The Complete Plays

SEREBRYAKOV. Ivan Ivanych, you’re an intelligent man! Why should I ask for forgiveness? It’s an absurd, homegrown philosophy! Other people should be asking my forgiveness! (To Zheltukhin.) Tell me please, are there any ordinary, normal people around here? Every last one is a deep thinker or a philosopher. Out of the blue, he starts to think thoughts. One for no reason at all asks forgiveness, another raves about those forests . . . No, gentlemen, one must take action! One can’t go on like this. One must take action.

MARIYA VASILYEVNA (reading). Give me a pencil . . . Another contradiction! I have to jot it down.

ORLOVSKY. Please take this one, Your Excellency! (Hands her a pencil and kisses her hand.)

ZHELTUKHIN (sighing). We won’t be taking action around here any time soon. The time’s not ripe, Aleksandr Vladimirovich. Much too early. The all-prevailing ignorance allied with the inertia of the ruling classes, moreover . . .

ORLOVSKY. Anyway I’ve got headache and . . . and . . . my face is flushed . . .

SEREBRYAKOV. Excuse me, I’m detaining you . . .

ORLOVSKY. Not at all, I just need to shake it off . . .

Enter VOINITSKY.

page 637 / Replace: To live in town . . . impossible.

with: The means we currently have at our disposal is insufficient for urban living. To live in town on the income from the estate is impossible.

page 638 / After: excursion — an expedition, so to speak,

page 639 / After: This estate was bought from his uncle — Waffles, how much did my father pay for this estate?

page 639 / Replace: For twenty-five years . . . sat between these four walls

with: Hold on, let me have my say at least once in my life. Twenty-five [sic] I and she, my mother, sat like moles between these four walls

page 640 / Replace: I’m going to another room . . . I can’t take any more of this!

with: Excuse me . . . (Exits in powerful excitement.)

YELENA ANDREEVNA. Georges, I insist that you keep quiet!

SEREBRYAKOV. What do you want from me?

page 641 / Replace: Move him into the village . . . There, there, there . . . My friends

with: If he needs to, let him move to the servant’s quarters, to the village, but I cannot remain with him. I shall go! I shall go!

YELENA ANDREEVNA. Aleksandr, I’m worn out. If you truly consider him to be deranged, I beg of you, don’t respond to his insults. Otherwise this war will never end. I’m begging you . . .

ZHELTUKHIN. I have been an involuntry witness to this dismaying scene and therefore I ask your permission to intervene. Today I’ll have a word with him and act so that he will ask your forgiveness.

YELENA ANDREEVNA. No, there no need for forgiveness! I’m afraid of these forgivenesses . . .

page 641 / Replace: Scene XII

with:

XII

The same and KHRUSHCHOV

KHRUSHCHOV (agitated). I’m delighted to find you at home, Aleksandr Vladimirovich . . . Forgive me, I may have come at a bad time and am disturbing you . . . But that’s not the point. Sorry, I haven’t said hello . . . Good afternoon, Godfather.

SEREBRYAKOV. What can I do for you?

KHRUSHCHOV. Excuse me, I’m over-excited — it’s because I just rode over here so quickly . . . Aleksandr Vladimirovich, I heard that the day before yesterday you sold your forest to Kuznetsov for timber. If that’s true, and not mere gossip, then I beg you, for heaven’s sake, not to do it.

SEREBRYAKOV. Forgive me, I don’t understand you and . . . and I am not disposed to understand.

KHRUSHCHOV. Let me ride over to Kuznetsov and tell him that you’ve reconsidered! All right? May I? I implore, I entreat you by all you hold sacred! (Weeps.) To fell thousands of trees, to destroy them for the sake of a few thousand, to pay for women’s fripperies, caprices, luxuries . . . To destroy so that future generations will curse our barbarity! If you, a learned, famous man, make up your mind to such cruelty, what are other people, far inferior to you, to do? This is really horrible!

ZHELTUKHIN. Misha, put it off to later . . . Aleksandr Vladimirovich isn’t disposed . . .

KHRUSHCHOV (to Serebryakov). You turn away from me . . . If, after imploring you like a beggar, I am, in your opinion, wrong, then prove it to me . . . You’re a professor, a celebrity, rich in knowledge and long in life—I’ll believe you! Prove it to me!

SEREBRYAKOV. Let’s go, Ivan Ivanych, there’ll be no end to this.

KHRUSHCHOV (blocks Serebryakov’s path). In that case, tell you what, Professor . . . Wait, in three months I’ll put the money together and buy it from you myself . . . Ivan Ivanovich, Godfather, at least you’ll stand up for me! At least say something, anything!

ORLOVSKY. The man’s a crackpot! What can I say?

KHRUSHCHOV (flaring up). Of course, what is there to say? Keep quiet and do nothing! Eh, Godfather, there are a lot of good-natured people on this earth, and that always struck me as suspicious! They’re good-natured because they’re couldn’t care less!

YELENA ANDREEVNA (to her husband). Aleksandr, listen to Mikhail Lvovich!

KHRUSHCHOV. You may go, Professor, wherever you like, I won’t detain you. I am not ashamed for having just humiliated myself and even wept in front of you. You and Ivan Ivanych aren’t ashamed either, which means everything is working out just fine, for which I congratulate you! My respects!

SEREBRYAKOV (sharply). And next time be so good as not to come in unannounced, and please spare me your psychotic stunts! You all wanted to try my patience, and you succeeded . . . Please leave me alone! All these forests of yours, the peat I consider to be delirium and psychosis—there, that’s my opinion! Let’s go, Ivan Ivanovich!

YELENA ANDREEVNA (follows him). Aleksandr, that’s going too far!

She, SEREBRYAKOV, and ORLOVSKY exit.

KHRUSHCHOV (alone, after a pause). Delirium, psychosis . . . Which means, in the opinion of a famous scholar and professor, I’m insane . . . I submit to Your Excellency’s authority and shall now go home and shave my head. No, the earth which still supports you is insane!

He goes quickly to the door at right; enter from the door at left SONYA, who had been eavesdropping in the doorway throughout all of Scene XII.

page 643 / After: heard it all — . . . Here’s a handkerchief, dry your tears . . . I shall keep this handkerchief as a souvenir . . .

page 644 / Replace: Just now Ivan Ivanovich told me . . . in the sincerity of my respect

with: I was a witness to it all . . . My soul belongs to you! Believe in the sincerity of my respect for you

page 644 / After: Get away for me . . . — begone!

page 644 / Replace: Scenes XV and XVI

with:

XV

YELENA ANDREEVNA, MARYA VASILYEVNA, then SONYA, SEREBRYAKOV, ORLOVSKY, and ZHELTUKHIN. MARYA VASILYEVNA staggers out of the central door, screams and falls unconscious. SONYA enters and runs out the central door.

SEREBRYAKOV

ORLOVSKY    What is it?

ZHELTUKHIN

SONYA’s screams are heard; she returns and cries out: “Uncle Georges has shot himself!” She, ORLOVSKY, SEREBRYAKOV, and ZHELTUKHIN run out the central door.

YELENA ANDREEVNA (moans). What for? What for?

FYODOR IVANOVICH appears in the door at right.

XVI

YELENA ANDREEVNA, MARYA VASILYEVNA, and FYODOR IVANOVICH.

FYODOR IVANOVICH (in the doorway). What’s going on?

YELENA ANDREEVNA (to him). Take me away from here! Throw me down a mineshaft! Kill me, abuse me! . . . . (Falls into his arms.)

FYODOR IVANOVICH (bursts into forced laughter, imitating an operatic Mephistopheles). Ha, ha, ha! (An octave lower.) Ha, ha, ha!

Curtain

Early version of Act Four.

ACT FOUR

A forest and the house by the mill, which Dyadin rents from Khrushchov.

I

SEMYON (carries a bucket), YULYA, then DYADIN.

YULYA (entering). Good afternoon, Semyon, God save you! Is Ilya Ilyich at home?

SEMYON. He is. He’s sleeping in the mill.

YULYA. Go and wake him.

SEMYON. Right away. (Exits.)

YULYA (alone; sits on the litle bench beneath the window and sighs deeply.). Ugh! Some people sleep, others enjoy themselves, but I spend my days on the go, on the go . . . I think I’m the unhappiest person on earth. God won’t let me die. (Sighs even more deeply.) Lord, how can there be such foolish people as that Waffles! I was driving just now past his barn, and a little black piglet ran out the door . . . If those pigs start rooting in other people’s grain sacks, he’ll be hearing about it . . .

Enter DYADIN, putting on his frockcoat.

DYADIN. Is it you, Yuliya Stepanovna? Sorry, I’m in a state of undress . . . After dinner I dropped off in the arms of Morpheus.³

YULYA. Good afternoon, Ilya Ilyich.

DYADIN. Forgive me for not inviting you inside . . . My house is in a bit of a mess and so on . . . If you like, please come to the mill . . .

YULYA. I’ll just sit here. Ilya Ilyich, what’s the matter with you? Why do you mix up my sacks?

DYADIN. What you do mean by that remark?

YULYA. Our sacks are bought at Kharlamov’s, and they’re marked with the letter X, but you sent us ones with a V on them.

DYADIN. Ce sont des trivia. It’s of no importance. They can be changed at any moment in time.

YULYA. Then please change them. Here’s why I’ve dropped in on you, Ilya Ilyich. Lyonechka and the Professor, for some recreation, want to have a picnic here at your mill today, a tea party . . .

DYADIN. Extremely gratified.

YULYA. I came ahead of them. They’ll be here soon. Please arrange for a table to be set up, oh and a samovar, of course . . . Have Senka get the baskets of food out of my carriage.

DYADIN. Can do.

Pause.

What’s it like now? How are things over there?

YULYA. Bad, Ilya Ilyich. Such a pack of troubles you can’t imagine. You know, of course, that the Professor and Sonya are living with us now? After Yegor Petrovich laid hands on himself, they got afraid to live in his house. The Professor is so done in, keeps losing weight, and stays mute, mute, mute . . . Sonichka, poor thing, keeps crying, and you can’t pry a word out of her. By day there’s no problem, but when night falls, they all gather in one room and sit there until dawn. They’re all terrified. They’re afraid that Yegor Petrovich is haunting the dark corners . . .

DYADIN. Superstition. I don’t believe in ghosts, or even spiritualism. And do they mention Yelena Andreevna?

YULYA. Of course, they mention her. She ran off with Fedinka, didn’t she! Did you hear?

DYADIN. Yes, a subject that deserves treatment by a painter of shipwrecks and tempests . . . She up and cleared out. (Laughs.) What a story! All the servants in the courtyard and the paysans in the countryside saw how he drove her away in his calèche. With one arm he’s holding her in an unconscious state, and with the other he’s lashing the horses with all his might, like Phoebus,⁴ borne aloft in a chariot. And for all that he only did five miles. He halted not far from here, in the Count’s woods, near old lady Yakun-chikha’s cabin, and went to get Yelena Andreevna a drink of water. While he went for the water, she was in such a state. He came back, and there wasn’t a trace of her. He goes all over the place — nowhere to be found! And what do you think? In his wrath, seeing that his Don Juanesque scheme had not succeeded, he broke in Yakunchikha’s door, all the windows, smashed the crockery and gave Yakunchikha herself a couple of black eyes. It’s fascinating!

YULYA. So she’s lost now. Nobody knows where . . . Maybe she went away, but maybe, in her desperation . . . all sorts of things might happen!

DYADIN. God is merciful, Yuliya Stepanovna! Everything will turn out for the best. I must confess, my heart is so full of bliss, so full of bliss! I am so boundlessly happy that, without recourse to fancy phrases, I can express it to you in the words of a certain poet . . .

YULYA (interrupting him). Why are you that way?

DYADIN. I don’t know . . . I mean I don’t have the right to explain it to you! I don’t have the right, although I’m ablaze with impatience . . .

Enter KHRUSHCHOV with a portfolio and a case with drawing implements.

II

The same and KHRUSHCHOV

KHRUSHCHOV. Hey! Anybody here? Semyon!

DYADIN. Look over here!

KHRUSHCHOV. Ah! . . . Good afternoon, Yulichka!

YULYA. Good afternoon, Mikhail Lvovich.

KHRUSHCHOV. I’ve dropped by your place again, Ilya Ilyich, to get some work done. Sitting at home’s no good. Tell them to set up my table under this tree as they did yesterday, oh, and tell them to get two lamps ready. It’s getting dark already . . .

DYADIN (goes). Fine. At your service, your honor.

KHRUSHCHOV. There’s a little box in there with my thumbtacks and a saucer. Don’t forget!

DYADIN. I know! (Exits.)

KHRUSHCHOV. How are you getting on, Yulechka?

YULYA. We’re getting on.

Pause.

Mikhail Lvovich, in your tree nursery how much are the pyramindal poplars?

KHRUSHCHOV. Not pyramindal, but pyramidal.

YULYA. That’s what I said, pyramindal . . . How much?

KHRUSHCHOV. You’ll come by, you’ll pick some out . . . It’d be obvious there, we’ll figure it out. Are the Serebryakovs living with you?

YULYA. Yes.

KHRUSHCHOV. Which means, your Lyonichka is spending all day at home . . . I’ll bet he’s happy.

YULYA. He sits at home. Always with Sonichka . . . Goes for walks with her, reads her poetry. All the same it’s easier for her . . . And the way he reads, Mikhail Lvovich! Yesterday I even wept.

Enter DYADIN and SEMYON; they are carrying a small table.

III

The same, DYADIN, and SEMYON.

DYADIN. You know a sure thing when you see it. You picked a beautiful spot for your work. It’s an oasis! A genuine oasis! Imagine that you’re surrounded by palm trees, Yulichka is a gentle gazelle, you’re a lion, I’m a tiger.

KHRUSHCHOV. You’re a decent enough fellow, a sensitive soul, Ilya Ilyich, but why do you act this way? These sickly sweet words, the way you shuffle your feet, jerk your shoulders . . . If a stranger caught sight of you, he’d think you’re not a man but some other damned thing! . . . It’s annoying . . .

DYADIN. Which means, it was so ordained at my birth . . . Fatal predestination.

KHRUSHCHOV. There you go again, fatal predestination. Drop all that. (Pinning a diagram to the table.) I’m going to spend the night here.

DYADIN. I am extremely pleased . . . Now you’re angry, Misha, while my heart’s filled with indescribable joy! As if a dicky-bird were sitting in my breast, warbling a little ditty.

KHRUSHCHOV. O be joyful.

Pause.

Your heart is rejoicing and my mine is as gloomy as can be. You’ve got a dicky-bird in your breast, and I’ve got a toad in mine. Boredom, grief, my conscience is nagging at me — I even want to burst into tears. A million things are going wrong! Shimansky sold his forest for timber . . . That’s one! Ivan Ivanych is mortally ill; he’s got typhus and they think it’ll be complicated by inflammation of the lungs. That’s two! Yelena Andreevna ran away with that blockhead Fyodor, and now nobody knows where she is. That’s three! She either ran away somewhere, or else threw herself in the water, took poison—take your pick, whatever you please. But the main thing, the most awful thing of all, the thing that torments me the most is that I cannot sit at home alone and I fear the darkness. Yesterday I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t, I didn’t have the courage. You know what? The late Yegor Petro-vich left behind a diary, and this diary makes it clear as day that we’ve all been nasty slanderers! This diary first got into Ivan Ivanych’s hands; I stopped by to treat him and I’ve read it over about a dozen times . . .

YULYA. Our folks read it too.

KHRUSHCHOV. Georges’s affair with Yelena Andreevna, which reverberated through the whole district, turns out to be a vulgar, filthy slander. I believed that slander and defamed him along with the others, hated, despised, insulted him . . . Why are you silent? Why don’t you say something?

DYADIN. Mishenka, I swear to you by God Almighty and by my eternal salvation, Yelena Andreevna is the most splendid of women! Meek, high-minded, righteous, sensitive, and with such a heart that, in my foolishness, I have no words to express it. (Weeps.) Mishenka! Believe me! When I was favored with the honor of making her closer acquaintance, my heart was filled with ineffable bliss. It’s pleasant to see physical beauty close up, but infinitely more pleasant to see spiritual beauty.

KHRUSHCHOV. The first person whom I believed was your brother, Yulichka! I’m a fine one too! He was the first to tell me about it! That’s a bad man you’ve got there! What did he deceive me for?

YULYA weeps.

DYADIN. Mishenka, you mustn’t, you mustn’t . . . Ssh! . . . Don’t insult her.

KHRUSHCHOV. What’s there to cry about? Tears won’t help.

DYADIN (to Yulya). Let’s go to the mill, my girl. Let the bad-tempered fellow work here, while you and I take some exercise. Let’s go . . . Get on with your work, Mishenka!

KHRUSHCHOV (alone; mixes colors in a saucer). One night I saw him pressing his face to her hand. In his diary he has described that night in detail, described how I came by there, what I said to him . . . He’s put down my words and calls me a stupid, narrow-minded fellow.

Pause.

It’s too dark . . . Should be lighter . . . And further on he abuses Sonya because she fell in love with me. Rest in peace, you poor fool, but your close observation betrayed you there: she never loved me . . . My hands are trembling like a drunkard’s . . . I made a blot . . . (Scrapes the paper with a knife.) Even if I grant there may be some truth in it, all the same it doesn’t do to think about it . . . It began stupidly, it ended stupidly . . . And I basically did the right thing when I burned her photograph yesterday . . . Yes . . . Otherwise I would . . .

SEMYON and WORKMEN bring in a big table.

What are you doing? What’s this for?

SEMYON. Ilya Ilyich told us to. Company’s coming from the Zheltukhins’ for tea.

KHRUSHCHOV. Thank you kindly. That means, I’ve got to stop caring about work . . . I’ll pack it up and go home.

Enter ZHELTUKHIN arm in arm with SONYA.

IV

KHRUSHCHOV, ZHELTUKHIN, and SONYA.

ZHELTUKHIN (sings). “Reluctant to this mournful shore an unknown power doth me draw . . .”

KHRUSHCHOV. Who’s that? Ah! (Hastens to pack up his drawing implements in their case.)

ZHELTUKHIN. I risk tiring you out, Sofya Aleksandrovna. Just one last question. Do you remember on my birthday you had lunch at our place? You’ve got to admit that at that time you roared with laughter at my toast.

SONYA. I broke out laughing for no particular reason. You don’t have to be so unforgiving with me, Leonid Stepanych.

ZHELTUKHIN (on seeing Khrushchov). Ah, you’re here too? Afternoon.

KHRUSHCHOV. Afternoon.

ZHELTUKHIN. Working? Wonderful . . . Where’s Waffles?

KHRUSHCHOV. Over there . . . in the mill.

ZHELTUKHIN. I’ll go and get him. (Walks, singing.) “Reluctant to this mournful shore . . .” (Exits.)

SONYA. Good afternoon . . .

KHRUSHCHOV. Good afternoon.

Pause.

SONYA. What are you drawing?

KHRUSHCHOV. Nothing special . . . it’s of no interest.

SONYA. Is it a map?

KHRUSHCHOV. No, it’s a diagram of the forests in our district. I’ve mapped them out.

Pause.

The green color indicates the places where there were forests in our grandfathers’ day and earlier; the light green is where forests have been felled in the last twenty-five years, well, and the light blue is where forests are still intact. There’s twice as much light green as light blue.

Pause.

I want to make a map of the whole province . . .

Pause.

Well, what about you? Happy? Sorry, it’s a ridiculous question; I didn’t ask it the right way . . .

SONYA. Now, Mikhail Lvovich, is not the time to think about happiness.

KHRUSHCHOV. What else is there to think about?

SONYA. Our sorrow came about only because we were thinking too much about our happiness.

KHRUSHCHOV. Sorry.

SONYA. Every cloud has its silver lining. Sorrow has taught me, and now I understand how I went astray . . . We have to forget about our happiness, Mikhail Lvovich, and every moment think only about other people’s happiness. Our whole life has to be made up of sacrifices.

KHRUSHCHOV. Well, yes, marrying Zheltukhin . . .

Pause.

Mariya Vasilyevna had a son who shot himself and she still keeps on looking for contradictions in her pamphlets. A disaster befell you, and you solace your vanity with ideas about some kind of sacrifices . . . Nobody’s got any heart . . . Neither you nor I . . . Things are going wrong, it’s all falling to rack and ruin . . . I’m going to leave now . . .

SONYA. They’re coming here, and I’m crying . . .

Enter YULYA, DYADIN, and ZHELTUKHIN.

V

The same, YULYA, DYADIN, ZHELTUKHIN, then SEREBRYAKOV.

SEREBRYAKOV’s voice: “Yoo-hoo! Where are you, my friends?”

SONYA (shouts). Papa, over here! (Quickly dries her eyes.)

DYADIN. They’re bringing the samovar! Fascinating! (He and YULYA fuss with things on the table.)

Enter SEREBRYAKOV; with him the HOUSEKEEPER with a basket.

SONYA. Over here, Papa!

SEREBRYAKOV. I see, I see . . .

ZHELTUKHIN (loudly). Gentlemen, I call this session to order! Uncork the cordial!

KHRUSHCHOV (to Serebryakov). Professor, let’s forget everything that passed between us! (Extends his hand.) I beg your pardon. Believe in my sincerity!

SEREBRYAKOV. Thank you. Most delighted. You should forgive me as well. The day after that episode when I tried to contemplate all that had occurred and recalled our interchange, I was horrified by my cruelty. Let us be friends. (Takes him by the arm and goes to the table.)

DYADIN. Your excellency, I’m glad that you have chosen to pay a visit to my oasis . . . Very, very pleased!

SEREBRYAKOV. Thank you. Sit down, my friends. (Sits at the table.) It is beautiful here indeed. A veritable oasis. Let us not be silent, my friends, let us talk. In our situation that’s by far the best thing. We are responsible for our own misfortunes, let us bear them cheerfully. I can look at them more cheerfully than the rest of you, and that is because I am more to blame than the rest of you.

YULYA. Gentlemen, I don’t provide any sugar; drink it with jam.

DYADIN (bustling around among the guests). I’m so pleased, I’m so pleased! A little bit of cordial! Mishenka, have a little sweet roll!

SEREBRYAKOV. Recently, Mikhail Lvovich, I have experienced so much and done so much thinking that I believe I could write a whole treatise on the art of living. I repeat, the day after that event I was horrified by my cruelty; I was surprised how little I had seen and understood before and at the same time how much I had talked. Now it strikes me as strange that I never to talked to my wife about anything except my gout and my rights, but at the time I thought that what was needed . . . (His voice quavering with tears.) Of course, it’s all my fault . . . I won’t even mention Georges, who, if only . . .

ZHELTUKHIN. Aleksandr Vladimirovich, we promised each other not to talk about that today. You’ve forgotten our agreement.

DYADIN. Let the dead past bury the dead. God is merciful, all’s well that ends well. Away with melancholy! Let us drink tea with jam, with sugar, with a little bit of lemon and a little bit of cordial, while Lenichka himself will recite a bit of poetry.

SEREBRYAKOV. As a matter of fact, Leonid Stepanych, do recite something. You recite beautifully.

ZHELTUKHIN. What shall I recite for you?

SEREBRYAKOV. Something inoffensive . . . You’ve got a large supply.

ZHELTUKHIN. As you wish, sir . . . (After a moment’s thought.) Here’s a bit of Nekrasov, something in your line, Misha . . .

The Green Sound hums its way along,⁵

The Sound of Green, the Sound of Spring!

Like spilt milk,

The cherry orchards stand,

Ever so quietly they hum:

Warmed by the heat of the sun,

The cheerful pinewood

Forests hum;

And close at hand, with new green

The pale-leafed face

And little white birch tree

With a green braid

Sough the new song!

The lowly reed hums,

The stately maple hums . . .

They hum in a new way,

A new way, a springtime way . . .

The Green Sound hums its way along,

The Sound of Green, the Sound of Spring!

The savage thought grows weak,

The knife falls from the hand,

And I keep hearing but one song

— In the forest, in the meadow:

“Love, when the loving is good.

Be patient, when patience is called for,

Bid farewell, when farewell’s to be said,

And — God be thy judge!”

SONYA shudders.

ZHELTUKHIN. What made you shudder like that?

SONYA. Someone was shouting.

DYADIN. It’s the peasants down by the river catching crayfish.

Pause.

SEREBRYAKOV. How is Ivan Ivanych’s health?

KHRUSHCHOV. Bad.

Pause.

ZHELTUKHIN. Gentlemen, after all we did make an agreement to spend this evening as if nothing had happened . . . Honestly, there’s a kind of tension . . .

DYADIN. Your Excellency, I cherish for learning not just reverence, but even a kindred feeling. My brother Grigory Ilyich’s wife’s brother, maybe you deign to know him, Konstantin Gavrilych Novosyolov, had a master’s degree in comparative literature.

SEREBRYAKOV. I didn’t know him, but I know of him.

Pause.

SONYA. Yesterday was exactly fifteen days since Uncle Georges died.

ZHELTUKHIN. Sofya Aleksandrovna, the agreement!

SONYA. Sorry.

YULYA weeps.

ZHELTUKHIN. What’s come over you?

YULYA. Lyonichka said it first.

ZHELTUKHIN. What did I say?

YULYA. You did, you did!

KHRUSHCHOV. Yulichka, let’s not talk about it! I implore you!

SEREBRYAKOV. Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up! Even though the doctor’s forbidden it, all the same, I’ll have a little cordial. Follow my example, my friends! (Drinks.)

Pause.

ZHELTUKHIN. All the same, you can feel a kind of tension . . . Ladies and gentleman, more life, more noise! (Raps with his knife.) The chairman has the floor!

SEREBRYAKOV. A psychological wrinkle. What strange desires people sometimes have! For some reason I’d very much like someone to insult me grossly or I’d like to fall ill . . . Obviously, my soul, I mean my psyche, is in need of a powerful reaction.

Pause. KHRUSHCHOV jumps up abruptly.

ZHELTUKHIN. What’s wrong?

KHRUSHCHOV (agitated). My God, I can’t stand it, I haven’t got the strength to put up with it any more! It makes me sick to my stomach! A villain, a shameless slanderer! At a difficult moment in her life she held out her arms to me and offered me her friendship, and I said to her: “Get away from me! I despise your friendship!” Just like everyone else, like a common slave, I insulted her, slandered her, hated her! Despise me, hate me, point your fingers at me . . .

DYADIN (anxiously). Mishenka, you mustn’t . . . (Kisses him.) You mustn’t . . .

KHRUSHCHOV. Aleksandr Vladimirovich, for twenty-five years you were a professor and served learning, I plant forests, but what’s the point, who’s it for, if we have no heart, we give each other no quarter, but destroy each other? Could you and I have done anything to save Georges? Where is your wife, whom I so inhumanly insulted? Where is our peace, where is my love? Everything’s been destroyed, wrecked, it’s all gone to rack and ruin! It’s all destroyed! Everyone run and shout . . .

SONYA and YULYA leap up. Total confusion.

DYADIN. Dear boy, Mishenka, calm down . . .

KHRUSHCHOV. It’s horrible! Horrible! It’s all destroyed!

YULYA (embraces and kisses him). Mikhail Lvovich, darling, precious . . .

SEREBRYAKOV. Give him some water.

KHRUSHCHOV. Forgive me, friends, I lost my self-control . . . I can’t endure this tension. Now I’ve got it off my chest. Sit down . . . Calm down.

ZHELTUKHIN. That’s enough! Basta!

DYADIN. Ladies and gentlemen, I swear that everything will come out all right. I don’t have the right to explain it to you, but . . . but, in short, God is merciful.

SONYA. Papa, it’s already getting dark. Let’s go home.

SEREBRYAKOV. No, let’s sit a while longer, my dear child. I can’t stand the walls at home. The later we go home, the better.

Enter FYODOR IVANOVICH.

VI

The same and FYODOR IVANOVICH.

SONYA (alarmed). Uncle Georges!

KHRUSHCHOV. Where do you see him? That’s enough!

SONYA. There he is!

KHRUSHCHOV. Where? That’s Fyodor . . . Friends, the best thing to do is keep still, don’t answer questions . . . Professor, pay him no attention.

SEREBRYAKOV. I have nothing against him. Let him be.

KHRUSHCHOV. Ssh!

FYODOR IVANOVICH (walking over to the table). Greetings! In the lap of nature? An amusing story. Afternoon, Wood Goblin!

Pause.

Why don’t you give me your hand?

KHRUSHCHOV (extending his hand). Here, take it . . .

FYODOR IVANOVICH (sits down). Is that you, Professor? Sorry, I didn’t recognize you. Too much rich living.

Pause.

It’s a lucky thing you’re here, Professor. I have to have a serious talk with you. These are all our friends, so I imagine we can speak frankly. Here’s what it’s all about. Sooner or later I’ll find Yelena Andreevna and marry her. Give her a divorce. I’ll pay you whatever you like . . .

KHRUSHCHOV. Ssh . . .

FYODOR IVANOVICH. However, does it sound as if I’m asking for the moon? Let’s discuss things calmly. (To Zheltukhin.) Lyonya, I rode over to your place in person. When I found out you were having a picnic, I hastened, as you see, to visit a friend. Why didn’t you invite me to the picnic?

ZHELTUKHIN. A peculiar question. How can I invite you? In the first place, I didn’t know where you were, in the second place, this idea, I mean the idea of a picnic, struck us just this afternoon. I didn’t have the time . . . Besides, given the situation . . .

FYODOR IVANOVICH. You’re not very astute. Answer me: why didn’t you invite me to this picnic?

ZHELTUKHIN. Let’s change the subject.

FYODOR IVANOVICH. Hm . . . My friend, I’ve experienced everything in this world. Except for flying in hot-air balloons, and I still haven’t challenged you to a duel even once. The balloons are unlikely, but a duel is an imminent possibility.

KHRUSHCHOV (shouts). Get out of here, you impudent fellow!

FYODOR IVANOVICH. Hush, hush! I’m a bundle of nerves.

KHRUSHCHOV. Get out of here!

FYODOR IVANOVICH. Let’s discuss things calmly. What I mean is this: first I’ll fight you, Lyonya, and then you, Wood Goblin . . .

KHRUSHCHOV. What’s going on here, at last? Don’t be afraid, Yulichka! Sofya Aleksandrovna, sit down! (To Fyodor Ivanovich.) Come with me and we’ll talk it over!

TRIFON enters rapidly, goes to the house, and raps on the window.

VII

The same and TRIFON.

DYADIN. Who is that? What do you want?

TRIFON. Is that you, Ilya Ilyich?

DYADIN. What do you want?

TRIFON. Good afternoon. Greetings to your honor. Regards from Lyudmila Ivanovna and she wants me to inform you that today at dinner Ivan Ivanych passed away.

FYODOR IVANOVICH. Father!? My God . . . Who’s that? That you, Trifon?

TRIFON. That’s right, sir . . .

FYODOR IVANOVICH. When did this happen?

TRIFON. Today at dinner.

FYODOR IVANOVICH. My God . . . I haven’t been home for a week . . . Father . . . Poor soul . . . Let’s go, Trifon . . . Hurry . . . (In a faltering voice.) Excuse me, friends . . . Professor, I still have something to talk to you about . . . I can’t remember . . . You’re a friend of my father . . . No, that’s not it . . . Here it is: your wife is a saint . . . (Exits with TRIFON.)

YULYA (after a pause). Poor Godfather!

SEREBRYAKOV. Let’s go home, Sonya. It’s time now.

SONYA. No, Papa, I can’t now. Let’s all sit here. That was the last straw . . . Nothing more can happen now . . . Nothing . . .

Pause.

KHRUSHCHOV. How depressing, how tense it all is! Lyonya, say something, sing, recite, or something! Recite!

ZHELTUKHIN. What should I recite?

Pause.

We hear someone in the house playing Lensky’s aria from

Yevgeny Onegin.

KHRUSHCHOV. What’s that? That’s Yelena Andreevna playing. Where did she come from? Where is she? What does this mean?

DYADIN. It’s fascinating! She’s here, here in my house! From the Count’s woods she ran here and has been living with me for two weeks now. Misha, what bliss! (Shouts.) Yelena Andreevna, please come out here! No more hiding!

SONYA. Listen to what she’s playing! It’s her favorite aria.

KHRUSHCHOV. Where is she? (Runs into the house.)

SEREBRYAKOV. I don’t understand a thing . . . not a thing.

DYADIN (rubbing his hands). Right away, right away . . . We’ve come to the end!

Enter from the house YELENA ANDREEVNA, followed by KHRUSHCHOV.

IX

The same, YELENA ANDREEVNA, and KHRUSHCHOV.

KHRUSHCHOV. Just one word! Only one word! Don’t be cruel as I was, but forgive me, I implore you!

YELENA ANDREEVNA. I heard it all. (Kisses him on the head.) That’s enough. Let’s be friends. Afternoon, Aleksandr! Afternoon, Sonya!

SONYA (rushes to throw her arms around her neck). Lenochka!

They all surround Yelena Andreevna. Kisses all around.

YELENA ANDREEVNA. All these days I was brooding and thinking as much as you were. You forgave me, I forgave you, and we’ve all become better people. Let us live a new way—a springtime way. Let’s go home. I was bored and missed you.

DYADIN. This is fascinating!

KHRUSHCHOV. How light my heart is now! There’s nothing wrong, it’s dee-lightful!

SEREBRYAKOV. Let’s go, Lenochka . . . Now the walls will seem charming to me.

YELENA ANDREEVNA. I was sitting at the window and heard it all. My poor friends! Well, let’s hurry and go! (Takes her husband by the arm.) Let’s let bygones by bygones . . . Mikhail Lvovich, come and see us!

KHRUSHCHOV. I’m at your service.

YULYA (to her brother). You should ask for forgiveness too.

ZHELTUKHIN. I can’t stand this sourness! This sickly sweetness. . . Let’s go home, it’s getting damp . . . (Coughs.)

YELENA ANDREEVNA. Sonya’s laughing . . . Laugh, my dear! I’ll laugh too. That’s how it ought to be . . . Let’s go, Aleksandr! (She and her husband exit.)

ZHELTUKHIN. Let’s go! (He and his sister exit; he shouts from offstage). Aleksey, the carriage!

KHRUSHCHOV (to Sonya). When one’s mind is clear, one’s eyes are clear! I see it all. Let’s go, my darling! (Embraces her and they exit.)

DYADIN (alone). And they all forgot about me! This is fascinating! This is fascinating!

Curtain

NOTES

1 Dr. Khrushchov’s nickname, “Leshy,” makes too diabolic an impression when translated as “Wood Demon.” The mischievous sprite that the ancient Slavs and their posterity believed inhabited the forests is closer to Puck or Robin Goodfellow, in his fondness for leading travelers astray and imitating the sounds of various animals. In Chekhov’s day, Russians said “leshy vozmi” as a mild expletive, the way an Englishman might say “Deuce take it.”

2 A small case that keeps a watch upright on a table, so its face can be seen.

3 A periodic painful swelling in the lower joints, owing to the accumulation of uric acid; often a result of rich diet, heavy drinking, and a sedentary life.

4 This may be one of Chekhov’s sly parodies of Pushkin’s famous lyric “Whether I walk the noisy streets.”

5 Quotation from the satirical poem “At Second Hand” (Chuzhoy tolk, 1794) by Ivan Dimitriev (1760–1837). The poem, which mocks the rhetorical form of the ode, was one of the standard texts of the pre-Pushkin era.

6 Shakespeare’s Moorish general was known on the Russian stage chiefly through the touring performances of the Italian tragedians Tomasso Salvini and Ernesto Rossi.

7 If Yelena Andreevna’s father is a senator, he outranks a general in the military, which means the Professor “married up.”

8 From the “Thoughts and Aphorisms” of the poet Kozma Prutkov, a fictional creation of A. K. Tolstoy and the brothers Zhemchuznikov, “published” between 1854 and 1863. One of his synthetic aphorisms is “If you have waterworks, turn them off; give the waterworks a rest too.”

9 One of Chekhov’s favorite flowery phrases, later put into the mouth of Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard.

10 From Ivan Krylov’s fable “The Sight-seer” (1814): a curiosity seeker is so distracted with minor phenomena that he ends up saying, “I noticed not the elephant at all.”

11 From Evgeny Baratynsky’s elegy “Dissuasion” (1821), set to music as a duet by Glinka and many other composers.

12 French: a bird’s-eye view.

13 These names are shorthand for different types of genius: Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), German naturalist and traveler who explored Russian Asia in 1829; Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931), who patented over a thousand inventions; and Ferdinand Lassalle (1825– 1864), German Socialist who promoted political power for workers.

14 From Glinka’s ballad based on a poem of Nikolay Kukolnik, “Doubt” (1838).

15 A deputy elected by the local and district assemblies of nobles, to represent them in dealings with the government. They were often chosen for their social rather than their political skills.

16 Sung by the Demon in Rubinstein’s opera The Demon, based on the poem by Lermontov.

17 The Russo-Turkish war of 1877–1878.

18 Nado delo delat, “one must do something,” “be active,” “be committed,” “get involved.” A motto of liberalism in the 1860s, it does not mean “One must work.”

19 See Ivanov, First Version, note 19.

20 Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov (1781–1855), Russian Romantic poet, an immediate forerunner of Pushkin, and author of the best anacreontic verse in Russian. Evidently the Professor wants to read about wine, woman, and song.

21 Latin for “a frog on the chest.” Severe chest pain caused by deficient oxygenation of the heart muscles. The novelist Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), who had suffered from gout, actually died of spinal cancer.

22 The official physician appointed by the zemstvo or rural board, like Dr. Lvov in Ivanov. Khrushchov practices as a sideline.

23 In the original, yurodivy, a holy fool, feebleminded beggars considered to be touched by God and hence licensed to speak the truth.

24 They’re both wrong: the ancient Romans threw condemned criminals off the Tarpeian rock.

25 In Russian, the wordplay is on idet, “let’s go, let’s pay a visit,” and idyot, which sounds like idiot, “imbecile,” a joke Chekhov often used privately, especially in letters to his brother Aleksandr.

26 Narodnik, member of a revolutionary movement, following the teachings of Aleksandr Herzen and Mikhail Bakunin, which, in the “crazy summer” of 1873, sent young people into the country to educate the peasants.

27 In the original, she uses the German word Bruderschaft, “brotherhood” or “fellowship.” They are pledging, arms linked, out of one glass, like fraternity brothers.

28 Literally, na ty, meaning their relationship will now be on a “thou” basis, rather than the formal “you.”

29 “Talent” is one of Chekhov’s favorite words of praise, equivalent almost to “genius.” His characters name it as a positive quality when they are unable to specify someone’s virtues. The opposite, “untalented,” is extremely negative.

30 Zhuchka, from zhuk, beetle, a common name for a black dog.

31 The young poet Lensky sings this aria in Chaikovsky’s opera Yevgeny Onegin (based on Pushkin’s verse novel), just before he is killed in a duel.

32 The title character of Goncharov’s novel, synonymous with sloth, indolence, lack of energy, negligence, and apathy.

33 A water nymph or rusalka is not a mermaid; although she is dangerous and sexy, she is also undead, usually the spirit of a drowned girl. A water sprite or vodovoy is more benign, the aquatic equivalent of a wood sprite or leshy.

34 From Nikolay Nekrasov’s nature poem “The Green Sound” (1862). In the earlier version of the play, Zheltukhin quotes it at length in the last act. See Variants.

35 The Chechens are fiercely independent, Islamic natives of the eastern Caucasus, occupying west Daghestan. They fought desperately against Russian aggression in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until their chieftain, Shamyl, surrendered in 1859, when many of them fled to the mountains or to Armenia.

36 In the original, Voinitsky uses the formal “you,” vy, whereas the Professor addresses him with the informal ty.

37 The famous opening line of the Mayor in Gogol’s classic comedy The Inspector General, Act I, scene 1, to the officials who have gathered in his house. A cliché joke of pedagogues.

38 Latin: “The same night awaits us all,” from Horace’s Odes, Book 1, ode 28.

39 Since Finland was part of the Russian Empire, its rural areas within easy reach of St. Petersburg were dotted with summer cottages and villas. The Professor is trying to find a cheap way of returning to the scene of his celebrity.

40 Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788–1860), apostle of pessimism, and Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Russian novelist (1821–1881), apostle of salvation through Slavic Christianity.

41 Literally, “why break chairs?,” a quotation from the first act of Gogol’s Inspector General, when the Mayor is complaining about an overzealous schoolteacher.

42 A joke. Most Russians would consider Pushkin, rather than the neoclassic and derivative Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–17 65), to be the greatest Russian poet.

43 In the original, “worthy of the brush of Aivazovsky.” Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817–1900), Russian painter famous for his seascapes, particularly storms and naval battles, whom Chekhov had met in Feodosiya on the Black Sea in 1888.

44 The Prince’s cavatina from Dargomyzhsky’s opera The Rusalka (Act I, scene 2); in its source, Pushkin’s dramatic fragment, the Prince’s words open the last scene. Chekhov is suggesting that, by hiding at the mill, Yelena had become a kind of water nymph.

45 Part of Yulya’s economy: refined sugar, which has to be bought, is more expensive than fruit jam, which can be made on the estate.

46 A joke name, meaning “Recent Settler.”

47 From Nekrasov’s poem “To the Sowers” (1876).

48 Different brands of revolver. Fyodor, as a military man, would prefer the Smith & Wesson, which was standard issue for the Russian army, to a French make.

49 Dyadin is alluding to two of Chekhov’s favorite works, Offenbach’s comic opera La Belle Hélène (1864) and Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. The mixture is characteristic.

50 At the end of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, the statue of Dona Anna’s father, the Commendatore whom Don Juan had slain, comes to life and drags the Don to hell.

51 Misquoted from Pushkin’s verse fable Ruslan and Lyudmila.

NOTES to Variants

1 A leading character in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (1862), a cynical “Nihilist,” taken to be a caricature of the radicals of the time, until the critic Pisaryov cited Bazarov as the prototype of the progressive democrat.

2 Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826–1889), a writer influenced by French socialism and Russian populism; his novels were satirical indictments of Russian life.

3 A roundabout way of saying “asleep”; Morpheus was the Greek god of dreams.

4 The Greek sun god, an avatar of Apollo, whose drive across the heavens accounted for the daylight hours.

5 Nekrasov’s “The Green Sound” had become a rallying cry for progressive Russian youth in the 1870s, thanks to its platform recitation by the acress Mariya Yermolova.