Complete Works of Anton Chekhov

Nyukhin. [With long side whiskers and clean-shaven upper lip, in an old, well’ worn frock coat, entering with great dignity, bowing and adjusting his waistcoat.] Ladies and gentlemen, so to say! [Smoothing down his whiskers.] It has been suggested to my wife that I should read here, for a charitable object, a popular lecture. Well, if I must lecture, I must — ^it is absolutely no matter to me. Of course, I am not a professor and hold no learned degrees, yet and nevertheless for the last thirty years, without stopping, I might even say to the injury of my own health and so on, I have been working on questions of a strictly scientific nature. I am a thinking man, and, imagine, at times even I compose scientific contributions; I mean, not precisely scientific, but, pardon my saying so, they are almost in the scientific line. By the way, the other day I wrote a long article entitled ‘On the Harmful-ness of Certain Insects.’ My daughters like it immensely, especially the references to bugs; but after reading it I tore it to pieces. Surely, no matter how well you write, dispense with Persian powder^ you cannot. We have got bugs even in our piano. . . . For the subject of my present lecture I have tciken, so to say, the harm caused to mankind by the consumption of tobacco. I myself smoke, but my wife ordered me to lecture to-day on the harmfulness of tobacco, and therefore there is no help for it. On tobacco, well, let it be on tobacco — it is absolutely no matter to me; but to you, gentlemen, I suggest that you should regard my present lecture with all due seriousness, for fear that something imexpected may happen. Yet those who are afraid of a dry, scientific lecture, who do not care for such things, need not hsten to it and may even leave. [Adjusting his waistcoat.] I particularly crave the attention of the members of the medical profession here present, who may gather from my lecture a great deal of useful information, since tobacco, apart from its harmful effects, is also used in medicine. Thus, for instance, if you place a fly in a snuff-box, it will probably die from derangement of the nerves. Tobacco, essentially, is a plant. . . . When I lecture I usually wink my right eye, but you must take no notice: it is through sheer nervousness. I am a very nervous man, generally speaking; and I started to wink my eye as far back as 1889, to be exact, on 13th September, on the very day when my wife gave birth to our, so to say, fourth daughter, Bar-^An insecticide, like Keating’s. bara. All my daughters were born on the 13th. Though [looking at his watch], in view of the short time at our disposal, I must not digress from the subject of the lecture. I must observe, by the way, that my wife keeps a music school and a private boarding-school; I mean to say, not exactly a boarding-school, but something in the nature of one. Between ourselves, my wife loves to complain of straitened circumstances; but she has put away in a safe nook some forty or fifty thousand roubles; as to myself, I have not a penny to bless myself with, not a sou — but, well, what’s the good of dwelling on that? In the boarding-school it is my duty to look after the housekeeping. I buy the provisions, keep an eye on the servants, enter the expenses in a ledger, stitch together the exercise-books, exterminate bugs, take my wife’s pet dog for a walk, catch mice. . . . Last night I had to give out flour and butter to the cook, as we were going to have pancakes to-day. Well, to be brief, to-day, when the pancakes were ready, my wife came into the kitchen to say that three of her pupils would have no pancakes, as they had swollen glands. So it happened that we had a few pancakes extra. What would you do with them? My wife first ordered those pancakes to be taken to the larder but then she thought for a while, and after deliberation she said: ‘You can have those pancakes, you scarecrow. . . .’ When she is out of humour, she always addresses me like that: ‘scarecrow’ or ‘viper’ or ‘Satan.’ You see what a Satan I am. She’s always out of humour. But I didn’t masticate them properly, I just gulped them down, for I am always hungry. Yesterday, for instance, she gave me no dinner. ‘It’s no use,’ she says, ‘feeding you, scarecrow that you are . . .’ However [looking at his watch], I have strayed from my subject, and have digressed somewhat from my theme. Let us continue. Though, of course, you would rather hear now a romance, or symphony, or some aria. . . . [Singing.] ‘In the heat of the battle we shan’t budge. . . ,’ I don’t remember where that comes from. . . . By the way, I have forgotten to tell you that in my wife’s music school, apart from looking after the housekeeping, my duties also include the teaching of mathematics, physics, chemistry, geography, history, solfeggio, literature, etc. For dancing, singing, and drawing my wife charges an extra fee, although it is I who am the dancing and singing master. Our music school is at No. 13 Five Dogs’ Lane. That is probably why my life has been so unlucky, through living in a house numbered thirteen. Again, my daughters were born on the thirteenth, and our house has thirteen windows. . . • But, well, what’s the good dwelling on all this? My wife is at home at any hour for business interviews, and the prospectus of the school can be had from the porter here, at sixpence a copy. [Taking a few copies from his pocket.] And, if you please, I myself can let you have some. Each copy sixpence! Any one like a copy? [A pause.] No one? Well, make it fourpence. [A pause.] How very annoying! Yes, the house is number thirteen. I am a failure at everything; I have grown old, stupid. Now, I am lecturing, and to look at me I am quite jolly, but I have such a longing to shout at the top of my voice or to run away to the ends of the earth. . . . And there is no one I can complain to, I even want to cry. . . . You may say, You have your daughters. . . . But what are daughters? I speak to them, and they only laugh. . . . My wife has seven daughters. . . . No, I’m sorry, I believe only six. . . . [Vivaciously.] Sure it’s seven! The eldest, Anna is twenty-seven; the youngest seventeen. Gentlemen! [Looking round.] I am miserable, I have become a fool, a nonentity, but, after all, you see before you the happiest of fathers. After all, it ought to be like that, and I dare not say it is not. But if only you knew! I have lived with my wife for thirty-three years, and, I can say, those were the best years of my life; I mean not precisely the best, but generally speaking. They have passed, in a word, like one happy moment; but strictly speaking, curse them all. [Looking round.] I think, though, she has not come yet; she is not here, and therefore I may say what I like. ... I am terribly afraid. ... I am afraid when she looks at me. AVell, as I was just saying; my daughters don’t get married, probably because they are shy, and also because men never have a chance of seeing them. My wife does not want to give parties, she never invites any one to dinner, she’s a very stingy, ill-tempered, quarrelsome lady and therefore no one comes to the house, but ... I can tell you in confidence [Coming close to the footlights.] . . . My wife’s daughters can be seen on great feast days at the house of their aunt, Natalie Semionovna, that very same lady who suffers from rheumatism and always wears a yellow dress with black spots, as though she were covered all over with black beetles. There you get real food. And if my wife happens not to be there, then you can also. . . . [Raising his elbow.] I must observe that I get drunk on one wineglass, and on account of that I feel so happy and at the same time so sad that I carmot describe it to you. I then recall my youth, and for some reason I long to run away, to run right away. . . . Oh, if only you knew how I long to do it! [Enthusiastically.] To run away, to leave everything behind, to run without ever looking back. . . . Where to? It does not matter where . . . provided I could run away from that vile, mean, cheap life, which has turned me into a miserable old fool, into a miserable old idiot; to run away from that stupid, petty, ill-tempered, spiteful, malicious miser, my wife, who has been tormenting me for thirty-three years; to run away from the music, from the kitchen, from my wife’s money affairs, from all those trifles and banalities. . . . To run away and then to stop somewhere far, far away in a field, and to stand stock-still like a tree, like a post, like a garden scarecrow, under the wide heaven, and to look all night long at the still, bright moon over my head, and to forget, to forget. . . . Oh, how much I long not to remember! . . . How I long to tear off this old, shabby coat, which thirty-three years ago I wore at my wedding . . . [tearing off his frock coat] in which I always give lectures for charitable objects. . . . Take that! [Stamping on the coat.] Take that! I am old, poor, wretched, like this waistcoat, with its patched, shabby, ragged back. . . . [Showing his back.] I

want nothing! I am better and cleaner than that; I was once young, I studied at the university, I had dreams, considered myself a man. . . . Now I want nothing! Nothing but rest . . . rest! [Looking back, he quickly puts on his frock coat.] Behind the platform is my wife. . . . She has come and is waiting for me there. . . . [Looking at his watch.] The time is now over. ... If she asks you, please, I implore you, tell her that the lecturer was . . . that the scarecrow, I mean myself, behaved with dignity. [Looking aside, coughing.] She is looking in my direction. . . . [Raising his voice.] Starting from the premise that tobacco contains a terrible poison, of which I have just spoken, smoking should in no circumstance be permitted, and I venture to hope, so to say, that this my lecture ‘On the Harmfulness of Tobacco’ will be of some profit to you. I have finished. Dixi et animam Iftvavi!

[Bows and walks off with dignity.]