[MASHA comes in with the pillow and sits down on the sofa.]
VERSHININ. And while my little girls were standing in the doorway in their nightgowns and the street was red with the fire, and there was a fearful noise, I thought that something like it used to happen years ago when the enemy would suddenly make a raid and begin plundering and burning, . . . And yet, in reality, what a difference there is between what is now and has been in the past! And when a little more time has passed -- another two or three hundred years -- people will look at our present manner of life with horror and derision, and everything of today will seem awkward and heavy, and very strange and uncomfortable. Oh, what a wonderful life that will be -- what a wonderful life! [Laughs] Forgive me, here I am airing my theories again! Allow me to go on. I have such a desire to talk about the future. I'm in the mood [a pause]. It's as though everyone were asleep. And so, I say, what a wonderful life it will be! Can you only imagine? . . . Here there are only three of your sort in the town now, but in generations to come there will be more and more and more; and the time will come when everything will be changed and be as you would have it; they will live in your way, and later on you too will be out of date -- people will be born who will be better than you. . . . [laughs]. I am in such a strange state of mind today. I have a fiendish longing for life . . . [sings]. Young and old are bound by love, and precious are its pangs . . . [laughs].
MASHA. Tram-tam-tam!
VERSHININ. Tam-tam!
MASHA. Tra-ra-ra?
VERSHININ. Tra-ta-ta! [Laughs]
[Enter FEDOTIK.]
FEDOTIK [dances]. Burnt to ashes! Burnt to ashes! Everything I had in the world [laughter].
IRINA. That's not something to joke about. Is everything burnt?
FEDOTIK [laughs]. Everything I had in the world. Nothing is left. My guitar is burnt, and the camera and all my letters. . . . And the note-book I meant to give you -- that's burnt too.
[Enter SOLYONY.]
IRINA. No; please go, Vassily Vassilyitch. You can't stay here.
SOLYONY. How is it the baron can be here and I can't?
VERSHININ. We must be going, really. How's the fire?
SOLYONY. They say it's dying down. No, I really can't understand why the baron may be here and not me [takes out a bottle of scent and sprinkles himself].
VERSHININ. Tram-tam-tam!
MASHA. Tram-tam!
VERSHININ [laughs, to SOLYONY]. Let's go into the dining-room.
SOLYONY. Very well; we'll make a note of it. I might explain my meaning further, but fear I may provoke the geese . . . [looking at TUZENBAKH]. Chook, chook, chook! . . . [Goes out with VERSHININ and FEDOTIK.]
IRINA. How that horrid Solyony has made the room smell of tobacco! . . . [Bewildered] The baron is asleep! Baron, Baron!
TUZENBAKH [waking up]. I'm tired, though. . . . The brick-yard. I'm not talking in my sleep. I really am going to the brick factory directly, to begin work. . . . It's nearly settled. [To IRINA, tenderly] You're so pale and lovely and fascinating. . . . It seems to me as though your paleness sheds a light through the dark air. . . . You're melancholy; you're dissatisfied with life. . . . . . Ah, come with me; let's go and work together!
MASHA. Nikolay Lvovitch, go away!
TUZENBAKH [laughing]. Are you here? I didn't see you . . . [kisses IRINA'S hand]. Good-bye, I'm going. . . . I look at you now, and I remember as though it were long ago how on your name-day you talked of the joy of work, and were so cheerful and confident. . . . And what a happy life I was dreaming of then! What has become of it? [Kisses her hand.] There're tears in your eyes . Go to bed, it's getting light . . . it's nearly morning. . . . . . . . . If only I could give my life for you!
MASHA. Nikolay Lvovitch, do go! Really, this is too much. . . .
TUZENBAKH. I'm going [goes out].
MASHA [lying down]. Are you asleep, Fyodor?
KULYGIN. Eh?
MASHA. You'd better go home.
KULYGIN. My darling Masha, my precious girl! . . .
IRINA. She's tired out. Let her rest, Fedya.
KULYGIN. I'll go at once, . . . My dear, charming wife! . . . I love you, my only one! . . .
MASHA [angrily]. Amo, amas, amat; amamus, amatis, amant.
KULYGIN [laughs]. Yes, really she's wonderful. You've been my wife for seven years, and it seems to me as though we were only married yesterday. Honour bright! Yes, really you are a wonderful woman! I'm content, I'm content, I'm content!
MASHA. I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored! . . . [Gets up and speaks, sitting down] And there's something I can't get out of my head. . . . It's simply revolting. It sticks in my head like a nail; I must speak of it. I mean about Andrey, . . . He has mortgaged this house to the bank and his wife has grabbed all the money, and you know the house doesn't belong to him alone, but to us four! He ought to know that, if he's a decent man.
KULYGIN. Why do you want to bother about it, Masha? What's got into you? Andryusha is in debt all round, so there it is.
MASHA. It's revolting, anyway [lies down].
KULYGIN. We're not poor. I work -- I go to the high-school, and then I give private lessons, . . . I do my duty. . . . There's no nonsense about me. Omnia mea mecum porto, as the saying is.
MASHA. I want nothing, but it's the injustice that revolts me [a pause]. Go, Fyodor.
KULYGIN [kisses her]. You're tired, rest for half an hour, and I'll sit and wait for you. . . . Sleep . . . [goes]. I'm content, I'm content, I'm content [goes out].
IRINA. Yes, how petty our Andrey has grown, how dull and old he has become beside that woman! At one time he was working to get a professorship and yesterday he was boasting of having succeeded at last in becoming a member of the District Council. He's a member, and Protopopov is chairman. . . . The whole town is laughing and talking of it and he's the only one who sees and knows nothing. . . . And here everyone has been running to the fire while he sits still in his room and takes no notice. He does nothing but play his violin . . . [nervously]. Oh, it's awful, awful, awful! [Weeps] I can't bear it any more, I can't! I can't, I can't!
[OLGA comes in and begins tidying up her table.]
IRINA [sobs loudly]. Throw me out, throw me out, I can't bear it any more!
OLGA [alarmed]. What is it? What is it, darling?
IRINA [sobbing]. Where? Where has it all gone? Where is it? Oh, my God, my God! I've forgotten everything, everything . . . everything is in a tangle in my mind. . . I don't remember the Italian for window or ceiling . . . I'm forgetting everything; every day I forget something more and life is slipping away and will never come back, we'll never, never go to Moscow. . . . I see that we won't go. . . .
OLGA. Darling, darling, . . .
IRINA [restraining herself]. Oh, I'm miserable. . . . I can't work, I'm not going to work. I've had enough of it, enough of it! I've been a telegraph clerk and now I have a job in the town council and I hate and despise every bit of the work they give me. . . . I'm already twenty-three, I've been working for years, my brains are drying up, I'm getting thin and old and ugly and there's nothing, nothing, not the slightest satisfaction, and time is passing and you feel that you are moving away from a real, a beautiful life, moving farther and farther away and being drawn into the depths. I'm in despair and I don't know how it is I'm alive and haven't killed myself yet. . . .