenting to you for your consideration. I shall only give you a rough outline, avoiding all details. Our estate does not pay on an average more than two per cent on the money invested in it. I propose to sell it. If we then invest our capital in bonds, it will earn us four to five per cent, and we should probably have a surplus over of several thousand roubles, with which we could buy a summer cottage in Finland —
VOITSKI. Hold on! Repeat what you just said; I don’t think I heard you quite right.
SEREBRAKOFF. I said we would invest the money in bonds and buy a cottage in Finland with the surplus.
VOITSKI. No, not Finland — you said something else.
SEREBRAKOFF. I propose to sell this place.
VOITSKI. Aha! That was it! So you are going to sell the place? Splendid. The idea is a rich one. And what do you propose to do with my old mother and me and with Sonia here?
SEREBRAKOFF. That will be decided in due time. We can’t do everything at once.
VOITSKI. Wait! It is clear that until this moment I have never had a grain of sense in my head. I have always been stupid enough to think that the estate belonged to Sonia. My father bought it as a wedding present for my sister, and I foolishly imagined that as our laws were made for Russians and not Turks, my sister’s estate would come down to her child.
SEREBRAKOFF. Of course it is Sonia’s. Has any one denied it? I don’t want to sell it without Sonia’s consent; on the contrary, what I am doing is for Sonia’s good.
VOITSKI. This is absolutely incomprehensible. Either I have gone mad or — or —
MME. VOITSKAYA. Jean, don’t contradict Alexander. Trust to him; he knows better than we do what is right and what is wrong.
VOITSKI. I shan’t. Give me some water. [He drinks] Go ahead! Say anything you please — anything!
SEREBRAKOFF. I can’t imagine why you are so upset. I don’t pretend that my scheme is an ideal one, and if you all object to it I shall not insist. [A pause.]
TELEGIN. [With embarrassment] I not only nourish feelings of respect toward learning, your Excellency, but I am also drawn to it by family ties. My brother Gregory’s wife’s brother, whom you may know; his name is Constantine Lakedemonoff, and he used to be a magistrate —
VOITSKI. Stop, Waffles. This is business; wait a bit, we will talk of that later. [To SEREBRAKOFF] There now, ask him what he thinks; this estate was bought from his uncle.
SEREBRAKOFF. Ah! Why should I ask questions? What good would it do?
VOITSKI. The price was ninety-five thousand roubles. My father paid seventy and left a debt of twenty-five. Now listen! This place could never have been bought had I not renounced my inheritance in favour of my sister, whom I deeply loved — and what is more, I worked for ten years like an ox, and paid off the debt.
SEREBRAKOFF. I regret ever having started this conversation.
VOITSKI. Thanks entirely to my own personal efforts, the place is entirely clear of debts, and now, when I have grown old, you want to throw me out, neck and crop!
SEREBRAKOFF. I can’t imagine what you are driving at.
VOITSKI. For twenty-five years I have managed this place, and have sent you the returns from it like the most honest of servants, and you have never given me one single word of thanks for my work, not one — neither in my youth nor now. You allowed me a meagre salary of five hundred roubles a year, a beggar’s pittance, and have never even thought of adding a rouble to it.
SEREBRAKOFF. What did I know about such things, Ivan? I am not a practical man and don’t understand them. You might have helped yourself to all you wanted.
VOITSKI. Yes, why did I not steal? Don’t you all despise me for not stealing, when it would have been only justice? And I should not now have been a beggar!
MME. VOITSKAYA. [Sternly] Jean!
TELEGIN. [Agitated] Vanya, old man, don’t talk in that way. Why spoil such pleasant relations? [He embraces him] Do stop!
VOITSKI. For twenty-five years I have been sitting here with my mother like a mole in a burrow. Our every thought and hope was yours and yours only. By day we talked with pride of you and your work, and spoke your name with veneration; our nights we wasted reading the books and papers which my soul now loathes.
TELEGIN. Don’t, Vanya, don’t. I can’t stand it.
SEREBRAKOFF. [Wrathfully] What under heaven do you want, anyway?
VOITSKI. We used to think of you as almost superhuman, but now the scales have fallen from my eyes and I see you as you are! You write on art without knowing anything about it. Those books of yours which I used to admire are not worth one copper kopeck. You are a hoax!
SEREBRAKOFF. Can’t any one make him stop? I am going!
HELENA. Ivan, I command you to stop this instant! Do you hear me?
VOITSKI. I refuse! [SEREBRAKOFF tries to get out of the room, but VOITSKI bars the door] Wait! I have not done yet! You have wrecked my life. I have never lived. My best years have gone for nothing, have been ruined, thanks to you. You are my most bitter enemy!
TELEGIN. I can’t stand it; I can’t stand it. I am going. [He goes out in great excitement.]
SEREBRAKOFF. But what do you want? What earthly right have you to use such language to me? Ruination! If this estate is yours, then take it, and let me be ruined!
HELENA. I am going away out of this hell this minute. [Shrieks] This is too much!
VOITSKI. My life has been a failure. I am clever and brave and strong. If I had lived a normal life I might have become another Schopenhauer or Dostoieffski. I am losing my head! I am going crazy! Mother, I am in despair! Oh, mother!
MME. VOITSKAYA. [Sternly] Listen, Alexander!
SONIA falls on her knees beside the nurse and nestles against her.
SONIA. Oh, nurse, nurse!
VOITSKI. Mother! What shall I do? But no, don’t speak! I know what to do. [To SEREBRAKOFF] And you will understand me!
He goes out through the door in the centre of the room and MME. VOITSKAYA follows him.
SEREBRAKOFF. Tell me, what on earth is the matter? Take this lunatic out of my sight! I cannot possibly live under the same roof with him. His room [He points to the centre door] is almost next door to mine. Let him take himself off into the village or into the wing