VII
DUDKIN and KOSYKH.
Both run in and quickly start to smoke.
KOSYKH. We’ve still got time for a quick smoke.
DUDKIN. He showed up to put the squeeze on them for the dowry . . . (Excited.) Attaboy . . . Honest to God, attaboy . . . Attaboy . . .
TABLEAU TWO
A drawing-room in the Lebedevs’ house. Velvet furniture, an antique bronze, family portraits. An upright piano, on it a violin, a cello beside it. Lots of lights. A door left. At right a wide doorway to a reception room, from which a bright light emanates. Back and forth from the doors left and right scurry footmen with dishes, platters, bottles, and so forth. At the rise of the curtain shouts Vire heard from the reception room: “Bitter, bitter, sweeten it up . . .”54
I
AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA, KOSYKH, and DUDKIN come out of the reception room with wineglasses.
A VOICE FROM THE RECEPTION ROOM: “To the health of the groom’s men . . .”
Music backstage plays a fanfare. Cries of “hoorah” and the sound of chairs being pulled back.
AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. What a sweet couple I hitched up . . . Lovey-dovey, you could send ‘em off to Moscow for show. He’s handsome, well built, educated, refined, dead sober, and Sashenka’s a little angel, a little flower, a little sweetie-pie . . . You won’t find another match like that one . . .
In the reception room shouts of “hoorah.”
KOSYKH
(together). Hoo-ra-ah-ah . . .
DUDKIN
AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA (sings).
Don’t sit, Sashenka, don’t sit still,
Open the window, look out from the silclass="underline"
Does the sun shine down in the yard from on high?
Does my Kolyushka on his horse ride by?55
That’s how it is . . . I’ve been kicking up my heels, sinner that I am . . . There’s nuthin’ I can’t do . . .
DUDKIN wants to say something, but cannot.
KOSYKH. It makes you jealous when you see other people’s happiness . . . Avdotya Nazarovna, do me a favor, match me up with a bride . . . A bachelor’s single life has gotten so repulsive that at home I walk from room to room and stare at the air vents . . . You hang around and hang around, and, before you know how the hell it happened, your life’s gone by.
AVDOTYA IVANOVNA. How long have I’ve been saying I could marry you off in a minute . . .
KOSYKH. It’s another story when you’re married . . . You sit at home . . . it’s warm . . . the lamp’s lit, there’s some sort of a kind of wife walking around . . . Honest to God, she walks around you, while you sit at the table with friends and play whist . . . You say: no trumps . . . pass . . . clubs . . . pass . . . hearts . . . pass . . . two hearts . . . pass. And finally a slam in hearts . . . It’s all pass, pass, pass . . .
DUDKIN touches Avdotya Nazarovna’s waist and clacks his tongue.
AVDOTYA NAZAROVNA. Why, you’re so sozzled you think I’m some sweet young thing . . . Oh dear, the way people forget themselves in other people’s houses. You can’t make your tongue work, just like you was struck with paralysis.
A VOICE FROM THE RECEPTION ROOM. “To the health of Sergey Afanasyevich and Mariya Danilovna . . .”
The music plays a fanfare. Hoorah.
(She goes into the reception room and sings.)
Pretty, pretty, mamma dear,
Better than them all,
And then he hung his little head
Lower than them all.
She exits.
DUDKIN. Raisa Sergeevna, let’s go . . .
KOSYKH. What makes you think I’m Raisa Sergeevna . . .
DUDKIN. I don’t give a damn . . . let’s go . . . give the footman two bits, I haven’t got any change . . . (Shouts.) Grigory, hand it over . . .
KOSYKH. What are you yelling for? Who’s this Grigory? (Lights up a cigarette.)
DUDKIN. I don’t give a damn, let’s go . . . Let’s live it up . . . (Shouts.) Grig-ory, hand it over . . .
II
The same and BORKIN (in a dresscoat with a nosegay).
BORKIN (runs out of the reception room, out of breath). How come they aren’t serving champagne? (To a footman.) Serve some more champagne, and step lively . . .
FOOTMAN. There is no more champagne . . .
BORKIN. What the hell kind of system is this . . . Five bottles for a hundred people . . . It’s an outrage.
KOSYKH walks over to the cello and pulls the bow across the strings.
What kind of wine is left?
FOOTMAN. Table wine, sparkling wine . . .
BORKIN. At forty kopeks a bottle? (To Kosykh.) Ah, will you stop scraping away, please . . . (To the footman.) Well then, bring me some sparkling table wine, only step lively . . . Oof, I’m wrecked . . . I must have made a good twenty toasts at least . . . (To Dudkin and Kosykh.) Here goes, now we’ll make a toast to the Count and Babakina as groom and bride. Listen, gents: shout hooray as loud as you can. Later on I’ll explain this idea I got. So we’ll have to have a drink to the idea . . . Let’s go . . . (Links arms with Kosykh and exits into the reception room with him.)
DUDKIN (follows him). Semyon Nikolaevich . . . First let’s have a drink at the buffet, and then in general . . .
The music plays a march from Boccaccio,56 cries of “Stop the music.” The music is cut off.
A VOICE FROM THE RECEPTION ROOM: “To the health of the bride’s auntie Margarita Savishna . . .” Fanfare.
III
SHABELSKY and LEBEDEV
LEBEDEV (entering from the reception room, with the Count). Don’t make trouble, please, give up all this malice or you’ll simply get stomach ulcers, or maybe you think that you’re actually Mephistopheles.57 It’s true . . . Put a fuse in your mouth, light it and breathe fire at people . . .
SHABELSKY. No, seriously, I want to commit something so low-down, so vulgar that not only I, but everyone will be nauseated. And I will commit it. Word of honor, I will . . . I’ve already told Borkin to announce my engagement today. (Laughs.) It’ll be low-down, but it matches the times and the people. Everybody’s a lowlife, so I’ll be a lowlife too . . .
LEBEDEV. I’m fed up with you . . . Listen, Matvey, keep talking like that and they’ll throw you in the, excuse the expression, booby hatch.
SHABELSKY. And why should a booby hatch be any worse than an escape hatch or a nuthatch? Do me a favor, throw me in there right now . . . You’d be doing me a favor . . .
LEBEDEV. You know what, my boy? Take your hat and go home . . . There’s a wedding going on here, everybody’s celebrating, while you caw . . . caw . . . like a crow. God be with you . . .
SHABELSKY. A wedding . . . everybody’s celebrating . . . Something idioti-cal, barbaric . . . There’s music, noise, drunkenness, just as if any Tom, Dick or Harry58 was getting married. Up to now I considered you and Nikolay to be men of culture, but today I see that you are both as mauvais ton as Zyuzyushka and Marfutka. This isn’t a wedding, but a barroom.