Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (413 page)

SCENE III

THE SAME AND ELENA ANDREYEVNA

ELENA ANDREYEVNA (walks across the stage).

VOYNITSKY: Look at her: she walks and sways from sheer indolence! Fine! Very fine!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Stop it, George! It’s boring enough without your buzzing.

VOYNITSKY (barring her way): A talent, an artist! Well,

do yoa look like an artist? Apathetic, indolent, sluggish. . . .

So much virtue that, pardon me, it’s even unpleasant to look at. . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Don’t look then ... let me go. . . .

VOYNITSKY: Why are you pining away? (In a lively tone)

My dear, my lovely one, be a good girl! There’s mermaid’s blood flowing in your veins, why not be a mermaid?

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Let me alone!

VOYNITSKY: Let yourself go, if only once in your life, fall in love quickly up to your very eyes with a merman . . .

FYODOR: And then flop headlong into the water with him and leave the Herr Professor and all of us waving our hands!

VOYNITSKY: Mermaid, eh? Love while you may!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: And why do you go on teaching me?

As if I don’t know, without your telling me, how I should live if I had my will! Like a care-free bird I should fly away,

from all of you, from your sleepy faces, from your boring,

wearisome conversations. I should forget your very existence in the world, and no one would dare then teach me. But I haven’t my own will. I’m cowardly, shy, and it seems to me all along that, if I were to be unfaithful, all wives would follow my example and leave their husbands; that God would punish me, and my conscience torment me; otherwise I would show you what a free life is like!
        
[Goes out.

ORLOVSKY: Dear soul, the beauty! . . .

VOYNITSKY: I believe I shall soon begin to despise this woman! She’s shy like a little girl, and philosophizes like an old deacon, adorned with virtues! Curdled milk!

ORLOVSKY: Stop, stop! . . . Where’s the professor now?

VOYNITSKY: In his study. Writing away.

ORLOVSKY: He called me here by letter on some business.

Do you happen to know what the business is?

VOYNITSKY: He can’t have any business. He writes rubbish,

grumbles and is jealous, that’s all.

ZHELTOUKHIN and JULIE enter by the door on the right.

SCENE IV

THE SAME, ZHELTOUKHIN AND JULIE

ZHELTOUKHIN: How do you do, all? (Greeting them.)

JULIE: How do you do, godpa dear? (Kissing him.)

How do you do, Fedya? (Kissing him.) How do you do,

George Petrovich?
(Kissing him.)

ZHELTOUKHIN: Alexander Vladiniirovich is at home?

ORLOVSKY: Yes. He’s in his study.

ZHELTOUKHIN: I must go to him. He wrote asking to see me on a matter of business. . . .
     
[Goes out.

JULIE: George Petrovieh, did you receive the barley yesterday, for which you asked in your note?

VOYNITSKY: Thanks, I did. How much is it? We also had something from you in the spring. I don’t remember what ... we must settle our accounts. I can’t bear messing up things and postponing settlements.

JULIE: In the spring you had eight quarters of corn, two heifers, a calf, and also butter for your farm hands.

VOYNITSKY: How much does it all come to?

JULIE: How can I say? I can’t say straight away without a counting-board, George Petrovich.

VOYNITSKY: I’ll fetch you a counting-board, if you must have one. . . .

(Goes out and returns with a counting-board.)

ORLOVSKY: Ducky, is your brother quite well?

JULIE: Thank God he is. Godpa dear, where did you buy that nice tie?

ORLOVSKY: In town, at Kirpichov’s.

JULIE: How pretty! I’ll buy one like it for Lennie.

VOYNITSKY: Here’s the counting-board.

(JULIE sits down and raps the beads on the counting-board.)

ORLOVSKY: What a splendid manager God has given Lennie! A wee thing, hardly visible, and see how she works away! See!

FYODOR: Yes, and he’s only lounging about, smoothing his cheek. Idler!

JULIE: Now, you have confused my reckoning.

VOYNITSKY: Come, let’s go to some other room. Into the hall. It’s so dull here. . . .
(Yawning.)

ORLOVSKY: Well, let’s go into the hall. ... I don’t mind. . . .
       
[They go out by the left door.

JULIE (alone: after a pause): Fedya dressed as a Circassian. . . That’s what happens when parents fail to give the right direction. There’s no handsomer man in the whole district, clever, rich, and yet no earthly good. . . Hopeless. . .

(Raps on the counting-board.)

ENTER SONYA.

SCENE V

JULIE AND SONYA

SONYA: You’re here, Julie dear? I didn’t know. . . .

JULIE (kissing her): My dear!

SONYA: What are you doing? Counting? What an admirable manager you are — the mere sight of you makes me envious! Julie dear, why don’t you marry?

JULIE: You see... One or two men have been suggested to me, but I have refused. A real suitor would not want to marry me! (Sighing.) No!

SONYA: But why?

JULIE: I am an uneducated girl. I was taken from the high school in my second year.

SONYA: But why did they take you away, Julie dear?

JULIE: For incapacity.
        
(SONYA laughs.)

JULIE: Why do you laugh, Sonya?

SONYA: There’s something queer going on in my head. . . .

Juli? dear, I am so happy to-day, so happy, that I feel even bored by my happiness. ... I don’t know what to do with myself... Now let’s talk of something, come... Have you ever been in love? (JULIE nods her head.) Yes? Is he interesting? (JULIE whispers in her ear.) Who? Fyodor?

JULIE (nodding her head): And you?

SONYA: I, too . . . only not with Fyodor. (Laughing.)

Go on, tell me more. . . .

JULIE: I have wanted to have a talk with you for a long time, Sonechka.

SONYA: Please do.

JULIE: I want to make things clear... You see. . . .

Truly I’ve always been well disposed towards you. ... I have many girl friends, but you are the very best of them all.

If you were to say to me, Julie, give me ten horses, or, say,

two hundred sheep, I would do it with pleasure. ... To you I should grudge nothing. . . .

SONYA: Why are you blushing, Julie?

JULIE: I’m rather shy of ... I ... I am sincerely well disposed towards you. You are the very best of them all . . .

not proud... What a pretty print you are wearing!

SONYA: We’ll talk of the print later... Go on. . . .

JULIE (getting up): I don’t know how it’s done among clever people... Allow me to propose to you... Make me happy. ... I mean ... I mean ... I mean . . . marry Lennie.
   
(Covering her face.)

SONYA (getting up): We’d better not talk about it, Julie dear... No, we’d better not. . . .

ENTER ELENA ANDREYEVNA.

SCENE VI

THE SAME AND ELENA ANDREYEVNA

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: There’s simply no place to sit in.

The two Orlovskys and George are lounging about all over the house, and whatever room I go into, they’re there. It’s simply exasperating. What do they want here? Why don’t they go somewhere else?

JULIE (through tears): How do you do, Elena Andreyevna?

(About to kiss her.)

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: How do you do, Julie dear? Forgive

me, I don’t like continual kissing. Sonya, what’s your father doing? (A pause.) Sonya, why don’t you answer me?

I ask you: what’s your father doing? (A pause.) Sonya,

why don’t you answer me?

SONYA: You want to know? Come here... (Taking her aside) Well, I’ll tell you... My heart feels too pure to-day to allow me to talk to you and go on dissembling.

Here, take this! (Handing her a letter.) I found it in the garden. Julie, come, let’s go!

[Goes out with JULIE by the left door.

SCENE VII

ELENA ANDREYEVNA, AND THEN FYODOR IVANOVICH

ELENA ANDREYEVNA (alone): What? A letter from George to me! But how am I to blame? Oh, how harsh and cruel of her! . . . Her heart feels so pure to-day that she can’t talk to me... My God, what an insult! My head is dizzy. ... I shall drop! . . .

FYODOR (coming out by the left door and crossing the stage):

Why do you always start when you see me? (A pause.)

H’m! . . . (Taking the letter from her hands and tearing it to pieces.) You must stop all this. You must think of me only.

(A pause )

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: What does that mean?

FYODOR: It means that if I once pick out someone, it’s no use her trying to escape from my hands.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: No, it only means that you are an impudent fool.

FYODOR: This evening at half-past seven you will be by the little bridge behind the garden and wait for me... Well?

. . . I’ve nothing more to say to you... And so, my angel,

until half-past seven! (Tries to take her arm. She gives him a slap on the face.) Forcibly expressed! . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Off you gO!

FYODOR: At your service... (Walking away and returning.)

I am touched... Let’s reason it out peacefully.

. . You see... I’ve experienced everything in this world;

I have even tasted gold-fish soup once or twice... But I’ve never yet gone up in a balloon, nor ever once carried off learned professors’ wives. . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: GO!

FYODOR: In a minute... I’ve experienced everything.

. . . And because of that, there’s so much impudence in me that I simply don’t know what to do with myself. I mean,

I am saying all this to you with this object, that if you ever happen to need a friend or a faithful dog, just turn to me. . . .

I am touched. . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: I want no dogs... Go!

FYODOR: At your service. (With feeling) Nevertheless and in spite of all, I am touched... Certainly, I am touched. . . .

Yes. . . .
 
[Irresolutely goes out.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA (alone): My head aches... Every night I dream bad dreams and have a presentiment of something

terrible... Yet how horrid! The young people were born here and grew up together, they “ thou “ one another,

always kiss one another; they ought to live in peace and harmony; but soon, I think, they will all have devoured one another... The forests are being saved by the Wood Demon, but there’s no one to save human beings.

[She goes towards the left door, but on noticing ZHELTOUKHIN

and JULIE coming in by that door, she goes out by the middle door.