The Plays of Anton Chekhov Read online

  SHABELSKY: I don’t think that at all. I’m like everyone else, another loathsome swine in a skullcap.8 A vulgarian, a worn-out shoe. I am always criticizing myself. Who am I? What am I? I used to be rich, free, reasonably happy, but now ... a hanger-on, a sponger, the court jester. I vent my indignation and scorn, and in response to me people laugh: I laugh and they shake their heads at me sadly and say the old man’s gone round the bend ... But more often than not they don’t hear me or pay me any attention ...

  ANNA PETROVNA [quietly]: It’s shrieking again ...

  SHABELSKY: What’s shrieking?

  ANNA PETROVNA: The owl. It shrieks every evening.

  SHABELSKY: Let it shriek. Things can’t be worse than they are already. [Stretches.] Oh, my dear Sara, if I won a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand, I’d show you a thing or two! ... I’d be gone in a flash. I would leave this hole where I eat the bread of charity and I wouldn’t set foot here again till the Last Judgement...

  ANNA PETROVNA: But what would you do if you won?

  SHABELSKY [after thinking]: First I would go to Moscow and listen to the gypsies. Then ... then I’d go off to Paris. I’d take an apartment there, go to the Russian church ...

  ANNA PETROVNA: And what else?

  SHABELSKY: I’d sit for whole days on my wife’s grave and think. I’d sit like that on her grave till I dropped dead. My wife is buried in Paris ...

  [A pause.]

  ANNA PETROVNA: It’s dreadfully boring. Shall we play another duet?

  SHABELSKY: All right. Set out the music.

  [ANNA PETROVNA goes off.]

  V

  [SHABELSKY, IVANOV and L VOV.]

  IVANOV [appearing with Lvov in the avenue]: You only qualified last year, my dear friend, you’re still young and confident, but I am thirty-five. I have the right to give you some advice. Don’t marry a Jew or a psychopath or a bluestocking but choose yourself someone ordinary, someone a shade of grey, with no bright colours and no superfluous noises. In general, construct your whole life on a conventional pattern. The greyer, the more monotonous the background, the better. My dear fellow, don’t do battle against thousands all on your own, don’t tilt against windmills, don’t beat your head against walls ... And may God preserve you from all kinds of rational farming, new fangled schools, fiery speeches ... Shut yourself in your shell and do your little God-given business ... It’s snugger, healthier and more honest. But the life I have lived — how exhausting it’s been! Oh how exhausting! ... How many mistakes, injustices, how much folly ... [Seeing the Count, irritably] Uncle, you’re always in the way, you don’t let anyone talk undisturbed!

  SHABELSKY [in a plaintive voice]: To hell with me, there’s no refuge anywhere. [Jumps up and goes into the house.]

  IVANOV [shouting after him]: Oh I’m sorry, I’m sorry! [To Lvov] What made me offend him? No, decidedly, I’ve lost my self-control ... I must do something about myself. I must ...

  LVOV [becoming agitated]: Nikolay Alekseyevich, I’ve listened to you and ... forgive me, I’ll speak frankly, without mincing my words. In your voice, in your tone, not to speak of your actual words, there is so much heartless egoism, so much cold callousness ... A person close to you is dying because of that closeness, her days are numbered, but you ... you can be without love for her, you can go about giving advice and showing off... I can’t express it all to you, I haven’t the gift of words, but ... but I find you deeply antipathetic.

  IVANOV: Maybe, maybe ... You can see more clearly from outside ... It’s very possible that you understand me ... I am probably very, very much to blame ... [Listens.] I think they’ve brought the horses. I’ll go and dress ... [Goes towards the house and stops.] Doctor, you don’t like me and you don’t conceal it. That does your heart honour ... [Goes into the house.]

  LVOV [alone]: My accursed character ... Again I’ve missed the opportunity and haven’t spoken to him as I should have ... I can’t talk to him calmly. As soon as I open my mouth and say one word, I feel something start to constrict me here [points to his chest], I feel it churning and my tongue sticks to my throat. I hate this Tartuffe,9 this pompous scoundrel, with all my heart ... Now he’s going off ... His unhappy wife’s entire happiness lies in his being near her, he is the air she breathes. She begs him to spend just one evening with her, but he ... he cannot ... Because, you see, he finds the atmosphere at home so heavy and suffocating. If he spends a single evening at home, he’ll put a bullet into his forehead out of boredom. Wretched fellow ... he needs space to do some new bit of villainy ... Oh, I know why you drive over every evening to those Lebedevs. I know!

  VI

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

  SHABELSKY [coming out of the house withIVANOV and ANNA PETROVNA]: Nicolas,10 this is just inhuman! ... You yourself go out every evening and we stay here by ourselves. We go to bed at eight out of boredom. This is a horror, not a life! And why can you go while we can’t? Why?

  ANNA PETROVNA: Count, let him be. Let him go, let him ...

  IVANOV [to his wife]: Well, where would you be going with your illness? You are ill and mustn’t be in the open air after sunset ... Ask the doctor here. You’re not a child, Anyuta, you must use your reason ... [To the Count] And why would you go there?

  SHABELSKY: I’d go into the flames of hell, into the jaws of the crocodile, just so as not to stay here. I am bored. I’ve become dulled from boredom. I’ve got on everyone’s nerves. You leave me at home so she isn’t bored alone, but I’ve made her life hell, I’ve eaten her up!

  ANNA PETROVNA: Leave him alone, Count, leave him. Let him go if he enjoys it there.

  IVANOV: Anya, why this tone? You know I don’t go there for pleasure. I have to talk about the promissory note.

  ANNA PETROVNA: I don’t understand why you’re justifying yourself. Go! Who’s keeping you?

  IVANOV : My friends, let’s not devour one another! Do we have to?

  SHABELSKY [in a plaintive voice]: Nicolas my dear, I ask you, take me with you. I’ll have a look there at the crooks and fools, and perhaps I’ll be entertained. You know I haven’t been anywhere since Easter.

  IVANOV [crossly]: Very well, we’ll go together. I’m so fed up with you all!

  SHABELSKY: We’ll go? So merci, merci ... [Gailytakes Ivanov’s arm and leads him aside.] May I wear your straw hat?

  IVANOV: You may, only hurry up please.

  [The Count runs into the house.]

  I’m so fed up with all of you! But what am I saying to you? My tone when I talk to you is impossible. That never used to happen to me before. Well, goodbye, Anya, I shall be back towards one.

  ANNA PETROVNA: Kolya, my dearest, stay at home.

  IVANOV [with emotion]: My love, my unhappy darling, I beg you, don’t stop me going out in the evenings. It’s cruel and unjust on my part, but let me commit that injustice. It’s an agony for me at home. As soon as the sun disappears, my spirit begins to be weighed down by depression. What depression! Don’t ask why. I myself don’t know. I swear by God’s truth I don’t know. Here I’m in anguish, I go to the Lebedevs and there it’s still worse; I return from there and here it’s depression again, and so all night ... Simply despair! ...

  ANNA PETROVNA: Kolya, why don’t you stay! We will talk as we used to ... We’ll have supper together, we’ll read ... I and the old grouch have been practising a lot of duets for you ... [Embraces him.] Stay! ...

  [A pause.]

  I don’t understand you. It’s been going on for a whole year. Why have you changed?

  IVANOV: I don’t know, I don’t know ...

  ANNA PETROVNA: And why don’t you want me to go out with you in the evenings?

  IVANOV: If you must have it, well, I’ll tell you. It’s a bit cruel to say it, but better so ... When I’m really depressed, I ... I begin to stop loving you. Also I then avoid you. Very simply, I have to leave the house.

  ANNA PETROVNA: When you’re depressed? I understand, I understand ... Do you
know what, Kolya? Try and sing, laugh, get angry, as you once did ... You stay in, we’ll laugh and drink fruit liqueur and we’ll drive away your depression in a flash. I’ll sing if you like. Or else let’s go and sit in the dark in your study as we used to, and you’ll tell me about your depression ... You have such suffering eyes. I’ll look into them and cry, and we’ll both feel better ... [Laughs and cries.] How does it go, Kolya? The flowers come up again every spring, but joy there is none. Is that it? So go off, go ...

  IVANOV: Pray to God for me, Anya. [Goes off, stops and thinks.] No, I can’t. [Exit.]

  ANNA PETROVNA: Go ... [Sits down by a table.]

  LVOV [walking about the stage]: Anna Petrovna, make yourself a rule: as soon as it strikes six o’clock you must go to your rooms and not come out till the next morning. The evening damp is bad for you.

  ANNA PETROVNA: Yes, sir.11

  LVOV: What’s this ‘yes, sir’! I am being serious.

  ANNA PETROVNA: But I don’t want to be serious. [Coughs.] LVOV: You see now — you’re already coughing ...

  VII

  [LVOV, ANNA PETROVNA and SHABELSKY.]

  SHABELSKY [coming out of the house in hat and coat]: Where’s Nikolay? Have they brought round the horses? [Quickly goes and kisses Anna Petrovna’s hand.] Goot night, my angel. [He makes a face.] Gevalt!12Egsguse me, plees! [Quickly goes out.]

  LVOV: What a clown.

  [A pause: the distant sounds of a harmonica can be heard.]

  ANNA PETROVNA: What boredom! ... The stables and kitchen are having a dance and I ... I feel abandoned ... Yevgeny Kostantinovich, where you are striding off to? Come here, sit down! ...

  LVOV: I can’t sit still.

  [A pause.]

  ANNA PETROVNA: They’re playing ‘Birdy’ in the kitchen. [Sings] ‘Birdy, birdy, where’d you go? Drinking vodka high and low.’

  [A pause.]

  Doctor, do you have a father and mother?

  LVOV: My father’s dead but I have a mother.

  ANNA PETROVNA: Do you miss your mother?

  LVOV: I have no time to miss her.

  ANNA PETROVNA: The flowers come up again every spring, but joy there is none. Who said that sentence to me? God help me remember ... I think Nikolay himself said it. [Listens.] The owl is shrieking again.

  LVOV: So let it shriek ...

  ANNA PETROVNA: I am beginning to think, doctor, that fate has cheated me. The majority of people, who maybe are no better than I am, are happy and pay nothing for that happiness. I have paid for everything, absolutely everything! ... And how dearly! Why have I paid such terrible interest? ... My dear, you are all so careful with me, so full of tact, you’re frightened of telling the truth, but do you think I don’t know what is wrong with me? I know perfectly well. But it’s boring to talk about that ... [In a Jewish accent] Egsguse me, plees! Can you tell funny stories?

  LVOV: No, I can’t.

  ANNA PETROVNA: Nikolay can. And I’m also beginning to be surprised at people’s lack of justice: why is love not met with love, and why is truth paid for with lies? Tell me: how long will my father and mother hate me? They live fifty versts from here and I feel their hatred day and night, even in my dreams. And how do you think I should take Nikolay’s depression? He says he loses his love for me only in the evenings when the depression comes over him. That I understand and tolerate, but suppose he’s completely stopped loving me. Of course that’s impossible, but just suppose ... No, no, I mustn’t even think of that. [Sings] ‘Birdy, birdy, where’d you go?’ [Shudders.] What frightening thoughts I have! ... You don’t have a family, doctor, and you can’t understand much of this ...

  LVOV: You are surprised ... [Sits down next to her.] No, I ... I am surprised, I am surprised at you. Now explain, give me an account of how it is that you, an intelligent, honest, almost saintly woman, have allowed yourself to be so brazenly deceived, to be dragged into this owl’s nest. Why are you here? What have you in common with this cold, heartless ... but let’s forget your husband — what do you have in common with this empty vulgar milieu? Lord God above! ... That perpetually grumpy, crazy Count, Misha, that sly old crook of crooks, with that hateful face of his ... Explain to me what’s the point of your being here. How did you get here? ...

  ANNA PETROVNA [laughing]: That’s exactly how he once used to talk ... Word for word ... But his eyes are bigger, and when he began to talk heatedly about something, then they would glow like coals ... Talk, talk! ...

  LVOV [getting up and gesturing with his hand]: What should I talk about? Go to your rooms ...

  ANNA PETROVNA: You say that Nikolay is this and that, one thing and another. How have you come to know him? Can one get to know a man in half a year? Doctor, he’s a remarkable man and I’m sorry you didn’t know him two or three years ago. Now he’s gloomy and silent and does nothing, but then ... What charm! ... I fell in love with him at first sight. [Laughing] I just looked at him and the mousetrap went snap! He said, let’s go ... I cut off everything from me, just as, you know, you cut off withered leaves with scissors, and I went ...

  [A pause.]

  And now it’s different ... Now he goes to the Lebedevs’ to amuse himself with other women, and I ... sit in the garden and listen to the cry of the owl ...

  [The knock of the watchtnan.13]

  Doctor, do you have brothers?

  LVOV: No.

  [ANNA PETROVNA groans.]

  What now? What’s the matter?

  ANNA PETROVNA [getting up]: I can’t stand it, doctor, I will go there ...

  LVOV: Where?

  ANNA PETROVNA: Where he is ... I will go ... Tell them to harness the horses ... [Goes towards the house.]

  LVOV: You mustn’t go ...

  ANNA PETROVNA: Leave me alone, it’s none of your business ... I can’t stand it, I’m going ... Tell them to bring the horses ... [Runs into the house.]

  LVOV: No, I absolutely refuse to be a doctor in these conditions. It’s not just that they don’t pay me a kopeck, they also turn my feelings upside down ... No, I refuse. I’ve had enough. [Goes into the house.]

  [Curtain.]

  Act Two

  A reception room in the Lebedevs’ house; doors opening directly into the garden, and doors right and left. Valuable antique furniture. The chandelier, candelabra and pictures are all under covers.1

  I

  [IZINAIDA SAVISHNA, FIRST GUEST, SECOND GUEST, THIRD GUEST, KOSYKH, AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA, YEGORUSHKA, GAVRILA, a maid, old lady guests, young ladies, BABAKINA.]

  [ZINAIDA SAVISHNA is sitting on a sofa. On either side of her are old ladies in armchairs; the young people are on chairs. Backstage, by the door to the garden, a game of cards is in progress; among the players are KOSYKH, AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA and YEGORUSHKA. GAVRILA is standing by the right-hand door; a maid is offering sweetmeats on a tray. Guests are circulating from the garden, through the right-hand door and back again throughout the whole act. BABAKINA comes through the right-hand door and moves towards Zinaida Savishna.]

  ZINAIDA SAVISHNA [gaily]: Marfa Yegorovna, my love ... BABAKINA: Good evening, Zinaida Savishna. May I have the honour of congratulating you on the birthday ...

  [They kiss.]

  God grant ...

  ZINAIDA SAVISHNA: Thank you, my love, I am so pleased ... How are you? ...

  BABAKINA: Thank you very much indeed. [Sits down by her on the sofa.] Good evening, young people ...

  [The guests rise and bow.]

  FIRST GUEST [laughing]: Young people ... but you aren’t old?

  BABAKINA [sighing] : How can we pass as young ...

  FIRST GUEST [laughing politely]: Now come ... You may be a widow in name, but you can give any girl a handicap of ten.

  [GAVRILA offers Babakina tea.]

  ZINAIDA SAVISHNA [to Gavrila]: Why are you serving it like that? You should have brought some jam. Gooseberry or something ...

  BABAKINA: Don’t worry. Thank you very much indeed ...

  [A pause.]

  FIRST GUEST: Marfa Yegor
ovna, did you come by Mushkino? ...

  BABAKINA: No, by Zaymishche. The road’s better that way.

  FIRST GUEST: Really.

  KOSYKH: Two spades.

  YEGORUSHKA: Pass.

  AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA: Pass.

  SECOND GUEST: Pass.

  BABAKINA: Dearest Zinaida Savishna, the Government lottery issues2 have again gone up very quickly. I’ve never seen anything like it: the first issue is already two-seventy and the second almost two-fifty ... That’s never happened before ...

  ZINAIDA SAVISHNA [sighing]: It’s nice for those who have a lot of them ...

  BABAKINA: Don’t say that, my love; although their price is high, it doesn’t pay to keep one’s capital in them. The insurance alone will kill me.

  ZINAIDA SAVISHNA: That may be, but still, my dear, you must have hopes ... [Sighs.] God is merciful ...

  THIRD GUEST: As I see it, mesdames, I reason thus, that at the present time it is very unprofitable to have capital. Bonds give a very small dividend, and it is exceptionally risky to put money into circulation. I am of this understanding, mesdames, that a man who has capital at the present time is in a more critical situation, mesdames, than one who ...

  BABAKINA [sighing]: That’s true.