Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (417 page)

SCENE VII

THE SAME, JULIE, DYADIN, ZHELTOUKHIN, AND THEN SEREBRYAKOV

AND ORLOVSKY

SEREBRYAKOV’S VOICE: Hallo! Where are you all?

SONYA (crying out): We’re here, papa!

DYADIN: They’re bringing the samovar! That is fascinating

!
             
(He and JULIE arrange things on the table.)

Enter SEREBRYAKOV and ORLOVSKY.

SONYA: Here, papa!

SEREBRYAKOV: I see, I see! . . .

ZHELTOUKHIN (aloud): Gentlemen, I declare the sitting open! Waffle, uncork the liqueur.

KHROUSCHOV (to SEREBRYAKOV): Professor, let us forget what has occurred between us! (Holding out his hands) I beg you to forgive me. . . .

SEREBRYAKOV: I thank you. I am very glad. You too must forgive me. When the next day after that incident I tried to think over all that had taken place and recalled our conversation, I felt very upset... Let us be friends.

(Taking his arm and going to the table.)

ORLOVSKY: You should have done this long ago, dear soul.

A bad peace is better than a good quarrel.

DYADIN: Your Excellency, I am delighted that it pleased you to honour my oasis. Inexpressibly delighted!

SEREBRYAKOV: Thank you, my dear sir. Indeed, it is a fine place. A real oasis!

ORLOVSKY: And do you, Alexander, love nature?

SEREBRYAKOV: Very much. (A pause.) Gentlemen, let us not keep silent, let us talk. In our position that is the best thing to do. One must look misfortune straight and boldly in the face. I am more cheerful than any of you, and for this reason, that I am the most unhappy.

JULIE: I shan’t add any sugar; have your tea with jam.

DYADIN (bustling about among the company): How glad, how very glad I am!

SEREBRYAKOV: Latterly, Mikhail Lvovich, I have gone through such a great deal and thought over things so much that I believe I could write a treatise, for the edification of posterity, on how to live. Live an age and learn an age, but it is misfortunes that teach us.

DYADIN: He who remembers the evil past, should lose an eye. God is merciful; all will end well, (SONYA starts.)

ZHELTOUKHIN I What made you start?

SONYA: I heard a cry.

DYADIN: It’s the peasants on the river catching crayfish.

(Pause.)

ZHELTOUKHIN: Didn’t we agree to spend the evening as if nothing had happened? . . . And yet . . . there’s some kind of tension. . . .

DYADIN: Your Excellency, I cherish towards science feelings not only of reverence, but even of blood relationship.

My brother’s wife’s brother — you may perhaps have heard his name, Konstantin Gavrilych Novossyolov — was a master of foreign literature.

SEREBRYAKOV: I didn’t know him personally, but I know*

the name.
              
(A pause.)

JULIE: To-morrow it will be exactly fifteen days since George died.

KHROUSCHOV: Julie dear, don’t let us talk about it.

SEREBRYAKOV: Courage! Courage!
            
(A pause.)

ZHELTOUKHIN: There is still some kind of tension. . . .

SEREBRYAKOV: Nature abhors a vacuum. She has deprived

me of two intimate relations and, in order to fill up the gap, she has soon given me new friends. I drink your health, Leonid Stepanovich!

ZHELTOUKHIN: I thank you, dear Alexander Vladimirovich

! Allow me in my turn to drink to your fruitful scientific activity.

“ Sow the seeds of wisdom, of goodness, of eternity!

Sow the seeds! The Russian folk will give you their hearty gratitude! “

SEREBRYAKOV: I value the compliment you pay me. I wish from my heart that the time may soon come when out friendly relations shall have grown into more intimate ones.

ENTER FYODOR.

SCENE VIII

The same and FYODOR

FYODOR: That’s where you are! A picnic!

ORLOVSKY: My sonny ... my beauty!

FYODOR: How do you do?

(Embracing SONYA and JULIE.)

ORLOVSKY: I’ve not seen you for a fortnight. Where have you been? What have you seen?

FYODOR: I just drove over to Lennie’s; there I was told that you were here; and I came here.

ORLOVSKY: Where have you been wandering?

FYODOR: Three nights without sleep... Yesterday, dad,

I lost five thousand at cards. I drank, played cards, went to town five times... Fairly crazy!

ORLOVSKY: That’s a brave fellow. You must be a little drunk still!

FYODOR: Not a bit. Julie, tea, please! Only with lemon,

as sour as you like... And George, eh! Without rhyme or reason to put a bullet in his head! And with a French revolver,

too! As if he couldn’t have got an honest English one!

KHROUSCHOV: Hold your tongue, you beast!

FYODOR: Beast, but a pedigree one! (Stroking his beard.)

The beard alone, what isn’t it worth! . . . Here I am, a beast, and a fool, and a knave, yet I have only to will — and the finest girl would marry me. Sonya, marry me! (To KHROUSCHOV) Oh, I’m so sorry... Pardon! . . .

KHROUSCHOV: Stop playing the fool.

JULIE: You’re a lost soul, Fedenka! In the whole district there is no such drunkard and spendthrift as you. The mere sight of you is heartbreaking. You are a caution!

FYODOR: Now you’ve started whining! Come here, sit beside me... That’s right. I’ll come and stay with you for a fortnight. ... I must have a rest.
           
(Kissing her.)

JULIE: You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You should be a comfort to your father in his old age, but you only disgrace him. Yours is a stupid life and nothing else.

FYODOR: I am giving up drink! Bast a!

(Pouring out some liqueur.)

JULIE: Don’t drink then, don’t drink!

FYODOR: One glass I may. (Drinking.) Wood Demon, I make you a present of a pair of horses and a gun. I’m going to stay at Julie’s... I’ll stay there about a fortnight.

KHROUSCHOV: It would do you more good to be sent to a disciplinary battalion.

JULIE: Drink, drink some tea!

DYADIN: Have some rusks, old chap.

ORLOVSKY {to SEREBRYAKOV): Up to the age of forty,

Alexander old boy, I led the same life as my Fyodor here.

One day, my dear soul, I began counting how many women I had made unhappy in my life. I counted, counted, arrived at seventy, and gave it up. Well, as soon as I reached the age of forty, suddenly, Alexander old boy, something came over me. Sick at heart I could find no peace; in a word, my soul was at odds with itself, and there I was. I tried all sorts of things — I read books, worked, travelled — all of no avail.

Once, my dear soul, I went to pay a visit to my late friend,

the Most Serene Dmitri Pavlovich. We sat down to lunch.

After lunch, so as to keep awake, we started shooting at a target in the courtyard. There were numbers and numbers of people present. And our Waffle was there, too.

DYADIN: I was there, yes ... I remember. . . .

ORLOVSKY: Lord, my anguish then! . . . I could endure it no longer. Suddenly tears gushed from my eyes, I staggered,

and suddenly cried out at the top of my voice across the whole yard with all my power: “ My friends, my good people,

forgive me, for the love of Christ! “ And that very moment I felt my heart to have become pure, gentle, warm; and since that time, my dear soul, there is no happier man than I in the whole district. You too ought to do the same.

SEREBRYAKOV: What?
  
{A glow appears in the sky.)

ORLOVSKY: Do just as I did. Capitulate. Surrender.

SEREBRYAKOV: That’s an example of our native philosophy.

You advise me to ask forgiveness. For what? Let others ask forgiveness of me!

SONYA: Papa, but it is we who are to blame!

SEREBRYAKOV: Yes? Gentlemen, evidently at the present moment you all have in view my attitude towards my wife.

Am I, in your opinion, am I to blame? It is ridiculous even.

She has violated her duty, she left me at a difficult moment in life. . . .

KHROUSCHOV: Alexander Vladimirovich, please listen to me... For twenty-five years you have been a processor and served science; I plant forests and practise medicine — but for what purpose and for whom is it all, if we do not spare those for whom we are working? We say that we are serving humanity, and at the same time we are inhumanly destroying one another. For instance, did you or I do anything

to save George? Where’s your wife, whom every one of us insulted? Where’s your peace, where’s your daughter’s peace? All is ruined, destroyed, all is going to waste. All of you call me Wood Demon, but not in me alone, in all of you sits a demon, all of you wander in a dark forest and grope your way. Of understanding, knowledge, and heart we have just enough to spoil our own and other people’s lives. . . .

ELENA ANDREYEVNA comes out of the house and sits down on the bench under the window.