Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (414 page)

SCENE VIII

ZHELTOUKHIN AND JULIE

JULIE: How unlucky we are, you, Lennie, and I, ah, how unlucky!

ZHELTOUKHIN: But who authorized you to speak to her?

You self-appointed match-maker, you minx! You’ve spoilt the whole business for me! She’ll think that I can’t speak for myself, and . . . how very common! I’ve told you a thousand times that the whole affair must be let alone.

Nothing but humiliation and all these hints, vileness, meanness.

. . . The old fellow must have guessed that I’m in love with her, and is already exploiting my feelings! He wants me to buy this estate from him.

JULIE: And how much does he ask for it?

ZHELTOUKHIN: Sh-h! . . . They’re coming. . . .

Enter by the left door SEREBRYAKOV, ORLOVSKY, and MARIE

VASSILIEVNA; the latter reading a pamphlet as she comes in.

SCENE IX

THE SAME, SEREBRYAKOV, ORLOVSKY, AND MARIE VASSILIEVNA

ORLOVSKY: I too, old boy, am not quite fit. The last two days my head and my whole body have been aching. . . .

SEREBRYAKOV: Where are the others? I don’t like this house. It is a labyrinth. Twenty-six huge rooms. They all disperse and you can never find anyone. (Ringing.) Ask George Petrovich and Elena Andreyevna to come here.

ZHELTOUKHIN: Julie, you have nothing to do: go and find George and Elena Andreyevna.
  
[JULIE goes out.

SEREBRYAKOV: One can reconcile oneself to one’s ailments,

however hard it may be, but what I can’t stand is this present mood of mine. I have a feeling as though I were already dead, or had fallen off the earth on to a strange planet.

ORLOVSKY: It depends on how you look at it. . . .

MARIE VASSILIEVNA (reading): Give me a pencil. . . .

There’s a contradiction again! I must mark it.

ORLOVSKY: Here you are, Your Excellency!

(Handing her a pencil and kissing her hand.)

ENTER VOYNITSKY.

SCENE X

THE SAME, VOYNITSKY, AND THEN ELENA ANDREYEVNA

VOYNITSKY: You wanted me?

SEREBRYAKOV: Yes, George.

VOYNITSKY: What is it you want?

SEREBRYAKOV: Now . . . why are you cross? (A pause.)

If I am in the wrong, excuse me, please. . . .

VOYNITSKY: Drop that tone... Let’s come to business.

. . . What is it you want?

Enter ELENA ANDREYEVNA.

SEREBRYAKOV: Here’s Lenochka, too. ... Sit down,

ladies and gentlemen. (A pause.) I have summoned you here,

gentlemen, to announce that the inspector-general is about to arrive... But no more joking. It is a serious matter. I have invited you here, gentlemen, in order to ask your help and advice, and knowing your unfailing kindness, I hope you will grant me them. I am a scholar, a bookish man, and I have always been a stranger to practical life. Dispense with the advice of well-informed people I cannot, and I beg you,

Ivan Ivanych, and you, Leonid Stepanych, and you, George.

. . . The point of the matter is manet omnes una nox, that is,

we are all in God’s hands. I am old, ill, and therefore I consider

it opportune to settle my financial affairs in so far as they concern my family. My life is over, I am not thinking

of myself; but I have a young wife, and a young daughter. To continue living in the country is impossible for them.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA ‘. It’s all the same to me.

SEREBRYAKOV: We are not made for the country. But to live in town on the income we receive from this estate is impossible.

The day before yesterday I sold part of a wood for timber for four thousand roubles; but that is an extraordinary measure, of which one cannot avail oneself every year. Such measures have to be taken as will guarantee us a constant,

more or less fixed amount of income. I’ve thought out such a measure, and I have the honour to submit it for your consideration.

Without entering into details, I will submit it in its general lines. Our estate yields us an average interest of two per cent. I propose to sell the estate. If we invest the money thus realized in interest-bearing securities, we shall get from four to five per cent. I think there might even be left a surplus of a few thousand roubles, which would allow us to buy a small bungalow in Finland. . . .

VOYNITSKY: Wait a moment, I fancy my hearing is playing me false... Repeat what you’ve just said. . . .

SEREBRYAKOV: To invest the money in interest-bearing securities and to buy a bungalow in Finland. . . .

VOYNITSKY: Not Finland... You said something else. . . .

SEREBRYAKOV: I propose to sell the estate.

VOYNITSKY: Yes, that’s it... You’ll sell the estate. . . .

Admirable — a grand idea! . . . And what’s to happen to me and mother?

SEREBRYAKOV: We will consider all this in its turn. . . .

Not everything at once. . . .

VOYNITSKY: Wait a moment... Evidently, up till now I had not a grain of common sense. Up till now I was stupid enough to think that the estate belonged to Sonya. My late father bought this estate and settled it on my sister. Up till now I was naive, I understood the law in no Turkish fashion,

and I thought that the estate devolved from my sister to Sonya.

SEREBRYAKOV: Yes, the estate belongs to Sonya. Who disputes

it? Without Sonya’s consent I shan’t undertake to sell it. Besides, I’m doing it for Sonya’s benefit.

VOYNITSKY: Inconceivable! Inconceivable! Either I’ve gone out of my mind, or . . . or . . .

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: George, don’t contradict the professor!

He knows better than we do what’s right and what’s wrong.

VOYNITSKY: Give me some water... (Drinking.) Go on with it! Go on!

SEREBRYAKOV: I can’t understand why you are so agitated,

George! I don’t say that my plan is ideal. If all of you find it unsound, I shan’t insist.

Enter DYADIN, wearing a frock-coat, white gloves, and a broad-brimmed top-hat.

SCENE XI

The same and DYADIN

DYADIN: I have the honour to salute you. I apologize for venturing to enter without being announced. I am guilty,

but I claim your indulgence, as there was not a single domestic in the hall.

SEREBRYAKOV {perplexed): Glad to see you... Come in. . . .

DYADIN {bowing ceremoniously): Your Excellency! Mesdames

! My intrusion on your domains has a double object.

I’ve come, firstly, to pay a visit and to testify to my reverential respect; secondly, to invite you all to take advantage of this beautiful weather to make an expedition to my province. I dwell at the water mill, which I rent from our common friend the Wood Demon. It is a cosy, poetical corner of the earth,

where in the night you can hear naiads splashing, and in the daytime. . . .

VOYNITSKY: Wait a while, Waffle, we are talking business.

. . . Wait awhile! . . . (To SEREBRYAKOV) NOW ask him... The estate was bought from his uncle.

SEREBRYAKOV: Oh, why should I ask him? What for?

VOYNITSKY: The estate was then bought for ninety-five thousand roubles. My father paid down only seventy thousand, with a debt on the estate of twenty-five thousand.

Now listen... The estate could not have been bought had I not renounced my share of the inheritance in favour of my sister, whom I loved. Moreover, I worked for ten years like an ox, and cleared off the whole debt.

SEREBRYAKOV: What do you want then, my dear man?

VOYNITSKY: The estate is clear of debt and is in good order, thanks only to my personal exertions. And now, when I’m getting old, you want to bundle me out neck and crop!

SEREBRYAKOV: I can’t understand what you’re driving at!

VOYNITSKY: For twenty-five years I have managed this estate. I have worked, and have sent you money regularly,

like a most conscientious bailiff, and all those years you have never once even thanked me! All those years, when I was young, and even now, I have received from you an annual wage of five hundred roubles — a beggarly wage! — and it has never once occurred to you to increase it even by one rouble!

SEREBRYAKOV: George, how could I know? I’m not a practical man and understand nothing of such matters. You could have increased it as much as you liked!

VOYNITSKY: Why didn’t I steal, is that it? Why don’t you all despise me because I didn’t steal? That would be just,

and now I should not be a pauper.

MARIE VASSILIEVNA (STERNLY): GEORGE!

DYADIN (in agitation): George dear, don’t . . . don’t.

. . . I am trembling... Why spoil friendly relations?

(Embracing liim.) Please don’t! . . .

VOYNITSKY: For twenty-five years, like a mole, I have sat with her, with mother here, within these four walls... All our thoughts and feelings have belonged to you alone. By day we spoke of you, of your works, and w ere proud of your fame, uttered your name with reverence; and the evenings we wasted reading reviews and books, which I now profoundly despise!

DYADIN: Don’t, Georgie dear, don’t! . . . Please! . . .

SEREBRYAKOV: I don’t understand what you want!

VOYNITSKY: You were to us a being of a higher order, and your articles we knew by heart... But now my eyes are opened. I see everything! You write on art, but understand nothing about art! All your works, which I loved, aren’i worth a brass farthing!

SEREBRYAKOV: Gentlemen! Why don’t you restrain him?

I shall leave the room!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: George, I demand that you keep silent! Do you hear?

VOYNITSKY: I shall not keep silent! (Barring SEREBRYAKOV’S

way) Wait, I’ve not finished yet! You have ruined my life! I have not lived! I have not lived! Thanks to you, I wasted, ruined the best years of my life! You’re my worst enemy!

DYADIN: I can’t bear it! ... I can’t! . . . I’ll go into another room! . . .

[Goes out in violent agitation by the door on the right.

SEREBRYAKOV: What do you want from me? And what right have you to talk to me in this tone? You nonentity!

If the estate is yours, take it. I don’t want it!

ZHELTOUKHIN (aside): Now the fat’s in the fire! . . . I’ll go!
     
[Goes out.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: If you say any more, I shall leave this hell this very minute! (Crying out) I can’t bear it any longer!

VOYNITSKY: A life wasted! I have talent, I’m intelligent,

courageous. ... If I had lived normally I might have been a Schopenhauer, a Dostoevsky... My mind’s wandering!

I am going mad! . . . Mother, I am in despair! Mother!

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: Obey the professor!

VOYNITSKY: Mother! What shall I do? Oh, don’t say a word! I know myself what I must do! (To SEREBRYAKOV)

You shall remember me!

[Goes out by the middle door; MARIE VASSILIEVNA

follows after him.

SEREBRYAKOV: Gentlemen! What does all this signify?

Rid me of that lunatic!

ORLOVSKY: He’ll be all right, all right, Alexander; let him calm down. Don’t upset yourself so much.

SEREBRYAKOV: I won’t live under the same roof with him!

He lives here (pointing to the middle door). Almost beside me... Let him go and live in the village, or in one of the wings; otherwise I shall go away from here. Remain with him I will not. . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA (to her husband): If anything like this happens again, I shall leave the house!

SEREBRYAKOV: Oh, don’t frighten me, please!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: I’m not frightening you, but all of you seem to have agreed to turn my life into a hell... I’ll leave the house! . . .

SEREBRYAKOV: Everyone knows quite well that you are young, and I am old, and that you’re conferring a great favour by living here. . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Go on! . . . Go on! . . .

ORLOVSKY: Why, why, why! . . . My dear friends! . . .

Enter KHROUSCHOV hurriedly.