Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov

SCENE V .

PLATONOV and VENGEROVITCH II.

VENGEROVITCH II (entering). H’M ... So here’s the school in which eternally sleeps the unfinished sage. ... Is he sleeping now according to habit, or is he cursing himself according to habit? (Seeing Platonov.) Here he is, empty and hollow-sound- ing... He is neither sleeping nor cursing himself... He doesn’t feel quite normal. ... (To Platonov.) Aren’t you yet abed?

PLATONOV. As you see! Why are you stopping here? Allow me to wish you a good-night!

VENGEROVITCH II. I’m going presently. Do you give yourself up to solitude? (Glances rotind.) Do you feel yourself a Tsar of nature? In such a lovely night. . . .

PLATONOV. Are you going home?

VENGEROVITCH II. Yes . . . My father left earlier, and I am forced to go home on foot. Are you enjoying yourself? So pleasant, isn’t it? To drink champagne and get into a mood to observe yourself! [When I get drunk, I fly in the skies and build myself towers of Babel!] May I sit near you?

PLATONOV. YOU may.

VENGEROVITCH II. Thank you. (Sits down.) I like to give thanks for everything. How pleasant to sit here, on these steps, and feel oneself a full master! Where’s your helpmeet? To all this hum, to all this murmuring of nature, singing and chirping of crickets, all that it is necessary to add to turn it into paradise is the lisp of one’s beloved! This timid, coquettish breeze wants only the hot breathing of one’s dear one to make the cheeks flame with happiness! The murmur of Mother Earth only needs words of love! Woman! You look astonished... Ha! Ha! Doesn’t it sound like me? That’s true, it doesn’t... If I were sober, I should feel ashamed of my words... Anyhow, why shouldn’t I babble on in a poetic fashion? H’m . . . Who’s going to forbid me?

PLATONOV. No one.

VENGEROVITCH II. Or, perhaps, such god-like speech doesn’t become my condition, my figure? I haven’t a poetic face, have I?

PLATONOV. No, you haven’t.

VENGEROVITCH II. H’m . . . I’m very glad. No Jew has a poetic countenance... Nature’s played a joke on us Jews, hasn’t given us poetic countenances. We generally judge men by their physiognomies, and because we have a certain kind of physiognomy we are denied the possession of any poetical feeling... They say that we Jews have no poets. . . .

PLATONOV. Who says so?

VENGEROVITCH II. Everyone says so... It’s a filthy calumny!

PLATONOV. Enough quibbling! Who says so?

VENGEROVITCH II. Everyone says so. Actually, we have so many real poets . . . not Pushkins or Ler- montovs . . . but Auerbach, Heine, Goethe . . .

PLATONOV. Goethe is a German.

VENGEROVITCH II. He’s a Jew!

PLATONOV. A German!

VENGEROVITCH II. A Jew! I know what I’m talking about!

PLATONOV. I too know what I’m talking about. But let it be as you say! There’s no out-arguing a half- educated Jew.

VENGEROVITCH II. No, there isn’t... (Pause.) Even if we haven’t any poets! It’s not of much consequence! If there are poets . . . good! If there are no poets . . . still better! The poet, as a man of feeling, is usually a parasite, an egoist. Has Goethe, as a poet, given a single German proletarian a crumb of bread?

PLATONOV. Enough, young man! Neither did he take any bread from the German proletariat! That’s important... It’s better to be a poet than nobody! A million times better! In any case, we’d best stop talking... Leave in peace the crumb of bread about which you haven’t the least understanding, and the poets whom your dried-up soul doesn’t comprehend, and me whom you are bent on tormenting!

VENGEROVITCH II. I shan’t disturb your valiant heart! I shan’t pull the warm blanket off from you... Go on sleeping! (Pause.) Look at the sky! ... It is good and calm here, there are only trees here... There is none of these satiated, self-satisfied faces here... Yes . . . The trees do not murmur for me... And the moon does not so graciously look on me as it does on Platonov... She’s trying to look coolly at me... You’re not one of us, it seems to say... Go away from here, from this paradise, to your little Jew shop... It’s all nonsense, of course! . . . I’ve babbled enough!

PLATONOV. Yes, enough... Go home, young man! The longer you sit here the more you’ll babble... And you’ll live to blush for it, as you’ve said before. Go!

VENGEROVITCH II. I feel like babbling! (Laughs.) I’m a poet now!

PLATONOV. Not a poet is he who is ashamed of his youth. You’re now experiencing youth, be youthful then! It’s laughable and stupid, perhaps, but at least it’s human!

VENGEROVITCH II. SO . . . What stupidities! You’re a strange man, Platonov! All are strange here... You should have lived at the time of Noah... And the general’s widow is strange, and Voinitzev is strange... Anyhow, the widow is not at all bad in the physical sense... What intelligent eyes she has! What beautiful fingers! Really handsome, isn’t she? What breasts, what a neck! . . . (Pause.) Why, I ask you . . . am I really so much worse than you? If but once in life it should happen to me! If mere thoughts act so potently on my whole being, what bliss it would be for me if she suddenly showed herself among those trees and lured me to her with her transparent fingers! . • . Don’t look at me so! I am stupid now, an urchin... Anyhow, who will dare to forbid my being stupid if but once in life? I should like to be stupid now, and happy as you are, with a scientific object... And I am happy... Whose business is it? H’m . . .

PLATONOV. But . . . (Surveys Vengerovitch’s watch- chain.)

VENGEROVITCH II. In any case, personal happiness is egoism!

PLATONOV. Oh, yes! Personal happiness is egoism, but personal unhappiness is a virtue! You’re certainly capable of a lot of gibberish! What a chain! What a marvellous trinket! How it glitters!

VENGEROVITCH II. You’re interested in my chain? (Laughs.) Does this tinsel ... its glitter ... attract you? (Shakes his head.) In these moments, when you’re instructing me in poetics, you can go into raptures over gold! Take this chain! (He tears off his chain and flings it to one side.)

PLATONOV. Whew, what a jingle! One may conclude from the sound that it’s quite a heavy chain.

VENGEROVITCH II. Gold is heavy not in weight alone!

How happy you must be to be able to sit on these filthy steps! You don’t experience here the full weight of this filthy gold! Oh, these golden links are my golden fetters!

PLATONOV. In any case, not always lasting fetters! Our fathers had squandered them in drink!

VENGEROVITCH II. HOW many unfortunates, how many hungry people, and how many drunkards there are under the moon! When shall those many millions who sow much but eat little cease to hunger? When, I ask you. Platonov, why don’t you answer?

PLATONOV. [And when, dear sir, will you, with your father, cease to erect dram-shops? And when shall I cease being an eager visitor in your dram-shops? When shall the Vengerovitches perish from the earth, and the Platonovs cease eating the bread of others? When? Be silent, then, my dear fellow! Or . . .] Leave me in peace! Do me the kindness! I don’t like the incessant senseless din of ringing bells! Forgive me, but leave me in peace! I want to go to bed!

VENGEROVITCH II. So I’m a bell? H’m . . . You’re a bell, if we are to speak the truth.- . . .

PLATONOV. I’m a bell, and you’re a bell, with the only difference that I ring myself, and you are rung by others... Good-night! (Rises.)

VENGEROVITCH II. Good-night! (The school clock strikes two.) It’s already two o’clock! I should sleep now, and I can’t! Insomnia, champagne, perturba- tion... It’s an abnormal life, and it destroys the human organism... (Rises.) I think I’m beginning to have a pain in my chest... Good-night! I don’t intend to give you my hand, and I’m proud of this. You have no right to the pressure of my hand. . . .

PLATONOV. What nonsense! It’s all the same to me. . . .

VENGEROVITCH II. I hope no one has heard our chatter. (Goes into the depth of the scene and presently is seen walking back.)

PLATONOV. Poor man! How many contradictions, how much unnecessary rubbish and unbearable pedantry in his poor, little body! Ah! I wish I had my youth back again! I would show them... But he sits there and groans! He has nothing to do! He must proclaim to the world that personal happiness is egoism! That’s all he needs to do! What unpardonable poverty! His own tongue, but the words of others ... I don’t seem to be able to go beyond the words and minds of others...

VENGEROVITCH II (returns).

PLATONOV. What do you want?

VENGEROVITCH II. I left my chain here...

PLATONOV. Here’s your chain! (He kicks the chain with his foot.) All the same, you hadn’t forgotten it! Listen! Be so good as to sacrifice your chain for the benefit of an acquaintance of mine who belongs to those who sow much and eat little! This chain would feed him and his family for years! Let me give it to him. . . .

VENGEROVITCH II. No. ... I would give it to you with pleasure, but upon my word, I can’t! It’s a gift. . . .

PLATONOV. Yes, yes . . . Get out!

VENGEROVITCH II (picking up the chain). Don’t say that to me! (Goes into the depth of the scene, and wearily sits down on the railway bed and covers his face with his hands.)

PLATONOV. What triviality! To be young, and yet not be radiant! What profound corruption! (Sits down.) How hateful are men in whom we see if but a hint of our unclean past! I once somewhat resembled him. ... Oh! [Oh, youth! Oh, youth! On the one side, a healthy body, a live brain, an unutterable honesty, courage, love for freedom, light and greatness... On the other ... a scorn of labour, desperate phrase-making, ribaldry, corruption, lying... On the one side, Shakespeare and Goethe; on the other . . . money, a career and impudence! And science and the arts? (Laughs.) Poor orphans! There are neither the called nor the chosen among them! It’s time to put them into a museum, or shut them up in an asylum for illegitimate children... (Laughs.) Hundred millions of people with heads, with brains, and only two or three scholars, one and a half artists, and not one writer! Have a jolly time, good people! Science and art . . .

that’s labour, it is the triumph of the idea over muscles, it is the evangelic life . . . but what’s the good of life to us? Even we who have not lived shall be able to die! (Pause.) It’s terrible! ] (A horse’s hoofs can be heard.)