NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. That’s a lie, they’re ours!
LOMOV. Mine!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. That’s a lie! I’ll prove it to you! This very day I’ll send men with scythes to those Fields!
LOMOV. What, ma’am?
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. This very day my men will be mowing it down!
LOMOV. I’ll toss ‘em out on their ear!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. You wouldn’t dare!
LOMOV (clutches at his heart). Bullock Fields are mine! Understand? Mine!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Stop shouting, please! You can shout and talk yourself hoarse with anger in your own home, but please get a grip on yourself while you’re here!
LOMOV. Madam, if it were not for my appalling, agonizing palpitations, if the veins were not throbbing in my temples, I would speak to you in quite a different tone! (Shouts.) Bullock Fields are mine!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Ours!
LOMOV. Mine!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Ours!
LOMOV. Mine!
IV
The same and CHUBUKOV.
CHUBUKOV (entering). What’s going on? What’s all this shouting for?
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Papa, please explain to this gentleman who owns Bullock Fields: us or him?
CHUBUKOV (to him). The Fields’re ours, my chick!
LOMOV. For pity’s sake, Stepan Stepanych, how do you figure they’re yours? You of all people should have some sense! My auntie’s granny handed over the Fields on a temporary, rent-free basis for the use of your granddaddy’s peasants. The peasants used the land for forty years and got to thinking of it as their own, so when circumstances altered . . .
CHUBUKOV. Excuse me, my valued friend . . . You’re forgetting that the peasants paid your granddaddy nothing and so on, precisely because the Fields were in dispute at the time and so forth . . . And now every whipper-snapper knows perfectly well that they are ours. In other words, you haven’t seen the surveyor’s map!
LOMOV. But I’ll prove to you that they’re mine!
CHUBUKOV. You won’t prove it, my dearest boy.
LOMOV. No, I will prove it!
CHUBUKOV. Laddy, why shout like that? Shouting certainly doesn’t prove anything. I don’t want what’s yours and I’m not inclined to give up what’s mine. On what grounds? If it comes to that, my dear, dear boy, if you’re inclined to dispute the Fields and so on, I’d rather turn them over to the farmers than to you. So there!
LOMOV. I don’t understand! What right have you got to give away other people’s property?
CHUBUKOV. Permit me to know whether I have the right or not. The thing of it is, young man, that I’m not used to being spoken to in that tone of voice and so on. I am twice your age, young man, and I request you to speak to me without losing your head and so forth.
LOMOV. No, you simply take me for a fool and laugh at me! You’re calling my land your land and even expect me to be calm and collected and talk to you like a human being! Good neighbors don’t behave this way, Stepan Stepanych! You’re not a neighbor, but a land grabber!
CHUBUKOV. What’s that, sir? What did you say?
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Papa, send the men out with scythes to the Fields right away!
CHUBUKOV (to Lomov). What did you just say, my good sir?
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Bullock Fields are ours, and I won’t give them up, I won’t, I won’t!
LOMOV. We’ll see about that! I’ll prove in court that they’re mine!
CHUBUKOV. In court! Go ahead and take it to court, my good sir, and so forth! Go ahead! I know you, the thing of it is, you’ve just been waiting for a chance to sue us and so on . . . A litigious character! Every member of your family has been lawsuit crazy! Every last one!
LOMOV. Please refrain from insulting my family! Every member of the Lomov clan has been honorable and not a single one has been tried for embezzlement like your beloved uncle!
CHUBUKOV. But every member of your Lomov clan has been crazy as a loon!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Every one, every one, every one!
CHUBUKOV. Your grandfather drank like a fish, and that young auntie of yours, you know the one, Nastasiya Mikhailovna, ran off with an architect and so on . . .
LOMOV. And your mother was lopsided. (Clutches at his heart.) There’s a twitching in my side . . . A hammering in my head . . . Holy saints! . . . Water!
CHUBUKOV. Well, your father cheated at cards and ate like a slob!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. And your auntie’s a scandal-monger, to put it mildly!
LOMOV. My left leg’s paralyzed . . . Well, you’re a bunch of schemers . . . Ugh, my heart! . . . And it’s no secret to anyone that just before the elections you bri . . . There’re spots before my eyes . . . Where’s my hat?
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. How contemptible! How dishonorable! How nasty!
CHUBUKOV. Well, you personally, the thing of it is, are a spiteful, two-faced and underhanded individual! Yessiree!
LOMOV. There’s my hat . . . My heart . . . Where’s the way out? Where’s the door? Ugh! . . . I think I’m dying . . . My foot’s dragging . . . (Goes to the door.)
CHUBUKOV (following him). And never set those feet in my house again!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Take us to court! Then we’ll see!
LOMOV staggers out.
V
CHUBUKOV and NATALIYA STEPANOVNA.
CHUBUKOV. The hell with him! (Walks around in agitation.)
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. How do you like that stinker? After that try and believe in good neighbors!
CHUBUKOV. The bastard! The overstuffed dummy!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. What a crackpot! Appropriates somebody else’s land and then dares to brag about it.
CHUBUKOV. And this hobgoblin, this, thing of it is, thing that goes bump in the night has the unmitigated gall to propose marriage and so forth! How about that? A marriage proposal!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. What’s that about a marriage proposal?
CHUBUKOV. I’ll say! He drove over here to propose to you.
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. To propose? To me? Why didn’t you tell me this before?
CHUBUKOV. That’s why he got himself all dolled up in a tailcoat! Like a frankfurter in a tight casing! The puny runt!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. To me? Propose! Ah! (Drops into an armchair and moans.) Bring ‘im back! Bring ‘im back! Ah! Bring ‘im back!
CHUBUKOV. Bring who back?
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. Quick, quick! I feel faint! Bring ‘im back! (Goes into hysterics.)
CHUBUKOV. What’s the matter? (Clutches his head.) What a miserable wretch I am! I should shoot myself! I should hang myself! They’re torturing me to death!
NATALIYA STEPANOVNA. I’m dying! Bring ‘im back!
CHUBUKOV. Phooey! Right away. Stop bawling! (Runs out.)
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NATALIYA STEPANOVNA (alone, moans). What have we done? Bring ‘im back! Bring ‘im back!