The Plays of Anton Chekhov Read online

  [NINA quickly puts on her hat and cloak.]

  Nina, why? Nina, for God’s sake ... [Watches her dress; a pause.]

  NINA : My horses are at the gate. Don’t see me off, I’ll go by myself ... [With tears in her eyes] Give me some water ...

  TREPLYOV [giving her a drink] : Where are you going now?

  NINA : To town.

  [A pause.]

  Is Irina Nikolayevna here?

  TREPLYOV : Yes ... On Thursday my uncle felt ill, we telegraphed her to come.

  NINA : Why do you say that you kissed the ground on which I walked? You should kill me. [Leans over the table.] I’m so exhausted. If only I could rest ... rest! [Raises her head.] I am a seagull ... That’s not right. I am an actress. Yes! [Hearing Arkadina and Trigorin laugh, she listens, then runs to the left-hand door and looks through the keyhole.] And he’s here ... [Returning towards Treplyov.] Yes ... It doesn’t matter ... Yes ... He didn’t believe in the theatre, he went on mocking my dreams, and little by little I too stopped believing and lost heart ... And then came the troubles of love, jealousy, the constant fear for my child ... I became petty, worthless, I acted mindlessly ... I didn’t know what to do with my hands, didn’t know how to stand on the stage, wasn’t in control of my voice. You can’t understand what it’s like to feel you’re acting terribly. I am a seagull. No, that’s not right ... Do you remember, you shot a seagull? A man just came along, saw it and killed it from having nothing to do ... A plot for a short story. That’s not right ... [Rubs her forehead.] What was I ... ? I was talking about the stage. Now I am not so ... I am now a real actress, I act with enjoyment, with ecstasy, I get intoxicated on the stage and feel that I’m beautiful. And now, while I’ve been staying here, I’ve walked everywhere, I walk and walk, and think, think and feel how every day my spiritual powers grow ... Kostya, I know now, I understand. In what we do — whether we act on the stage or write — the most important thing isn’t fame or glory or anything I used to dream about — but the ability to endure. To know how to bear your cross and have faith. I have faith, and my pain is less, and when I think about my vocation I’m not afraid of life.

  TREPLYOV [sadly]: You have found your road, you know where you’re going, but I am still carried along in a chaos of dreams and images, without knowing why and for whom they exist. I have no faith and I don’t know where my vocation lies.

  NINA [listening] : Shh ... I’m going. Goodbye. When I become a great actress, come and watch me. Do you promise? And now ... [Presses his hand.] It’s late. I can hardly stand on my feet ... I’m worn out, I’m hungry ...

  TREPLYOV : Stay, I’ll give you some supper.

  NINA : No, no ... Don’t see me off, I’ll go by myself ... My horses are near ... So, she brought him with her? Well, it doesn’t matter. When you see Trigorin, don’t tell him anything ... I love him, I love him even more than before ... The plot for a short story ... I love him, I love him passionately, I love him to desperation. It was good before, Kostya! Do you remember? What a clear, warm, joyful, pure life, what feelings — feelings like delicate, exquisite flowers ... Do you remember? ... [Recites] ‘Men, lions, eagles and partridges, antlered deer, geese, spiders, silent fish which live in the water, starfish and organisms invisible to the eye — in short, all life, all life, all life has been extinguished after completing its sad cycle ... For thousands of centuries the earth has not borne a single living being, and this poor moon lights her lantern to no purpose. In the meadow the cranes give their waking cry no more and in May the cockchafers are no longer heard in the lime groves ...’ [Impulsively embraces Treplyov and runs out through the French windows.]

  TREPLYOV [after a pause]: It’ll be awkward if someone meets her in the garden and then tells Mama. It could hurt Mama ... [For two whole minutes he silently tears up all his manuscripts and throws them under the desk, then he opens the right-hand door and goes out.]

  DORN [from outside, trying to open the left-hand door] : Funny. The door seems to be locked ... [Enters and puts the armchair in its place.] It’s an obstacle race.

  [Enter ARKADINA and POLINA ANDREYEVNA, followed by YAKOV carrying bottles and MASHA, then SHAMRAYEV and TRIGORIN.]

  ARKADINA : Put the red wine and the beer for Boris Alekseyevich here on the table. We’re going to play cards and have a drink. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s sit down.

  POLINA ANDREYEVNA [to Yakov] : Serve the tea now too. [Lights the candles and sits down at the card table.]

  SHAMRAYEV [takes Trigorin to the cupboard] : Here’s the thing I was just telling you about ... [Out of the cupboard he produces the stuffed seagull.] This is what you ordered.

  TRIGORIN [looking at the seagull]: I don’t remember. [Thinking.] I don’t remember.

  [Offstage, right, a shot; everyone starts.]

  ARKADINA [frightened]: What’s that?

  DORN : Nothing. Something must have exploded in my travelling medicine chest. Don’t worry. [Goes out of the right-hand door and returns half a minute later.] I was right. A bottle of ether went off. [Sings.] ‘Again before thee I stand bewitched ...’

  ARKADINA [sitting down at the table] : Phew, I was frightened. It reminded me how ... [Covers her face with her hands.] It even went dark before my eyes.

  DORN [turning the pages of a magazine, to Trigorin] : They published an article here a couple of months ago ... a letter from America, and I wanted to ask you, by the way ... [puts his arm round Trigorin’s waist and takes him towards the footlights] ... as I’m very interested in this question ... [Quietly, dropping his voice] Take Irina Nikolayevna somewhere away from here. The fact is, Konstantin Gavrilovich has shot himself ...

  [Curtain.]

  Uncle Vanya

  Scenes from Country Life in Four Acts

  CHARACTERS

  ALEKSANDR VLADIMIROVICH SEREBRYAKOV, an emeritus professor

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA [also HÉLÈNE, LENOCHKA], his wife, aged twenty-seven

  SOFYA ALEKSANDROVNA [also SONYA, SOPHIE], his daughter by his first marriage

  MARIYA VASILYEVNA VOYNITSKAYA, the widow of a Privy Councillor, mother of the Professor’s first wife

  IVAN PETROVICH VOYNITSKY [also JEAN, VANYA], her son

  MIKHAIL LVOVICH ASTROV, a doctor

  ILYA ILYICH TELEGIN [nicknamed WAFFLE], an impoverished landowner

  MARINA TIMOFEYEVNA, an old nyanya1

  A WORKMAN

  The action takes place in Serebryakov’s country house.

  Act One

  The garden. Part of the house and the terrace are visible. A table is laid for tea under an old poplar in an avenue. Benches and chairs; on one of the benches lies a guitar. Near the table a swing. It is early afternoon. Overcast.

  [MARINA, a heavy, slow-moving old woman, sitting by the samovar and knitting a stocking, and ASTROV, walking by.]

  MARINA [pouring a glass of tea]: Have some, dear.

  ASTROV [unwillingly taking the glass] : I don’t really want it.

  MARINA : Perhaps you’d like a little vodka?

  ASTROV: No. I don’t drink vodka every day. And it’s so close today ...

  [A pause.]

  Nyanya, how long have we known each other?

  MARINA [thinking] : How long? Lord help me remember ... You came here, to these parts ... when was it? ... Vera Petrovna, little Sonya’s mother, was still alive. You visited us then for two winters ... So that means eleven years have passed. [Thinking.] And maybe more ...

  ASTROV : Have I changed a lot since then?

  MARINA : A lot. You were young and handsome then, and now you’ve aged. Also — you like your vodka.

  ASTROV : Yes ... In ten years I’ve become another person. And why? I’ve worn myself out, Nyanya. From morning to night I’m on my feet, I don’t know the meaning of rest, and at night I lie under my blanket afraid of being called out to a patient. Over the whole time we’ve known each other I haven’t had one day off. How am I not going to age? Yes, and this life itself is boring, stupid, dirty ... It drags one down. You’re
surrounded by eccentrics, nothing but eccentrics, and you live with them two or three years and you gradually become one yourself without noticing. An unavoidable fate. [Twiddling his long moustaches.] What a huge moustache I’ve grown ... Stupid moustache. I’ve become an eccentric, Nyanya ... I haven’t yet become soft in the head, thank the Lord, my brain is in the right place, but my feelings have somehow got blunted. I don’t want anything, I don’t need anything, I don’t love anyone ... But I do love you. [Kisses her on the head.] As a child I had a nyanya like you.

  MARINA : Do you want something to eat?

  ASTROV : No. In the third week of Lent I went to Malitskoye where there was an epidemic ... Typhus ... They were crammed side by side in the huts ... Filth, stench, smoke, calves on the ground by the sick ... Little pigs too ... I worked all day, didn’t sit down, didn’t have a poppy-seed to eat, and I came home — to find no rest — they brought me a railway pointsman; I put him on the table to operate and he goes and dies on me under the chloroform. And when there was absolutely no need, my feelings were aroused and conscience pricked me as if I’d killed him deliberately ... I sat down, closed my eyes — like this — and thought: will those who will be living a hundred, two hundred years from now, those for whom we are now laying down the road to the future, will they remember us in their prayers? Nyanya, they won’t!

  MARINA : Man may not remember, but God will.

  ASTROV : Thank you for that. It was well said.

  [Enter VOYNITSKY.]

  VOYNITSKY [comes out of the house; he has had a sleep after lunch and has a crumpled look; sits down on a bench and straightens his stylish necktie]: Yes ...

  [A pause.]

  Yes...

  ASTROV : Have you had enough sleep?

  VOYNITSKY : Yes ... Plenty. [Yawns.] Ever since the Professor came to live here with his wife, my life has left its track ... I go to sleep at the wrong time, for lunch and dinner I eat all kinds of rich dishes, I drink wine — that’s all unhealthy. I used not to have a spare minute, Sonya and I worked — my goodness, how we worked, and now only Sonya works and I sleep, eat and drink ... That’s no good!

  MARINA [shaking her head] : What a way to live! The Professor gets up at noon, and the samovar has been going all morning, waiting for him. Before they came we always had dinner before one o’clock, like people everywhere else, but with them here it’s after six. At night the Professor reads and writes, and suddenly he rings after one in the morning ... I ask you, gentlemen. For tea! Wake the servants for him, put on the samovar ... What a way to live!

  ASTROV : And will they be staying here long?

  VOYNITSKY [whistling]: A hundred years. The Professor has decided to settle here.

  MARINA : And they’ve done it now. The samovar has been brewing on the table for two hours, and they’ve gone for a walk.

  VOYNITSKY : They’re coming, they’re coming ... Don’t work yourself up.

  [Voices are heard; SEREBRYAKOV, YELENA ANDREYEVNA, SONYA and TELEGIN enter from the depths of the garden, returning from their walk.]

  SEREBRYAKOV : Lovely, lovely ... Wonderful views.

  TELEGIN: Exceptional, Your Excellency.1

  SONYA : Tomorrow, Papa, we’ll drive to the forestry station. Would you like that?

  VOYNITSKY : Tea, ladies and gentlemen!

  SEREBRYAKOV : My friends, would you be so kind as to send my tea over to my study? I’ve still got things to do today.

  SONYA : You’ll really like the forest ...

  [YELENA ANDREYEVNA, SEREBRYAKOV and SONYA go into the house. TELEGIN goes to the table and sits down by Marina.]

  VOYNITSKY : It’s hot and stuffy, and our great scholar has an overcoat, galoshes, gloves and an umbrella.

  ASTROV : So he obviously has to look after himself.

  VOYNITSKY : But how lovely she is! How lovely! In all my life I’ve never seen such a beautiful woman.

  TELEGIN: Marina Timofeyevna, whether I’m driving in the fields or walking in the shade of the garden or looking at this table, I feel inexpressible happiness! The weather is delightful, the little birds are singing, we all live in peace and concord — what more could we want? [Taking a glass of tea.] That’s very kind of you.

  VOYNITSKY [dreamily]: What eyes ... A wonderful woman!

  ASTROV : Tell us something, Ivan Petrovich.

  VOYNITSKY [feebly]: What can I tell you?

  ASTROV : Anything new?

  VOYNITSKY : No. Everything is as before. I am the same man that I was, probably a bit worse since I’ve got lazy, I do nothing and only complain like an old grouch. Maman,2 our old tame jackdaw, still chatters on about the emancipation of women — one eye looking into her grave and the other searching her learned books for the dawn of a new life.

  ASTROV : And the Professor?

  VOYNITSKY : The Professor sits in his study as before, from morning to late at night, and writes. ‘With straining mind, with wrinkled brow we write our odes interminably. They get no plaudits nor do we.’3 I feel sorry for the paper! He’d do better to write his autobiography. What a wonderful plot! You’ve got a retired professor, a dried-up old crust, a scholarly fish ... Gout, rheumatism, migraine, a liver bloated from jealousy and envy ... This old fish is living on the estate of his first wife, he has to live there because he can’t afford to live in the city. He’s always complaining about his misfortunes though in fact his luck is exceptional. [Irritably] Just think what luck! The seminarist son of a humble sexton, he’s got academic degrees and a chair, has become His Excellency, the son-in-law of a senator, et cetera, et cetera. However, none of that is of any consequence. But think of this now. For exactly twenty-five years a man reads and writes about art, understanding precisely nothing about art. For twenty-five years he chews over other people’s ideas about Realism, Naturalism and all manner of other rubbish; for twenty-five years he reads and writes about things long known to the wise and of no interest to the stupid: so for twenty-five years he has been pouring from one empty vessel into another. And combined with what conceit! What pretensions! He retires and not a living soul has heard of him, he is completely unknown; so, for twenty-five years, he has occupied a post which shouldn’t have been his. And look at him: he strides about like a demigod!

  ASTROV : Well, I think you’re envious.

  VOYNITSKY : Yes, I envy him! And he’s so successful with women! No Don Juan has had such complete success! His first wife, my sister, a lovely meek creature, pure as that blue sky, noble, generous, with more admirers than he had students, loved him with the kind of love only pure angels have for those as pure and beautiful as themselves. His mother-in-law, my mother, still worships him and he still inspires her with a holy awe. His second wife, a beauty, a woman with a mind — you just saw her — married him when he was already old, gave him her youth, beauty, freedom, brightness. For what? Why?

  ASTROV : Is she faithful to the Professor?

  VOYNITSKY : Unfortunately, yes.

  ASTROV : Why unfortunately?

  VOYNITSKY : Because that ‘fidelity’ is false from start to finish. It’s full of rhetoric but has no logic. To betray your old husband whom you can’t stand — is immoral; but to try and stifle in yourself your wretched youth and your living feeling — is not.

  TELEGIN [in a plaintive voice]: Vanya, I don’t like it when you say that. Really ... Someone who betrays wife or husband must be without faith and could betray our country!

  VOYNITSKY [crossly]: Turn off the tap, Waffle.4

  TELEGIN : Excuse me, Vanya. Because of my unprepossessing looks my wife ran off the day after our wedding with a man she loved. Since then I haven’t abandoned my duty. I still love her and am faithful to her, I help with what I can and have given up my property for the education of the children she had by the man she loved. I lost my happiness but I kept my pride. And what became of her? Her youth has now gone, by the laws of nature her beauty has faded, the man she loved has passed on ... What has she left?

  [Enter SONYA and YELENA ANDREYEVNA ; a little la
ter MARIYA VASILYEVNA enters with a book; she sits down and reads; she is served tea which she drinks without looking.]

  SONYA [hurriedly, to the nyanya]: Nyanya, the men from the village have come. Go and talk to them, and I’ll do the tea ... [Pours tea.]

  [The nyanya goes out. YELENA ANDREYEVNA takes her cup and drinks sitting on the swing.]

  ASTROV [to Yelena Andreyevna]: I actually came to see your husband. You wrote that he’s very ill, rheumatism and something else, but he turns out to be pretty fit.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA : Yesterday evening he was depressed, complained of pains in the legs, but today he’s all right.

  ASTROV : And I killed myself galloping thirty versts. Well, no matter, it’s not the first time. But I’ll stay here till tomorrow and at least I’ll sleep myself out quantum satis.5

  SONYA: Excellent. It’s so seldom you spend the night with us. You probably haven’t had any dinner?

  ASTROV : No, I haven’t.

  SONYA : So you’ll have something to eat. We dine now after six. [Drinks.] The tea’s cold!

  TELEGIN : There has been a significant drop of temperature in the samovar.

  YELENA ANDREYEVNA: Don’t worry, Ivan Ivanych, we’ll drink it cold.

  TELEGIN: Excuse me ... Not Ivan Ivanych, but Ilya Ilyich ... Ilya Ilyich Telegin, or, as some call me, Waffle, for my pitted complexion. I am Sonya’s godfather and His Excellency your husband knows me very well. I now live here, on your estate ... If you deigned to notice, I dine with you every day.

  SONYA : Ilya Ilyich is our helper and right hand. [With tenderness] Let me pour you some more, dear godfather.

  MARIYA VASILYEVNA: Ah!