Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (416 page)

SCENE II

SEMYON carrying buckets and JULIE coining in JULIE: Good day, Semyon! God assist you! Is Ilya Ilyich at home?

SEMYON: Yes. He’s gone to the mill.

JULIE: Will you go and call him?

SEMYON: Yes.
   
[Goes away.

JULIE {alone): He must be asleep! . . . (Sitting down on the bench under the window and sighing deeply.) Some sleep,

others lounge about, and I all day long am running about,

running about. ... God won’t end my life. (With a still deeper sigh.) Good God, that there can be such foolish people as that Waffle! As I drove by his barn a black pig came out of th^ door... It’ll serve him right if the pigs tear the sacks which aren’t his. . . .

ENTER DYADIN.

SCENE III

JULIE AND DYADIN

DYADIN (putting on his coat): It is you, Yulia Stepanovna!

Excuse my deshabille. ... I wanted to rest awhile in the embraces of Morpheus.

JULIE: How do you do?

DYADIN: Excuse me for not asking you in... The rooms aren’t tidied, etc. Perhaps you will come with me to the mill? . . .

JULIE: I shall be all right here. This is what I’ve come for,

Ilya Ilyich. Lennie and the professor, to amuse themselves,

wish to have a picnic hefe at the mill, to have tea. . . .

DYADIN: I’m delighted!

JULIE: I came in advance... They’ll be here presently.

Please order a table to be brought out here, and of course the samovar... Tell Semyon to get the provision baskets out of the carriage.

DYADIN: Certainly. (A pause.) Well? How are you all getting on?

JULIE: Badly, Ilya Ilyich... Believe me, all this worry has made me ill. You know, the professor and Sonechka are living with us now!

DYADIN: Yes, I know.

JULIE: After George laid hands on himself, they could not stay in the house... They’re afraid. In the daytime they don’t mind it so much, but when night falls, they all gather in one room and sit there until dawn. They are afraid of George’s appearing in the darkness. . . .

DYADIN: Superstitions! . . . And do they mention Elena Andreyevna?

JULIE: Of course they do. (A pause.) Vanished!

DYADIN: Yes, it’s a subject worthy of Aivasovsky’s brush... Just gone and vanished!

JULIE: And now nobody knows where she is... Perhaps

she has run away, or perhaps, in despair . . .

DYADIN: God is merciful, Yulia Stepanovna! All will be well.

Enter KHROUSCHOV with a portfolio and drawing-case.

SCENE IV

The same and KHROUSCHOV

KHROUSCHOV: Hi! Is there anybody here? Semyon!

DYADIN: Have a look round.

KHROUSCHOV: Oh! . . . How do you do, Julie?

JULIE: How do you do, Mikhail Lvovich?

KHROUSCHOV: I’ve come again to you, Ilya Ilyich, to work here. I can’t sit at home. Tell them to place my table under this tree, as they did yesterday, and to have two lamps ready. It’ll soon be dark. . . .

DYADIN: At your service, your worship.
        
[Goes out.

KHROUSCHOV: How are you getting on, Julie?

JULIE: So-so. ...
   
(A pause.)

KHROUSCHOV: The Serebryakovs are staying with you?

JULIE: Yes.

KHROUSCHOV: H’m! . . . And what’s your Lennie doing?

JULIE: He sits at home. ... All the time with Sonechka. . . .

KHROUSCHOV: Of course! (A pause.) Why doesn’t he marry her?

JULIE: Well? (Sighs.) God bless him! He’s well educated, a nobleman; she, too, is of a good family. . . .

I have always wished it for her. . . .

KHROUSCHOV: She’s a fool! . . .

JULIE: Now, you mustn’t say that.

KHROUSCHOV: And your Lennie is a bright one. too. All your people are a picked lot! A palace of wisdom!

JULIE: Probably you’ve had no lunch to-day.

KHROUSCHOV: What makes you think so?

JULIE: You’re so very cross.

Enter DYADIN and SEMYON carrying a table.

SCENE V

THE SAME, DYADIN AND SEMYON

DYADIN: You’ve an eye, Misha, for the right place.

You’ve chosen an exquisite spot to work in. It’s an oasis!

A pure oasis! Imagine that you are surrounded with palm trees, Julie here — a gentle hind, you — a lion, I — a tiger! . . .

KHROUSCHOV: You’re a good fellow, a gentle soul, Ilya Ilyich, but your manners! Treacly words, shuffling feet,

hunched shoulders! ... If a stranger were to see you, he’d think that you weren’t a man, but the devil knows what! . . .

It is annoying! . . .

DYADIN: I think this must be my destiny... Fatal predestination.

KHROUSCHOV: At it again . . . fatal predestination!

Stop it all. (Fixing a chart on the table.) I’m going to stay the night with you here.

DYADIN: I’m extremely glad... Now, Misha, you are cross, while in my soul there’s inexpressible joy! As though a bird were sitting in my heart and singing a song.

KHROUSCHOV: Rejoice then. (A pause.) There’s a bird in your heart, but there’s a frog in mine. Twenty thousand scandals! Shimansky has sold his forest for timber. That’s one! Elena Andreyevna has run away from her husband, and nobody knows now where she is. That’s two! I feel that every day I’m getting more foolish, petty, and stupid. . . .

That’s three! I meant to tell you yesterday, but I lacked the courage. You may congratulate me. George left a diary.

That diary got first into Orlovsky’s hands; I went over and read it a dozen times. . . .

JULIE: Our people have also read it.

KHROUSCHOV: George’s affair with Elena Andreyevna,

with which the whole district rang, turns out to be an abominable, dirty slander. ... I believed that slander and slandered along with the rest; I hated, despised,

insulted. . . .

DYADIN: That’s certainly wrong.

KHROUSCHOV: The first person whose word I ^ook was your brother, Julie dear. Yes, I too am a fine fellow! I believed your brother, whom I don’t respect; and disbelieved the woman, who before my very eyes was sacrificing herself.

I more readily believe evil than good, and see no further than my nose. And this means that I am as stupid as the rest.

DYADIN (to JULIE): Come, let’s go to the mill, my dear.

Let the cross baby work here, and we will go for a walk. . . .

Work away, Misha, old chap!
             
[Goes out with JULIE.

KHROUSCHOV (alone; mixing the colours in a saucer): One night I saw him leaning his face against her hand. In his diary, that night is described in full; he tells how I came there,

what I said to him. He quotes my words and calls me a fool and narrow-minded. (A pause.) . . . It’s too thick! ... It should be thinner... And then he blames Sonya for having fallen in love with me... She never loved me... Now,

there’s a blot... (Scraping the paper with a knife.) If even I admit that there’s some truth in it, yet I must not think of it... It began foolishly, and ended foolishly... (SEMYON

and the labourers bring in a large table.) What’s this? What’s it for?

SEMYON: Ilya Ilyich told us to bring it in. Company is coming from the Zheltoukhin estate to have tea here.

KHROUSCHOV: All right. No work for me now... I’ll pack up my things and go home.

Enter ZHELTOUKHIN with SONYA on his arm.

SCENE VI

KHROUSCHOV, ZHELTOUKHIN, AND SONYA

ZHELTOUKHIN (singing): “ Unwillingly to these shores am I drawn by an unknown power.”

KHROUSCHOV: Who’s there? Eh?

(Hastily packing his case of instruments.)

ZHELTOUKHIN: One more question, dear Sophie. . . .

Do you remember that day you lunched at our house, my birthday? Do own that you laughed then at my appearance.

SONYA

: Leonid Stepanych, how can you say such a thing?

I laughed for no reason.

ZHELTOUKHIN (noticing KHROUSCHOV): Oh, you too are here! How do you do?

KHROUSCHOV: How do you do?

ZHELTOUKHIN: You’re working away! Splendid! . . .

Where’s Waffle?

KHROUSCHOV: There. . . .

ZHELTOUKHIN: Where’s there?

KHROUSCHOV: I think I speak quite clearly... There,

at the mill.

ZHELTOUKHIN: I’d better ask him to come here. (Walking away and singing) “ Unwillingly to these shores . . .”

[Goes out.

SONYA: How do you do? . . .

KHROUSCHOV: How do you do?

SONYA: What are you drawing?

KHROUSCHOV: Oh! . . . nothing interesting.

SONYA: Is it a plan?

KHROUSCHOV: No, it’s a map showing the forests of our district. (After a pause.) I’ve mapped them out. The green colour indicates the places vyhere there were forests during the time of our grandfathers and before them; the bright green, where forests have been cut down during the last twenty-five years; and the blue, where there are forests still left intact... Yes... (A pause.) Well, and how are you? Are you happy?

SONYA: This is not the time, Mikhail Lvovich, to think of happiness.

KHROUSCHOV: What else is there to think of?

SONYA: Our sorrow came only because we thought too much of happiness.

KHROUSCHOV (after a pause): So!

SONYA: There’s no evil without some good in it. Sorrow has taught me this, that one must forget one’s own happiness and think only of the happiness of others. One’s whole life should consist of sacrifices. . . .

KHROUSCHOV (after a pause): Yes... Marie Vassilievna’s son shot himself, and she goes on searching for contradictions in her little books. A great misfortune befell yourself, and you’re pampering your self-love: you are trying to distort your life and you think this a sacrifice... No one has a heart... Neither you nor I... Quite the wrong things are being done, and everything goes to waste... I’ll go away presently and won’t be in your way and Zheltoukhin’s.

. . . Why are you crying? I did not at all mean to make you cry.

SONYA: Never mind, never mind. . . .

(Wiping away her tears.)

ENTER JULIE, DYADIN, AND ZHELTOUKHIN.