LVOV (alone). This damned temper of mine . . . Again I missed my chance and didn’t talk to him the way I should . . . I can’t talk to him coolly and calmly! No sooner do I open my mouth and say a single word, when something here (points to his chest) starts to choke up, goes in reverse, and my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth . . . I hate this Tartuffe,16 this puffed-up swindler, most heartily . . . Now he’s going out . . . His unhappy wife’s one pleasure is his being near her; she breathes through him, pleads with him to spend at least one night with her, and he . . . he cannot . . . For him, you see, the house is stifling and claustrophobic. If he spent even one night at home, he’d put a bullet through his brain from sheer ennui! Poor fellow . . . he needs wide open spaces, so he can perpetrate some more underhanded acts . . . Oh, I know why you ride over to those Lebedevs every night! I know!
VI
LVOV, IVANOV (in a hat and overcoat), SHABELSKY, and ANNA PETROVNA.
SHABELSKY (coming out of the house with Ivanov and Anna Petrovna). Really, Nicolas, this is inhuman! You go out every night by yourself, and leave us all on our own. Bored stiff, we go to bed at eight o’clock. This is an abomination, not life! How come you can go out and we can’t? How come?
ANNA PETROVNA. Count, leave him alone! Let him go, let him . . .
IVANOV (to his wife). Well, where would you, a sick woman, go? You’re sick and you mustn’t go out of doors after sundown . . . Ask the doctor here. You’re not a child, Anyuta, you have to be sensible . . . (To the Count.) And why should you go out?
SHABELSKY. I’d go to blue blazes, I’d crawl down a crocodile’s gullet rather than stay here. I’m bored . . . I’m petrified with boredom . . . Everybody’s sick and tired of me . . . You leave me at home so she won’t be bored on her own, and I’ve nagged her to death, chewed her to pieces!
ANNA PETROVNA. Leave him alone, Count, leave him! Let him go if it gives him pleasure.
IVANOV. Anya, why take that tone? You know I don’t go there for pleasure! I have to discuss the terms of the loan.
ANNA PETROVNA. I don’t understand why you feel the need to make excuses? Go ahead! Who’s keeping you here?
IVANOV. Friends, let’s not devour one another! Is this absolutely necessary?
SHABELSKY (in a tearful voice). Nicolas, dear boy, do please take me with you! I’ll get an eyeful of those crooks and idiots and, maybe, have some fun! Honestly, I haven’t been anywhere since Easter . . .
IVANOV (annoyed). All right, let’s go! I’m sick and tired of the lot of you!
SHABELSKY. Really? Well, merci, merci. . . (Merrily takes him by the arm and leads him aside.) May I wear your straw hat?
IVANOV. You may, only hurry up, for pity’s sake!
The COUNT runs into the house.
You have to be reasonable, Anya. Get better and then we’ll go out, but for now you need your rest . . . Well, good-bye . . . . (Walks over to his wife and kisses her on the head.) I’ll be back by one . . .
ANNA PETROVNA (leads him down to the footlights). Kolya . . . (Laughs.) What if you stayed home? We could turn somersaults in the hay the way we used to . . . we could have supper together, read . . . The grouch and I have practiced lots of duets for you . . .
Pause
Stay home, we’ll have a laugh . . . (Laughs and weeps.) Or, Kolya, how does it go? The flowers return every spring, but joy never does?17 Am I right? Well, go on, go on . . .
IVANOV. I . . . I’ll be back soon . . . (Goes, stops and thinks.) No, I can’t! . . . (He exits.)
ANNA PETROVNA. Go on . . . (Sits at the table.)
LVOV (paces up and down the stage). Anna Petrovna, make yourself a rule: as soon as the clock strikes six, you have to go to your room and not come out until morning. The evening damp is bad for your health . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. Your wish is my command, sir . . .
LVOV. What’s “your wish is my command, sir” supposed to mean! I’m talking seriously.
ANNA PETROVNA. Then try to talk unseriously. (Coughs.)
LVOV. There, you see, you’re coughing already . . .
VII
LVOV, ANNA PETROVNA, and SHABELSKY.
SHABELSKY (comes out of the house in a hat and overcoat). Where is he? (Goes quickly, stops in front of Anna Petrovna and makes a face.) Gevalt . . . Vay iss mir . . . Pekh . . . Gevalt . . .18 Excusink me, pliss! (Bursts out laughing and makes a rapid exit.)
LVOV. Buffoon . . .
Pause. The distant strains of a concertina are heard.
ANNA PETROVNA (stretches). How boring . . . Out there the coachmen and the cooks are having a dance, while I . . . I’m like some thing that’s been discarded . . . Yevgeny Konstantinovich, why are you pacing back and forth? Come over here, sit down! . . .
LVOV. I can’t sit down . . .
Pause.
ANNA PETROVNA. Doctor, are your father and mother still alive?
LVOV. My father’s dead, my mother’s alive.
ANNA PETROVNA. Do you miss your mother?
LVOV. I’ve no time to miss anyone.
ANNA PETROVNA (laughs). The flowers return every spring, but joy never does. Who quoted that line to me? God help my memory . . . I think Nikolay quoted it. (Lends an ear.) The owl is screeching again!
LVOV. Then let it screech . . .
Pause.
ANNA PETROVNA. Doctor, I’m beginning to think that Fate has dealt me a losing hand. Most people, who may be no better than I am, lead happy lives and never pay for their happiness, why am I the only one to pay at such a cost? Why am I being charged such high interest? . . . What did you say?
LVOV. I didn’t say anything.
ANNA PETROVNA. And I’m starting to wonder so much at the unfairness of people: why don’t they reciprocate love for love, why do they pay back truth with lies? (Shrugs her shoulders.) Doctor, you’re not a family man, so you can’t understand a lot of this . . .
LVOV. You wonder . . . (He sits beside her.) No, I wonder, wonder at you! . . . Now, explain, spell it out for me, for heaven’s sake, how could you, an intelligent, honorable, almost saintly woman, have let yourself be so brazenly tricked and dragged into this nest of screech owls? Why are you here? What do you have in common with this cold, heartless—but let’s leave your husband out of it! . . . what do you have in common with this vacuous, vulgar milieu? Oh, good God in heaven . . . This constantly grumbling, decrepit, insane count, this creepy super-swindler Misha, with that repulsive look on his face . . . Explain to me, what are you doing here? How did you end up here?