Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Diary & Letters (Collected Edition). Anton Chekhov
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I was rude to her. “I’ve no time,” I said. It was so stupid. Are the entertainers coming tonight?
MASHA. Yes.
IRINA. [Sitting down in an armchair] I want a rest. I am tired.
TUZENBACH. [Smiling] When you come home from your work you seem so young, and so unfortunate…. [Pause.]
IRINA. I am tired. No, I don’t like the telegraph office, I don’t like it.
MASHA. You’ve grown thinner…. [Whistles a little] And you look younger, and your face has become like a boy’s.
TUZENBACH. That’s the way she does her hair.
IRINA. I must find another job, this one won’t do for me. What I wanted, what I hoped to get, just that is lacking here. Labour without poetry, without ideas…. [A knock on the floor] The doctor is knocking. [To TUZENBACH] Will you knock, dear. I can’t… I’m tired…. [TUZENBACH knocks] He’ll come in a minute. Something ought to be done. Yesterday the doctor and Andrey played cards at the club and lost money. Andrey seems to have lost 200 roubles.
MASHA. [With indifference] What can we do now?
IRINA. He lost money a fortnight ago, he lost money in December. Perhaps if he lost everything we should go away from this town. Oh, my God, I dream of Moscow every night. I’m just like a lunatic. [Laughs] We go there in June, and before June there’s still… February, March, April, May… nearly half a year!
MASHA. Only Natasha mustn’t get to know of these losses.
IRINA. I expect it will be all the same to her.
[CHEBUTIKIN, who has only just got out of bed — he was resting after dinner — comes into the dining-room and combs his beard. He then sits by the table and takes a newspaper from his pocket.]
MASHA. Here he is…. Has he paid his rent?
IRINA. [Laughs] No. He’s been here eight months and hasn’t paid a copeck. Seems to have forgotten.
MASHA. [Laughs] What dignity in his pose! [They all laugh. A pause.]
IRINA. Why are you so silent, Alexander Ignateyevitch?
VERSHININ. I don’t know. I want some tea. Half my life for a tumbler of tea: I haven’t had anything since morning.
CHEBUTIKIN. Irina Sergeyevna!
IRINA. What is it?
CHEBUTIKIN. Please come here, Venez ici. [IRINA goes and sits by the table] I can’t do without you. [IRINA begins to play patience.]
VERSHININ. Well, if we can’t have any tea, let’s philosophize, at any rate.
TUZENBACH. Yes, let’s. About what?
VERSHININ. About what? Let us meditate… about life as it will be after our time; for example, in two or three hundred years.
TUZENBACH. Well? After our time people will fly about in balloons, the cut of one’s coat will change, perhaps they’ll discover a sixth sense and develop it, but life will remain the same, laborious, mysterious, and happy. And in a thousand years’ time, people will still be sighing: “Life is hard!” — and at the same time they’ll be just as afraid of death, and unwilling to meet it, as we are.
VERSHININ. [Thoughtfully] How can I put it? It seems to me that everything on earth must change, little by little, and is already changing under our very eyes. After two or three hundred years, after a thousand — the actual time doesn’t matter — a new and happy age will begin. We, of course, shall not take part in it, but we live and work and even suffer to-day that it should come. We create it — and in that one object is our destiny and, if you like, our happiness.
[MASHA laughs softly.]
TUZENBACH. What is it?
MASHA. I don’t know. I’ve been laughing all day, ever since morning.
VERSHININ. I finished my education at the same point as you, I have not studied at universities; I read a lot, but I cannot choose my books and perhaps what I read is not at all what I should, but the longer I love, the more I want to know. My hair is turning white, I am nearly an old man now, but I know so little, oh, so little! But I think I know the things that matter most, and that are most real. I know them well. And I wish I could make you understand that there is no happiness for us, that there should not and cannot be…. We must only work and work, and happiness is only for our distant posterity. [Pause] If not for me, then for the descendants of my descendants.
[FEDOTIK and RODE come into the dining-room; they sit and sing softly, strumming on a guitar.]
TUZENBACH. According to you, one should not even think about happiness! But suppose I am happy!
VERSHININ. No.
TUZENBACH. [Moves his hands and laughs] We do not seem to understand each other. How can I convince you? [MASHA laughs quietly, TUZENBACH continues, pointing at her] Yes, laugh! [To VERSHININ] Not only after two or three centuries, but in a million years, life will still be as it was; life does not change, it remains for ever, following its own laws which do not concern us, or which, at any rate, you will never find out. Migrant birds, cranes for example, fly and fly, and whatever thoughts, high or low, enter their heads, they will still fly and not know why or where. They fly and will continue to fly, whatever philosophers come to life among them; they may philosophize as much as they like, only they will fly….
MASHA. Still, is there a meaning?
TUZENBACH. A meaning…. Now the snow is falling. What meaning? [Pause.]
MASHA. It seems to me that a man must have faith, or must search for a faith, or his life will be empty, empty…. To live and not to know why the cranes fly, why babies are born, why there are stars in the sky…. Either you must know why you live, or everything is trivial, not worth a straw. [A pause.]
VERSHININ. Still, I am sorry that my youth has gone.
MASHA. Gogol says: life in this world is a dull matter, my masters!
TUZENBACH. And I say it’s difficult to argue with you, my masters! Hang it all.
CHEBUTIKIN. [Reading] Balzac was married at Berdichev. [IRINA is singing softly] That’s worth making a note of. [He makes a note] Balzac was married at Berdichev. [Goes on reading.]
IRINA. [Laying out cards, thoughtfully] Balzac was married at Berdichev.
TUZENBACH. The die is cast. I’ve handed in my resignation, Maria Sergeyevna.
MASHA. So I heard. I don’t see what good it is; I don’t like civilians.
TUZENBACH. Never mind…. [Gets up] I’m not handsome; what use am I as a soldier? Well, it makes no difference… I shall work. If only just once in my life I could work so that I could come home in the evening, fall exhausted on my bed, and go to sleep at once. [Going into the dining-room] Workmen, I suppose, do sleep soundly!
FEDOTIK. [To IRINA] I bought some coloured pencils for you at Pizhikov’s in the Moscow Road, just now. And here is a little knife.
IRINA. You have got into the habit of behaving to me as if I am a little girl, but I am grown up. [Takes the pencils and the knife, then, with joy] How lovely!
FEDOTIK. And I bought myself a knife… look at it… one blade, another, a third, an ear-scoop, scissors, nail-cleaners.
RODE. [Loudly] Doctor, how old are you?
CHEBUTIKIN. I? Thirty-two. [Laughter]
FEDOTIK. I’ll show you another kind of patience…. [Lays out cards.]
[A samovar is brought in; ANFISA attends to it; a little later NATASHA enters and helps by the table; SOLENI arrives and, after greetings, sits by the table.]
VERSHININ. What a wind!
MASHA. Yes. I’m tired of winter. I’ve already forgotten what summer’s like.
IRINA. It’s coming out, I see. We’re