KULYGIN. Well, today the officers will be gone and everything will go on in the old way. Whatever people may say, Masha is a true, good woman. I love her dearly and am thankful for my lot! . . . People have different lots in life, . . . There is a man called Kozyrev serving in the Excise here. He was at school with me, but he was expelled from the fifth form because he could never understand ut consecutivum. Now he's frightfully poor and ill, and when I meet him I say, "How are you, ut consecutivum?" "Yes," he says, "just so -- consecutivum" . . . and then he coughs. . . . Now I've always been successful, I'm fortunate, I've even got the order of the Stanislav of the second degree and I'm teaching others that ut consecutivum. Of course I'm clever, cleverer than very many people, but happiness doesn't lie in that . . . [a pause].
[In the house the "Maiden's Prayer" is played on the piano.]
IRINA. Tomorrow evening I'll not be hearing that "Maiden's Prayer," I won't be meeting Protopopov . . . [a pause]. Protopopov is sitting there in the drawing-room; he's come again today. . . .
KULYGIN. The headmistress hasn't come yet?
IRINA. No. They've sent for her. If only you knew how hard it is for me to live here alone, without Olya, . . . Now that she is headmistress and lives at the high-school and is busy all day long, I'm alone, I'm bored, I have nothing to do, and I hate the room I live in. . . . I've made up my mind, since I'm not fated to be in Moscow, that so it must be. It must be destiny. There's no help for it, . . . It's all in God's hands, that's the truth. When Nikolay Lvovitch made me an offer again . . . I thought it over and made up my mind, . . . He's a good man, it's wonderful really how good he is. . . . And I suddenly felt as though my soul had grown wings, my heart felt so light and again I longed for work, work. . . . Only something happened yesterday, there's some mystery hanging over me.
CHEBUTYKIN. Nonsense.
NATASHA [at the window]. Our headmistress!
KULYGIN. The headmistress has come. Let's go in [goes into the house with IRINA].
CHEBUTYKIN [reads the newspaper, humming softly]. "Tarara-boom-dee-ay."
[MASHA approaches; in the background ANDREY is pushing the baby carriage.]
MASHA. Here he sits, snug and settled.
CHEBUTYKIN. Well, why not?
MASHA [sits down]. Nothing . . . [a pause]. Did you love my mother?
CHEBUTYKIN. Very much.
MASHA. And did she love you?
CHEBUTYKIN [after a pause]. That I don't remember.
MASHA. Is my man here? It's just like our cook Marfa used to say about her policeman: is my man here?
CHEBUTYKIN. Not yet.
MASHA. When you get happiness by snatches, by little bits, and then lose it, as I'm losing it, by degrees one grows coarse and spiteful . . . [Points to her bosom] I'm boiling here inside . . . [Looking at ANDREY, who is pushing the baby carriage] Here's our Andrey, . . . All our hopes are shattered. It's like thousands of people raised a huge bell, a lot of money and of labour was spent on it, and it suddenly fell and smashed. All at once, for no reason whatever. That's just how it is with Andrey, . . .
ANDREY. When will they be quiet in the house? There's such a noise.
CHEBUTYKIN. Soon [looks at his watch]. My watch is an old-fashioned one with a repeater . . . [winds his watch, it strikes]. The first, the second, and the fifth batteries are going at one o'clock [a pause]. And I'm going tomorrow.
ANDREY. For good?
CHEBUTYKIN. I don't know. Perhaps I'll come back in a year. Though goodness knows. . . . It doesn't matter one way or another.
[There is the sound of a harp and violin being played far away in the street.]
ANDREY. The town will be empty. It's as though you put an extinguisher over it [a pause]. Something happened yesterday near the theatre; everyone is talking of it, and I know nothing about it.
CHEBUTYKIN. It was nothing. Foolishness. Solyony began annoying the baron and he lost his temper and insulted him, and it came in the end to Solyony's having to challenge him [looks at his watch]. It's time, I think. . . . It was to be at half-past twelve in the Crown forest that we can see from here beyond the river . . . Piff-paff! [Laughs] Solyony imagines he is a Lermontov and even writes verses. Joking apart, this is his third duel.
MASHA. Whose?
CHEBUTYKIN. Solyony's.
MASHA. And the baron's?
CHEBUTYKIN. What about the baron? [a pause]
MASHA. My thoughts are in a muddle. . . . Anyway, I tell you, you ought not to let them do it. He may wound the baron or even kill him.
CHEBUTYKIN. The baron is a very good fellow, but one baron more or less in the world, what does it matter? Let them! It doesn't matter. [Beyond the garden a shout of "Aa-oo! Halloo!"] You can wait. That's Skvortsov, the second, shouting. He's in a boat [a pause].
ANDREY. In my opinion to take part in a duel, or to be present at it even in the capacity of a doctor, is simply immoral.
CHEBUTYKIN. That only seems so. . . . We're not real, nothing in the world is real, we don't exist, but only seem to exist. . . . Nothing matters!
MASHA. How they keep on talking, talking all day long [goes]. To live in such a climate, it may snow any minute, and then all this talk on the top of it [stops]. I'm not going indoors, I can't go in there. . . . When Vershinin comes, tell me . . . [goes down the avenue]. And the birds are already flying south . . . [looks up]. Swans or geese. . . . Darlings, happy birds . . . . . . . [goes out].
ANDREY. Our house will be empty. The officers are going, you are going, Irina is getting married, and I shall be left in the house alone.
CHEBUTYKIN. What about your wife?
[Enter FERAPONT with papers.]
ANDREY. A wife is a wife. She's a straightforward, upright woman, kind, perhaps, but for all that there's something in her which makes her no better than some petty, blind, hairy animal. Anyway she's not a human being. I speak to you as to a friend, the one man to whom I can open my soul. I love Natasha, that's so, but sometimes she seems to me absolutely vulgar, and then I don't know what to think, I can't account for my loving her or, anyway, having loved her.
CHEBUTYKIN [gets up]. I'm going away tomorrow, my boy, perhaps we'll never meet again, so this is my advice to you. Put on your cap, you know, take your stick and walk off . . . walk off and just go, go without looking back. And the farther you go, the better.
[SOLYONY crosses the stage in the background with two officers; seeing CHEBUTYKIN he turns towards him; the officers walk on.]
SOLYONY. Doctor, it's time! It's half-past twelve [greets ANDREY].
CHEBUTYKIN. Directly. I'm sick of you all. [To ANDREY] If anyone asks for me, Andryusha, say I'll be back directly . . . [sighs]. Oho-ho-ho!
SOLYONY. He had not time to say alack before the bear was on his back [walks away with the doctor]. Why are you croaking, old man?
CHEBUTYKIN. Come!
SOLYONY. How do you feel?
CHEBUTYKIN [angrily]. Like a pig in clover.