Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Diary & Letters (Collected Edition). Anton Chekhov
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it’s my fault that she died. Yes… I used to know a certain amount five-and-twenty years ago, but I don’t remember anything now. Nothing. Perhaps I’m not really a man, and am only pretending that I’ve got arms and legs and a head; perhaps I don’t exist at all, and only imagine that I walk, and eat, and sleep. [Cries] Oh, if only I didn’t exist! [Stops crying; angrily] The devil only knows…. Day before yesterday they were talking in the club; they said, Shakespeare, Voltaire… I’d never read, never read at all, and I put on an expression as if I had read. And so did the others. Oh, how beastly! How petty! And then I remembered the woman I killed on Wednesday… and I couldn’t get her out of my mind, and everything in my mind became crooked, nasty, wretched…. So I went and drank….
[IRINA, VERSHININ and TUZENBACH enter; TUZENBACH is wearing new and fashionable civilian clothes.]
IRINA. Let’s sit down here. Nobody will come in here.
VERSHININ. The whole town would have been destroyed if it hadn’t been for the soldiers. Good men! [Rubs his hands appreciatively] Splendid people! Oh, what a fine lot!
KULIGIN. [Coming up to him] What’s the time?
TUZENBACH. It’s past three now. It’s dawning.
IRINA. They are all sitting in the dining-room, nobody is going. And that Soleni of yours is sitting there. [To CHEBUTIKIN] Hadn’t you better be going to sleep, doctor?
CHEBUTIKIN. It’s all right… thank you…. [Combs his beard.]
KULIGIN. [Laughs] Speaking’s a bit difficult, eh, Ivan Romanovitch! [Pats him on the shoulder] Good man! In vino veritas, the ancients used to say.
TUZENBACH. They keep on asking me to get up a concert in aid of the sufferers.
IRINA. As if one could do anything….
TUZENBACH. It might be arranged, if necessary. In my opinion Maria Sergeyevna is an excellent pianist.
KULIGIN. Yes, excellent!
IRINA. She’s forgotten everything. She hasn’t played for three years… or four.
TUZENBACH. In this town absolutely nobody understands music, not a soul except myself, but I do understand it, and assure you on my word of honour that Maria Sergeyevna plays excellently, almost with genius.
KULIGIN. You are right, Baron, I’m awfully fond of Masha. She’s very fine.
TUZENBACH. To be able to play so admirably and to realize at the same time that nobody, nobody can understand you!
KULIGIN. [Sighs] Yes…. But will it be quite all right for her to take part in a concert? [Pause] You see, I don’t know anything about it. Perhaps it will even be all to the good. Although I must admit that our Director is a good man, a very good man even, a very clever man, still he has such views…. Of course it isn’t his business but still, if you wish it, perhaps I’d better talk to him.
[CHEBUTIKIN takes a porcelain clock into his hands and examines it.]
VERSHININ. I got so dirty while the fire was on, I don’t look like anybody on earth. [Pause] Yesterday I happened to hear, casually, that they want to transfer our brigade to some distant place. Some said to Poland, others, to Chita.
TUZENBACH. I heard so, too. Well, if it is so, the town will be quite empty.
IRINA. And we’ll go away, too!
CHEBUTIKIN. [Drops the clock which breaks to pieces] To smithereens!
[A pause; everybody is pained and confused.]
KULIGIN. [Gathering up the pieces] To smash such a valuable object — oh, Ivan Romanovitch, Ivan Romanovitch! A very bad mark for your misbehaviour!
IRINA. That clock used to belong to our mother.
CHEBUTIKIN. Perhaps…. To your mother, your mother. Perhaps I didn’t break it; it only looks as if I broke it. Perhaps we only think that we exist, when really we don’t. I don’t know anything, nobody knows anything. [At the door] What are you looking at? Natasha has a little romance with Protopopov, and you don’t see it…. There you sit and see nothing, and Natasha has a little romance with Protopovov…. [Sings] Won’t you please accept this date…. [Exit.]
VERSHININ. Yes. [Laughs] How strange everything really is! [Pause] When the fire broke out, I hurried off home; when I get there I see the house is whole, uninjured, and in no danger, but my two girls are standing by the door in just their underclothes, their mother isn’t there, the crowd is excited, horses and dogs are running about, and the girls’ faces are so agitated, terrified, beseeching, and I don’t know what else. My heart was pained when I saw those faces. My God, I thought, what these girls will have to put up with if they live long! I caught them up and ran, and still kept on thinking the one thing: what they will have to live through in this world! [Fire-alarm; a pause] I come here and find their mother shouting and angry. [MASHA enters with a pillow and sits on the sofa] And when my girls were standing by the door in just their underclothes, and the street was red from the fire, there was a dreadful noise, and I thought that something of the sort used to happen many years ago when an enemy made a sudden attack, and looted, and burned…. And at the same time what a difference there really is between the present and the past! And when a little more time has gone by, in two or three hundred years perhaps, people will look at our present life with just the same fear, and the same contempt, and the whole past will seem clumsy and dull, and very uncomfortable, and strange. Oh, indeed, what a life there will be, what a life! [Laughs] Forgive me, I’ve dropped into philosophy again. Please let me continue. I do awfully want to philosophize, it’s just how I feel at present. [Pause] As if they are all asleep. As I was saying: what a life there will be! Only just imagine…. There are only three persons like yourselves in the town just now, but in future generations there will be more and more, and still more, and the time will come when everything will change and become as you would have it, people will live as you do, and then you too will go out of date; people will be born who are better than you…. [Laughs] Yes, to-day I am quite exceptionally in the vein. I am devilishly keen on living…. [Sings.]
“The power of love all ages know,
From its assaults great good does grow.” [Laughs.]
MASHA. Trum-tum-tum…
VERSHININ. Tum-tum…
MASHA. Tra-ra-ra?
VERSHININ. Tra-ta-ta. [Laughs.]
[Enter FEDOTIK.]
FEDOTIK. [Dancing] I’m burnt out, I’m burnt out! Down to the ground! [Laughter.]
IRINA. I don’t see anything funny about it. Is everything burnt?
FEDOTIK. [Laughs] Absolutely. Nothing left at all. The guitar’s burnt, and the photographs are burnt, and all my correspondence…. And I was going to make you a present of a notebook, and that’s burnt too.
[SOLENI comes in.]
IRINA. No, you can’t come here, Vassili Vassilevitch. Please go away.
SOLENI. Why can the Baron come here and I can’t?
VERSHININ. We really must go. How’s the fire?
SOLENI. They say it’s going down. No, I absolutely don’t see why the Baron can, and I can’t? [Scents his hands.]
VERSHININ. Trum-tum-tum.
MASHA. Trum-tum.
VERSHININ. [Laughs to SOLENI] Let’s go into the dining-room.
SOLENI. Very well, we’ll make a note of it. “If I should try to make this clear, the geese would be annoyed, I fear.” [Looks at TUZENBACH] There, there, there…. [Goes out with VERSHININ and FEDOTIK.]
IRINA. How Soleni smelt of tobacco…. [In surprise] The Baron’s asleep! Baron! Baron!
TUZENBACH. [Waking] I am tired, I must say…. The brickworks…. No, I’m not wandering, I mean it; I’m going to start work soon at the brickworks… I’ve already talked