Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (411 page)

SCENE V

ELENA ANDREYEVNA AND VOYNITSKY

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: I’m worn out by him. I can hardly stand.

VOYNITSKY: You’re worn out by him, and I’m worn out by myself. I’ve not slept for three nights.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: There’s something wrong about this house. Your mother hates everything, except her little books and the professor. The professor is irritable; he doesn’t trust me; he’s afraid of you. Sonya is cross with her father and does not speak to me; you hate my husband and openly despise your mother; my boring self, I too am irritated, and to-day I was twenty times on the point of crying. In a word,

it’s a war of all against all. What’s the sense of that war,

what’s it for?

VOYNITSKY: Don’t let us philosophize!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: There’s something wrong about this house. You, George, are well-educated, intelligent, and it seems that you ought to understand that the world perishes not because of murderers and thieves, but from hidden hatred, from hostility among good people, from all those petty squabbles, unseen by those who call our house a haven of intellectuals. Do help me to reconcile everyone! Alone I cannot do it!

VOYNITSKY: You first reconcile me to myself! My dear! . . .
     
(Clinging to her hand.)

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: You must not! (drawing her hand.) Go away!

VOYNITSKY: The rain will pass presently, and everything in nature will be refreshed and breathe freely. I alone shall not be refreshed by the storm. Day and night I am haunted and oppressed by the idea that my life has been wasted irretrievably. I have no past, it was all stupidly thrown away on trifles; and the present is terrible in its absurdity.

Here’s my life and love: what shall I do with them, what use can I make of them? My feelings are wasted, like a sunbeam that falls into a ditch, and I myself am wasted. . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: When you speak to me of your love,

T grow stupid and don’t know what to say. Forgive me, I can’t say anything to you. (Making as if to go) Good night!

VOYNITSKY (barring her way): If only you knew how I suffer from the thought that side by side with me in this house another life is being wasted — your own! What are you waiting for? What cursed philosophy stands in your way? Understand, the highest morality does not consist in putting fetters on your youth and in trying to suppress your thirst for life. . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA (looking fixedly at him): George,

you’re drunk!

VOYNITSKY: Maybe, maybe! . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Is Fyodor Ivanovich stopping here with you?

VOYNITSKY: He’s stopping the night with me. Maybe,

maybe... Anything may be!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: And you’ve been drinking together to-day? Why did you do it?

VOYNITSKY: At any rate, it resembles life... Don’t take it away from me, Elena!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Formerly you never used to drink,

and you never talked so much, as you do now. Go to bed!

You bore me. And tell your Fyodor Ivanovich that if he does not stop worrying me I will take steps to stop him!

Go!

VOYNITSKY (clinging to her hand): My dear! . . . Dearest!

ENTER KHROUSCHOV.

SCENE VI

The same and KHROUSCHOV

KHROUSCHOV: Elena Andreyevna, Alexander V’ladimirovich

is asking for you.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA (tearing away her hand from VOYNITSKY)

: In a moment!
      
out.

KHROUSCHOV (to VOYNITSKY): Nothing is sacred to you!

You and the dear lady who has just gone out ought to remember that her husband was once the husband of your own sister, and that there is a young girl living under the same roof! The whole district is speaking of the affair.

What a disgrace!
   
[Goes out to the patient.

VOYNITSKY (alone): She’s gone... (After a pause.) Ten years ago I used to meet her at the house of my dead sister She was seventeen then, and I thirty-seven. Why didn’t I fall in love with her then and propose to her? It was all so possible! She would now be my wife... Yes... We two would now be awakened by the storm. Frightened of the thunder, she would cling to me, and I should keep her in my embrace and whisper: “ Don’t be afraid, I am here with you.” Oh, wonderful thoughts! How fine! I laugh even.

. . . But, my God, my ideas are getting mixed... Why am I old? Why does she not understand me? Her rhetoric,

her lazy morality, her absurd lazy ideas of the world’s ruin —

all this is profoundly hateful to me. ... (A pause.) Why am I so wrongly made? How much I envy that gay dog Fyodor,

or that silly Wood Demon! They’re direct, sincere, silly.

. . . They’re free from this cursed, poisonous irony. . . .

Enter FYODOR IVANOVICH, wrapped in a blanket.

SCENE VII

VOYNITSKY AND FYODOR IVANOVICH

FYODOR (in the doorway): Are you by yourself? No ladies present? (Entering.) I was awakened by the storm.

Glorious rain. What’s the time?

VOYNITSKY: The time be damned!

FYODOR: I fancy I heard the voice of Elena Andreyevna.

VOYNITSKY: She was here just now.

FYODOR: Magnificent woman! (Examining the medicines on the table.) What’s this? Peppermint lozenges? (Tasting.)

Yes, a> magnificent woman! ... Is the professor ill,

or what?

VOYNITSKY: He’s ill.

FYODOR: I can’t understand such an existei. They say that the ancient Greeks used to throw their weak and ailing children into the abyss from Mont Blanc. Such as he ought to be thrown down too!

VOYNITSKY (irritably): Not Mont Blanc, but the Tarpeian rock. What crass ignorance!

FYODOR: Well, if it’s a rock, let it be a rock. ... As if it damned well mattered! Why are you so gloomy now? Are you sorry for the professor, are you?

VOYNITSKY: Let me alone.
            
(A pause.)

FYODOR: Or perhaps you are in love with Mme Professor?

Eh? Why, that’s right... Sigh for her... Only listen:

if in the rumours, which are circulating in the distruct, there’s a hundredth part of truth, and if I find it out, then don’t ask for mercy, I’ll throw you down from the Tarpeian rock.

VOYNITSKY: She’s my friend!

FYODOR: Already?

VOYNITSKY: What do you mean by “ already “?

FYODOR: A woman can be a man’s friend only on this condition: first she’s his acquaintance, then his mistress, and only then his friend.

VOYNITSKY: What a coarse philosophy!

FYODOR: On which account let’s have a drink. Come, I think I’ve still got a bottle of Chartreuse. We’ll drink. And when the dawn comes, we will drive over to my place.

Agreed? (Seeing SONYA enter.) Oh, heavens, excuse my not having a tie on!
            
[Runs out.

SCENE VIII

VOYNITSKY AND SONYA

SONYA: And you, Uncle George, have been drinking champagne again with Fyodor and driving about with him in a troika. The bright birds singing together! Well, Fyodor is a downright born rake; but you, what makes you behave like that? At your time of life it does not at all become you.

VOYNITSKY: Time of life has nothing to do with it. If there’s no real life, one lives by illusions. Anyhow, it’s better than nothing.

SONYA: The hay hasn’t been gathered in; Guerasim said to-day that the rain would rot it away; and you are busy with illusions. (Frightened.) Uncle, there are tears in your eyes!

VOYNITSKY: Tears? Not a bit . . . nonsense! . . • You just looked at me as your dead mother used to look. My dear! . . . (Eagerly kissing her hands and face.) My sister . . . my sweet sister! . . . Where is she now? If she knew .

Oh, if she only knew!

SONYA: What? If she knew what, uncle?

VOYNITSKY: It is hard, bad... (Enter KHROUSCHOV.)

No matter... I’ll tell you afterwards... I’ll go…

[Goes out.

SCENE IX

SONYA AND KHROUSCHOV

KHROUSCHOV: Your father refuses to listen to anything^ I tell him it’s gout, and he says it’s rheumatism; I’ll lie down, and he sits up. (Taking his hat.) Nerves SONYA: He’s spoilt. Put away your hat. Wait till the rain stops. Won’t you have something to eat?

KHROUSCHOV: I think I will.

SONYA: I love to have something to eat at night. I believe there must be something in the sideboard... (Rummaging there.) He does not need a doctor. What he needs is to have round him a dozen ladies gazing into his eyes and sighing,

“ Professor, professor! “ Here’s some cheese. . . .

KHROUSCHOV: You ought not to speak of your father like that. I agree, he’s a difficult person: but if you compare him with the others, all these Uncle Georges and Orlovskys aren’t worth his little finger.

SONYA: Here’s a bottle of something... I’m not speaking

of my father, but I’m sick of great men with their Chinese ceremonies... (Thev sit down.) What a downpour! (.4

flash.) Oh!

KHROUSCHOV: The storm is passing away, it’s only on the borders of the estate. . . .

SONYA (pouring out): Here you are!

KHROUSCHOV: May you live to be a hundred!

(Drinking.)

SONYA: You are cross because we have troubled you in the night?

KHROUSCHOV: On the contrary. If you had not called me in, I should be sleeping now, and to see you in the flesh is much more pleasant than to see you in a dream.

SONYA. Why, then, do you look so cross?

KHROUSCHOV: Because I am cross. There’s nobody about here, so I can speak frankly. With what pleasure, Sophie Alexandrovna, would I carry you away from here this \ -v minute! I can’t breathe this air here, and it seems to . i,

that it is poisoning you. Your father, completely absorbed in his gout and in his books, and refusing to take notice of anything else; that Uncle George; finally your stepmother
              

SONYA

: What about my stepmother?

KHROUSCHOV: One can’t speak of everything... One can’t! My dear, there’s a great deal which I don’t understand

in people. In a human being everything should be beautiful: the face, the clothes, the soul, the thoughts. . . .

Often I see a beautiful face and clothes, so beautiful that my head gets giddy with rapture; but as for the soul and thoughts,

my God! In a beautiful outside there’s sometimes hidden such a black soul that no whitening can rub it off... Forgive me, I’m agitated... Indeed, you are infinitely dear to me. . . .

SONYA (dropping a knife): I’ve dropped it. . . .

KHROUSCHOV(picking it up): That’s all right... (After a pause.) One happens sometimes to walk on a dark night in a forest, and when one sees a light gleaming far away in the distance, one’s soul is filled with such joy that one cares nothing for the fatigue, for the darkness, or for the prickly branches stinging one’s face. ... I work from morning till late at night; winter and summer I know no rest, I fight with those who do not understand me, at times I suffer intolerably.

. . . But at last I’ve found my little light. ... I shan’t boast that I love you above all on earth. Love to me is not everything

in life . . . love is my reward. My dear, my glorious,

there is no higher reward to one who works, struggles,

suffers
   

SONYA (in agitation): I’m sorry... One question,

Mikhail Lvovich!

KHROUSCHOV: What? Ask it quickly. . . .

SONYA: You see... You often come to our house, and I sometimes go with my people to yours. Do own that you can’t forgive yourself for it. . . .

KHROUSCHOV: What do you mean?

SONYA: I mean, I want to say that your democratic sentiment

is offended by your being close friends with us. I have studied at the Institute, Elena Andreyevna is an aristocrat, we dress fashionably; and you are a democrat. . . .

KHROUSCHOV: Why . . . why . . . let’s not speak about that! It isn’t the time!

SONYA: You yourself dig peat, plant trees . . . it’s somewhat

strange. ... To be brief, in a word, you’re a socialist. . . .

KHROUSCHOV: Democrat, socialist! . . . Sophie Alexandrovna,

how can you speak of it seriously and even with a tremble in your voice!

SONYA: Yes, yes, seriously, a thousand times seriously.

KHROUSCHOV: But you can’t, you can’t. . . .

SONYA: I assure you, I swear, that if, for instance, I had a sister and you fell in love with her and proposed to her, you would never forgive yourself, and you would be ashamed to show yourself to your Zemstvo men and women doctors.

You would feel ashamed of having married an aristocratic girl, a “ muslined young lady,” who has never learnt to do any useful work, and who dresses fashionably. I know it quite well... I see in your eyes that it’s true!: In a word,

to be brief, these forests of yours, this peat of yours, your embroidered blouse — all this is an affectation, play-acting, a falsehood and nothing else!

KHROUSCHOV: Why, my child, why have you insulted me?

. . . Yet, I am a fool. It serves me right. I shouldn’t have intruded where I was not welcome! Good-bye.

(Going to the door.)

SONYA: Forgive me. ... I was blunt, I apologize.

KHROUSCHOV (returning): If you knew how oppressive and stifling it is here! A set of persons who approach everyone sideways, look at a man askance, and try to make him out a socialist, a psychopath, a phrase-monger, anything you like,

save a human being. “Oh, he’s a psychopath!” and they’re satisfied. “ He’s a phrase-monger,” and they’re delighted as though they had discovered America. And when people don’t understand me and don’t know what label to stick on my forehead, they don’t blame themselves for this, but me,

and say, “ He’s a queer fellow, odd! “ You’re not twenty yet, but you are already old and sober-minded, like your father and Uncle George; and I shouldn’t in the least be surprised if you were to call me in to cure you of gout. One can’t live like that! Whoever I am, look straight into my eyes, candidly, without reservations, without programmes,

and above all try to see me as a human being; otherwise in your relations with people there will never be any peace.
 
Good-bye!

And remember my words: with such cunning,

suspicious eyes as yours, you will never love. . .

SONYA: It is untrue!

KHROUSCHOV: It is true!

SONYA: It’s untrue! Just to spite you ... I do love you! I love, and it pains me, it pains me! Leave me alone i Go away, I implore . . . don’t come to our house . . . don’t come. . . .

KHROUSCHOV: Allow me then!
    
[Goes out.

SONYA (alone): He got angry. God forbid I should have a temper like his! (After a pause.) He speaks admirably,

but who can guarantee that it is not phrase-mongering? He constantly thinks of forests, he plants trees. ... It is all very well, but it is quite possible that all this is psychopathic. . . .

(Covering her face with her hands.) I cannot make out anything

! (Crying.) He has studied medicine, and yet his deepest interests lie outside medicine... It’s all strange,

strange... Lord, help me to think it all out!

ENTER ELENA ANDREYEVNA.