OLGA. Well, let her sit still.
NATASHA [surprised]. How, sit still? Why, she's a servant. [Through tears] I don't understand you, Olya. I've a nanny to look after the children as well as a wet nurse for baby, and we have a housemaid and a cook, what do we want that old woman for? What's the use of her?
[The alarm bell rings behind the scenes.]
OLGA. This night has made me ten years older.
NATASHA. We must come to an understanding, Olya. You are at the high-school, I'm at home; you're teaching while I look after the house, and if I say anything about the servants, I know what I'm talking about; I do know-what-I-am-talk-ing-a-bout. . . . And that old thief, that old hag . . . [stamps her foot], that old witch shall clear out of the house tomorrow! . . . I won't have people annoy me! I won't have it! [Feeling that she has gone too far] Really, if you don't move downstairs, we'll always be quarrelling. It's awful.
[Enter KULYGIN.]
KULYGIN. Where is Masha? It's time to be going home. The fire is dying down, so they say [stretches]. Only one part of the town has been burnt, and yet there was a wind; it seemed at first as though the whole town would be destroyed [sits down]. I'm exhausted. Olechka, my dear . . . I often think if it had not been for Masha I should have married you. You're so good. . . . I'm tired out [listens].
OLGA. What is it?
KULYGIN. It is unfortunate the doctor should have a drinking bout just now; he is helplessly drunk. Most unfortunate [gets up]. Here he comes, I do believe. . . . Do you hear? Yes, he's coming this way . . . [laughs]. What a man he is, really. . . . I'll hide [goes to the wardrobe and stands in the corner]. Isn't he a ruffian!
OLGA. He hasn't drunk for two years and now he's gone and done it . . . [walks away with NATASHA to the back of the room].
[CHEBUTYKIN comes in; walking as though sober without staggering, he walks across the room, stops, looks round; then goes up to the washing-stand and begins to wash his hands.]
CHEBUTYKIN [morosely]. The devil take them all . . . damn them all. They think I'm a doctor, that I can treat all sorts of complaints, and I really know nothing about it, I've forgotten all I did know, I remember nothing, absolutely nothing. [OLGA and NATASHA go out unnoticed by him.] The devil take them. Last Wednesday I treated a woman at Zasyp -- she died, and it's my fault that she died. Yes . . . I did know something twenty-five years ago, but now I remember nothing, nothing. Perhaps I'm not a man at all but only pretend to have arms and legs and head; perhaps I don't exist at all and only imagine that I walk around, eat and sleep [weeps]. Oh, if only I didn't exist! [Stops weeping, morosely] I don't care! I don't care a scrap! [a pause] Who the hell knows. . . . The day before yesterday there was a conversation at the club: they talked about Shakespeare, Voltaire. . . . I've read nothing, nothing at all, but I looked as though I'd read them. And the others did the same as I did. The vulgarity! The meanness! And that woman I killed on Wednesday came back to my mind . . . and it all came back to my mind and everything seemed nasty, disgusting and all twisted in my soul. . . . I went and got drunk, . . .
[Enter IRINA, VERSHININ and TUZENBAKH; TUZENBAKH is wearing a fashionable new civilian suit.]
IRINA. Let's sit here. No one will come here.
VERSHININ. If it hadn't been for the soldiers, the whole town would've been burnt down. Splendid fellows! [Rubs his hands with pleasure.] They are first-rate men! Splendid fellows!
KULYGIN [going up to them]. What time is it?
TUZENBAKH. It's past three. It's getting light already.
IRINA. They're all sitting in the dining-room. No one seems to think of going. And that Solyony of yours is sitting there too, . . . [To CHEBUTYKIN] You had better go to bed, doctor.
CHEBUTYKIN. It's all right, . . . Thank you! [Combs his beard.]
KULYGIN [laughs]. You've been hitting the bottle, Ivan Romanitch! [Slaps him on the shoulder.] Bravo! In vino veritas, the ancients used to say.
TUZENBAKH. Everyone is asking me to get up a concert for the benefit of the families whose houses have been burnt down.
IRINA. Why, who is there? . . .
TUZENBAKH. We could do it, if we wanted to. Marya Sergeyevna plays the piano splendidly, to my thinking.
KULYGIN. Yes, she plays splendidly.
IRINA. She's forgotten. She hasn't played for three . . . or four years.
TUZENBAKH. There is absolutely no one who understands music in this town, not one soul, but I do understand and on my honour I assure you that Marya Sergeyevna plays magnificently, almost with genius.
KULYGIN. You are right, Baron. I'm very fond of her; Masha, I mean. She is a good sort.
TUZENBAKH. To be able to play so gloriously and to know that no one understands you!
KULYGIN [sighs]. Yes. . . . But would it be suitable for her to take part in a concert? [a pause] I know nothing about it, my friends. Perhaps it would be all right. There's no denying that our director is a fine man, indeed a very fine man, very intelligent, but he has such views, . . . Of course it's not his business, still if you like I'll speak to him about it.
[CHEBUTYKIN takes up a china clock and examines it.]
VERSHININ. I got dirty all over at the fire. I'm a sight [a pause]. I heard a word dropped yesterday about our brigade being transferred ever so far away. Some say to Poland, and others to Tchita.
TUZENBAKH. I've heard something about it too. Well! The town will be a wilderness then.
IRINA. We'll go away too.
CHEBUTYKIN [drops the clock, which smashes]. To smithereens! [Pause; everyone is upset and confused]
KULYGIN [picking up the pieces]. To smash such a valuable thing -- oh, Ivan Romanitch, Ivan Romanitch! I'd give you minus zero for conduct!
IRINA. That was mother's clock.
CHEBUTYKIN. Perhaps. . . . Well, if it was hers, it was. Perhaps I didn't smash it, but it only seems as though I had. Perhaps it only seems to us that we exist, but really we aren't here at all. I don't know anything -- nobody knows anything. [By the door] What are you staring at? Natasha has got a little affair going with Protopopov, and you don't see it, . . . You sit here and see nothing, while Natasha has a little affair on with Protopopov . . . [sings]. May I offer you this fig? . . . [Goes out.]
VERSHININ. Yes . . . [laughs]. How very strange it all is, really! [a pause] When the fire began I ran home as fast as I could. I went up and saw our house was safe and sound and out of danger, but my little girls were standing in the doorway in their night-gowns; their mother was nowhere to be seen, people were bustling about, horses and dogs were running about, and my children's faces were full of alarm, horror, pleas for help, and I don't know what; it wrung my heart to see their faces. My God, I thought, what more have these children to go through in the long years to come! I took their hands and ran along with them, and could think of nothing else but what more they would have to go through in this world! [a pause] When I came to your house I found their mother here, screaming, angry.