II
LOMOV (alone).
LOMOV. It’s cold . . . I’m trembling all over, as if I were about to take an exam. The main thing is to make up your mind. If you think about it too long, and hesitate, talk it over a lot and wait for the perfect woman or true love, then you’ll never get married . . . Brrr! . . . It’s cold! Nataliya Stepanovna is an excellent housekeeper, passable looking, educated . . . what more do I need? However, there goes a ringing in my ears with all this excitement. (Drinks water.) And I’ve really got to get married . . . First of all, I’m already thirty-five — what they call a critical age. Second of all, I need an orderly, well-regulated life . . . I’ve got heart trouble, constant palpitations, I’m touchy and always flying off the handle . . . Right now, look, my lips are quivering and my right eyelid’s starting to flicker . . . But the most awful thing is when I go to sleep. No sooner do I get in bed and start to doze off, when suddenly something starts in my left side—a twitch! and it moves to my shoulders and head . . . I leap out of bed like a lunatic, pace the floor a bit and lie down again, but no sooner do I start to doze off, when there it is in my side again—that twitch! And so it goes twenty times over . . .
III
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA and LOMOV.
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA (enters). Oh, for heaven’s sake! It’s only you, and Papa was saying: go inside, there’s a dealer come about the merchandise. Good morning, Ivan Vasilyevich!
LOMOV. Good morning, respected Nataliya Stepanovna!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Excuse me, I’m in an apron and housedress . . . We’ve been shelling peas for drying. Why has it been so long since your last visit? Please sit down . . .
They sit down.
Would you like some breakfast?
LOMOV. No thank you, I’ve already eaten . . .
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Go ahead and smoke . . . Here are the matches . . . Splendid weather, but yesterday it rained so hard that none of the farmhands did a lick of work all day. How much hay have you mown? Can you imagine, I was a greedy little pig and mowed the whole field, and now I’ve got second thoughts, I’m afraid my hay might rot. It would have been better to wait. But what’s this? I do believe you’re wearing a tailcoat! That’s a new one! You going to a dance or what? By the way, you’re looking good . . . Honestly, why are you all dolled up?
LOMOV (excited). Well, you see, respected Nataliya Stepanovna . . . The fact is that I’ve made up my mind to ask you to hear me out . . . Of course, you must be wondering and even angry, but I . . . (Aside.) It’s awfully cold!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. What’s this about?
Pause.
Well?
LOMOV. I shall endeavor to be brief. As you know, respected Nataliya Stepa-novna, it’s been a long time now, since we were children, in fact, that I’ve had the honor of knowing your family. My late auntie and her husband, who, as I expect you know, bequeathed me my land, always had the deepest regard for your daddy and your late mamma. The Lomov clan and the Chubukov clan have always been on the friendliest and, one might even say, familial footing. Besides, as I expect you know, my land is closely adjacent to yours. If you will don’t mind recalling, my Bullock Fields are bounded by your grove of birch trees.
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Sorry to interrupt you. You said “my Bullock Fields” . . . Are they actually yours?
LOMOV. They’re mine, ma’am . . .
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Well, is that so! The Bullock Fields are ours, not yours!
LOMOV. No, ma’am, they’re mine, respected Nataliya Stepanovna.
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. That’s news to me. How do you figure they’re yours?
LOMOV. How do I figure? I’m talking about the Bullock Fields that form a wedge between your birch grove and Stinkhole Swamp.
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. That’s right, yes, yes . . . They’re ours . . .
LOMOV. No, you’re mistaken, respected Nataliya Stepanovna—they’re mine.
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Come to your senses, Ivan Vasilyevich! Since when have they been yours?
LOMOV. Since when? As long as I can remember, they’ve always been ours.
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Now, that’s really going too far!
LOMOV. You can see it in the deeds, respected Nataliya Stepanovna. Bullock Fields were once in dispute — that’s true; but now everybody knows that they’re mine. And there’s no point arguing about it. If you don’t mind, my auntie’s granny made over those Fields without limit of time or payment for the use of your daddy’s granddaddy’s peasants, so that they would bake bricks for her. Our daddy’s granddaddy’s peasants had had the use of the Fields rent-free for some forty years and were used to considering them their own, so later when circumstances altered . . .3
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. It’s not at all the way you’re telling it! Both my granddaddy and my great-granddaddy assumed that their land ran up to Stinkhole Swamp—which means, Bullock Fields are ours. What’s there to argue about?—I don’t understand. It’s really annoying!
LOMOV. I can show it to you in the deeds, Nataliya Stepanovna!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. No, you must be joking or putting me on . . . What a surprise! We’ve owned the land for nigh on to three hundred years, and all of a sudden somebody points out to you that it’s not your land! Ivan Vasilyevich, forgive me, but I can’t believe my own ears . . . It’s not that I care so much about the Fields. They’re barely a dozen acres or so, and they’re worth maybe three hundred rubles, but it’s the unfairness of the thing that upsets me. Say what you will, but I cannot put up with unfairness.
LOMOV. Hear me out, for pity’s sake! Your daddy’s granddaddy’s peasants, as I’ve already had the honor to tell you, baked bricks for my auntie’s granny. Auntie’s granny, eager to do something nice for them . . .
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Granddaddy, granny, auntie . . . I can’t make head or tail of this! They’re our Fields, and that’s that.
LOMOV. Mine, ma’am!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Ours! You can show me proofs for two days running, you can put on a dozen tailcoats, but they’re ours, ours, ours! . . . I won’t take what’s yours and I won’t give up what’s mine . . . Say whatever you like!
LOMOV. I don’t need Bullock Fields, Nataliya Stepanovna, but it’s the principle of the thing. If you like, then, please, I’ll give them to you.
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. I can give them to you myself, they’re mine! . . . This is all very peculiar, to put it mildly, Ivan Vasilyevich! Up to now we considered you a good neighbor, a friend, last year we lent you our threshing machine, and that’s why we couldn’t finish threshing our own wheat until November, and now you treat us as if we were gypsies. You make us a present of our own land. Excuse me but this is not neighborly behavior! To my way of thinking, it’s downright impertinence, if you don’t mind my saying so . . .
LOMOV. In other words, I’m supposed to be appropriating what’s yours? Madam, I have never grabbed other people’s land and won’t allow anyone to accuse me of such a thing . . . (Quickly goes to the carafe and drinks water.) Bullock Fields are mine!