The Complete Plays

IVANOV, FIRST VERSION

Chekhov wrote Ivanhov, his first work to be staged, at the prompting of the theatrical impresario Korsh and in the wake of the creative gust that had produced the important transitional story “The Steppe.” He dashed off the play in under two weeks in October 1887, pleased with its “unhackneyed subject” and its lack of longueurs. He defined his own originality this way: “Modern dramatists start their plays exclusively with angels, cads, and buffoons — try and find those elements anywhere in Russia! Sure, you’ll find them, but not in such extreme forms as dramatists require. I wanted to do something original; I didn’t hatch out a single villain, a single angel (though I couldn’t refrain from buffoons). I didn’t accuse anyone. I didn’t acquit anyone” (to his brother Aleksandr, October 24, 1887).

Ivanov was first played at Korsh’s Theatre in Moscow on November 19, 1887, for the benefit of Nikolay Svetlov, who created the role of Borkin; it enjoyed a mixed success. The actors’ praise and the audience’s plaudits made Chekhov euphoric, and he wrote to Aleksandr, “You can’t imagine what’s happened! From that meaningless little turd that is my playlet . . . there’s been a hell of a development . . . in his 32 years in the theater the prompter had never seen anything like it.” He triumphantly signed himself, “Schiller Shakespearovich Goethe” (November 24, 1887). But his younger brother Mikhail recalled the event differently: “The success of the performance was uneven; some hissed, others, the majority, applauded and called for the author, but in general Ivanov was misunderstood, and for a long time afterward the newspapers were explicating the personality of the character of its leading hero.” The impressionable playwright gradually came to the conclusion that the audience had welcomed Ivanov himself as a distillation of the Zeitgeist. His mooning and moaning, his fits of self-castigation summed up for the generation of the 1880s its own pusillanimous torpor during the “dark decade,” a period of political repression and social inaction. Ivanov’s death provided a kind of vicarious expiation.

That was not what Chekhov had in mind. Superficially, Ivanov, his name the Russian equivalent of “Jones,” seemed another common- or garden-variety “superfluous man”: “a university graduate, in no way remarkable; a somewhat excitable, ardent nature, strongly inclined to honorable and straightforward enthusiasm, like most educated gentry” was how Chekhov described him. His past was nobler than his present: his projects for serving the people — rational farming, higher education — have evaporated. Chekhov, however, wanted to avoid idealizing this disillusionment, by then a stale treatment, to an examination by the character himself of the reasons for his empty life and contemptible behavior. Ivanov was to suffer through his own awareness of wasted potential and vestigial honor. A basic dramatic problem was to keep the audience from romanticizing Ivanov’s pessimism, and, at the same time, to keep Ivanov from looking like the immoralist that Doctor Lvov makes him out to be.

The stage portrayal of this complex inner turmoil was tricky for an inexperienced playwright, trying to employ age-old strategies of dramatic carpentry to contain a rich psychological subject. Basically, the “plot” might have come from a typical society melodrama: a scoundrel abandons his exploited wife in hopes of repairing his fortunes by wedding a young heiress. This sensational story line is how Ivanov’s actions look to outsiders such as Lvov.

The play’s lifeblood is gossip. In the first act, we hear of slanderous rumors about Ivanov, but no one takes them seriously. In the second act, the school for scandal is in session at Lebedev’s home, but the gossipmongers are so caricatured that again their power to harm is discounted. Ivanov is now associated with Borkin’s shady machinations, however. In Act Three, Lebedev still refuses to believe the tattle, though he warns Ivanov about it. Aided by Lvov, the rumors reach Anna’s ears, provoking her confrontation with her husband and her collapse. In the play’s first version, this theme continued into Act Four, with even Lebedev harboring doubts about Anna’s death. Ivanov, publicly charged with villainy by the Doctor, dies of a heart attack “because,” said Chekhov, “he can’t endure the outrageous insult” (to Aleksandr, November 20, 1887). This was to turn the play into a tract about provincial narrow-mindedness, and, indeed, many of the critics described Ivanov as the honorable but vacillating victim of scandalmongers.

After friends in St. Petersburg assured him that the character drawing was solid, and that, contrary to what some critics said, the play was not immoral, Chekhov decided on minor revisions. He realized that the final heart attack posed a problem for an actor while it undermined the real causes of Ivanov’s destruction. With a new ending, a monologue to clarify Ivanov’s state of mind, and some minimal rearrangement, it would be suitable for submission to the Imperial Alexandra Theatre in St. Petersburg. “Now my Mr. Ivanov will be much better understood. The ending doesn’t quite satisfy me (except for the gunshot, it’s all flabby), but I am comforted by the fact that it’s still in an unfinished form” (to Suvorin, December 19, 1888).

IVANOV

И‚aнo‚

Comedy in Four Acts and Five Tableaux

FIRST VERSION

CHARACTERS

IVANOV, NIKOLAY ALEKSEEVICH, Permanent member of the Council for Peasant Affairs¹

ANNA PETROVNA, his wife, born Sarra Abramson²

SHABELSKY, MATVEY SEMYONOVICH, Count, his maternal uncle

LEBEDEV, PAVEL KIRILLYCH, Chairman of the Rural Board³

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA, his wife

SASHA, the Lebedevs daughter, 20

LVOV, YEVGENY KONSTANTINOVICH, a young country doctor⁴

BABAKINA, MARFA YEGOROVNA, a young widow, landowner, daughter of a rich merchant

KOSYKH, DMITRY NIKITICH, a tax collector

BORKIN, MIKHAIL MIKHAILOVICH, a distant relative of Ivanov and manager of his estate

DUDKIN, the son of a rich factory owner

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA, an old woman of no fixed profession

YEGORUSHKA, a poor relation of the Lebedevs

FIRST GUEST

SECOND GUEST

PYOTR, Ivanov’s manservant

GAVRILA, the Lebedevs’ manservant

GUESTS of both sexes, manservants

The action takes place in one of the districts⁵ of Central Russia.

ACT ONE

A garden on Ivanov’s estate. Left, the facade of a house with a veranda. One of the windows is open. In front of the veranda is a broad, semi-circular expanse, with paths leading straight ahead and to the left, to the garden. At the right, little garden settees and tables. A lamp is lit on one of the latter. Evening is drawing on. At the rise of the curtain one can hear a duet for piano and cello being practiced in the house.

I

IVANOV and BORKIN.

IVANOV is sitting at a table, reading a book.

BORKIN, wearing heavy boots and carrying a rifle, appears at the bottom of the garden; he is tipsy; after he spots Ivanov, he tiptoes up to him and, when he has come alongside him, aims the gun in his face.

IVANOV (on seeing Borkin, shudders and jumps up). Misha, God knows what . . . you scared me . . . I’m jittery enough as it is, but you keep playing these stupid jokes . . . (Sits.) He scared me, so he’s pleased with himself . . .

BORKIN (roars with laughter). Right, right . . . sorry, sorry. (Sits beside him.) I won’t do it any more, no more . . . (Takes off his vizored cap.) It’s hot. Would you believe, sweetheart, I’ve covered over ten miles in something like three hours . . . I’ve knocked myself out, had a hell of a time . . . Just feel my heart, the way it’s pounding . . .

IVANOV (reading). Fine, later . . .

BORKIN. No, feel it right now. (Takes his hand and puts it on his chest.) You hear it? Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. That means I’ve got heart trouble. Any minute I could keel over and die. Say, would you be sorry if I died?

IVANOV. I’m reading . . . later . . .

BORKIN. No, seriously, would you be sorry if I suddenly up and died? Niko-lay Alekseevich, would you be sorry if I died? . . .

IVANOV. Stop pestering me!

BORKIN. Dear boy, tell me, would you be sorry?

IVANOV. I’m sorry that you reek of vodka. It’s disgusting, Misha.

BORKIN (laughs). I really reek? I can’t believe it . . . Actually, I can believe it. At Plesniki I ran into the coroner, and the two of us, I must admit, knocked back about eight drinks apiece. Fundamentally, drinking is very bad for your health. Tell me, is it really bad? Huh? Is it bad for you?

IVANOV. This is unbearable, for the last time . . . Get it through your head, Misha, that this teasing . . .

BORKIN. Right, right . . . sorry, sorry! . . . Take it easy, sit down . . . (Gets up and walks away. ) Incredible people, you’re not even allowed to talk. (Comes back.) Oh, yes! I almost forgot . . . Let’s have it, eighty-two rubles! . . .

IVANOV. What eighty-two rubles?

BORKIN. To pay the workmen tomorrow.

IVANOV. I haven’t got it.

BORKIN. Thank you very kindly! (Mimics him.) I haven’t got it . . . After all, don’t the workmen have to be paid? Don’t they?

IVANOV. I don’t know. I haven’t got anything today. Wait till the first of the month when I get my salary.⁶

BORKIN. Just try and have a conversation with characters like this! . . . The workmen aren’t coming for their money on the first of the month, but tomorrow morning!

IVANOV. What am I supposed to do about it now? Go on, saw me in half, nag at me . . . And where you did you pick up this revolting habit of pestering me whenever I’m reading, writing or . . .

BORKIN. What I’m asking you is: do the workmen get paid or not? Eh, what’s the use of talking to you! . . . (Waves his hand in dismissal.) Landowners too, the hell with ‘em, lords of creation . . . Experimental farming methods . . . Nearly three hundred acres of land and not a penny in their pocket . . . It’s like a wine cellar without a corkscrew. I’ll go and sell the carriage horses tomorrow! Yes sir! . . . I sold the oats while they were still standing in the field, tomorrow I’ll go and sell the rye. (Strides up and down the stage.) You think I’ll wait for an invitation? Do you? Well, no sir, you’re not dealing with that sort of person . . .

II

The same, SHABELSKY (offstage), and ANNA PETROVNA.

SHABELSKY’s voice from the window: “It’s impossible to play with you . . . You’ve no more ear than a gefilte fish, and your touch is a disgrace . . . A Semitic, guttural touch, you can smell the garlic in it a mile off. “

ANNA PETROVNA (appears in the open window). Who was talking out here just now? Was it you, Misha? Why are you stamping around like that?

BORKIN. Talk to your Nicolas-voilå⁷ and it’d get you stamping too . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. Listen, Misha, have them bring some hay to the croquet lawn. I want to turn somersaults . . .

BORKIN (waves his hand in dismissal). Leave me alone, please . . .

ANNA PETROVNA (laughs). Really, what a tone to take . . . That tone of voice doesn’t suit a chubby little cherub like you at all, Misha. If you want women to love you, never get angry with them and don’t act self-important . . . (to her husband.) Nikolay, let’s turn somersaults now and forever! . . .

IVANOV. Anyuta, it’s bad for you to stand in an open window. Go in, please . . . (Shouts.) Uncle, shut the window!

The window is shut.

BORKIN. Don’t forget, day after tomorrow, the interest has to be paid to Lebedev.

IVANOV. I remember. I’ll be at Lebedev’s today and I’ll ask them to postpone it . . . (Looks at his watch.)

BORKIN. When are you going over there?

IVANOV. Right now . . .

BORKIN (quickly). Hold on, hold on! isn’t today, I think, Shurochka’s birthday? . . . Well, well, well, well . . . And me forgetting all about it . . . What a memory, eh? (Skips.) I’ll go, I’ll go . . . (Sings.) I’ll go . . . I’ll go for a swim, chew some paper, take three drops of ammonia⁸ and it’s off to a fresh start. . . . Darling, Nikolay Alekseevich, sweetie-pie, love of my life, you’re always a nervous wreck, no kidding, you’re whining, constantly melancho-leric,⁹ and yet you and I, no kidding, could get a hell of a lot of things done together! I’m ready to do anything for you . . . You want me to marry Mar-fusha Babakina for your sake? Marfutka’s so much crap, damn it, but should I marry her? Half the dowry is yours . . . I mean, not half, but all of it . . . Take all of it! . . .

IVANOV. If you’re going to talk rot . . .

BORKIN. No, seriously, no kidding, you want me to marry Marfusha? Go fifty-fifty on the dowry . . . But why am I talking to you? As if you understood me? (Mimics him.) “If you’re going to talk rot.” You’re a good man, an intelligent man, but you haven’t got an ounce of, what d’y’call it, you know, get up and go. If only you’d do things in a big way, raise a little hell . . . You’re a neurotic, a crybaby, but if you were a normal man, you could make a million in a year’s time . . . For instance, if I had 2,300 rubles right now, in two weeks I’d have twenty thousand. You don’t believe me? You think I’m talking nonsense? No, it’s not nonsense . . . Just give me 2,300 rubles, and in a week I’ll show you twenty thousand. On the other side of the river Ovsyanov is selling a strip of land, just across from us, for 2,300 rubles. If we buy that strip, we’ll own both sides of the riverbank. And if we own both sides, you understand, we have the right to dam the river . . . Am I right? We could put up a mill, and as soon as we announce that we want to build a dam, everyone who lives downstream will kick up a fuss, and right away we go kommen Sie hier,¹⁰ if you don’t want a dam, pay up. Get it? Zarev’s factory will pay us five thousand, Korolkov three thousand, the monastery will pay five thousand . . .

IVANOV. It’s all hocus-pocus, Misha . . . If you want us to stay friends, keep it to yourself.

BORKIN (sits at the table). Of course! . . . I knew it! You won’t do anything yourself, and you tie my hands . . .

III

The same, SHABELSKY, and LVOV.

SHABELSKY (coming out of the house with Lvov). Doctors are just like lawyers, the sole difference being, lawyers only rob you, while doctors rob you and kill you . . . Present company excepted. (Sits on a little settee.) Quacks, charlatans . . . Perhaps in some Utopia you can come across an exception to the general rule, but . . . over the course of a lifetime I’ve squandered about twenty thousand and never met a single doctor, who didn’t strike me as a barefaced impostor . . .

BORKIN (to Ivanov). Yes, you won’t do anything yourself and you tie my hands. That’s why we don’t have any money . . .

SHABELSKY. I repeat, present company excepted . . . There may be exceptions, although, even so . . . (Yawns.)

IVANOV (closing the book). Doctor, what have you got to say?

LVOV (with a glance at the window). The same thing I said this morning: she has to go to the Crimea at once. (Walks up and down the stage.)

SHABELSKY (bursts out laughing). The Crimea! . . . Why don’t you and I, Misha, hang out a shingle as medicos? It’s so easy . . . A woman sneezes or coughs because she’s bored, some Madame Angot or Ophelia,¹¹ quick, take a scrap of paper and prescribe along scientific principles: first, a young doctor, then a trip to the Crimea, in the Crimea a strapping Tatar, on the way back a private compartment with someone who’s gambled away all his money but a cute little dandy all the same . . .

IVANOV (to the Count). Ah, stop pestering, you pest! (To Lvov.) To go to the Crimea you need money. Suppose I find it, she definitely refuses to take the trip . . .

LVOV. Yes, she does . . .

Pause.

BORKIN. Say, Doctor, is Anna Petrovna really so seriously ill that she has to go to the Crimea? . . .

LVOV (with a glance at the window). Yes, tuberculosis . . .

BORKIN. Psss . . . that’s no good . . . For some time now I’ve noticed from her face that she wasn’t long for this world.

LVOV. But . . . don’t talk so loudly . . . you can be heard in the house . . .

Pause.

BORKIN (sighing). This life of ours . . . Human life is like a posy, growing gloriously in a meadow, a goat comes along, eats it, end of posy . . . (Sings.) “Would you know my soul’s unrest . . .”¹²

SHABELSKY. Nonsense, nonsense, and more nonsense! . . . (Yawns.) Nonsense and monkeyshines . . .

Pause.

BORKIN. Well, gentlemen, I keep trying to teach Nikolay Alekseevich how to make money. I’ve let him in on one wonderful idea, but my pollen, as usual, has fallen on barren ground . . . You can’t hammer anything into him . . . Look at him: what’s he like? Melancholy, spleen, tedium, depression, heartache . . .

SHABELSKY (rises and stretches). You’re a brilliant thinker, you come up with something for everyone, you teach everyone how to live, but you’ve never taught me a single thing . . . Teach me, Mr. Know-it-all, show me a way to get ahead . . .

BORKIN (rises). I’m going for a swim . . . Good-bye, gentlemen . . . (to the Count.) You’ve got twenty ways to get ahead . . . If I were in your shoes, I’d make about twenty thousand in a week. (Going.)

SHABELSKY (goes after him). What’s the gimmick? Come on, teach me . . .

BORKIN. There’s nothing to teach. It’s very easy . . . (Returns.) Nikolay Alek-seevich, give me a ruble!

IVANOV silently gives him the money.

Merci! (To the Count.) You’ve still got a handful of aces.

SHABELSKY (going after him). Well, what are they? (Stretches.)

BORKIN. In your shoes, in a week I’d make about thirty thousand, if not more.

Exits with the Count.

IVANOV (after a pause.) Pointless people,¹³ pointless talk, the pressing need to answer stupid questions, Doctor, it’s all wearied me to the point of illness. I’ve become irritable, touchy, impatient, so petty that I don’t know what I am any more. Whole days at a time my head aches, I can’t sleep, ringing in my ears . . . And there’s absolutely nowhere to escape to . . . Absolutely nowhere . . .

LVOV. Nikolay Alekseevich, I have to have a serious talk with you.

IVANOV. Talk away.

LVOV. It’s concerning Anna Petrovna. (Sits.) She won’t consent to go to the Crimea, but she might if you went with her . . .

IVANOV (after thinking about it). If we were to go together, we’d need money. Besides, they certainly wouldn’t give me a leave of absence. I’ve already taken one leave this year . . .

LVOV. Let’s assume that’s true. Now, moving on. The most important treatment for tuberculosis is absolute peace and quiet, and your wife doesn’t have a moment’s peace. She’s constantly upset by the way you treat her. Excuse me, I’m concerned and I’ll speak bluntly. Your behavior is killing her.

Pause.

Nikolay Alekseevich, give me some cause to think better of you!

IVANOV. It’s all true, true . . . I’m probably terribly to blame, but my mind’s messed up, my soul is mired in a kind of indolence, and I can’t seem to understand myself. I don’t understand other people or myself. (With a glance at the window.) They can hear us, let’s go, let’s take a walk.

Gets up.

My dear friend, I should tell you the story from the very beginning. But it’s long and so complicated that I wouldn’t finish before morning.

They walk.

Anyuta is a remarkable, an exceptional woman . . . For my sake she converted to my religion, cast off her father and mother, turned her back on wealth, and if I’d demanded another hundred sacrifices, she would have made them, without blinking an eye. Well, sir, there nothing at all remarkable about me and I made no sacrifices at all. Though it’s a long story . . . The whole gist of it, dear Doctor (hesitates), is . . . to make a long story short, I married when I was passionately in love and swore love everlasting, but . . . five years have gone by, she’s still in love with me, while I . . . (Splays his hands in a gesture of futility) Now you’re going to tell me that she’ll die soon, but I don’t feel any love or pity, just a sort of void, weariness . . . Anyone looking at me from the outside would probably think this is awful; I don’t understand myself what’s going on inside me . . .

They go off down a garden path.

IV

SHABELSKY, then ANNA PETROVNA.

SHABELSKY (enters, roaring with laughter). Honest to God, he’s not a crook, he’s a visionary, a virtuoso! Ought to put up a monument to him. He’s a thorough blend of modern pus in all its variety: lawyer, doctor, speculator, accountant. (Sits on a low step of the veranda.) And yet he seems never to have gone to school anywhere, that’s what’s amazing . . . What a brilliant criminal he probably would have been, if he’d picked up a bit of culture, the liberal arts! “In a week,” he says, “you could have twenty thousand. You’ve got a handful of aces,” he says, “your title as Count.” (Roars with laughter.) “Any girl with a dowry would marry you” . . .

ANNA PETROVNA opens the window and looks down.

“Want me to make a match between you and Marfusha?” he says. Qui estce que c est Marfusha?¹⁴ Ah, that . . . Balabalkina creature . . . Babakalkina . . . the one that looks like a washerwoman and blows her nose like a cab driver . . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. Is that you, Count?

SHABELSKY. What’s that?

ANNA PETROVNA laughs.

(In a Jewish accent.) Vot you should leffing at?

ANNA PETROVNA. I was remembering a certain saying of yours. Remember, you said it at dinner? A thief unchastised, a horse . . . How did it go?

SHABELSKY. A kike baptized, a thief unchastised, a horse hospitalized are not to be prized.

ANNA PETROVNA (laughs). You can’t even make a simple play on words without malice. You’re a malicious person . . . (Seriously.) Joking aside, Count, you are very malicious. Living with you is depressing and terrifying. You’re always grumbling, grousing, you think everyone’s a scoundrel and a villain. Tell me, Count, frankly: have you ever said anything nice about anyone?

SHABELSKY. What sort of cross-examination is this!

ANNA PETROVNA. You and I have been living together under the same roof for five years now, and never once have I heard you speak of people neutrally, without sarcasm or sneering. What harm have people done you? (Coughs.) Do you think you’re better than everyone else?

SHABELSKY. I certainly don’t think that. I’m the same blackguard and swine in man’s clothing¹⁵ as everyone else. Mauvais ton, an old has-been. I always have a bad word for myself too. Who am I? What am I? I was rich, independent, somewhat happy, and now . . . a parasite, a freeloader, a dislocated buffoon . . . If I get indignant, if I express disdain, people laugh in my face; if I laugh, they shake their heads at me sadly and say: the old man’s off his rocker . . . Most of the time, though, they don’t listen to me, take no notice of me . . .

ANNA PETROVNA (calmly). Screeching again . . .

SHABELSKY. Who’s screeching?

ANNA PETROVNA. The owl. It screeches every evening.

SHABELSKY. Let it screech. Things can’t get worse than they already are. (Stretches.) Ah, my dearest Sarra, just let me win one or two hundred thousand, and then watch me kick up my heels! . . . You wouldn’t see me for dust. I’d run away from this dump, from freeloading, and I wouldn’t set foot here till doomsday . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. And just what would you do if you won?

SHABELSKY (after a moment’s thought). I? First of all I’d go to Moscow and listen to gypsy music. Then . . . then I’d scamper off to Paris. I’d rent an apartment, attend the embassy church . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. What else?

SHABELSKY. I’d spend whole days sitting by my wife’s grave, lost in thought. I would sit at her grave like that till I kicked the bucket. My wife is buried in Paris . . .

Pause.

ANNA PETROVNA. That’s awfully depressing. Shall we play another duet or something?

SHABELSKY. All right. Get out the music.

ANNA PETROVNA exits.

V

SHABELSKY, IVANOV, and LVOV.

IVANOV (appearing on the path with Lvov). Dear friend, you got your degree only last year, you’re still young and vigorous, but I’m thirty-five. I have the right to give you advice. Don’t marry Jewish girls or neurotics or intellectuals, but pick out something ordinary, drab, without flashy colors or extraneous sounds. Generally speaking, match your life to a standard pattern. The grayer and more monotonous the background, the better. My dear man, don’t wage war singlehandedly against thousands, don’t tilt at windmills, don’t run headlong into walls . . . God forbid you go in for any experimental farming methods, alternative schools, impassioned speeches . . . Shut yourself up in your shell and go about your petty, God-given business. That’s more comfortable, more authentic, more healthy. Whereas the life I’ve led, — what a bore! Ah, what a bore! . . . So many mistakes, injustices, so much absurdity . . . (On seeing the Count, annoyed.) You’re always spinning around in front of us, uncle, you never let me have a moment’s privacy!

SHABELSKY (in a tearful voice). Damn it all, there’s no place for me anywhere. (Jumps up and goes into the house.)

IVANOV (shouts after him). There, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. (To Lvov.) Why did I have to insult him? No, I’m definitely going to pieces. Got to get a grip on myself. Got to . . .

LVOV (overwrought). Nikolay Alekseevich, I’ve been listening to you and . . . and, excuse me, I’ll speak frankly, no beating about the bush. Your voice, your intonations, let alone your words, are so full of heartless egotism, such cold cruelty . . . A person near and dear to you is perishing because she is near to you, her days are numbered, while you . . . you cannot love, you take walks, hand out advice, strike poses . . . I cannot find a way to express it, I haven’t got the gift of gab, but . . . but I find you deeply repugnant! . . .

IVANOV. Could be, could be . . . A third party might have a clearer picture . . . It’s quite possible that you do understand me . . . I’m probably very, very much at fault . . . (Lends an ear.) I think the horses have been brought round. I have to go and change . . . (He walks to the house and stops.) Doctor, you don’t like me and you don’t conceal the fact. It does your heart credit . . . (Exits into the house.)

LVOV (alone). This damned temper of mine . . . Again I missed my chance and didn’t talk to him the way I should . . . I can’t talk to him coolly and calmly! No sooner do I open my mouth and say a single word, when something here (points to his chest) starts to choke up, goes in reverse, and my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth . . . I hate this Tartuffe,¹⁶ this puffed-up swindler, most heartily . . . Now he’s going out . . . His unhappy wife’s one pleasure is his being near her; she breathes through him, pleads with him to spend at least one night with her, and he . . . he cannot . . . For him, you see, the house is stifling and claustrophobic. If he spent even one night at home, he’d put a bullet through his brain from sheer ennui! Poor fellow . . . he needs wide open spaces, so he can perpetrate some more underhanded acts . . . Oh, I know why you ride over to those Lebedevs every night! I know!

VI

LVOV, IVANOV (in a hat and overcoat), SHABELSKY, and ANNA PETROVNA.

SHABELSKY (coming out of the house with Ivanov and Anna Petrovna). Really, Nicolas, this is inhuman! You go out every night by yourself, and leave us all on our own. Bored stiff, we go to bed at eight o’clock. This is an abomination, not life! How come you can go out and we can’t? How come?

ANNA PETROVNA. Count, leave him alone! Let him go, let him . . .

IVANOV (to his wife). Well, where would you, a sick woman, go? You’re sick and you mustn’t go out of doors after sundown . . . Ask the doctor here. You’re not a child, Anyuta, you have to be sensible . . . (To the Count.) And why should you go out?

SHABELSKY. I’d go to blue blazes, I’d crawl down a crocodile’s gullet rather than stay here. I’m bored . . . I’m petrified with boredom . . . Everybody’s sick and tired of me . . . You leave me at home so she won’t be bored on her own, and I’ve nagged her to death, chewed her to pieces!

ANNA PETROVNA. Leave him alone, Count, leave him! Let him go if it gives him pleasure.

IVANOV. Anya, why take that tone? You know I don’t go there for pleasure! I have to discuss the terms of the loan.

ANNA PETROVNA. I don’t understand why you feel the need to make excuses? Go ahead! Who’s keeping you here?

IVANOV. Friends, let’s not devour one another! Is this absolutely necessary?

SHABELSKY (in a tearful voice). Nicolas, dear boy, do please take me with you! I’ll get an eyeful of those crooks and idiots and, maybe, have some fun! Honestly, I haven’t been anywhere since Easter . . .

IVANOV (annoyed). All right, let’s go! I’m sick and tired of the lot of you!

SHABELSKY. Really? Well, merci, merci. . . (Merrily takes him by the arm and leads him aside.) May I wear your straw hat?

IVANOV. You may, only hurry up, for pity’s sake!

The COUNT runs into the house.

You have to be reasonable, Anya. Get better and then we’ll go out, but for now you need your rest . . . Well, good-bye . . . . (Walks over to his wife and kisses her on the head.) I’ll be back by one . . .

ANNA PETROVNA (leads him down to the footlights). Kolya . . . (Laughs.) What if you stayed home? We could turn somersaults in the hay the way we used to . . . we could have supper together, read . . . The grouch and I have practiced lots of duets for you . . .

Pause

Stay home, we’ll have a laugh . . . (Laughs and weeps.) Or, Kolya, how does it go? The flowers return every spring, but joy never does?¹⁷ Am I right? Well, go on, go on . . .

IVANOV. I . . . I’ll be back soon . . . (Goes, stops and thinks.) No, I can’t! . . . (He exits.)

ANNA PETROVNA. Go on . . . (Sits at the table.)

LVOV (paces up and down the stage). Anna Petrovna, make yourself a rule: as soon as the clock strikes six, you have to go to your room and not come out until morning. The evening damp is bad for your health . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. Your wish is my command, sir . . .

LVOV. What’s “your wish is my command, sir” supposed to mean! I’m talking seriously.

ANNA PETROVNA. Then try to talk unseriously. (Coughs.)

LVOV. There, you see, you’re coughing already . . .

VII

LVOV, ANNA PETROVNA, and SHABELSKY.

SHABELSKY (comes out of the house in a hat and overcoat). Where is he? (Goes quickly, stops in front of Anna Petrovna and makes a face.) Gevalt . . . Vay iss mir . . . Pekh . . . Gevalt . . .¹⁸ Excusink me, pliss! (Bursts out laughing and makes a rapid exit.)

LVOV. Buffoon . . .

Pause. The distant strains of a concertina are heard.

ANNA PETROVNA (stretches). How boring . . . Out there the coachmen and the cooks are having a dance, while I . . . I’m like some thing that’s been discarded . . . Yevgeny Konstantinovich, why are you pacing back and forth? Come over here, sit down! . . .

LVOV. I can’t sit down . . .

Pause.

ANNA PETROVNA. Doctor, are your father and mother still alive?

LVOV. My father’s dead, my mother’s alive.

ANNA PETROVNA. Do you miss your mother?

LVOV. I’ve no time to miss anyone.

ANNA PETROVNA (laughs). The flowers return every spring, but joy never does. Who quoted that line to me? God help my memory . . . I think Nikolay quoted it. (Lends an ear.) The owl is screeching again!

LVOV. Then let it screech . . .

Pause.

ANNA PETROVNA. Doctor, I’m beginning to think that Fate has dealt me a losing hand. Most people, who may be no better than I am, lead happy lives and never pay for their happiness, why am I the only one to pay at such a cost? Why am I being charged such high interest? . . . What did you say?

LVOV. I didn’t say anything.

ANNA PETROVNA. And I’m starting to wonder so much at the unfairness of people: why don’t they reciprocate love for love, why do they pay back truth with lies? (Shrugs her shoulders.) Doctor, you’re not a family man, so you can’t understand a lot of this . . .

LVOV. You wonder . . . (He sits beside her.) No, I wonder, wonder at you! . . . Now, explain, spell it out for me, for heaven’s sake, how could you, an intelligent, honorable, almost saintly woman, have let yourself be so brazenly tricked and dragged into this nest of screech owls? Why are you here? What do you have in common with this cold, heartless—but let’s leave your husband out of it! . . . what do you have in common with this vacuous, vulgar milieu? Oh, good God in heaven . . . This constantly grumbling, decrepit, insane count, this creepy super-swindler Misha, with that repulsive look on his face . . . Explain to me, what are you doing here? How did you end up here?

ANNA PETROVNA (laughs). That’s exactly the way he used to talk . . . Word for word . . . But his eyes are bigger, and when he used to talk about something with enthusiasm, they’d be like glowing coals . . . Keep talking, keep talking . . .

LVOV (rises and waves his hand in dismissal). What am I supposed to talk about? Please go inside . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. You say that Nikolay’s this and that, six of one, half of a dozen of the other. How do you know this? Can you really analyze a person in six months’ time? Doctor, he’s a remarkable man, and I’m sorry that you didn’t get to know him two or three years ago. Now he’s depressed, taciturn, doesn’t do anything, but in the past . . . Such splendor! . . . I fell in love with him at first sight. (Laughs.) One glimpse of him and I was caught in the mousetrap, snap! . . . He said: let’s go . . . I cut myself off from everything, you know, the way people snip off withered leaves with a scissors, and I went . . .

Pause.

And now it’s different . . . Now he goes to the Lebedevs, to be entertained by other women, while I . . . I sit in the garden and listen to the owl screeching . . .

The WATCHMAN taps.¹⁹

Doctor, don’t you have any brothers?

LVOV. No.

ANNA PETROVNA sobs.

Well, what is it now, what’s wrong with you?

ANNA PETROVNA (rises). I can’t help it, Doctor, I’m going to go over there . . .

LVOV. Over where? . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. Where he is . . . I’ll drive over there . . . Have them harness the horses . . . (Runs to the house.)

LVOV. You can’t possibly go . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. Leave me alone, it’s none of your business . . . I can’t stand it, I shall go . . . Have them bring the horses . . . (Runs into the house.)

LVOV. No, I definitely refuse to practice under such conditions . . . It’s not bad enough that they don’t pay me a penny, but they also turn my feelings inside-out! . . . No, I refuse, enough is enough! . . . (Goes into the house.)

Curtain

ACT TWO

A reception room in the Lebedevs’ house. At right, an entry directly into the garden, doors right and left. Antique, expensive furniture. A chandelier, candelabrums, and pictures, all under dustcovers.²⁰ To the left of the door a sofa, in front of it a round table with a large lamp, armchairs beside it, on the downstage side of the table against the wall three armchairs in a row. At right an upright piano, with a fiddle lying on it; chairs on either side of it. Upstage, near the entry to the veranda an unfolded card table.

I

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA, DUDKIN, FIRST GUEST, SECOND GUEST, KOSYKH, AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA, YEGORUSHKA, GAVRILA, MAID-SERVANT, TWO OLD LADY GUESTS, YOUNG LADIES, and BABAKINA.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA is sitting on the sofa; on both sides of her in armchairs are the old lady guests; across from her on straight chairs sit DUDKIN, FIRST GUEST, and five or six young ladies. At the card table KOSYKH, AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA, YEGORUSHKA, and two guests are seated, playing cards.²¹ GAVRILA is standing by the door at right. The MAIDSERVANT is handing round a tray of sweetmeats. Guests circulate from the garden to the door at right and back again.

BABAKINA enters through the door at right and heads for Zinaida Savishna.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (delighted). Sweetheart, Marfa Yegorovna . . .

BABAKINA. How are you, Zinaida Savishna . . . I’m honored to congratulate you on your birthday girl . . .

They exchange kisses.

God bless . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. Thank you, sweetheart, I’m pleased to see you . . . Well, how are you feeling?

BABAKINA. Thanks ever so for asking. (Sits next to the sofa.) How are you, young people!

DUDKIN and FIRST GUEST rise and bow.

FIRST GUEST (laughs). Young people . . . Are you so old?

BABAKINA (sighing). What would we be doing among the youngsters?

FIRST GUEST (laughs respectfully). For heaven’s sake, how can you . . .

DUDKIN. You may be what’s called a widow, but you could give a nine-point handicap to any young woman . . .

GAVRILA serves Babakina tea.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (to Gavrila). Why are you serving it like that? You should bring some preserves . . . gooseberry or something . . .

BABAKINA. Don’t go to the trouble, thanks ever so . . .

Pause.

DUDKIN Did you come by way of Mushkino, Marfa Yegorovna? . . .

BABAKINA. No, Zamishche. The road’s better there . . .

DUDKIN. True enough, ma’am . . .

KOSYKH. Two spades . . .

YEGORUSHKA. Pass.

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. Pass.

SECOND GUEST. Pass.

BABAKINA. Lottery tickets, Zinaida Savishna sweetheart, have gone right through the roof again.²² Have you ever heard of such a thing: the first drawing already costs two hundred and seventy, and the second well nigh two hundred and fifty . . . Never heard of anything like it . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (sighs). It’s all very well for those who’ve got a lot of them . . .

BABAKINA. Don’t you think so, sweetheart; they may cost a lot, but they make an unprofitable investment for your capital. The insurance alone will be the death of you.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. That’s so, but all the same, my dear, you go on hoping . . . (Sighs.) God is merciful . . .

DUDKIN. At the present time, if you consider it from a point of view, wherever you invest your money, there’s no profit in it. Gilt-edged securities are nothing but a pain, but on the other hand unloading ‘em — I wouldn’t go that far: it sounds like you’re whistling in the dark. The way I see it, if a person’s got money, the very best thing for him would be buy a revolver, fire it and rest in peace . . . There’s why money nowadays is nothing but a headache . . .

BABAKINA (sighs). That’s so true!

FIRST GUEST (to the young lady beside him.) A man walks up up to another man and sees—there’s a dog sitting there. (Laughs.) So he asks, “What’s your dog’s name?” And the other man says, “Liqueurs.” (Roars with laughter.) Liqueurs . . . Get it? Like-yours . . . (Embarrassed.)

DUDKIN. At our warehouse in town we’ve got a dog, his name is Fake-fur . . .

BABAKINA. What?

DUDKIN. Fake-fur.

Faint laughter. ZINAIDA SAVISHNA gets up and goes out the door at right. A prolonged silence.

YEGORUSHKA. Two diamonds.

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. Pass.

SECOND GUEST. Pass.

KOSYKH. Pass.

II

The same, ZINAIDA SAVISHNA, and LEBEDEV.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (entering from the door right with Lebedev, quietly). Why are you planted out there? What a prima donna! Sit with the guests . . . (Sits in her former place.)

LEBEDEV (going to the armchair farthest at left, yawns). Ugh, forgive us sinners . . . (On seeing Babakina.) Good Lord, our pot of jam is sitting here! . . .Our Turkish delight! . . . (Greets her.) How is your most precious little self?

BABAKINA. Thanks ever so.

LEBEDEV. Well, God be praised, God be praised . . . (Sits in an armchair.) Well, well . . . Gavrila!

GAVRÍLA serves him a shot of vodka and a glass of water; he drinks the vodka and chases it down with water.

DUDKIN. Your very good health! . . .

LEBEDEV. What do you mean, good health? I haven’t croaked yet, and I’m thankful for that. (To his wife.) Zyuzyushka, where’s our birthday girl?

KOSYKH (tearfully). Tell me, for heaven’s sake: well, how come we didn’t take a single trick? (Leaps up.) Well, then why did we lose, damn it all to hell!

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (leaps up, angrily). Because, my good man, if you don’t know how to play, don’t sit in . . . Since when are you entitled to lead somebody else’s suit? That’s how you got stuck with that pickled ace of yours . . .

They both run out from behind the table.

KOSYKH (in a tearful voice). If I may, my friends . . . I was holding diamonds: ace, king, queen, jack, and eight low cards, ace of spades and one, you understand, one lousy little heart, and she, for some damn reason, couldn’t call a little slam! . . . I bid no trumps . . .

AVDOTYA NAZARONA (interrupting). I’m the one who bid no trumps! You bid: two no trumps . . .²³

KOSYKH. This is a disgrace! . . . If I may . . . you had . . . I had . . . you had . . . (To Lebedev.) Now you be the judge, Pavel Kirillych . . . I was holding diamonds: ace, king, queen, jack, and eight low cards . . .

LEBEDEV (covers up his ears). Stop, do me a favor . . . stop . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (shouts). I was the one who bid: no trumps!

KOSYKH (fiercely). Call me a villain and an outcast if I ever sit down to play with that old barracuda again! (Quickly heads for the veranda, but stops at the card table; to Yegorushka.) Did you keep count? What did you write down? Hold on . . . thirty-eight times eight . . . is . . . eighty-eight . . . Oh, the hell with it! . . . (Exits into the garden.)

SECOND GUEST follows him out, YEGORUSHKA remains at

the table.

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. Oof . . . He’s got me all overheated . . . . Stickle-back . . . Barracuda yourself! . . .

BABAKINA. Well, now you’ve gone and lost your temper, granny . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (on seeing Babakina, throws up her hands). My honey-bun, my beauty! . . . She’s here, and, blind as a biddy, I didn’t see her . . . Sweetie-pie . . . (Kisses her on the shoulder and sits beside her.) What a treat! Let me take a good look at you, my snow-white swan! Poo, poo, poo . . . evil eye begone! . . .²⁴

LEBEDEV. Well, now she’s wound up . . . You’d better find her a bridegroom . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. And I will! I won’t go quiet to my grave, with all my sins on my head, until I get her married and your Sanichka too! I won’t go quiet . . . (Deep sigh.) Only there now, where are you to find bridegrooms nowadays? There they sit, these bridegrooms of ours, as crestfallen as drenched roosters! . . .

DUDKIN. Because no one’s paying us any attention . . .

III

The same and SASHA.

SASHA enters from the garden and quietly goes to her father.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. Sashenka, don’t you see that Marfa Yegorovna is here?

SASHA. Sorry. (Goes to Babakina and greets her.)

BABAKINA. You’re getting to be quite standoffish, Sanichka, quite standoffish . . . haven’t paid me a single visit.

Exchanges kisses.

Congratulations, sweetheart . . .

SASHA. Thank you. (Sits next to her father.)

LEBEDEV. Yes, Avdotya Nazarovna, it’s hard to find bridegrooms nowadays. Not just bridegrooms—you can’t get a passable best man. The young people these days, no offense meant, have, God bless ‘em, an off-taste, like leftovers reheated . . . Can’t dance or talk or have a serious drink with ‘em . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. Well, drinking’s one thing they know all about, just let ‘em at it . . .

LEBEDEV. There’s no great trick to drinking, even a horse knows how to drink . . . No, I’m talking serious drinking! . . . In our time, used to be, you’d get worn out at lectures all day long, and as soon as it was dark, you’d go straight to wherever a fire was blazing and spin like a top till dawn came up . . . And you’d dance, and flirt with the young ladies, and that took knowhow. (Flicks himself on the throat.)²⁵ Used to be, you’d blather and philosophize till your jaw came unhinged . . . But nowadays . . . (Waves his hand in dismissal.) I don’t understand . . . They’re wishy-washy, neither this nor that. In the whole district there’s only one decent fellow, and he’s married (sighs) and it looks like he’s starting to go crazy too . . .

BABAKINA. Who’s that?

LEBEDEV. Nikolasha Ivanov.

BABAKINA. Yes, he’s a good man (makes a face), only so unhappy! . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. You said it, sweetheart, how can he be happy! (Sighs.) What a mistake he made, poor thing! He married his kike bitch²⁶ and figured, poor thing, that her father and mother would heap mountains of gold on her, but it came out quite the opposite . . . From the time she converted, her father and mother wouldn’t have anything to do with her, cursed her . . . Not a penny did he get out of them. He’s sorry for it now, but it’s too late . . .

SASHA. Mama, that’s not true . . .

BABAKINA (heatedly). Shurochka, why isn’t it true? After all, everybody knows it. If it weren’t for gain, why else would he marry the kike bitch? Aren’t there plenty of Russian girls? He miscalculated, sweetheart, miscalculated . . . (Vigorously.) Lord, and now doesn’t he make it hot for her, the slut! . . . Simply laughable . . . He’ll come home from somewhere and right away he goes: “Your father and mother cheated me! Get out of my house!” And where can she go? Father and mother won’t take her in, she could become a housemaid, but she wasn’t brought up to work . . . So he rags on her and rags on her, until the Count stands up for her. If it weren’t for the Count, he would have done her in long ago . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. Besides that, sometimes he locks her up in the cellar with “Eat your garlic, you so-and-so”²⁷. . . She eats it and eats it, till she starts to stink from the inside out.

Laughter.

SASHA. Papa, that’s got to be another lie!

LEBEDEV. Well, so what? Let ‘em gossip if it keeps ‘em healthy . . . (Shouts.) Gavrila!

GAVRILA serves him vodka and water.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. So that’s why he’s ruined, poor thing. His business, sweetheart, has quite fallen off . . . If Borkin weren’t looking after the estate, there wouldn’t be anything for him and his kike bitch to eat. (Sighs.) As for us, sweetheart, the way we’ve suffered on account of him! . . . Suffered so much that only God can tell! Would you believe, my dear, for three years now, he’s owed us nine thousand . . .

BABAKINA (horrified). Nine thousand!

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. Yes . . . It was that hubby dear of mine who arranged to lend it to him . . . He can’t tell the difference between someone you can lend to and someone you can’t . . . The principal I’ve given up on already, may it rest in peace, but I wish he’d pay the interest on time . . .

SASHA (heatedly). Mama, you’ve told us about this a thousand times already.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. What’s got into you? Why are you standing up for him?

SASHA (rises). But how can you have the heart to say such things about an honest, decent man who never did you any harm? Why, what has he done to you?

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (sneering). Decent and honest man . . .

FIRST GUEST (sincerely). Aleksandra Pavlovna, I assure you that you’re quite mistaken . . . How is he honest? (Gets up.) Do you call that honesty? Two years ago, during the cattle epidemic, he bought livestock, insured the cattle . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (interrupting). He insured the cattle, infected them with cow-pox and collected the insurance money. Honesty . . .

FIRST GUEST. Everyone knows it perfectly well. . .

SASHA. It’s not true, it a lie. Nobody bought cattle and infected them, it’s only Borkin who concocted that scheme and bragged about it all over the place. When Ivanov found out about it, Borkin had to beg his forgiveness for two weeks running. Ivanov’s only fault is that he has a weak and generous nature and doesn’t have the heart to kick Borkin out . . .

FIRST GUEST. A weak nature . . . (Laughs.) Aleksandra Pavlovna, honest to God, open your eyes . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. You should be ashamed to stand up for him . . .

SASHA. I’m sorry that I got involved in this conversation . . . (Walks quickly to the door at right.)

LEBEDEV. Shura’s a hothead! . . . (Laughs.) The girl’s a powder-keg . . .

FIRST GUEST (stands in her path). Aleksandra Pavlovna, honest to God, I won’t go on! . . . Sorry . . . word of honor, I won’t do it any more! . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. At least in front of the guests, Sashenka, don’t display your temper.

SASHA (in a quavering voice). All his life he’s worked for others; everything he had has been filched and pilfered from him; because of his generous projects anyone who wanted could make a fortune out of him . . . Never in his life has he defiled himself with lies, scheming, not once have I heard that he spoke ill of anyone . . . and what’s the result? Wherever you go, all you hear is: Ivanov, Ivanov, Ivanov . . . as if there were no other topic of conversation.

LEBEDEV. Hot head . . . That’ll do . . . .

SASHA. Yes, he’s made mistakes, but every mistake made by such people as he is worth twenty times our good deeds . . . If you could only . . . (Looks around and sees Ivanov and Shabelsky.)

IV

The same, IVANOV, and SHABELSKY.

SHABELSKY (entering with Ivanov from the door at right). Who’s speechifying around here? You, Shurochka! (Roars with laughter and shakes her hand.) Congratulations, my angel. May God postpone your death and make sure you’re not reincarnated . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (gleefully). Nikolay Alekseevich . . . Count! . . .

LEBEDEV. Bah . . . Who do I see . . . Count! . . . (Goes to meet him.)

SHABELSKY (on seeing Zinaida Savishna and Babakina, extends his arms in their direction). Two gold-mines on one sofa! A sight for sore eyes . . . (Greets them; to Zinaida Savishna.) How are you, Zyuzyushka. (to Babakina.) How are you, my little puff-ball . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. I’m so pleased. You’re such an infrequent guest here, Count! (Shouts ) Gavrila, tea . . . Please, take a seat . . . (Gets up, exits through the door right, and immediately returns, with an extremely preoccupied look.)

SASHA sits in her former seat. IVANOV, after silently exchanging greetings with everyone, sits beside her. The YOUNG LADIES like a flock of geese pass back and forth to the veranda.

LEBEDEV (to Shabelsky). Where’ve you turned up from out of the blue? What wild horses have dragged you here? This is a surprise, or I’ll be damned . . . (Kisses him.) Count, you’re a real cutthroat . . . Respectable people don’t behave this way . . . (Takes him by the arm down to the footlights.) Why haven’t you visited us? Angry or something?

SHABELSKY. How am I supposed to visit you? Flying on a broomstick? I haven’t got horses of my own, and Nikolay won’t take me with him, makes me stay with the kike so she won’t get bored. Send your own horses for me, and then I’ll pay you a visit . . .

LEBEDEV (waves his hand in dismissal). Oh sure . . . Zyuzyushka would rather drop dead than use the horses. Old pal, dear man, you really are dearer and sweeter to me than all the rest of them! Of all the old-timers, you and I are the only ones left! “In you I love my bygone suff’rings, In you I love my wasted youth . . .”²⁸ Joking aside, I could almost weep. (Kisses the Count.)

SHABELSKY. Cut it out, cut it out! You smell like a wine cellar . . .

LEBEDEV. Dear heart, you can’t imagine how bored I am without my friends! Ready to hang myself from tedium . . . (Quietly.) Zyuzyushka and her money-lending have driven away all the respectable people, there’s only Zulus left . . . these Dudkins, Budkins . . . Here, have some tea . . .

GAVRILA serves the Count tea.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (walks over to the Count; worried, to Gavrila). Well, how are you serving it? You should bring some preserves . . . Gooseberry or something . . .

SHABELSKY (roars with laughter; to Ivanov). There, didn’t I tell you? (to Lebedev.) I made a bet with him on the way that, as soon as we got here, Zyuzyushka would immediately offer us gooseberry preserves . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. Count, you’re still the same scoffer . . . (Sits on the sofa.)

LEBEDEV. Twenty kegs they made of it, how else can you get rid of the stuff?

SHABELSKY (sitting in an armchair next to the table). Still saving up, Zyuzyushka? Well now, are you a millionaire yet, eh?

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (with a deep sigh). Yes, if you judge by appearances, nobody’s richer than we are, but where’s the money coming from? Nothing but talk . . .

SHABELSKY. Well, yes, yes! . . . we know! . . . “We know how badly you play checkers”²⁹ . . . (To Lebedev.) Pasha, tell me on your honor, have you saved up a million? . . .

LEBEDEV. For heaven’s sake, I don’t know, you’d better ask Zyuzyushka . . .

SHABELSKY (to Babakina). And my pudgy little puff-ball is soon going to have a little million! . . . Good grief, she’s getting prettier and plumper not by the day, but by the hour! . . . That’s what it means to have lots of dough . . .

BABAKINA. Thanks ever so, your highness, only I don’t like being made fun of.

SHABELSKY. My dearest gold-mine, how am I making fun of you? It’s simply a cry from the heart, a spontaneous overflow of feelings that finds issue at my lips . . . I love you and Zyuzyushka infinitely . . . (Merrily.) Excitement! . . . Ecstasy . . . I can’t gaze on either one of you indifferently . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. You’re just the same as ever. (to Yegorushka.) Yegorushka, put out the candles! Why do you let them burn for no reason, if you’re not playing?

YEGORUSHKA is startled; puts out the candles and sits down.

(To Ivanov.) Nikolay Alekseevich, how is your lady wife getting on?

IVANOV. Badly. Today the doctor definitely confirmed that she has tuberculosis . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. You don’t say so? What a pity! . . . (Sighs.) We’re all so fond of her . . .

SHABELSKY. Hogwash, hogwash, hogwash! . . . It’s not tuberculosis, just medical quackery, hocus-pocus. Æsculapius³⁰ wants to hang around, so he comes up with tuberculosis. Luckily the husband’s not the jealous type . . .

IVANOV makes a gesture of impatience.

As for Sarra herself, she’s a Semite. I don’t trust a single one of her words or movements . . . Excusink me pliss, oy vay iss mir . . . Go ahead and kill me, but I don’t trust her . . . Forgive me, Nicolas, but . . . after all . . . I’m not saying anything particularly bad . . . In my opinion, if Sarra took ill, it means she’s schemed up a gescheft,³¹ but I don’t believe she’s going to die: that’s a gesheft too . . .

LEBEDEV (to Shabelsky). You’re an incredible character, Matvey . . . You put on this misanthrope act and show it off like a retarded kid with a new toy. You’re as human as anyone else, but once you start talking, it’s as if your tongue were spewing poison or you had a hacking cough . . . Yes, honest to God! . . .

SHABELSKY. What am I supposed to do, be lovey-dovey with swindlers and scoundrels, I suppose? . . .

LEBEDEV. Just where do you see swindlers and scoundrels?

SHABELSKY. Present company excepted, of course, but . . .

LEBEDEV. There’s that “but” of yours . . . This is all an act . . .

SHABELSKY. An act . . . You’re lucky you don’t have any sort of worldview.

LEBEDEV. Why should I have a worldview? . . . I sit, expecting to drop dead any minute — that’s my worldview. You and I, my boy, haven’t got time to concoct worldviews . . . That’s how it goes . . . (Shouts.) Gavrila! . . .

SHABELSKY. You’ve Gavrila-ed it up enough already . . . Look how red your nose has got! . . .

LEBEDEV (drinks). Never mind, dear heart . . . I’m not going to get married today . . .

V

The same and BORKIN.

BORKIN, dressed foppishly, holding a package, skipping and humming, enters from the door at right. A murmur of approval.

Together

YOUNG LADIES

. Mikhail Mikhailovich . . .

LEBEDEV

.

Michel Michelich

! . . . Do my ears deceive me . . .

SHABELSKY

. The life of the party! . . .

BORKIN. Here I am again . . . (Runs over to Sasha.) Noble signorina, I make so bold as to congratulate the universe on the birth of such a marvelous blossom as yourself . . . As a token of my delight, I venture to present you (hands over the package) with fireworks and Bengal lights³² of my own making. May they light up the night just as you brighten the shadows of this kingdom of darkness! . . . (Theatrical bow.)

SASHA. Thank you . . .

LEBEDEV (roars with laughter, to Ivanov). Why don’t you fire this Judas?

BORKIN (to Lebedev). Pavel Kirillich . . . (To Ivanov.) My patron . . . (Sings.) Nicolas-voilä, ho-hi-ho! (Goes round to everyone.) The most respected Zinaida Savishna . . . The most divine Marfa Yegorovna . . . The most venerable Avdotya Nazarovna . . . The most highnessy Count . . .

SHABELSKY (roars with laughter). The life of the party . . . Hardly in the door and the mood’s lifted . . . Have you noticed?

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA, BABAKINA, and the COUNT get up from behind the table and converse standing up. TWO OLD LADIES leave.

BORKIN. Oof . . . I’m worn out . . . I think I’ve greeted everyone. Well, what’s new, ladies and gentlemen? Nothing special, that hits you over the head? (Vigorously to Zinaida Savishna.) Ah, listen, mamma dear . . . As I’m riding over here just now . . . (to Gavrila.) Let me have some tea, Gavrusha, only no gooseberry preserves. (to Zinaida Savishna.) As I’m riding over here just now, peasants on the riverbank were stripping bark from your willow bushes. Why don’t you lease out your willow bushes?

LEBEDEV (roaring with laughter, to Ivanov). Why don’t you fire this Judas?

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (alarmed). Why, that’s perfectly true, it never crossed my mind!

BORKIN (does calesthenics with his arms). I can’t sit still . . . Mamma dear, anything special we can turn our hand to? Marfa Yegorovna, I’m in good form . . . I’m in tiptop shape. (Sings.) “Once again I stand before you . . .”³³

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. Organize something, otherwise we’ll die of boredom.

BORKIN. Ladies and gentlemen, why these long faces? They’re sitting around like jurymen in a box . . . Let’s come up with something . . . What would you enjoy? truth or dare, jump-rope, tag, dancing?

YOUNG LADIES (clap their hands). Dancing, dancing . . . . (They run into the garden.)

BORKIN. I’m all set . . . Dudkin, start dancing! . . . (Moves armchairs to the wall.) Yegorushka, where are you? Tune up the fiddle . . .

YEGORUSHKA shudders and goes to the piano. BORKIN sits at the piano and hits an A. YEGORUSHKA tunes the fiddle.

IVANOV (to Lebedev). I have a request, Pasha. The day after tomorrow is when my note falls due, and I’ve got no way to pay the interest. Is there any way to offer an extension or add the interest to the principal?

LEBEDEV (alarmed). My dear boy, it’s no affair of mine . . . Talk it over with Zyuzyushka, but I . . . I know nothing about it . . .

IVANOV (rubs his forehead). This is agony! . . .

SASHA. What’s wrong with you?

IVANOV. I feel repulsive today.

SASHA. I can see that by your face . . . Let’s go into the drawing-room . . .

IVANOV and SASHA go out the door at right.

BORKIN (shouts). The music’s about to start . . .

DUDKIN invites Babakina.

BABAKINA. No, it would be sinful if I danced today. My husband died on this very day . . .

BORKIN and YEGORUSHKA play the polka “Å propos Faust”; the COUNT puts his hands over his ears and goes out on the veranda. He is followed by AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. It is evident from Dudkin’s movements that he is trying to convince Babakina of something. The young ladies ask the First Guest to dance, but he refuses. DUDKIN waves his hand in dismissal and goes out into the garden.

BORKIN (looking around). Ladies and gentlemen, what’s going on? (Stops playing). Why aren’t you dancing?

YOUNG LADIES. We’ve got no partners . . .

BORKIN (gets up). Which means we’re not going to get anywhere . . . In that case let’s go let off some fireworks or something . . .

YOUNG LADIES (clap their hands). Fireworks, fireworks . . . (They run into the garden.)

BORKIN (takes the package and offers his hand to Babakina). Zheh voo pree . . .³⁴ (Shouts.) Ladies and gentleman, to the garden . . . (Exits.)

Everyone exits, except LEBEDEV and ZINAIDA SAVISHNA.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. That’s my idea of a young man. The minute he arrives, everyone cheers up. (Turns down the big lamp.) Since they’re all in the garden, there’s no need to leave lights burning. (Puts out the candles.)

LEBEDEV (following her). Zyuzyushka, we have to give the guests something to eat . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. Look at all these candles . . . no wonder people think we’re rich. (Puts them out.)

LEBEDEV (following her). Zyuzyushka, for heaven’s sake, you should give people something to eat . . . . They’re young, they must be starving by now, poor things . . . Zyuzyushka . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. The Count didn’t finish his tea. A waste of perfectly good sugar. I’ll put it aside and give it to Matryona to drink. (Takes the glass and goes out the door at left.)

LEBEDEV. Drat! . . . (He goes into the garden.)

VI

IVANOV and SASHA.

SASHA (entering with Ivanov from the door at right). Everyone’s gone into the garden . . .

IVANOV. That’s the way things are, Shurochka. I don’t do anything or think about anything, and I’m exhausted, body and soul . . . Day and night my conscience bothers me, I feel that I’m deeply at fault, but where that fault lies, I can’t figure out . . . And then there’s my wife’s illness, lack of money, the constant grumbling, gossip, noise . . . My home has become loathsome to me, living in it is worse than torture. (He looks around.) I don’t know what’s come over me, I tell you frankly, Shurochka, what’s become unbearable for me is the company of my wife, who loves me . . . and such filthy, selfish thoughts creep into my head, which I couldn’t even conceive of before . . .

Pause.

It’s nasty . . . I’m pestering you with my tedium, Shurochka, forgive me, but I can forget only at those moments when I’m talking to you, my friend . . . Around you I’m like a dog barking at the sun. Shurochka, I’ve known you since the time you were born, I’ve always loved you, spoiled you . . . I would give a great deal to have a daughter like you right now . . .

SASHA (joking, through tears). Nikolay Alekseevich, let’s run away to America . . .

IVANOV. I feel too listless to cross that threshold, and you come up with America . . .

They walk to the entry to the garden.

Well now, Shura, is it hard to go on living? I see, I see it all . . . This air doesn’t suit you . . .

VII

The same and ZINAIDA SAVISHNA.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA comes out of the door at left.

IVANOV. Sorry, Shurochka, I’ll catch up with you . . .

SASHA exits into the garden.

Zinaida Savishna, forgive me, I’ve come here with a request . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. What’s the matter, Nikolay Alekseevich?

IVANOV (hesitates). The fact is, you see, the day after tomorrow is the date my note falls due. I’d be very much obliged if you could offer an extension or let me add the interest to the principal. At the moment I have absolutely no money . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (alarmed). Nikolay Alekseevich, how can this be? What kind of a system is this? No, don’t even think of such a thing, for heaven’s sake, don’t torment an unhappy woman like me . . .

IVANOV. Sorry, sorry . . . (Goes into the garden.)

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. Pooh, good heavens, how he upset me! . . . I’m trembling all over . . . trembling . . . (Goes out the door at right.)

VIII

KOSYKH.

KOSYKH (enters at the door left and crosses the stage). I was holding spades: ace, king, queen, jack, eight low spades, ace, and one . . . one puny little heart and she, damn her to hell, can’t call one little slam . . . (Exits through door at right.)

IX

DUDKIN and AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA.

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (enters from the garden with Dudkin). How I’d like to tear her to shreds, the tightwad . . . how I’d like to tear her to shreds . . . Is this a joke, I’m sitting here from five o’clock, she could at least offer me a little rusty herring . . . What a house . . . What entertainment . . .

DUDKIN. Hold on, we’ll worm some schnapps out of Yegorushka. I’ll have a drink, old girl, and then — off home! Oh, the hell with it all! . . . With the boredom and the hunger you could howl like a wolf . . . And I don’t need any of your brides . . . How the hell can a man think of love if he hasn’t had a nip since lunch? . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. It’s not Sashenka’s fault . . . It’s all her mother’s doing . . .

DUDKIN. Why are you making a match between me and Sashenka? Blancmange, lefaucheux-grand-merci³⁵ and all that sort of cleverness . . . I’m a positive fellow with a temper . . . Give me something substantial . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. We’ll go, have a look around, or something . . .

DUDKIN Ssh! . . . Nice and quiet . . . Marfutka would have been just the ticket, but the problem is she’s a flibberty-gibbet . . . I dropped in on her last night, and her house was chockful of all sorts of actors . . .

They go out through the door at left.

X

ANNA PETROVNA and LVOV enter through the door at right.

LVOV. Why, I ask you, did we have to come here?

ANNA PETROVNA. Never mind, they’ll be glad we came . . . Nobody here. They must be in the garden . . . Let’s go into the garden.

They go into the garden.

XI

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA and DUDKIN.

DUDKIN (entering from the door at left). It’s not in the dining room, so I bet it’s somewhere in the pantry. We’ve got to worm it out of Yegorushka. Let’s go through the drawing-room.

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. How I’d like to tear her to shreds! . . .

They go out through the door at right.

XII

BABAKINA, BORKIN, and SHABELSKY.

BABAKINA and BORKIN run in from the garden, laughing; behind them, laughing and rubbing his hands, minces SHABELSKY.

BABAKINA. Such boredom! (Roars with laughter.) Such boredom! . . . They all walk and sit around as if they’d swallowed a poker. All my bones are numb with boredom. (Skips about.) Have to limber up!

BORKIN takes her round the waist and kisses her on the cheek.

SHABELSKY (roars with laughter and snaps his fingers). I’ll be damned! (Wheezes.) In a manner of speaking . . .

BABAKINA. Let go, take your hands away, you shameless creature, or else God knows what the Count will think! Leave me alone . . .

BORKIN. Love of my life, red carbuncle of my heart! . . . (Kisses her.) Lend me 2,300 rubles! . . .

BABAKINA. N-O — no . . . Anything else, but when it comes to money—thanks ever so . . . No, no, no . . . Ah, take your hands off me . . .

SHABELSKY (minces near them). Little puff-ball . . . She has her charms . . .

BORKIN (seriously). That’s enough . . . Let’s talk business . . . Let’s consider things objectively, in a businesslike way. Answer me straight, without equivocation or hocus-pocus: yes or no? Listen to me! (Points to the Count.) He needs money, a minimal income of three thousand a year. You need a husband. Want to be a countess?

SHABELSKY (roars with laughter). A wonderful cynic!

BORKIN. Want to be a countess? Yes or no?

BABAKINA (upset). You’re making this up, Misha, honestly . . . And people don’t do business this way, off the cuff like this . . . If the Count cares to, he can himself or . . . or I don’t know how this suddenly, all at once . . .

BORKIN. Now, now . . . don’t confuse the issue . . . It’s a business deal . . . Yes or no?

SHABELSKY (laughing and rubbing his hands). Actually, how about it? Damn it, should I really commit this dirty deed myself? Eh? Little puff-ball . . . . (Kisses Babakina on the cheek.) Superb . . . A tasty little pickle . . .

BABAKINA. Leave off, leave off, you’ve quite upset me . . . Go away, go away . . . No, don’t go away . . .

BORKIN. Quickly . . . Yes or no? Time’s running out . . .

BABAKINA. You know what, Count? You . . . you drive over to my place on a visit for two or three days . . . We’ll have fun there, not like here . . . Drive over tomorrow . . . (To Borkin.) No, you were joking, weren’t you?

BORKIN (angrily). Now who’d start joking about serious business?

BABAKINA. Leave off, leave off . . . Ah, I feel faint . . . I feel faint . . . A countess . . . I feel faint . . . I’m falling . . .

BORKIN and the COUNT, laughing, take her by the arms and, kissing her on the cheeks, lead her out the door at right.

XIII

IVANOV, SASHA, then ANNA PETROVNA.

IVANOV and SASHA run in from the garden.

IVANOV (clutching his head, in horror). It can’t be! Don’t, don’t, Shurochka! . . . Ah, don’t!

SASHA (passionately). I love you madly . . . Without you there’s no meaning to my life, no happiness and joy . . . For me, you’re everything . . .

IVANOV. What for, what for, my God, I don’t understand a thing . . . Shu-rochka, don’t do this!. .

SASHA. In my childhood you were my only joy, I loved you and your soul, like myself, and now your form incessantly fills my thoughts day and night and keeps me from living. I love you, Nikolay Alekseevich . . . With you anywhere to the ends of the earth, wherever you want, even the grave, only, for God’s sake, soon, otherwise I’ll suffocate . . .

IVANOV (bursts into peals of happy laughter). What is this? Does this mean starting life over from the beginning? Shurochka, does it? . . . Happiness is mine for the taking! (Draws her to him.) My youth, my prime . . .

ANNA PETROVNA enters from the garden and, on seeing her husband and Sasha, stops as if rooted to the spot.

Does it mean coming to life? Does it? Back to an active role again?

Kiss. After they kiss, IVANOV and SASHA look around and see Anna Petrovna.

(In horror.) Sarra!

Curtain

ACT THREE

Ivanov’s study. Desk, covered with an unruly sprawl of papers, books, official letters, knickknacks, revolvers; alongside the papers, a lamp, a carafe of vodka, a plate of herring, pieces of bread and pickled gherkins. On the wall regional maps, pictures, shotguns, pistols, sickles, riding crops, and so on. It is midday.

I

SHABELSKY, LEBEDEV, BORKIN, and PYOTR.

SHABELSKY and LEBEDEV are sitting on either side of the desk. BORKIN is center stage astride a chair. PYOTR is standing by the door.

LEBEDEV. France has a clear and well-defined policy . . . The French know what they want. They need to give the Krauts a good thrashing and that’ll be that, while Germany, my boy, is singing a very different tune. Germany has plenty of other irons in the fire besides France . . .

SHABELSKY. Hogwash! . . . In my opinion, the Germans are cowards and so are the French . . . They give each other the finger behind their backs. Believe me, it won’t go beyond giving each other the finger. They won’t fight.³⁶

BORKIN. The way I see it, why fight? What’s the point of all these arms buildups, conferences, defense budgets? You know what I’d do? I’d get together all the dogs in the whole nation, infect them with a good dose of Pasteur’s rabies³⁷ and let ‘em loose behind enemy lines. All the combatants would be raving mad within a month.

SHABELSKY bursts out laughing.

LEBEDEV (laughs). That head may not look all that large, but it swarms with big ideas, countless multitudes of ‘em, like fishes in the sea.

SHABELSKY. A virtuoso . . . every day he gives birth to a thousand projects, snatches the stars from the sky, but all to no avail . . . He’s never got a penny in his pocket . . .

LEBEDEV. Art for art’s sake.

BORKIN. I’m not toiling for myself, but for others, for love of humanity.

LEBEDEV. God bless you, you’re good for a laugh, Michel Michelich . . . (Stops laughing.) Well, gentlemen, “only warlike talk is heard, but as for vodka, not a word.”³⁸ Repetatur! . . .³⁹

Rises and walks over to the vodka.

(Fills three shot glasses.) Our good health . . .

They drink and take a snack.

A little bit of herring, my dears, the appetizer of all appetizers . . .

SHABELSKY. Well, no, gherkin’s better . . . Learned men have been pondering from the dawn of time and never come up with anything cleverer than a pickled gherkin. (to Pyotr.) Pyotr, go and get more gherkins and tell ‘em in the kitchen to bake four onion tarts. And see that they’re hot . . .

PYOTR exits.

LEBEDEV. Another good thing to eat with vodka is caviar. Only how? Got to use your head . . . Take a quarter pound of pressed caviar, two bulbs of green onion, olive oil, mix it all up and, you know, like this . . . a little lemon juice on top . . . To die for! . . . You could go crazy from the smell alone . . . (Energetically.) Have you ever eaten caviar made from saffron milkcap mushrooms?

SHABELSKY. No . . .

LEBEDEV. Hm . . . Mince your pickled saffron milkcaps finely, finely, till they’re like caviar or, you know what I mean, buckwheat groats . . . Put in onion, olive oil . . . a bit of pepper, vinegar . . . (Kisses his fingers.) What a combination . . .

BORKIN. Another nice thing to chase down vodka is fried smelts. Only you’ve got to know how to fry them. You’ve got to gut them, then roll them in fine bread crumbs and fry them crisp, so they crunch between your teeth . . . cru-cru-cru . . .

SHABELSKY. Yesterday at Babakina’s there was a good appetizer —button mushrooms.

LEBEDEV. No kidding . . .

SHABELSKY. Only prepared some special way. You know, with onion, bay leaf, all sorts of spices. As soon as they took the lid off the saucepan, it gave off a vapor, an aroma . . . sheer rapture . . .

LEBEDEV. How about it? Repetatur, gentlemen!

They drink.

Our health . . . (Looks at his watch.) I don’t think I can wait till Nikolasha shows up. It’s time for me to go. At Babakina’s, you say, they served mushrooms, but you have yet to see a mushroom at our place. Would you like to tell me, Count, why the hell you spend so much time at Marfutka’s?

SHABELSKY (nods at Borkin). That one, he wants to marry me off to her . . .

LEBEDEV. Marry? . . . How old are you?

SHABELSKY. Sixty-two . . .

LEBEDEV. Just the age for getting married, and Marfutka’s the ideal mate for you.

BORKIN. It’s got nothing to do with Marfutka, but with Marfutka’s coin of the realm.

LEBEDEV. Which is what you’re after: Marfutka’s coin of the realm . . . You want some green cheese from the moon as well?

BORKIN. As soon as the man’s married, he’ll line his empochers,⁴⁰ then you’ll see green cheese. You’ll be drooling for it . . .

SHABELSKY. Bless my soul, he’s really serious. This genius is convinced that I’m obeying his orders and getting married . . .

BORKIN. How else? Didn’t you already agree to it?

SHABELSKY. You’re out of your mind . . . When did I agree to it? Psss . . .

BORKIN. Thank you . . . Thank you very much! So this means you’re going to let me down? One minute he’s getting married, the next he’s not . . . who the hell can tell the difference, and I’ve already given my word of honor! So you’re not getting married?

SHABELSKY (shrugs his shoulders). He’s serious . . . A wonderful fellow!

BORKIN (exasperated). In that case, what was the point of getting a respectable woman all hot and bothered? She’s frantic to be a countess, can’t sleep, can’t eat . . . . Is that a laughing matter? . . . Is that the decent thing to do?

SHABELSKY (snaps his fingers). What then, what if I actually do commit this dirty deed all by myself? Eh? For spite? I’ll go and commit the dirty deed. Word of honor . . . Might be fun! . . .

II

The same and LVOV.

LEBEDEV. Our regards to Æsculapius . . . (Gives Lvov his hand and sings.) “Doctor, save me, my dear fellow, thoughts of death turn me quite yellow. . .”⁴¹

LVOV. Nikolay Alekseevich still isn’t here?

LEBEDEV. Well, no, I’ve been waiting for him for over an hour . . .

LVOV impatiently paces up and down the stage.

Dear boy, how is Anna Petrovna?

LVOV. In a bad way . . .

LEBEDEV (sighs). May I go and convey my respects?

LVOV. No, please, don’t. I think she’s sleeping . . .

Pause.

LEBEDEV. An attractive woman, a splendid woman . . . (Sighs.) On Shu-rochka’s birthday, when she fainted at our place, I stared into her face and that’s when I realized that she hasn’t long to live, poor thing. I can’t understand why she took a turn for the worse just then. I run in, lo and behold: she’s white as a sheet, lying on the floor, Nikolasha is kneeling beside her, white as well, Shurochka’s all in tears. The whole of the next week, Shurochka and I went around in a daze . . .

SHABELSKY (to Lvov). Tell me, my respected apostle of science, which scientist discovered that the most salutary thing for chest ailments is private visits from a young physician? It’s a great discovery, truly great . . . How would you classify it: as allopathy or homeopathy?⁴²

LVOV is about to reply, but makes a scornful gesture and exits.

If looks could kill . . . .

LEBEDEV. You’re giving your tongue a workout . . . Why did you insult him?

SHABELSKY (irritated). And why does he lie to me? Tuberculosis, no hope, she’s dying . . . He’s lying . . . I can’t stand it . . .

LEBEDEV. What makes you think he’s lying?

SHABELSKY (rises and walks around). I cannot abide the thought that a living human being suddenly, for no reason at all, can up and die. Let’s change the subject . . .

III

LEBEDEV, SHABELSKY, BORKIN, and KOSYKH.

KOSYKH (runs in, panting). Is Nikolay Alekseevich at home? Good afternoon! (Quickly shakes everyone’s hand.) At home?

BORKIN. He is not . . .

KOSYKH (sits and jumps up). In that case, good-bye . . . (Drinks a glass of vodka and has a quick bite.) I’ll move on . . . Business . . . I’m exhausted . . . I can barely stand on my feet . . .

LEBEDEV. What wind has blown you here?

KOSYKH. I’ve been at Barabanov’s. We were playing whist all night long and only just finished . . . I lost every last thing . . . That Barabanov plays like a shoemaker! (In a tearful voice.) Just you listen: I was holding hearts the whole time . . . (Turns to Borkin, who jumps away from him.) He leads diamonds, I go hearts again, he goes diamonds . . . Well, not one trick . . . (to Lebedev.) We try to take four clubs . . . I’ve got an ace, queen and four more clubs, ace, ten, and three more spades . . .

LEBEDEV (covers his ears). Spare me, spare me, for Christ’s sake, spare me!

KOSYKH (to the Count). You know what I mean: ace, queen, and four more clubs, ace, ten, three more spades . . .

SHABELSKY (pushing him away with his hands). Go away, I don’t want to hear it . . .

KOSYKH. And suddenly, of all the bad luck: the ace of spades was trumped first round.

SHABELSKY (grabs a revolver off the desk). Get out of here or I’ll shoot!

KOSYKH (waves his hand in dismissal). What the hell . . . Can’t a man even talk to people? It’s like living in Australia: no common interests, no solidarity . . . Every man lives on his own . . . Anyway, I’ve got to go . . . it’s time. (Takes his cap.) Time is money . . . (Gives Lebedev his hand.) Pass! . . .

Laughter.

LEBEDEV. You’ve played cards, dear heart, to the point that you say pass instead of good-bye . . .

KOSYKH leaves and bumps into Avdotya Nazarovna in the doorway.

IV

SHABELSKY, LEBEDEV, BORKIN, and AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA.

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (cries out). Blast you, you’ve knocked me off my feet!

EVERYONE. Ah-ah-ah! . . . The unavoidable! . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. Here they are, I’ve been looking for them all over the house. Good afternoon, my fine feathered friends, greetings, greetings . . . (Greets them.) I’ve been through all the rooms, but there’s that doctor, enough to drive you crazy, bugging out those beady eyes of his, with his “What do you want? Get out of here . . . You’ll disturb the patient,” he says. As if it was that easy . . .

LEBEDEV. What’s she doing here?

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. Business, my good sir! (to the Count.) Business on your behalf, your grace. (Bows.) I was told to give you my regards and ask after your health . . . (Sings.)

Short is the time the flower doth in the garden grow,

Short is the time Matvey his love doth woo.

And she, my baby-doll, told me to say that if you don’t come this evening, she will cry her little eyes out. “So,” she says, “my dear, take him aside and whisper secretly in his ear.” But why secretly? We’re all friends here. And in a case like this, we’re not robbing the henhouse, it’s by law and by love, by mutual agreement . . . Never, for all my sins, do I touch a drop, but in a case like this I’ll have a drink . . .

LEBEDEV. And so will I . . . (Pours.) And you, you old crow, you’re still going strong. I’ve known you for well nigh thirty years and you’ve always been old . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. I’ve lost count of the years . . . Two husbands I’ve buried, I would have taken a third, but nobody’ll have you without a dowry. Eight children I’ve had, more or less . . . (Takes a glass.) Well, God grant we’ve embarked on a successful venture, God grant it ends in success . . . May they live long and prosper, and may we behold them and rejoice. May they abide in harmony and love. (Drinks.) Pretty strong vodka . . .

SHABELSKY (roaring with laughter, to Lebedev). But, do you realize, the strangest thing of all is that they take it seriously, as if I . . . Wonderful . . . (Rises.) Or else, actually, Pasha, should I commit this dirty deed on my own? For spite . . . new tricks for an old dog, as they say . . . Eh, Pasha? No kidding . . .

LEBEDEV. You’re talking drivel, Count. Our concern, yours and mine, my boy, is to be mindful of our deaths, for Marfutka and her coin of the realm have passed you by long ago . . . Our time is over . . .

SHABELSKY. No, I will do the deed. Word of honor, I’ll do the deed . . .

Enter IVANOV and LVOV.

V

The same, IVANOV, and LVOV.

LVOV. Please grant me just five minutes.

LEBEDEV. Nikolasha . . . (Goes to meet Ivanov and kisses him.) Good afternoon, my dear friend . . . I’ve been waiting for you a whole hour . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (bows). Good afternoon, my dear sir! . . .

IVANOV (bitterly). Gentlemen, once again you’ve turned my study into a barroom! . . . I’ve asked each and every one of you a thousand times not to do it . . . (Walks over to the desk.) There, look, you’ve spilled vodka on the papers . . . crumbs . . . pickles . . . it’s really disgusting! . . .

LEBEDEV. Sorry, Nikolasha, sorry . . . Forgive us. You and I, dear friend, have some very important business to talk over . . . .

BORKIN. So do I.

LVOV. Nikolay Alekseevich, may I have a word with you?

IVANOV (points to Lebedev). He’s the one who needs me. Wait, you’re next . . . (to Lebedev.) What’s on your mind?

LEBEDEV. Gentlemen, I’d like to speak in private . . . Please . . .

The COUNT, laughing and making faces, exits with AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA, followed by BORKIN, then LVOV.

IVANOV. Pasha, you can drink as much as you like, it’s your funeral, but please don’t let my uncle drink.⁴³ He never drank at my house before . . . It’s bad for him.

LEBEDEV (alarmed). My dear boy, I didn’t know . . . I didn’t even notice . . .

IVANOV. God forbid, but if that old baby should die, you’re not the one who’ll feel bad, I am . . . What do you want?

Pause.

LEBEDEV. You see, my dear friend . . . I don’t know how to begin, so that it doesn’t sound so heartless . . . Nikolasha, I’m embarrassed, I’m blushing, my tongue’s twisted, but, dear boy, put yourself in my place, bear in mind that I’m a man under orders, a flunky, a doormat . . . Do forgive me . . . Uneasy lies the head that fears a gown . . .⁴⁴

IVANOV. What do you mean?

LEBEDEV. The wife sent me . . . Do me a favor, be a friend, pay her the interest! You wouldn’t believe how she’s nagged, worn me down, tortured the life out of me . . . Get her off your back, for heaven’s sake! . . .

IVANOV. Pasha, you know I haven’t got any money right now . . .

LEBEDEV. I know, I know, but what am I to do? She won’t wait. If she sues you for defaulting, how can Shurochka and I look you in the face again?

IVANOV. I’m embarrassed myself. Pasha, I’d be glad if the earth swallowed me up, but . . . but where am I get it? Teach me, where? The only thing left is to wait for autumn when I can sell the wheat . . .

LEBEDEV (shouts). She won’t wait!

Pause.

IVANOV. Your position is an unpleasant one, a delicate one, but mine’s even worse. (Walks and thinks.) And one can’t come up with anything . . . There’s nothing left to sell . . .

LEBEDEV. You should ride over to Mühlbach, ask him . . . After all, he owes you sixteen thousand . . .

IVANOV waves his hand in hopeless dismissal.

Here’s how it is, Nikolasha . . . I know you’ll start swearing, but . . . respect an old boozehound! Between friends . . . Regard me as a friend . . . You and I are both students, liberals . . . Mutual ideas and interests . . . Both alumni of Moscow U. . . . Alma mater . . . (Takes his wallet out of his pocket.) I’ve got some money stashed away, not a soul at home knows about it. Take a loan . . . (Takes out money and puts it on the desk.) Pocket your pride, and take it for friendship’s sake . . . I’d take it from you, word of honor . . .

IVANOV (walks around). It doesn’t matter . . . at the moment I’ve no pride left. I even think if you were to slap my face, I wouldn’t say a word.

LEBEDEV. There it is on the desk. One thousand one hundred. You ride over there today and hand it to her in person. “There you are,” say, “Zinaida Savishna, I hope it chokes you!” Only look, don’t give any clue that you borrowed it from me, God forbid . . .

Pause.

Your heart is aching?

IVANOV waves his hand in dismissal.

Yes, business . . . . (Sighs.) A time of grief and sorrow has come to you. A man, my good friend, is like a samovar. It doesn’t always stand in a shady spot on the shelf, but sometimes it’s heated with burning coals: psh . . . psh . . . That simile isn’t worth a damn, well, let someone smarter come up with a better one . . . (Sighs.) Misery hardens the heart. I don’t feel sorry for you, Nikolasha, you’ll land on your feet, the pain will lessen but I’m offended, my boy, and annoyed by other people . . . Do me a favor, tell me what’s the reason for all this gossip? There’s so much gossip circulating about you in the district, my boy, watch out, our friend the district attorney might pay you a visit . . . You’re a murderer and a blood-sucker and a thief and a traitor . . .

IVANOV. It’s all rubbish, now I’ve got a headache.

LEBEDEV. All because you think too much.

IVANOV. I don’t think at all.

LEBEDEV. Well, Nikolasha, don’t you give a damn about all that and come and see us. Shurochka’s fond of you, she understands and appreciates you. She’s a decent, good person, Nikolasha. Nothing like her mother and father, but I guess some young fellow came passing by . . . I look at her sometimes, pal, and I can’t believe that a bottle-nosed drunkard like me has such a treasure. Drop by, talk to her about clever things and — it’ll cheer you up. She’s an honest, sincere person.

Pause.

IVANOV. Pasha, dear man, leave me alone . . .

LEBEDEV. I understand, I understand . . . (Hastily looks at his watch.) I understand. (Kisses Ivanov.) Good-bye . . . I still have to go to the dedication of a school.⁴⁵ (Goes to the door and stops.) A clever girl . . . Yesterday Shurochka and I started talking about the gossip. (Laughs.) And she blurted out an aphorism: “Papa dear,” she says, “glowworms glow in the dark only to make it easier for night birds to see them and eat them, and good people exist so that there can be slander and gossip.” How do you like that? A genius, a George Sand . . .⁴⁶1 thought only Borkin had great ideas in his head, but now it turns out . . . I’m going, I’m going . . . (Exits.)

VI

IVANOV, then LVOV.

IVANOV (alone). I’ll sign the papers and I’ll take my gun and go out for a walk . . . To clear my head of this nastiness . . . (Fastidiously hunched over, he takes a snack and some bread off the little table.)

LVOV (enters). I’ve got to have it out with you, Nikolay Alekseevich . . .

IVANOV (taking the carafe of vodka). If we were to have it out every day, Doctor, we’d be too debilitated for anything else.

LVOV. Will you be so good as to listen to me?

IVANOV. I listen to you every day and so far I can’t understand a thing: what do you personally want from me?

LVOV. I speak clearly and firmly, and the only person who could fail to understand me is one without a heart.

IVANOV. My wife is facing death—that I know; I have unpardonably wronged her—that I also know; you’re a decent, upright man — I know that too! What more do you want?

LVOV. I am outraged by human cruelty . . . A woman is dying. She has a father and mother whom she loves and would like to see before she dies; they know perfectly well that she will die soon and that she goes on loving them, but, damn their cruelty, they evidently want Jehovah to see how steadfast they are in their religion; they still go on cursing her . . . You, the man for whom she sacrificed everything, her religion and her parents’ home and her peace of mind, in the most blatant manner and with the most blatant intentions you head over to those Lebedevs every day . . .

IVANOV. Oh, I haven’t been there for two weeks now . . .

LVOV (not listening to him). People such as you have to be spoken to bluntly, with no beating around the bush, and if you don’t like what I have to say, then don’t listen! I’m used to calling things by their rightful names . . . You need this death in order to carry out new feats of valor, all right, but can’t you at least wait? If you were to let her die in the natural scheme of things, without stabbing her with your barefaced cynicism, would the Lebedevs and their dowry disappear? Not now, but in a year or two, you, a wonderful Tartuffe, will manage to turn a young girl’s head and make off with her dowry just the same as now . . . Why are you in such a hurry? Why do you need your wife to die now, and not in a month or a year’s time?

IVANOV. This is excruciating . . . Doctor, you’re a really bad physician if you suppose that a man can control himself forever. It’s taking the most appalling will-power not to reply to your insults.

LVOV. That’s enough, who are you trying to fool? Drop the mask.

IVANOV. Clever man, think of this: in your opinion, nothing’s easier than understanding me . . . Right? I married Anna to get a big dowry . . . I didn’t get the dowry, I missed the mark, and now I’m driving her to her grave, in order to marry another woman and get that dowry . . . Right? How simple and uncomplicated . . . A man is such a simple and unsophisticated machine . . . No, Doctor, each of us has far more cogs, screws, and valves in him than to enable us to judge one another on first impressions or a few outward signs. I don’t understand you, you don’t understand me, we don’t understand one another. You may be an excellent general practitioner and still have no understanding of people. Don’t be so smug and look at it my way.

LVOV. Do you really think that you’re so unfathomable, that I am so brainless that I can’t tell the difference between disgraceful behavior and decent behavior?

IVANOV. Obviously, you and I will never find common ground . . . For the last time I ask you, and, please answer without more ado, what do you personally want from me? What do you hope to achieve? (Annoyed.) And whom have I the honor of addressing: the Counsel for my prosecution or my wife’s physician? . . .

LVOV. I am a physician, and, as a physician, I demand that you change your way of life . . . It is killing Anna Petrovna!

IVANOV. But what am I to do? What? If you understand me better than I understand myself, then tell me in no uncertain terms: what am I to do?

LVOV. At least, don’t act so openly.

IVANOV. Oh, my God! Do you really understand yourself? (Drinks water.) Leave me alone. I’m a thousand times at fault, I’ll answer for it before God, but no one has entitled you to torture me on a daily basis . . .

LVOV. And who has entitled you to insult my truth-telling, by insulting my person? You have worn me down and poisoned my mind. Until I wound up in this district, I could deal with the fact that stupid, inane, self-deluded people existed, but I never believed there were criminal types who consciously, deliberately used their intelligence to do evil . . . I respected and loved people, but once I came in contact with you . . .

SASHA enters in a riding habit.

VII

The same and SASHA.

LVOV (on seeing Sasha). Now, I hope, we understand one another perfectly well . . . (Shrugs his shoulders and exits)

IVANOV (alarmed). Shura, is that you . . .

SASHA. Yes, it is . . . Weren’t you expecting me? Why haven’t you been to see us for so long?

IVANOV (looking around). Shura, for God’s sake, this is inconsiderate . . . Your coming here might have a dreadful effect on my wife . . .

SASHA. I’ll go right away . . . I was worried: are you all right? Why haven’t you been to see us for so long?

IVANOV. Go away, for God’s sake . . . we cannot meet so long as . . . so long as . . . well, you understand me . . . (Delicately pushes her to the door.)

SASHA. Just tell me one thing: are you all right?

IVANOV. No, I’ve been tormenting myself, people torment me nonstop . . . I’m at the end of my rope and, if it were not for thoughts of you, I would long ago have blown my brains out. You see, I’m trembling . . . Shurochka, for God’s sake, take me away from here as soon as possible . . . (Presses his head against her shoulder) Let me have some rest and forget myself for only a moment . . .

SASHA. Soon, soon, Nikolay . . . Don’t lose heart, it’s disgraceful . . .

VIII

IVANOV, SASHA, and PYOTR.

PYOTR brings in the tarts on a piece of paper and puts them on the desk.

IVANOV (starting). Who? what? (On seeing Pyotr.) What do you want?

PYOTR. Tarts, the Count ordered ‘em . . .

IVANOV. Get out of here . . .

PYOTR exits.

SASHA. I promise you, my dearest . . . here is my hand: good days will come, and you shall be happy. Be brave, look at how courageous and happy I am . . . (Weeps.)

IVANOV. It’s as if we want her to die . . . How unwholesome this is, how abnormal . . . I’m so much at fault . . .

SASHA (in horror). Nikolay, who wants her to die? Let her live, even for a hundred years . . . And how are you at fault? Is it your fault that you fell out of love with her, that fate is driving her to death? Is it your fault that you love me? Think well of it . . . look (weeps) . . . look circumstances straight in the face, be brave . . . It’s not your fault and it’s not mine, it’s circumstance . . .

IVANOV. Be brave . . . a time will come . . . fell in love . . . fell out of love — these are all platitudes. Hackneyed phrases, which are no help at all.

SASHA. I talk the way everybody does and I don’t know how else to talk . . .

IVANOV. And our whole love affair is a trite platitude . . . “He was downhearted and had lost his bearings . . . She showed up, strong and bold in spirit, and offered him a helping hand.” . . . It’s all right and appropriate for novels, but in life . . . it’s not right, it’s not right . . . Look, you love me, my own, you’ve lent me a helping hand, and I’m still pathetic and helpless, just as I was before . . .

IX

The same and BORKIN.

BORKIN (looks in at the door). Nikolay Alekseevich, may I? (On seeing Sasha.) Sorry, I didn’t see . . . (Enters.) Bonjour . . . (Bows.)

SASHA (embarrassed). How do you do . . .

BORKIN. You’ve got plumper, prettier . . .

SASHA (to Ivanov). I’m leaving now, Nikolay Alekseevich . . . I’m leaving . . . (Exits.)

BORKIN. A vision of loveliness . . . I came about prose, and ran into poetry . . .(Sings.) “Thou didst appear, like a bird flown towards the light . . .”⁴⁷

IVANOV paces up and down the stage in agitation.

(Sits.) There’s something about her, Nicolas . . . a certain something that other women haven’t got . . . Am I right? Something special . . . fantastical . . . (Sighs.) Actually, the richest eligible girl in the whole district, but her dear mama is such a sourpuss that no one wants to make a match. When she dies everything will go to Shurochka, but until she dies she’ll give ten thousand or so, a curling iron and a flat iron, and even then she’ll make you beg for it on your knees. (Rummages in his pockets.) Let’s smoke a de-los-majoros.⁴⁸ Care for one? (Offers his cigar case.) They’re not bad . . . Quite smokeworthy.

IVANOV (walks over to Borkin, choked with rage). Don’t set foot in my house another minute! . . . Not another minute! . . .

BORKIN rises a bit and drops the cigar.

Not another minute . . .

BORKIN. Nicolas, what does this mean? What are you angry about?

IVANOV. What about? Where did you get those cigars? Do you think I don’t know where you take the old man every day and what for . . .

BORKIN (shrugs his shoulders). What’s it got to do with you?

IVANOV. You’re such a crook . . . Your vulgar schemes, which you broadcast through the whole district, have made me a dishonest man in people’s eyes . . . We’ve got nothing in common, and I ask you to leave my home this very minute . . . (Walks quickly.)

BORKIN. I know that you’re saying all this out of irritation, and therefore I won’t be angry with you. Insult me as much as you like . . . (Picks up the cigar.) It’s time you gave up this melancholy act . . . You’re no schoolboy . . .

IVANOV. What did I tell you? (Trembling.) Are you playing games with me?

Enter ANNA PETROVNA.

X

The same and ANNA PETROVNA.

BORKIN. Well, look, Anna Petrovna’s here . . . I’m going. (Exits.)

IVANOV stops beside the desk and stands, his head bowed.

ANNA PETROVNA (after a pause). Why did she come here just now?

Pause.

I’m asking you: why did she come here?

IVANOV. Don’t question me, Anyuta . . .

Pause.

I’m much at fault . . . Think up whatever punishment you want, I’ll bear it, but . . . don’t question me . . . I haven’t got the strength to talk . . .

ANNA PETROVNA (angrily raps a finger on the desk). Why was she here?

Pause.

Ah, so that’s what you’re like! Now I understand you. Finally I see what sort of man you are. Dishonorable, vile . . . You remember, you came and lied to me, saying you loved me . . . I believed it and left father, mother, religion and followed you . . . You lied to me about truth, goodness, your honorable intentions, I believed every word . . .

IVANOV. Anyuta, I never lied to you . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. I lived with you for five years, I broke down and sickened at the idea that I’d renounced my faith, but I loved you and never left you for a single minute . . . You were my idol . . . And now what? All this time you’ve been deceiving me in the most shameless manner . . . .

IVANOV. Anyuta, don’t make things up . . . I was mistaken, yes . . . but I’ve never lied in my life . . . You don’t dare reproach me for that . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. Now it’s all come out . . . You married me and thought my father and mother would forgive me, give me money . . . That’s what you thought.

IVANOV. Oh my God! Anyuta, to try my patience like this . . . (Weeps.)

ANNA PETROVNA. Be quiet . . . When you realized there was no money, you came up with a new game . . . Now I remember it all and I understand . . . (Weeps.) You never loved me and were never faithful to me. Never!

IVANOV. Sarra, that’s a lie! . . . Say what you want, but don’t insult me with lies . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. You always lied to me . . . Dishonorable, vile man . . . You owe Lebedev money, and now, in order to squirm out of your debt, you want to turn his daughter’s head, deceive her the way you did me . . . Isn’t that so?

IVANOV (choking). Shut up, for God’s sake! . . . I can’t answer for myself . . . I’m choking with rage, and I . . . I’m liable to insult you . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. You always were a shameless deceiver, and not just of me . . . You pinned all those underhanded actions on Borkin, but now I know whose they really are . . .

IVANOV. Sarra, shut up, get out, or else I’ll say something I’ll regret . . . It’s all I can do to keep from calling you something horrible, humiliating . . . (Shouts.) Shut up, you kike bitch!

ANNA PETROVNA. I will not shut up . . . Too long you’ve been deceiving me, for me to be able to keep silent . . .

IVANOV. So you won’t shut up? (Struggles with himself.) For God’s sake . . .

ANNA PETROVNA. Now go and cheat the Lebedev girl . . .

IVANOV. Then know that you . . . will die soon . . . The doctor told me that you’ll die soon . . .

ANNA PETROVNA (sits down, her voice faltering). When did he say that?

Pause.

IVANOV (clutching his head). It’s all my fault! God, it’s all my fault! . . . (Sobs.)

XI

The same and LVOV.

LVOV (enters and, on seeing Anna Petrovna, quickly heads for her). What’s going on? (Examines her face. To Ivanov.) What were you doing just now?

IVANOV. God, it’s all my fault! . . . all my fault! . . .

LVOV. Anna Petrovna, Anna Petrovna, what’s wrong with you? (To Ivanov.) Wait! I swear to you on the honor which you do not possess, you shall pay for her! . . . I’ll unmask you . . . I’ll show you! . . .

IVANOV. It’s all my fault, all my fault . . .

Curtain

Nearly a year goes by between Acts Three and Four.

ACT FOUR

TABLEAU ONE

A small room in the Lebedevs’ house. Simple, antique furnishings. Doors at right and left.

I

DUDKIN and KOSYKH.

Both in dress-coats with nosegays in their lapels; they stand near the door at left and hurriedly smoke hand-rolled cigarettes.

KOSYKH (gleefully). Yesterday I called a little slam in clubs, and took a grand slam . . . Only again that Barabanov spoiled the whole shebang for me . . . We play . . . I bid: no trumps. He goes pass . . . Clubs . . . He goes pass . . . I go two clubs . . . three clubs . . . he goes pass, and imagine . . . can you imagine, I call a slam, and he doesn’t show his ace. If he’d shown his ace, I could have called a grand slam in no-trumps . . .

DUDKIN. Hold on, a carriage is drawing up. It’s the best man, I suppose. (Looks out the window.) No . . . (Looks at his watch.) But it’s high time he got here . . .

KOSYKH. Yes, the bride’s been dressed for a long time now . . .

DUDKIN. Eh, pal, if I were the bridegroom (whistles), I would have done a deal . . . Right this very minute, right now, when the bride is already dressed and ready to go to church, I’d show up here and put the screws on Zyuzyushka: hand over a hundred thousand, or I won’t get married . . . Hand it over . . .

KOSYKH. But she wouldn’t hand it over . . .

DUDKIN. She would . . . When everything’s all set at the church and people are waiting, she would . . . But now Ivanov isn’t getting a red cent. She didn’t even give him the five thousand . . .

KOSYKH. On the other hand, when she dies, he’ll get it all.

DUDKIN. Oh sure, wait for her to die . . . Before she croaks, she’ll bury it in the ground. All these hags are the same. I had a lousy uncle like that, just before he died he chewed up all his interest-bearing bonds and swallowed them. As God is my judge . . . The doctor pays his visit, there he lies with a belly out to here — wow . . . Ivanov thinks that now they’ll lay it on ‘im: “take it all, my dear man . . .” That’ll be the day . . . He was a wash-out with the Jew bitch, had to eat crow, and the same thing’ll happen here . . . The man’s got no luck . . . No luck at all . . . Might just as well lay down and die . . . After all, he’s a smart guy, a wheeler-dealer, a con man, knows his politics backwards and forwards, but look—fate was against him . . . Lady Luck never smiled . . .

II

The same and BABAKINA.

BABAKINA (overdressed, pompously crosses the stage between Dudkin and Kosykh; they both laugh up their sleeves; she looks round). Idiot . . .

DUDKIN touches her waist with his finger and roars with laughter.

Peasant . . . (Exits.)

DUDKIN and KOSYKH burst out laughing.

KOSYKH (roaring with laughter). The dame’s gone off her rocker . . . Until she started angling for a title, she made a lot of sense, but now that she has hopes of being a countess, you can’t come near her. Used to be, you’d fill a sack with cognac and liqueurs, drop by her place for a few days and paint the town red . . . a regular music-hall, but nowadays you mustn’t lay a finger on her . . . (Mimics her.) Peasant!

DUDKIN. Listen, she’s going to be a countess . . .

KOSYKH. Sure she is . . . the Count is laughing at her, stringing her along, believe you me. He just likes to chat her up and get supper free, gratis and for nothing. For a whole year now he’s been leading her around by the nose. But, pal, why should I feel sorry for Marfutka — a skinflint! a regular skinflint! . . . Mishka Borkin and the Count are fluttering round her, prancing and dancing every which way, so she’ll give them money: but not a penny! . . . Last year all Mishka got from her for his matchmaking was two hundred paper rubles, and Ivanov immediately sent them back to her . . . So Mishka wound up empty-handed, went to all that trouble and nothing to show for it.

III

The same, LEBEDEV, and SASHA (dressed in white.)

LEBEDEV (entering, with Sasha). Let’s talk in here. (to Dudkin and Kosykh.) Go into the other room, you Zulus, and join the young ladies. We have to talk in private.

DUDKIN (as he passes Sasha, snaps his fingers in ecstasy). Pretty as a picture! . . . Fine champagne! . . .

LEBEDEV. Pass by, caveman, pass by . . .

KOSYKH and DUDKIN leave.

Sit down, Shurochka . . . that’s right . . . (Sits and looks round.) Listen carefully and with due respect. Here’s the thing: your mother insisted that I inform you of the following . . . (Blows his nose.) Since the groom’s best man hasn’t shown up yet and we still haven’t said the benediction over you, to avoid misunderstandings and any potential arguments later on, you’ve got to know once and for all that we . . . I mean, not we, but your mother . . .

SASHA. Papa, could you cut it short?

LEBEDEV. You’ve got to know that you have been granted a dowry of fifteen thousand silver rubles in banknotes. That’s that . . . see that there are no arguments later on! Hold on . . . be quiet. That’s only for starters, here comes the main course. You’ve been granted a dowry of fifteen thousand, but, in view of the fact that Nikolay Alekseevich owes your mother nine thousand, a deduction is being made from your dowry in the amount of the debt, and, that way, you’ll only get six thousand. Vous comprenez?⁴⁹ You’ve got to know this so that there won’t be any arguments later on. Hold on, I haven’t finished. Five hundred were set aside for the wedding; but because the wedding is at the bridegroom’s expense, that five hundred will be deducted from the six thousand. Which leaves, you see, five thousand five hundred, which you will receive after the ceremony, moreover, your generous mother will not use the occasion to pass off on you coupons that fall due ten years from now or shares in the Skopin bank.⁵⁰

SASHA. Why are you telling me this?

LEBEDEV. Your mother insisted.

SASHA (rises). Papa, if you had the slightest respect for me or yourself, you wouldn’t let yourself talk to me this way. (Angrily.) Do I need your dowry . . . I didn’t ask for it then and don’t ask for it now . . . Do leave me alone, don’t humiliate my ears with your cheese-paring! . . .

LEBEDEV. I’m not talking about the dowry, but your mother . . .

SASHA. I’ve told you a hundred times that I won’t take a penny . . . But we will pay back the debt we owe you. We’ll borrow the money somewhere and repay you. Leave me in peace.

LEBEDEV. What are you taking it out on me for? In Gogol’s play the two rats at least sniffed around first, and only then went away.⁵¹

SASHA. Leave me in peace . . .

LEBEDEV (flaring up). Fooey . . . The way you’re all carrying on, I’ll end up sticking a knife in myself or cutting somebody else’s throat! . . . That one sets up a fearful howl all the livelong day, nagging, pestering, pinching pennies, while this one, an intelligent, humane, damn it all, emancipated woman, can’t understand her own father . . . I’m humiliating her ears . . . Well, before coming here to insult your ears, out there (points to the door) I was being cut up into little pieces, drawn and quartered . . . (Walks around in perturbation.) She can’t understand . . . (Mimics.) I won’t take a penny . . . Oh no, she wanted to be different . . . What are you and your husband going to live on?

SASHA. Our own income, he’s not a beggar . . .

LEBEDEV (waves his hand in dismissal). That one nags, this one philosophizes, there’s no way to say a word to Nikolay: another very clever fellow . . . You’ve got my head swimming, you’ve mixed me all up . . . oh, you! (Goes to the door and stops.) I don’t like it. I don’t like anything about you!

SASHA. What don’t you like?

LEBEDEV. I don’t like any of it . . . any of it . . .

SASHA. Any of what?

LEBEDEV. So now I’m supposed to pull up a chair and start telling you a story. I don’t like anything about it . . . And I don’t want to be at your wedding . . . (Walks over to Sasha, affectionately.) You’ll forgive me, Shurochka . . . Maybe your getting married is clever, honorable, uplifting, highly principled, but something about it isn’t right . . . isn’t right . . . isn’t right . . . It isn’t like other marriages. You’re young, fresh, pure as a pane of glass, beautiful, whereas he’s a widower, thirty-five years old . . . worn to a shadow, to a nub . . . . Listen, in another five years he’ll have wrinkles and a bald spot . . . (Kisses his daughter.) Shurochka, forgive me, but something smells rotten . . . There’s already a lot of talk . . . About how Sarra died at his place, then suddenly for some reason he wanted to marry you . . .

SASHA. He’s your friend, papa . . .

LEBEDEV. Friend or not, all the same something, do you understand, is not quite right . . . (Vigorously.) Anyway, I’m being an old biddy, an old biddy . . . I’m as biddified as an old hoop-skirt . . . Don’t listen to me . . . . Don’t listen to anybody . . .

IV

The same and ZINAIDA SAVISHNA.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (enters, dressed in a new gown, her head bound in a wet towel). Turns out the groom’s best man has arrived. We have to go to the benediction . . .⁵² (Weeps.)

SASHA (pleading). Mamma!

LEBEDEV. Zyuzyushka, it’s high time you turned off the waterworks! . . . For heaven’s sake, for a whole year now you’ve been, excuse the expression, blubbering.

Pause.

You reek of vinegar, like a salad . . .

SASHA (pleading). Mamma!

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA. If you don’t need a mother, (weeps) if you manage without obeying your mother, then . . . what do you need me for? You have my blessing, I’ll satisfy you that way, you have my blessing . . .

LEBEDEV. Zyuzyushka, you should be joyful . . .

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA (taking the handkerchief from her face, no longer weeping). What’s there to be joyful about? He’s marrying her for the dowry and so as not to pay off his debt, and you are overjoyed . . . (Weeps.) Our only daughter, and God alone knows how she . . . If, according to you, he’s an honest, commonsensical man, he should have paid off the debt before he proposed to her . . .

LEBEDEV (to Sasha). Be quiet, be quiet, swear off the stuff . . . Drink tea, pal, till your dying day . . . It won’t be long now . . .

V

The same and IVANOV.

IVANOV, wearing a tailcoat, enters in evident agitation.

Together

LEBEDEV

(

alarmed

). What’s up! Where did you come from?

SASHA

. Why are you here?

IVANOV. Sorry, friends, let me talk to Sasha alone . . .

LEBEDEV. It isn’t proper to drop in on the bride before the ceremony. You should have been at the church a long time ago . . .

IVANOV. Pasha, please . . . .

LEBEDEV, shrugging his shoulders, exits with ZINAIDA SAVISHNA.

SASHA. What’s wrong with you?

IVANOV (upset). Shurochka, my angel.

SASHA. You’re over-excited . . . What’s happened?

IVANOV. My happiness, my darling, listen to me . . . Forget that you love me, focus all your attention on me and listen . . .

SASHA. Nikolay, don’t frighten me . . . what is it?

IVANOV. Just now as I was getting dressed for the ceremony, I looked at myself in the mirror and the hair at my temples . . . was gray . . . Shurochka, we mustn’t! Before it’s too late, we mustn’t, we mustn’t! . . . (Clutches at his head.) We musn’t! . . . Run out on me . . . (Ardently.) You’re young, pure, you’ve got your life ahead of you, while I . . . gray at the temples, broken down, this sense of guilt, my past . . . We’re no match . . . I’m no match for you! . . .

SASHA (sternly). Nikolay . . . how can you call this affection? . . . They’ve been waiting for you at the church a long time, and you rush over here to whine. None of this is new, I’ve already heard it and I’m sick and tired of it . . . Go to the church, don’t keep people waiting.

IVANOV (takes her hands). I love you too much, you are too dear to me for me to dare stand in your way. I won’t make you happy . . . I swear to God, I won’t! . . . While it’s not too late, call it off. It’ll be the honorable and intelligent thing to do. I’ll go home right now, and you can explain to your folks that there won’t be any wedding . . . Tell them anything . . . (Walks around in agitation.) My God, my God, I sense, Shurochka, that you don’t understand me . . . I’m old, my day is done, I’m covered in rust . . . the vigor of my life is spent forever, there’s no future, my memories are gloomy ones . . . A feeling of guilt grows in me with every passing hour, chokes me . . . Doubts, forebodings . . . Something is going to happen . . . Shurochka, something is going to happen . . . The dark clouds are gathering—I feel it.

SASHA (restraining him by the hand). Kolya, you’re talking like a child . . . Calm down . . . You’re heartsick and weary . . . Your heart has taken control over your healthy and powerful mind, but don’t let it do what it wants, and exert your intelligence. Just consider: where are the clouds? What are you guilty of? And what do you want? You’ve run over here to tell me that you’re old; perhaps, but then I’m no infant . . . And besides, what’s old age got to do with it? If your dear head were suddenly covered with gray hairs, I would love you more than ever, because I know what made them gray . . . (Weeps.) Hold on, I’ll be all right . . . (Wipes away the tears.)

IVANOV. Talk on, talk on . . .

SASHA. A feeling of guilt is wearing you out . . . Everyone, except father, tells me nothing but bad things about you. Yesterday I got an anonymous letter, warning me . . .

IVANOV. The doctor wrote it, the doctor . . . That man is persecuting me . .

SASHA. It doesn’t matter who wrote it . . . Everyone speaks ill of you, but I don’t know another man who could be more honorable, more magnanimous and more sublime than you . . . In short, I love you, and where there is love there can be no wavering or niggling . . . I will be your wife and I want to be . . . It is decided and there can be no more arguments. I love you and will go with you wherever you want, beneath whatever clouds you like . . . Whatever may happen to you, wherever fate may drive you, I will be with you forever and wherever. I cannot understand my life any other way . . .

IVANOV (walks around). Yes, yes, Shurochka, yes . . . Actually, I’m talking drivel . . . I’ve infected myself with a psychosis, I’ve been tormenting myself and persecuting you with my tedium . . . In fact, I’ve got to become normal and soon . . . it’s a matter of getting busy and living the way everyone does . . . Too many pointless ideas have built up in my mind . . . There’s nothing unusual, wonderful, in my marrying you, but my paranoia is turning it into a major event, an apotheosis . . . Everything’s normal and good . . . So, Shurochka, I’ll be going . . .

SASHA. Go, and we’ll be there presently . . .

IVANOV (kisses her). Forgive me, you must be sick and tired of me . . . Today we’ll get married, and tomorrow down to business . . . (Laughs.) My splendor, my philosopher. I’m boasting about being old, while you, it would appear, have an older brain than mine by ten years . . . (Stops laughing.) Seriously, Shurochka, we are the same as all other people, and we will be as happy as everyone else . . . And if we’re at fault, that will also be the same as everyone else . . .

SASHA. Go, go, it’s time . . .

IVANOV. I’m going, I’m going . . . (Laughs.) How clumsy I am, what a child I am still, nothing but a dishrag . . . (Goes to the door and bumps into Lebedev.)

VI

IVANOV, SASHA, and LEBEDEV.

LEBEDEV. Come here, come over here . . . (Takes Ivanov by the hand and leads him down to the footlights.) Now look me straight in the eyes, look . . . (Silently stares him in the eyes for a long time.) Well, Christ be with you . . . (Embraces him.) Be happy and forgive me, my dear boy, for my evil thoughts . . . (To Sasha.) Shurochka, of course he’s still young . . . Look at him, isn’t that what you called a he-man? A real fighting man . . . Come over here, Shurka . . . (Sternly.) Come on . . .

SASHA walks over to him.

(Takes Ivanov and Sasha by the hands, looks around.) Listen, the way mother wants it, God bless her: give them no money, they don’t need it. Shurka, you say that you (mimics) “don’t need a penny.” Principles, altruism, Schopenhauer⁵³. . . It’s all nonsense, and here’s what I’ve got to say . . . (Takes a deep breath.) I’ve got a secret ten thousand stashed in the bank . . . (looks around), not a dog in this house knows about it . . . It’s Granny’s . . . (Releasing their hands.) Steal it! . . .

IVANOV. Good-bye . . . (Laughs merrily and exits.)

SASHA follows him.

LEBEDEV. Gavrila! . . . (Exits and shouts through the doorway.) Gavrila! . . .

VII

DUDKIN and KOSYKH.

Both run in and quickly start to smoke.

KOSYKH. We’ve still got time for a quick smoke.

DUDKIN. He showed up to put the squeeze on them for the dowry . . . (Excited.) Attaboy . . . Honest to God, attaboy . . . Attaboy . . .

TABLEAU TWO

A drawing-room in the Lebedevs’ house. Velvet furniture, an antique bronze, family portraits. An upright piano, on it a violin, a cello beside it. Lots of lights. A door left. At right a wide doorway to a reception room, from which a bright light emanates. Back and forth from the doors left and right scurry footmen with dishes, platters, bottles, and so forth. At the rise of the curtain shouts Vire heard from the reception room: “Bitter, bitter, sweeten it up . . .”⁵⁴

I

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA, KOSYKH, and DUDKIN come out of the reception room with wineglasses.

A VOICE FROM THE RECEPTION ROOM: “To the health of the groom’s men . . .”

Music backstage plays a fanfare. Cries of “hoorah” and the sound of chairs being pulled back.

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. What a sweet couple I hitched up . . . Lovey-dovey, you could send ‘em off to Moscow for show. He’s handsome, well built, educated, refined, dead sober, and Sashenka’s a little angel, a little flower, a little sweetie-pie . . . You won’t find another match like that one . . .

In the reception room shouts of “hoorah.”

KOSYKH

(together). Hoo-ra-ah-ah . . .

DUDKIN

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (sings).

Don’t sit, Sashenka, don’t sit still,

Open the window, look out from the sill:

Does the sun shine down in the yard from on high?

Does my Kolyushka on his horse ride by?⁵⁵

That’s how it is . . . I’ve been kicking up my heels, sinner that I am . . . There’s nuthin’ I can’t do . . .

DUDKIN wants to say something, but cannot.

KOSYKH. It makes you jealous when you see other people’s happiness . . . Avdotya Nazarovna, do me a favor, match me up with a bride . . . A bachelor’s single life has gotten so repulsive that at home I walk from room to room and stare at the air vents . . . You hang around and hang around, and, before you know how the hell it happened, your life’s gone by.

AVDOTYA IVANOVNA. How long have I’ve been saying I could marry you off in a minute . . .

KOSYKH. It’s another story when you’re married . . . You sit at home . . . it’s warm . . . the lamp’s lit, there’s some sort of a kind of wife walking around . . . Honest to God, she walks around you, while you sit at the table with friends and play whist . . . You say: no trumps . . . pass . . . clubs . . . pass . . . hearts . . . pass . . . two hearts . . . pass. And finally a slam in hearts . . . It’s all pass, pass, pass . . .

DUDKIN touches Avdotya Nazarovna’s waist and clacks his tongue.

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. Why, you’re so sozzled you think I’m some sweet young thing . . . Oh dear, the way people forget themselves in other people’s houses. You can’t make your tongue work, just like you was struck with paralysis.

A VOICE FROM THE RECEPTION ROOM. “To the health of Sergey Afanasyevich and Mariya Danilovna . . .”

The music plays a fanfare. Hoorah.

(She goes into the reception room and sings.)

Pretty, pretty, mamma dear,

Better than them all,

And then he hung his little head

Lower than them all.

She exits.

DUDKIN. Raisa Sergeevna, let’s go . . .

KOSYKH. What makes you think I’m Raisa Sergeevna . . .

DUDKIN. I don’t give a damn . . . let’s go . . . give the footman two bits, I haven’t got any change . . . (Shouts.) Grigory, hand it over . . .

KOSYKH. What are you yelling for? Who’s this Grigory? (Lights up a cigarette.)

DUDKIN. I don’t give a damn, let’s go . . . Let’s live it up . . . (Shouts.) Grig-ory, hand it over . . .

II

The same and BORKIN (in a dresscoat with a nosegay).

BORKIN (runs out of the reception room, out of breath). How come they aren’t serving champagne? (To a footman.) Serve some more champagne, and step lively . . .

FOOTMAN. There is no more champagne . . .

BORKIN. What the hell kind of system is this . . . Five bottles for a hundred people . . . It’s an outrage.

KOSYKH walks over to the cello and pulls the bow across the strings.

What kind of wine is left?

FOOTMAN. Table wine, sparkling wine . . .

BORKIN. At forty kopeks a bottle? (To Kosykh.) Ah, will you stop scraping away, please . . . (To the footman.) Well then, bring me some sparkling table wine, only step lively . . . Oof, I’m wrecked . . . I must have made a good twenty toasts at least . . . (To Dudkin and Kosykh.) Here goes, now we’ll make a toast to the Count and Babakina as groom and bride. Listen, gents: shout hooray as loud as you can. Later on I’ll explain this idea I got. So we’ll have to have a drink to the idea . . . Let’s go . . . (Links arms with Kosykh and exits into the reception room with him.)

DUDKIN (follows him). Semyon Nikolaevich . . . First let’s have a drink at the buffet, and then in general . . .

The music plays a march from Boccaccio,⁵⁶ cries of “Stop the music.” The music is cut off.

A VOICE FROM THE RECEPTION ROOM: “To the health of the bride’s auntie Margarita Savishna . . .” Fanfare.

III

SHABELSKY and LEBEDEV

LEBEDEV (entering from the reception room, with the Count). Don’t make trouble, please, give up all this malice or you’ll simply get stomach ulcers, or maybe you think that you’re actually Mephistopheles.⁵⁷ It’s true . . . Put a fuse in your mouth, light it and breathe fire at people . . .

SHABELSKY. No, seriously, I want to commit something so low-down, so vulgar that not only I, but everyone will be nauseated. And I will commit it. Word of honor, I will . . . I’ve already told Borkin to announce my engagement today. (Laughs.) It’ll be low-down, but it matches the times and the people. Everybody’s a lowlife, so I’ll be a lowlife too . . .

LEBEDEV. I’m fed up with you . . . Listen, Matvey, keep talking like that and they’ll throw you in the, excuse the expression, booby hatch.

SHABELSKY. And why should a booby hatch be any worse than an escape hatch or a nuthatch? Do me a favor, throw me in there right now . . . You’d be doing me a favor . . .

LEBEDEV. You know what, my boy? Take your hat and go home . . . There’s a wedding going on here, everybody’s celebrating, while you caw . . . caw . . . like a crow. God be with you . . .

SHABELSKY. A wedding . . . everybody’s celebrating . . . Something idioti-cal, barbaric . . . There’s music, noise, drunkenness, just as if any Tom, Dick or Harry⁵⁸ was getting married. Up to now I considered you and Nikolay to be men of culture, but today I see that you are both as mauvais ton as Zyuzyushka and Marfutka. This isn’t a wedding, but a barroom.

LEBEDEV. A barroom, but it wasn’t me that made it a barroom nor was it Nikolasha. It’s customary . . . there’s a custom — shout yourself hoarse, sing at the top of your lungs, and customs, my boy, are just like laws. Mores leges imitantur⁵⁹—that’s something else I remember from university. Let’s not you and I try to change people.

SHABELSKY leans on the piano and sobs.

Good grief . . . Matvey . . . Count . . . What’s wrong with you? Dear heart, my dear fellow . . . my angel . . . Have I offended you? Well, forgive me, old hound that I am . . . Forgive a drunkard . . . Have some water . . .

SHABELSKY. Don’t want any. (Raises his head.)

LEBEDEV. What are you crying for?

SHABELSKY. No reason, just because . . .

LEBEDEV. No, Matvey, don’t lie . . . what for? What’s the reason?

SHABELSKY. I just caught a glimpse of that cello and . . . and I remembered the little kike girl . . . .

LEBEDEV. Oh boy, what a time you picked to remember . . . May she rest in peace, bless her, but this is no time for reminiscing . . .

SHABELSKY. We would play duets together . . . A wonderful, superb woman . . . (Leans on the piano.)

VOICE FROM THE RECEPTION ROOM: “To the health of the ladies . . .”

Fanfare and hooray.

They’re all vulgar little, petty little, insignificant little, untalented little creatures . . . I’m a grouch; like a coquette, I put on God knows what kind of airs, I don’t believe a single word I say, but you have to agree, Pasha, everyone is trivial, insignificant, appallingly vulgar. I’m ready to love mankind before I die, but after all they’re not humans, but subhumans, microcephali,⁶⁰ filth, soot . . .

LEBEDEV. Subhumans . . . It’s all on account of stupidity, Matvey . . . They are stupid, but just you wait—their children will be intelligent . . . If the children aren’t intelligent, wait for the grandchildren, it can’t happen all at once . . . It’ll take centuries . . .

SHABELSKY. Pasha, when the sun shines, it’s cheerful even in a graveyard . . . when there’s hope, then it’s good even to be old . . . But I haven’t got a hope, not one single one . . .

LEBEDEV. Yes, you’re really in a bad way . . . You’ve got no children, no money, no occupation . . . Well, that’s the way it goes, fate doesn’t care a damn for you . . .

The music plays a waltz for half a minute, during which time LEBEDEV and SHABELSKY look as if they’re talking to one another.

SHABELSKY. We’ll settle up in the next world. I’ll go to Paris and take a look at my wife’s grave. In my lifetime I’ve given away plenty, I squandered half my fortune, and therefore I have the right to ask. Besides, I’m asking it from a friend.

LEBEDEV (dismayed). Dear heart, I haven’t got a penny . . . Word of honor, omnia mea mecum porto.⁶¹ I live off my wife’s groceries, no salary of my own. I did have a secret ten thousand stashed away, but this very day I promised it to Shurochka. (Vigorously.) Hold on, stop whining . . . Eureka⁶². . . I’ll put in a word with Nikolay, and you’ll be in Paris . . . Off to Paris . . . We’ll deal you three thousand out of the ten. Four . . . You can travel around all year long, and then you’ll come home and, who knows, you might have a grand-nephew . . . Ow . . . ow . . . Word of honor . . .

IV

The same and IVANOV.

IVANOV (entering from the reception room). Uncle, are you here? My dear man, I’m smiling and laughing like the most good-natured of mortals . . . (Laughs.) I beg you most cordially to be merry, you smile too . . . Don’t poison our merriment by looking down in the mouth. Take Pasha by the right arm, me by the left and we’ll go have a drink to your health. I’m more happy and contented than I’ve been for a long time. Everything is fine, normal . . . wonderful . . . I’ve had a glass of champagne (laughs) and I think the whole world is spinning around with my happiness . . . (Alarmed). Matvey, have you been crying?

SHABELSKY. Yes . . .

IVANOV. What for?

SHABELSKY. I was remembering her . . . Sarra . . .

Pause.

IVANOV. Thank you for remembering her . . . She was a beautiful, exceptional woman . . . There are few women like her, Matvey . . .

LEBEDEV. She was attractive. It’s true . . .

Pause.

IVANOV (to the Count). Do you remember that word I flung at her in the heat of the moment, when she came into my study? My God, we can remember it now calmly, but at the time I almost died of horror. I didn’t sleep a wink for five whole days, didn’t eat a single crumb, but after all she forgave me . . . She forgave me everything when she died. And I feel that even now she’s looking down on us with her bright eyes and forgives us. She’s sleeping in her grave now; we’re alive, music is playing around us, and a time will come when we shall die, and people will say of us: now he’s sleeping in the grave . . . I like this natural order and I like nature itself. (Laughs.) Everything is extraordinarily appealing to me today . . . Pasha, you are the most honest of men . . . I don’t need to drink any more, but you, gentlemen, go and have a drink . . .

LEBEDEV. Count, a little cognac? Eh? What’ll you have?

SHABELSKY. I don’t care.

IVANOV. I won’t drink myself, but I like to see other people drink. (Taps his forehead.) When you’re happy, you’re happy, but these last few days I’ve been so enervated that I thought I’d faint . . . A sort of whimper ran through my whole body . . . (Laughs.) Let’s go.

V

The same and BORKIN.

BORKIN (entering from the reception room). Boy, where are you? They’re looking for you. (On seeing Ivanov.) Ah . . . Go in quickly, they’re calling for you . . . Although, wait just a minute, Nicolas, I have to let you in on a wonderful idea. For this idea, gents, you all, no matter how many you are, ought to pay at least a thousand rubles . . . Listen, Nicolas: let’s you, me, Zinaida Savishna and Babakina, all of us, go shares in opening a stud farm . . . Are you willing?

LEBEDEV. Well . . . whist has turned this lad’s wits.

IVANOV (laughs). Misha, you’re a clever, capable fellow . . . I sincerely wish you well. Let bygones be bygones.

BORKIN (moved). Nikolay Alekseevich, you’re a good man . . .I love you and am obliged to you for a great deal. Let’s drink as brothers! . . .

IVANOV. That’s not necessary, Misha, it’s all nonsense . . . What matters is, be an honest, good man . . . Let bygones be bygones . . . You’re at fault, I’m at fault, but we won’t go into that. We are all people — human beings, all sinners, guilty in the sight of God. The only person who isn’t sinful and is strong is someone with no red blood and no heart.

LEBEDEV (to Ivanov). Today you’re talking like a German pastor. Drop this sermonizing . . . If we’re going to drink, let’s drink, but don’t waste valuable time. Let’s go, count . . . (He links arms with the Count and Ivanov.) Forward . . . (Drinks.) Let’s the three of us polish off a bottle right now . . .

BORKIN (barring their way). Gents, I’m not joking about this stud farm . . . This is serious business . . . First of all, it’s a money-making operation, and, second, it’s needed . . . It’ll turn a profit sooner than you think . . . First of all, there are lots of ponds, second, incredible watering holes, third, land for a farm.

VI

The same and BABAKINA.

BABAKINA (enters from the reception room). Now where is my escort? Count, how dare you leave me alone? There’s no one for me to clink glasses with . . . Ooh, you’re a disgrace! (Strikes the Count on the arm with her fan.)

SHABELSKY (squeamishly). Leave me alone . . . get away from me . . .

SHABELSKY, LEBEDEV, and IVANOV go into the reception room.

BABAKINA (dumbfounded). What’s going on? What right has he to do that? Thanks ever so much . . .

BORKIN. Marfunchik, I’ll drop by tomorrow, we’ll have a serious talk and come to terms . . . (Breathing hard.) In the initial phase we’ll need quite a bit of money. If every shareholder invests about two thousand to start with, that’ll be more than enough . . .

BABAKINA. How dare he? I treated him with affection, refinement, like a lady, and he goes—get away from me . . . What’s going on? Is he off his rocker or what?

BORKIN (impatiently). Ah, that’s not the point . . . He doesn’t want to get married, the hell with him . . . There are things more important than being a count or getting married. Just think, Marfunchik; in the whole district we’ve only got one stud farm, and that one’s about to be sold at auction. A terrible dearth of good horses is felt. If we go into business on a broad scale, we can order two or three good stallions . . .

BABAKINA (angrily). Stop it, quit it . . .

BORKIN. Just please let me hammer it home . . . (Passionately.) To do this we need no more than two or three thousand, that’s all, and in five to ten years we’ll make a fortune . . . First of all, lots of ponds, second, watering holes, third . . .

BABAKINA (weeps). All year long he’d come by three times a week, drink, eat, drive my horses around, and now, when his nephew is getting married to a rich girl, I’m not needed any more. Thanks ever so . . . Maybe I didn’t give him any money, but after all I’m not a millionaire . . .

BORKIN (clasping his hands). I’m talking business to her, and she’s raving . . . Wonderful people . . . Try and do business with people like this . . . Those guys refuse to listen, this one’s raving like a loon . . . My friends, it’s high time you cast off your indolence, apathy, you’ve got to get down to business! . . . How can you fail to notice that we’re being ruined by indifferentism!⁶³

BABAKINA (spitefully, through her tears). Stop! . . . I’ll scratch his eyes out! . . . Nobody’s going to set foot in my house again . . . Not one of these scoundrels better dare poke his nose in! . . . (Weeps.)

BORKIN. Which means, my idea is going to go bust and the deal will fall through. (Bitterly.) Thank you, madam . . . I’m much obliged to you . . . You’ve got money for frippery and Madeira, but you won’t spare a penny on a solid, profitable business deal . . . You bow down before the golden calf, Mammon . . .

BABAKINA tries to leave.

(Takes her by the hand, which she yanks away; resolutely) Well, Marfa Yegorovna, in that case I’ve got another idea . . . Marfochka, if you begrudge two thousand, then let me make you a proposal . . . I am making you a proposal . . .

BABAKINA (spitefully and surprised). What?

BORKIN. I offer you my hand and heart. I love you passionately, madly. From the first time I saw you, I understood the meaning of my life . . . To love you and not to possess you is torture . . . the Spanish Inquisition . . .

BABAKINA. No, no, no, no . . .

BORKIN. True, I have enjoyed reciprocity in the fullest sense, but this did not satisfy me. I want legal wedlock, so I may belong to you forever . . . (Takes her round the waist.) I love and I suffer . . . Oh thou, who in thy grief complains in vain to God, o man . . .⁶⁴ What more can I tell you? Let’s get hitched, and that’s that . . . You’ve got plenty of money, it’s nothing to do with you personally, I’m a businesslike, stable fellow . . . besides I’m in love . . .

BABAKINA. But after all, you . . . are always joking . . . You proposed last year too, and the next day you showed up and took it back.

BORKIN. Word of honor, it’s no joke . . . Here I am on my knees. (Gets on his knees.) I love you to the point of madness . . .

A FOOTMAN passes by.

BABAKINA (cries out). Ah . . . the footman saw us . . .

BORKIN. Let everybody see us . . . I’ll explain it all right away. (Gets up.)

BABAKINA. Only, Misha, I’m not going to give you a lot of money . . .

BORKIN. We’ll see about that, we’ll see . . . (Kisses her.) Marfunchik, my big-bassdrumchik . . . Let’s start living . . . We’ll have such racehorses that the winnings alone’11 make me a fortune.

BABAKINA (shouts). Don’t crumple my dress, my dress . . . It cost two hundred rubles . . .

VII

BABAKINA, BORKIN, and AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA.

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (comes out of the reception room and, on seeing the couple kissing, screams). Ah . . .

BORKIN. Avdotya Nazarovna, greetings . . . The bridegroom and the bride . . . I’m getting married . . . (He and Babakina go to the door to the reception room) Has she gone nuts? I say I’m getting married! . . . (Kisses Babakina.) There . . . now I don’t need any shareholders, I can open the stud farm myself . . .

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. My sweetie-pie, my beauty . . . I wish you joy!

BORKIN. Wait, make way . . . (Exits with Babakina into the reception room.)

AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (following them, shouts). Just take a look, good people, what a match I’ve made! . . . Take a look . . . (Exits.)

VIII

LVOV (alone).

LVOV (enters from the door at left; looks at his watch). I’m a little late, but then they’re probably all drunk, they won’t notice . . . (Goes to the door at right and his hands shake in agitation.) The main thing is not to get excited . . . (Looks through the doorway.) He’s sitting next to her, smiling . . . He’s cheated, robbed and smiles at his victim . . . (Shrinks with agitation.) The main thing is not to get excited . . . He sits happy, healthy, merry, and unpunished. There you have it, the triumph of virtue and truth . . . He didn’t manage to rob one wife, so he tortured her and drove her to her grave . . . Now he’s found another girl . . . He’ll play the hypocrite with this one too, until he cleans her out and, once he’s done that, lays her where poor Sarra is lying . . . The same old mercenary story . . .

VOICE FROM THE RECEPTION ROOM: “To the health of all the guests . . .”

Fanfare and cheers.

He’ll live beautifully to a ripe old age, and die with a clear conscience . . . No, I’ll strip you bare, I’ll tear the mask off you . . . You won’t smile that way at me . . . When everybody learns what kind of bird you are, that’ll wipe the grin off your face . . . (Nervously buttons up his frock coat.) I’m a decent person, and it’s my duty to open people’s eyes . . . (Nervously clears his throat.) I’ll do my duty and tomorrow clear out of this damned district . . . (Loudly.) Nikolay Alekseevich Ivanov, I declare in the hearing of everyone present, that you are a bastard!

An uproar in the reception room.

IX

LVOV, IVANOV, SHABELSKY, LEBEDEV, BORKIN, KOSYKH, then SASHA.

IVANOV. Why? why? Tell me: why? (Enervated, he drops on to a sofa.)

EVERYONE. Why?

LEBEDEV (to Lvov). Explain, for Christ’s sake, why did you insult him? (Clutches his head and walks around in agitation.)

SHABELSKY (to Ivanov). Nicolas, Nicolas, for heaven’s sake . . . Don’t pay any attention . . . Rise above it . . .

BORKIN. My good sir . . . this is an outrage . . . I challenge you to a duel . . .

LVOV. Mister Borkin, I consider it degrading to talk to you, let alone fight you . . . But Mister Ivanov may receive satisfaction at any time, if he so desires.

SASHA (enters from the reception room, staggers). Why? Why did you insult him? Gentlemen, please, make him tell me . . . why?

LVOV. Aleksandra Pavlovna, I did not insult him without sufficient reason. I came here as a decent person to open your eyes, and I beg you to hear me out. I will tell all . . .

SASHA. What can you tell? what secrets do you know? That he drove his first wife to the grave? That’s what everybody says. That he married me for the dowry and to keep from paying his debt to my mother? That’s common knowledge in the whole neighborhood as well. Ah, these cruel, petty, insignificant people . . . (To her husband.) Nikolay, let’s get out of here . . . (Takes him by the arm.)

LEBEDEV (to Lvov). I, as the host in my own house . . . as the father of my son-in-law . . . I mean, daughter, my good sir . . .

SASHA screams loudly and drops on to her husband . . .

Everyone runs over to Ivanov.

Holy saints, he’s dead . . . water . . . a doctor . . .

SHABELSKY (weeping). Nicolas! Nicolas!

EVERYONE. Water, a doctor, he’s dead . . .

Curtain

VARIANTS TO

Ivanov, First Version

Variants in the censor’s copy for the performance at Korsh’s Theatre in 1887.

ACT ONE

page 338 / Replace: SHABELSKY (after a moment’s thought). I? First of all I’d go to Moscow and listen to gypsy music.

with: SHABELSKY. I? (after a moment’s thought). First of all I’d go to Moscow, listen to gypsy music.

page 341 / Replace: (comes out of the house in a hat and overcoat)

with: (comes quickly out of the house in a hat and overcoat)

ACT TWO

page 352 / After: spoke ill of anyone . . . — Honorable, big-hearted, trustworthy, malleable as wax . . .

page 360 / Before: What’s the matter — the stage direction: (affectionately)

ACT THREE

page 369 / Before: And suddenly, of all the bad luck — the stage direction: (to the Count.)

ACT FOUR

TABLEAU ONE

page 386 / After: in a wet towel — limply.

TABLEAU TWO

page 399 / After: we’ll make a fortune . . . — It’s a profitable deal and won’t make us break a sweat.

page 401 / After: (Exits. — Fanfare and cheers.

page 402 / After: out of this damned district . . . — Well, it’s high time . . .

The following changes were made in the 1888 revision for the production at the Alexandra Theatre in St. Petersburg, and are taken from the censor’s copy.

ACT TWO

page 359 / Replace: Scenes VI and X

with:

VI

SASHA (entering through the door at right with Ivanov). Let’s go into the garden . . . It’s stuffy here.

IVANOV. Here’s how things stand, Shurochka. I do nothing and think about nothing, and am weary in body and soul and brain . . . Day and night my conscience aches, I feel that I am profoundly at fault, but precisely where my fault lies, I do not understand . . . On top of that there’s my wife’s illness, lack of money, constant squabbling, gossip, noise . . . My house has become repulsive to me, and living in it is for me worse than torture . . . I don’t know, Shurochka, what’s come over me, but I tell you frankly, what’s become unbearable is the company of my wife, who loves me . . . and such foul selfish thoughts creep into my head, which I couldn’t even conceive of before . . .

Pause.

Vile and nasty . . . I’m pestering everyone with my tedium, Shurochka, forgive me, but I only can forget it for a moment while I’m talking to you, my friend . . . When I’m with you I’m like a dog barking at the bright sun. Shurochka, I’ve known you since you were born, I’ve always loved you, spoiled you . . . I would give a great deal to have a daughter like you right now . . .

SASHA (joking through tears). Nikolay Alekseevich, let’s run away to America . . .

IVANOV. I feel too listless to cross this threshold, and you come up with America . . .

They walk to the entry to the garden.

Well, now, Shura, is it hard to go on living? I see, I see it all . . . This air doesn’t suit you . . .

page 361 /

X

ANNA PETROVNA and LVOV enter from the door at right.

LVOV. Now why, I ask you, have we come here?

ANNA PETROVNA. Never mind, they’ll be glad we came. There’s no one here . . . I suppose, they’re in the garden . . . Let’s go into the garden . . .

They go into the garden.

ACT THREE

page 376 / Replace: Scene VII

with:

VII

IVANOV and SASHA.

IVANOV (alarmed). Shura, is that you?

SASHA. Yes, it is . . . Didn’t you expect me? Why haven’t you been to see us for so long?

IVANOV. Shura, for god’s sake, this is indiscreet . . . Your coming here might have a dreadful effect on my wife . . .

SASHA. She won’t see me . . . I came by the back door . . . I’ll leave right away . . . I’m worried: are you all right? Why haven’t you been to see us for so long?

IVANOV. My wife is offended enough without this, she’s dying, and you come here . . . Shura, Shura! It’s inconsiderate and . . . and inhuman!

SASHA. What’s that got to do with me? You haven’t been by for two weeks, don’t answer my letters . . . I’m in agonies. It seemed to me that you were suffering unbearably here, ill, dead . . . Not a single night did I sleep a wink . . . I’ll go right away. At least tell me: are you all right?

IVANOV. No . . . I’ve been tormenting myself, people torment me nonstop . . . I am simply at the end of my rope. You see, I’m trembling all over. And now on top of it you . . . Why did you come?

SASHA. Nikolay, this is cowardly!

IVANOV. It’s as if we wish her death . . . How unwholesome this is, how abnormal! Shura, I’m so much at fault, so much at fault!

SASHA. Who wants her to die? What’s the point of those dreadful words? Let her live another hundred years and may God grant she live even longer . . . But how are you at fault? Is it really your fault that you fell out of love with her? Is it your fault that you love me? Think nice thoughts . . .

IVANOV. I’m thinking . . .

SASHA. It’s not your fault, it’s the force of circumstance. Be brave . . . I promise you, my dear, here’s my hand on it, good days will come and you will be happy.

IVANOV. Be brave . . . a time will come . . . in love, out of love—these are all platitudes. Hackneyed phrases, which are no help at all.

SASHA. I talk the way everybody does and I don’t know how else to talk.

IVANOV. And this whole love affair of ours is commonplace, trite . . . “He was downhearted and had lost his bearings . . . She showed up, strong and bold in spirit, and offered him a helping hand. .” It’s all right and appropriate only for novels, but in life—it’s not right, not right . . . It’s not what’s needed . . . So you love me, my girl, you’ve lent a helping hand, and all the same I’m pathetic and helpless . . . And you yourself? You’ve set out with the goal of salvation, resurrection, doing a deed of valor, but look at yourself: you’re trembling, pale, your eyes are filled with tears . . . No, Shura, you and I make bad heroes!

SASHA. You mean to go on like this today, I see . . . Goodbye! Listen to me: I love you and I’ll follow you wherever you wish, even to Siberia, beneath whatever clouds you like . . . I’m ready to die for you. Whatever may happen to you, wherever fate may drive you, I shall be with you forever and wherever . . .

IVANOV. Yes, yes, yes . . . Talk, talk . . . (Presses his face to her shoulder.) I’ve been tormenting you, tormenting myself. Shurochka, in the name of all that’s holy, take me away from here as soon as possible . . . Let me rest and forget myself for only a moment . . .

First revised version of the end of Act Three.

X

The same and LVOV.

LVOV (enters and, on seeing Anna Petrovna, quickly addresses himself to her). What’s going on? (Examines her face, to Ivanov.) What’s been going on with you just now?

IVANOV. God, It’s all my fault! . . . all my fault!

LVOV. Anna Petrovna, what’s wrong with you? (to Ivanov.) Just you wait! I swear by the honor which you do not possess, you shall pay for her! I’ll put you through hell . . . I’ll show you! . . .

IVANOV. It’s all my fault, all my fault . . .

Curtain

ACT FOUR

VII

The same and IVANOV.

IVANOV enters; he is in a tailcoat and gloves; in evident agitation.

LEBEDEV. That’s all we needed! What’s going on! What are you doing here?

SASHA. Why are you here?

IVANOV. Sorry, friends, let me talk with Sasha in private . . .

LEBEDEV. It isn’t proper for the groom to visit the bride. You should have been at the church a long time ago!

IVANOV. Sasha, I beg you . . .

LEBEDEV, shrugging his shoulders, ZINAIDA SAVISHNA, SHABELSKY, and BABAKINA leave.

SASHA. What’s wrong with you?

IVANOV (getting excited). Shurochka, my angel . . .

SASHA. You’re over-excited . . . What’s happened?

IVANOV. My happiness, my darling, listen to me . . . Forget that you love me, focus all your attention on me and listen . . .

SASHA. Nikolay, don’t frighten me, what’s wrong?

IVANOV. Just now as I was getting dressed for the ceremony, I looked at myself in the mirror, and my temples were . . . gray . . . Shurochka, we mustn’t . . . Before it’s too late, we mustn’t . . . we musn’t! (Clasps her head.) We mustn’t! . . . Call it off! . . .(Ardently.) You’re young, beautiful, pure, you have your whole life ahead of you, while I . . . gray at the temples, a broken-down wreck, this sense of guilt, the past . . . We’re no match! . . . I’m no match for you!

SASHA (sternly). None of this is new, I’ve heard it all before, and I’m sick and tired of it . . . Go to the church, don’t keep people waiting! . . .

IVANOV (takes her hands). I love you too much and you’re too dear to me for me to dare stand in your way. I won’t make you happy . . . I swear to God, I won’t! . . . While it’s not too late, call it off. It’ll be the honorable and intelligent thing to do. I’ll go home right now, and you can explain to your folks that there won’t be any wedding . . . Tell them anything . . . (Walks around in agitation) My God, my God, I sense Shurochka, that you, don’t understand me . . . I’m old, my day is done, I’m covered in rust . . . the vigor of my life is spent forever, there’s no future, my memories are gloomy ones. A feeling of guilt grows in me with every passing hour, chokes me . . . Doubts, forebodings . . . Something is going to happen . . . Shurochka, something is going to happen! The dark clouds are gathering, I feel it.

SASHA. What do you want then?

IVANOV. This very minute, without delay, call it off. Well? Make up your mind. I beg you, I implore you . . . I see by your eyes you’re wavering, you’re afraid to speak the truth. Understand, my dear, inexperienced girl: what’s speaking in you is not love, but the obstinacy of an honorable nature. You set out with the goal, come what may, of resurrecting the human being in me, saving me; you flattered yourself that you were performing a deed of valor . . . yes, yes, yes, don’t deny it! Now you’re ready to give it up, but a false feeling prevents you. Don’t ruin yourself! My joy, listen to the man who loves you more than life itself! Well? Do you agree? Do you?

Pause.

SASHA. If that’s what you want, then please: let’s put our wedding off a year.

IVANOV. No, no, right away . . . This very minute! Shurochka, I won’t go, I won’t leave you in peace, until you call it off . . . Well? Do you agree? Tell me! I’m dying with impatience . . . Do you?

Pause.

Do you?

SASHA nods her head.

You were even smiling with relief. (Breathes easily.) What a weight off my shoulders . . . You’re free, and now I’m free. You’ve taken a ten-ton weight off my conscience.

Pause.

And so she called it off . . . If you hadn’t agreed, this is what I would have . . . (Pulls a revolver out of his pocket.) I brought it along on purpose . . . (Hides the revolver.) It was easier for me to kill myself than to ruin your life . . . She called it off . . . Right? . . . I’m going home . . . I’ve got weak . . . And I’m ashamed and humiliated and . . . I feel myself to be pathetic . . . Which door should I leave by?

Pause.

Why are you silent? Dumbfounded. Yes . . . Don’t you see, what a fuss . . . There’s something I wanted to say just now and I forgot . . . (Covers his face with his hands.) I’m so ashamed!

SASHA. Good-bye, Nikolay Alekseevich. Forgive me! (Goes to the door.)

VIII

The same and LEBEDEV.

LEBEDEV (running into Sasha in the doorway). Wait, wait . . . I’ll say two words. (Takes Sasha and Ivanov by the hands, glancing around.) Listen . . . This is what mother wants, God bless her. She’s not giving any money and there’s no need to. Shura, you say that you don’t need a dowry. Principles, altruism, Schopenhauer . . . It’s all nonsense, but here’s what I’ve got to say to you. I’ve got ten thousand in a secret bank account (glancing around), not a dog in the house knows about it . . . It’s Granny’s . . . . Grab it! Only a condition is better than money: give Matvey three thousand or so.

SASHA. Let go! (Pulls away her hand and, swaying a bit, exits.)

LEBEDEV. What’s the meaning of that dream?

IVANOV. There won’t be a wedding, Pasha. It’s over.

LEBEDEV. How’s that again?

IVANOV. Tell the guests. There won’t be a wedding. I asked her to call it off.

LEBEDEV. Is this philosophy or in truth?

IVANOV. The truth. I’ve leaving right now.

Pause.

My God, my God!

LEBEDEV. I don’t understand a thing. In other words, I have to go and explain to the guests that there won’t be a wedding. Is that right or what?

Pause.

God be your judge, Nikolasha, it’s not for me to judge you, but excuse me, we’re no longer friends. God bless you, wherever you go. We don’t understand one another. Get out!

IVANOV. I should like, Pasha, that now God send me some kind of dreadful calamity—a disease, hunger, prison, disgrace . . . something of the kind. I can hardly stand on my feet, I’m exhausted . . . Another minute and I think I’ll collapse. Where’s Matvey? Let him take me home. And I love your Sasha, love her awfully . . . Now I love Sarra too. Poor woman! You remember that thing I called her, in the heat of the moment, when she came into my study? Then I nearly died of horror. For five days I didn’t get a moment’s sleep, didn’t eat a single crumb. And after all she forgave me; forgave me everything when she died!

The GUESTS gather in the reception room.

IX

The same and SHABELSKY.

SHABELSKY (enters). Forgive me, Pavel, I won’t come to the wedding. I’m going home. My spirits are low. Good-bye.

IVANOV. Wait. Matvey, let’s go together. If only God would have sent me a disease or poverty . . . I think I would have come to life then.

VOICES IN THE RECEPTION ROOM: “The best man has arrived!”

LEBEDEV (in a whisper, angrily). Tell the guests yourself, I don’t know how. How can I tell them! What shall I tell them? Gentlemen, for God’s sake!

X

The same, BORKIN, and then LVOV.

BORKIN (enters with a bouquet; he is in a tailcoat and with a best man’s bou-tonniere). Oof! Where is he? (To Ivanov.) Why did you come here? They’ve been waiting for you in the church a long time, and here you are spouting philosophy. What a comedian! Honest to God, a comedian! After all, you’re not supposed to ride with the bride, but separately with me, and then I come back here to escort the bride to church. How can you possibly not know that! Positively a comedian!

LEBEDEV. Well, what shall I say? What words? Dying is easier . . . (Pulls Ivanov by the arm.) What are you standing there for? Go away! At least get out of our sight!

LVOV (enters, to Ivanov). Ah, there you are. (Loudly.) Nikolay Alekseevich Ivanov, I declare in the hearing of everyone that you are a bastard!

General confusion.

IVANOV (clutching his head). Why? Why? Tell me, why?

SHABELSKY (to Ivanov). Nicolas! Nicolas, for God’s sake . . . Don’t pay any attention. Rise above it.

BORKIN (to Lvov). My dear sir, this is an outrage! I challenge you to a duel.

LVOV. Mister Borkin, I consider it degrading not only to fight, but even to talk to you. Whereas Mister Ivanov, if he so desires, may receive satisfaction at any time.

SHABELSKY. Dear sir, I’ll fight you!

IVANOV. Allow me, gentlemen. Let me speak. (Shaking his head.) I’m now capable of speaking and I know how to speak like a human being. His insult nearly killed me, but after all it’s not his fault! Put yourself in his shoes! Isn’t it ridiculous? He’s known me for over two years, but there wasn’t a single minute when he could understand what sort of man I am. For two years he conscientiously analyzed me, suffered, didn’t give himself or me or my wife a moment’s peace, and all the same I remain a riddle and a conundrum. I was not understood by my wife or my friends or my enemies or Sasha or these guests. Am I honorable or base? intelligent or stupid? healthy or psychotic? do I love or do I hate? No one knew, and everyone got lost guessing. Truth is as clear and simple as God’s daylight, any little kid could understand it, but even intelligent people didn’t understand me. Which means that there is no truth in me. Ah, how I understand myself now, how absurd I am to myself! How indignantly I responded to that “bastard”! (Roars with laughter.) Yes, I was honorable, bold, ardent, indefatigable, did the work of three men, knew how to get indignant, weep, love, hate, but to the point that I only wore myself out. Yes, I loved people, loved a woman, as none of you could, but my love lasted only two or three years, until my indolent soul wore out, until it began to seem to me that

NOTES

1 A district committee to supervise self-governing peasant communes; its members might include the district police chief, a justice of the peace, and a “permanent member,” a salaried official appointed by the government on the nomination of the Rural Board. The “permanent member” was highly responsible for the control of rural institutions.

2 As a converted Jew, Sarra had to take a Christian saint’s name and patronymic.

3 Zemstvo, an elective council created in 1864 to administer minor regional economic, educational and sanitary matters; its elected members included both landowners and peasants. Throughout the 1880s, a period of political repression, the zemstvos worked sluggishly.

4 “Good grief, all one had to do was pronounce these words for a Russian intellectual, a university student, a coed to make a respectful face. Once a country doctor came on stage, the audience’s sympathy was enlisted, he was the ‘shining light,’ the ‘social idealist,’ he has the right to be the ‘positive’ character in the play.

“And suddenly this hero . . . is left alone and says: ‘What the hell! It’s bad enough they don’t pay me for my visits . . . etc.’ So: one stroke, just one lie, and the mask is off” (V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, Out of the Past [1938]). See end of Act One.

5 Guberniya, a provincial region administered by a governor and divided into counties (uyezdy).

6 His government salary as Permanent Member of the Council for Peasant Affairs.

7 An in-joke for the play’s first audiences. Nicolas-voilà (French: It’s Nick in the nick o’ time!) was a tagline from a song in a musical farce popularized by the actor Davydov, who created the role of Ivanov.

8 Chewing perfumed paper to sweeten the breath, and taking ammonia to cure a hangover.

9 Russian: merlekhlyundiya, Chekhov’s joking version of melancholy, which he picked up from medical school slang. Masha repeats it in Three Sisters.

10 German: Come here.

11 Shabelsky cites literary heroines at random. Madame Angot, a French market-woman of the French Directoire period, renowned for her salty speech, is a character in Charles Lecocq’s comic opera La Fille de Madame Angot (1872), which Chekhov may have seen in Moscow in 1878. Ophelia is Polonius’s daughter, once loved by Hamlet.

12 Chekhov later puts this song in the mouth of Yepikhodov in The Cherry Orchard.

13 Lishnye lyudi, usually translated as “superfluous men,” a technical term in Russian culture, popularized by Ivan Turgenev: well-born, well-educated members of society who fail to contribute anything to it. Ivanov applies the term to himself in Act Two.

14 Broken French: Who on earth is this Marfusha?

15 Literally, swine in a skullcap. Both this phrase and mauvais ton (bad form) are allusions to a letter defaming the town’s officials in the last act of Gogol’s comedy The Inspector General (1836).

16 The religious hypocrite in Molière’s comedy Tartuffe, or The Imposter (1664–1667).

17 A quotation from a folksong.

18 Yiddish: alas . . . woe is me . . . bad luck . . .

19 On Russian country estates watchmen would make the rounds, tapping on a board to warn intruders of their presence. Also see The Seagull, Act Four, and Uncle Vanya, Act Two.

20 Furniture in manor houses was kept under dustcovers when a room was unused or the family was away. It is a sign of Zinaida Savishna’s niggardliness that it should remain covered during a party.

21 The game being played is whist (Russian, vint), closely related to bridge. Each player holds thirteen cards.

22 Russians of limited means made a run on the 5-percent interest-bearing lottery tickets issued by the stock exchange in 1864 and 1866; in 1887, the price was raised and stabilized at a hundred rubles a ticket.

23 To lead is to play the first card or play one’s suit. A trick are the four cards played in each round. A slam is obtaining all thirteen tricks in one hand. A trump is the last card dealt out—the turn-up. To call for a trump is to signal one’s partner to lead trumps.

24 Since compliments might attract envy and, hence, the evil eye, bad luck was averted by spitting three times over one’s shoulder.

25 A gesture meaning “Let’s get drunk.”

26 Zinaida Savishna uses the abusive term zhidovka (female kike or yid).

27 Anti-Semitic prejudice held that garlic was a favorite food of Jews and that they stank of it.

28 Lines from Lermontov’s poem “No, ’tis not thee I love so warmly” (1841), which was set to music by at least three composers.

29 A line from Gogol’s Dead Souls: the blustering Nozdryov says it to Chichikov, when they are playing checkers for a stake of the former’s dead serfs.

30 Ancient Greek god of medicine; in this Latin form, a fanciful term for a physician.

31 Yiddish: business deal, with the connotation of swindle.

32 Fireworks used for signaling.

33 The opening line of a gypsy ballad based on a poem by V. I. Krasov. Chekhov also puts this song into the mouth of Dr. Dorn in The Seagull.

34 Mispronunciation of “je vous prie,” “please.”

35 French: custard, spider, thanks a lot.

36 In 1887, Germany’s militarism provoked a strain in its relations with France, and war nearly broke out three times in the course of that year.

37 Louis Pasteur, the French bacteriologist (1822–1895) was in the news; his Institut Pasteur, whose aim was to treat hydrophobia by inoculation, opened in Paris in 1888.

38 A line from Denis Davydov’s Songs of an Old Hussar (1817), the poetic diary of a versifying army officer.

39 Latin: Do it again!

40 Bad French: pockets.

41 Paraphrase of a line from “The Doctor Serenade” by W. Ch. Dawinhof (words by A. M. Ushakova).

42 Allopathy is curing a disease by inducing a different kind of disease; homeopathy is treating a disease by minute doses of drugs that would induce disease-like symptoms in a healthy person.

43 Sonya repeats this line to Astrov in Uncle Vanya, Act Two.

44 In Russian, Lebedev twists the proverb “A shriven head escapes the axe” (A fault confessed is half redressed) to “A shriven head gets a work-over by the wife though it may escape the axe.”

45 Elementary schools fell under the jurisdiction of the Rural Board, of which Lebedev is chairman.

46 The pseudonym of Aurore Dudevant (1804–1876), whose overwrought and liberal-minded romantic novels were highly popular in Russia: Turgenev called her “one of our saints,” Belinsky “a modern Joan of Arc.”

47 From E. S. Shashina’s ballad “Three Words” (text by O. P. Pavlova).

48 Spanish: correctly de los majores, of the best.

49 French: you understand?

50 A bank in the southern county town of Skopin in Ryazan failed in 1884 and was a topic of conversation for years. Chekhov reported on the Moscow trial of the bank’s president and head cashier.

51 At the start of Gogol’s comedy The Inspector General, the worried Mayor tells of a dream in which two rats of “exceptional size” came, sniffed around, and then went away again.

52 In Russian Orthodox wedding ceremonies, the benediction is given before the church ceremony takes place.

53 The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was lodged in the popular imagination as a paragon of systematic pessimism.

54 At traditional Russian weddings, the cry “Bitter! Bitter!” is meant for the bride and groom to kiss and thus “sweeten things up.”

55 A folksong connected with the wedding ritual, sung by the bridesmaids to the bride the day before the ceremony, at the bridal shower.

56 From Act I of the operetta by Franz von Suppé (1879).

57 The diabolical tempter and naysayer in Goethe’s Faust and Gounod’s opera of it: “the Spirit which denies.”

58 In the original, “Tit Titych’s wedding.” Tit Titych Bruskin is a merchant in Ostrovsky’s comedy Your Binge, My Hangover (1856).

59 Latin: Customs are the result of laws.

60 The scientific term for “pinheads,” persons born with smaller than normal skulls.

61 Latin: I carry all I have on me.

62 Greek: I have found it! Attributed to Archimedes (ca. 287–212 B.C.), when he discovered the law of specific gravity.

63 The same unusual word that Medvedenko uses at the beginning of The Seagull.

64 A quotation from an ode by Lomonosov based on the Book of Job, which Khlestakov also quotes in Gogol’s Inspector General in a similar courting scene.