SEREBRYAKOV, SONYA and MARINA go out.
HELENA. I'm absolutely exhausted by him, and can hardly stand.
VOYNITSKY. You're exhausted by him, and I'm exhausted by my own self. I haven't slept for three nights.
HELENA. Something is wrong in this house. Your mother hates everything but her pamphlets and the professor; the professor is irritable, he won't trust me, and fears you; Sonya is angry with her father, and with me, and hasn't spoken to me for two weeks; you hate my husband and openly sneer at your mother; I'm at the end of my strength, and have come near bursting into tears at least twenty times today. Something is wrong in this house.
VOYNITSKY. Leave philosophy alone, please.
HELENA. You are cultured and intelligent, Ivan, and you surely understand that the world is not destroyed by villains and conflagrations, but by hate and malice and all these petty squabbles. It's your duty to make peace, and not to growl at everything.
VOYNITSKY. Help me first to make peace with myself. My darling! [Seizes her hand and kisses it.]
HELENA. Let go! [She drags her hand away] Go away!
VOYNITSKY. Soon the rain will be over, and all nature will sigh and awake refreshed. Only I'm not refreshed by the storm. Day and night the thought haunts me like a fiend, that my life is lost for ever. My past does not count, because I frittered it away on trifles, and the present has so terribly miscarried! What shall I do with my life and my love? What can I do with them? This wonderful feeling of mine will be wasted and lost as a ray of sunlight is lost that falls into a dark chasm, and my life will go with it.
HELENA. I somehow can't think or feel when you speak to me of your love, and I don't know how to answer you. Forgive me, I have nothing to say to you. [She tries to go out] Good-night!
VOYNITSKY. [Barring the way] If you only knew how I'm tortured by the thought that beside me in this house is another life that's being lost forever -- it's yours! What are you waiting for? What damned philosophy stands in your way? Oh, understand, understand ---
HELENA. [Looking at him intently] Ivan, you're drunk!
VOYNITSKY. Perhaps. Perhaps.
HELENA. Where's the doctor?
VOYNITSKY. In there, spending the night in my room. Perhaps I'm drunk, perhaps I am; nothing is impossible.
HELENA. Have you been drinking today? Why do you do that?
VOYNITSKY. Because in that way I get a taste of being alive. Don't try to stop me, Helena!
HELENA. You never used to drink, and you never used to talk so much. Go to bed, I'm tired of you.
VOYNITSKY. [Bending down to kiss her hand] My sweetheart, my beautiful one ---
HELENA. [Angrily] Leave me alone! Really, this has become too disagreeable.
HELENA goes out.
VOYNITSKY [Alone] She's gone! [A pause] I met her first ten years ago, at my sister's house, when she was seventeen and I was thirty-seven. Why didn't I fall in love with her then and propose to her? It would've been so easy! And now she would have been my wife. Yes, we would both have been waked tonight by the thunderstorm, and she would've been frightened, but I would have held her in my arms and whispered: "Don't be afraid! I'm here." Oh, enchanting dream, so sweet that I laugh to think of it. [He laughs] But my God! My head reels! Why am I so old? Why won't she understand me? I hate all that rhetoric of hers, that morality of indolence, that absurd talk about the destruction of the world -- I hate it all -- [A pause] Oh, how I've been deceived! For years I've worshipped that miserable gout-ridden professor -- worked like an ox for him. Sonya and I have squeezed this estate dry for his sake. We've bartered our butter and curds and peas like misers, and have never kept a morsel for ourselves, so that we could scrape enough money together to send to him. I was proud of him and of his learning; I received all his words and writings as inspired, and, dear God, now? Now he's retired, and what's the total of his life? Not a page of his work will survive! He's absolutely unknown, and his fame has burst like a soap-bubble. I've been deceived; I see that now, foolishly deceived.
ASTROV comes in. He has his coat on, but is without his waistcoat or tie, and is slightly drunk. TELEGIN follows him, carrying a guitar.
ASTROV. Play!
TELEGIN. But every one is asleep.
ASTROV. Play!
TELEGIN begins to play softly.
ASTROV. [To VOYNITSKY] Are you alone here? No ladies about? [Sings softly with his arms akimbo.]
"The hut is cold, the fire is dead;
Where shall the master lay his head?"
The thunderstorm woke me. It was a heavy shower. What time is it?
VOYNITSKY. The devil only knows.
ASTROV. I thought I heard Helena's voice.
VOYNITSKY. She was here a moment ago.
ASTROV. What a beautiful woman! [Looking at the medicine bottles on the table] Medicine, is it? What a variety we have; prescriptions from Moscow, from Kharkov, from Tula! Why, he's been pestering all the towns of Russia with his gout! Is he ill, or simply pretending?
VOYNITSKY. He's really ill. [A pause]
ASTROV. What's the matter with you tonight? You seem sad. Is it because you're sorry for the professor?
VOYNITSKY. Leave me alone.
ASTROV. Or in love with the professor's wife?
VOYNITSKY. She's my friend.
ASTROV. Already?
VOYNITSKY. What do you mean by "already"?
ASTROV. A woman can only become a man's friend after having first been his acquaintance and then his mistress -- then she becomes his friend.
VOYNITSKY. What vulgar philosophy!
ASTROV. What do you mean? Yes, I must confess I'm getting vulgar, but then, you see, I'm drunk. I usually only drink like this once a month. At such times my audacity and impertinence know no bounds. I feel capable of anything. I attempt the most difficult operations and do them magnificently. The most brilliant plans for the future take shape in my head. I'm no longer a poor fool of a doctor, but mankind's greatest benefactor. Greatest! I evolve my own system of philosophy and all of you seem to crawl at my feet like so many insects or microbes. [To TELEGIN] Play, Waffles!
TELEGIN. My dear boy, I would with all my heart, but do listen to reason; everybody in the house is asleep.
ASTROV. Play!
TELEGIN plays softly.
ASTROV. I want a drink. Come, we still have some brandy left. And then, as soon as it's day, you will come home with me. O-Key? I have an assistant who can't say "OK," always says "O-Key." Awful rascal. So, O-Key? [He sees SONYA, who comes in at that moment.]
ASTROV. I beg your pardon, I have no tie on. [He goes out quickly, followed by TELEGIN.]
SONYA. Uncle Vanya, you and the doctor have been drinking again! The old boys have been getting together! It's all very well for him, he's always done it, but why do you follow his example? It looks bad at your age.
VOYNITSKY. Age has nothing to do with it. When real life is missing, one must create an illusion. It is better than nothing.
SONYA. Our hay is all cut and rotting in these daily rains, and here you are busy creating illusions! You've given up the farm altogether. I've done all the work alone until I'm at the end of my strength -- [Frightened] Uncle! Your eyes are full of tears!
VOYNITSKY. Tears? Nonsense, there are no tears in my eyes. You looked at me then just as your dead mother used to, my darling -- [He eagerly kisses her face and hands] My sister, my dearest sister, where are you now? Ah, if you only knew, if you only knew!