Mrs. Grasshopper gave a shriek of joy, took off her hat, sat down, and started reading.
First she read about a butler and a cleaning lady tidying up a luxurious parlor, discussing a landlady, Anna Sergeenva, who built a school and a hospital in their little town out of charity. After the butler left, the maid gave a lengthy monologue that education is good and ignorance is bad for you.
Then Mrs. Grasshopper brought the butler back to the parlor and gave him a lengthy monologue that the landlord, who was a general, did not tolerate the liberal views of his daughter and wanted her to marry a rich officer of the Guard, and who said that common people could be saved by keeping them in ignorance.
After the servants left, the landlady appeared by herself and announced to the spectators that she had not slept the whole night and had been thinking about Valentine Ivanovich, the poor son of a village teacher who was supporting his sick father. Valentine studied at the university, but he did not believe in love and he had no purpose in life. He was expecting his death, and the landlady was going to save him.
Pavel Vasilich half listened to the reading of the drama, and thought of his bed with great longing.
He looked angrily at Mrs. Grasshopper and could not follow a single word she was reading. He thought the following:
“You were brought here by the devil himself. Why should I listen to your nonsense? Why should I suffer sitting through your drama? Oh my God, her notebook is so thick! This is torture of the highest degree!”
Pavel Vasilich looked at the portrait of his wife on the wall and suddenly remembered the list of things his wife had asked him to bring up to the cottage: five meters of braid, a pound of cheese, and a pack of toothpaste.
“I hope I did not lose the sample of the braid,” he thought. “Where did I put it? Oh, I think it is in the pocket of my blue jacket. Look how those mean flies have managed to put little dots on my wife’s portrait. I should ask Olga, the cleaning lady, to clean the glass. She is reading Scene 12. This means soon it will be the end of the first act. How can she do this in this heat, with her complexion and bulk—how can she have any inspiration? How is it possible? Instead of writing dramas, she would be better off having a soft drink, and sleeping in her basement in this heat.
“Do you believe that this monologue is a little bit too long?” Mrs. Grasshopper asked, lifting her eyes from her reading.
Pavel Vasilich had not been listening to the monologue. He got confused and said in such a guilty tone, as if it were not the lady but he who had written this monologue,
“Not at all! It is very nice!”
Mrs. Grasshopper beamed with happiness and continued with her reading.
Anna: You are too deeply involved with logical analysis. Too early you stopped living with your heart and started living with your head.
Valentine: What is heart? Heart is a medicinal term for those who want to describe their emotions, and I do not care for it.
Anna: And love? Tell me, what is love? Is it the product of an association of ideas? Have you ever loved before?
Valentine (bitterly): Let us not touch old wounds that have not yet healed. (Pause)
Anna: It seems to me that you are unhappy.
In the middle of Scene 16, Pavel Vasilich yawned, and then snapped his teeth, a noise much like the sound made by dogs when they catch flies or insects. He instantly feared that this bad-mannered noise had been heard by her, and quickly put an expression of friendly attention on his face.
“Scene Seventeen,” she read out loud.
“Where is the end of all this?” he thought. “Oh, my God! If this torture continues for ten more minutes, I will scream for help! This is unbearable!”
Finally, reading faster and louder, the lady raised her voice and read,
“The end of Act One. The curtain falls.”
Pavel Vasilich made a small movement and sighed with relief. He made to stand up from his chair, but Mrs. Grasshopper quickly flipped the page and started reading very fast,
“The scene in the country. There is a school to the right, and the hospital to the left. You can see the local people sitting on the steps of the hospital, talking to each other quietly.”
“Excuse me,” Pavel Vasilich interrupted her. “How many acts do you have altogether?”
“Five acts. The play consists of five acts,” Mrs. Grasshopper repeated, and then continued quickly, as if afraid that her listener would leave.
“Valentine is looking out of the school window. You can see in the background the local farmers bringing their belongings into the pub to pawn them and spend the money on drink.”
With the feeling of being slowly executed, or no possibility of parole, Pavel Vasilich hopelessly waited for the end of her reading. He could hardly keep his eyes open and keep up the expression of attention on his face. Sometime in the future, the lady would stop reading and leave. That time seemed so remote that he dared not even think about it.
“Tru-du-du,” Mrs. Grasshopper’s voice rang suddenly in his ears. “Buzz-buzz. Tru-tu-tu. Buzz.”
“I forgot to take some soda and medication for my stomach,” he thought to himself.
“What was I thinking about? Oh yes, baking soda. I must have some irritation in my stomach. Isn’t it strange that Mr. Smirnovsky drinks vodka all day long, and has no irritation. Look, a little bird on the windowsill outside. A sparrow.”
Pavel Vasilich made an effort to open his heavy eyelids, yawned without opening his mouth, and looked at Mrs. Grasshopper. She began to sway and rock in his eyes, then she became three-headed, and one of her heads started growing and pushed against the ceiling.
Valentine: No. Let me go!
Anna (scared): Why?
Valentine (talking to himself): She is so pale. (Addressing her) Do not try to find out why. I would better die. You will never learn my reasons for leaving.
Anna (after a small pause): You cannot leave like this.
Mrs. Grasshopper started to swell and to grow, and turned into a huge monster. Then she blended with the gray air of the office. He could only see her talking mouth. And then she became very small, as small as a perfume bottle. After that she swayed from side to side and, together with the desk, moved into a remote corner of the room.
Valentine (holding Anna in his embrace): You brought me back to life; you showed me the purpose of life! You revived me as a spring rain revives the wakening earth. But it is too late, too late! I am sick with terminal tuberculosis.
Pavel Vasilich trembled and looked through cloudy eyes at Mrs. Grasshopper. For a minute, he looked at her, motionless, without understanding anything.
“Act Two. The same actors together with the baron, the police officer, and the witnesses.”
Valentine: Take me! I am yours.
Anna: Take me, too! I am his. Finally! And you can take me. I am yours. I love him more than life!
Baron: Anna, you forgot that you are killing your father with this news, this kind of behavior.
Mrs. Grasshopper again began to swell.
Looking around him with the desperation of a wild animal, Pavel Vasilich stood up from his chair, cried out in an unnatural voice, grabbed a very heavy file from his desk and, without understanding what he was doing, hit Mrs. Grasshopper on her head.
“You can take me to the police station. I killed her!” he said a minute later to the people who ran into his office.
The jury found him not guilty, under the circumstances.