SHABELSKY (goes after him). What’s the gimmick? Come on, teach me.
BORKIN. There’s nothing to teach. It’s very easy . . . (Returns.) Nikolay Alek-seevich, give me a ruble!
IVANOV silently gives him the money.
Merci! (To the Count.) You’ve still got a handful of aces.
SHABELSKY (going after him). Well, what are they?
BORKIN. In your shoes, in a week I’d make about thirty thousand, if not more. (Exits with the Count.)
IVANOV (after a pause.) Pointless people,[13] pointless talk, the pressing need to answer stupid questions, Doctor, it’s all wearied me to the point of illness. I’ve become irritable, touchy, impatient, so petty that I don’t know what I am any more. Whole days at a time my head aches, I can’t sleep, ringing in my ears . . . And there’s absolutely nowhere to escape to . . . Absolutely nowhere . . .
LVOV. Nikolay Alekseevich, I have to have a serious talk with you.
IVANOV. Talk away.
LVOV. It’s concerning Anna Petrovna. (Sits.) She won’t consent to go to the Crimea, but she might if you went with her.
IVANOV (after thinking about it). If we were to go together, we’d need money. Besides, they certainly wouldn’t give me a leave of absence. I’ve already taken one leave this year . . .
LVOV. Let’s assume that’s true. Now, moving on. The most important treatment for tuberculosis is absolute peace and quiet, and your wife doesn’t have a moment’s peace. She’s constantly upset by the way you treat her. Excuse me, I’m concerned and I’ll speak bluntly. Your behavior is killing her.
Pause.
Nikolay Alekseevich, give me some cause to think better of you!
IVANOV. It’s all true, true . . . I’m probably terribly to blame, but my mind’s messed up, my soul is mired in a kind of indolence, and I can’t seem to understand myself. I don’t understand other people or myself. (With a glance at the window.) They can hear us, let’s go, let’s take a walk.
Gets up.
My dear friend, I should tell you the story from the very beginning. But it’s long and so complicated that I wouldn’t finish before morning.
They walk.
Anyuta is a remarkable, an exceptional woman . . . For my sake she converted to my religion, cast off her father and mother, turned her back on wealth, and if I’d demanded another hundred sacrifices, she would have made them, without blinking an eye. Well, sir, there nothing at all remarkable about me and I made no sacrifices at all. Though it’s a long story . . . The whole gist of it, dear Doctor (hesitates), is . . . to make a long story short, I married when I was passionately in love and swore love everlasting, but . . . five years have gone by, she’s still in love with me, while I . . . (Splays his hands in a gesture of futility) Now you’re going to tell me that she’ll die soon, but I don’t feel any love or pity, just a sort of void, weariness. Anyone looking at me from the outside would probably think this is awful; I don’t understand myself what’s going on inside me . . .
They go off down a garden path.
IV
SHABELSKY, then ANNA PETROVNA.
SHABELSKY (enters, roaring with laughter). Honest to God, he’s not a crook, he’s a visionary, a virtuoso! Ought to put up a monument to him. He’s a thorough blend of modern pus in all its variety: lawyer, doctor, speculator, accountant. (Sits on a low step of the veranda.) And yet he seems never to have gone to school anywhere, that’s what’s amazing . . . What a brilliant criminal he probably would have been, if he’d picked up a bit of culture, the liberal arts! “In a week,” he says, “you could have twenty thousand. You’ve got a handful of aces,” he says, “your title as Count.” (Roars with laughter.) “Any girl with a dowry would marry you” . . .
ANNA PETROVNA opens the window and looks down.
“Want me to make a match between you and Marfusha?” he says. Qui est ce que c est Marfusha?[14] Ah, that Balabalkina creature . . . Babakalkina . . . the one that looks like a washerwoman.
ANNA PETROVNA. Is that you, Count?
SHABELSKY. What’s that?
ANNA PETROVNA laughs.
(In a Jewish accent.) Vot you should leffing at?
ANNA PETROVNA. I was remembering a certain saying of yours. Remember, you said it at dinner? A thief unchastised, a horse . . . How did it go?
SHABELSKY. A kike baptized, a thief unchastised, a horse hospitalized are not to be prized.
ANNA PETROVNA (laughs). You can’t even make a simple play on words without malice. You’re a malicious person. (Seriously.) Joking aside, Count, you are very malicious. Living with you is depressing and terrifying. You’re always grumbling, grousing, you think everyone’s a scoundrel and a villain. Tell me, Count, frankly: have you ever said anything nice about anyone?
SHABELSKY. What sort of cross-examination is this!
ANNA PETROVNA. You and I have been living together under the same roof for five years now, and never once have I heard you speak of people neutrally, without sarcasm or sneering. What harm have people done you? Do you think you’re better than everyone else?
SHABELSKY. I certainly don’t think that. I’m the same blackguard and swine in man’s clothing[15] as everyone else. Mauvais ton, an old has-been. I always have a bad word for myself too. Who am I? What am I? I was rich, independent, somewhat happy, and now . . . a parasite, a freeloader, a dislocated buffoon. If I get indignant, if I express disdain, people laugh in my face; if I laugh, they shake their heads at me sadly and say: the old man’s off his rocker . . . Most of the time, though, they don’t listen to me, take no notice of me . . .
ANNA PETROVNA (calmly). Screeching again . . .
SHABELSKY. Who’s screeching?
ANNA PETROVNA. The owl. It screeches every evening.
SHABELSKY. Let it screech. Things can’t get worse than they already are. (Stretches.) Ah, my dearest Sarra, just let me win one or two hundred thousand, and then watch me kick up my heels! . . . You wouldn’t see me for dust. I’d run away from this dump, from freeloading, and I wouldn’t set foot here till doomsday . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. And just what would you do if you won?
SHABELSKY (after a moment’s thought). First of all I’d go to Moscow and listen to gypsy music. Then . . . then I’d scamper off to Paris. I’d rent an apartment, attend the Russian church . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. What else?
SHABELSKY. I’d spend whole days sitting by my wife’s grave, lost in thought. I would sit at her grave like that till I kicked the bucket.
Pause.
ANNA PETROVNA. That’s awfully depressing. Shall we play another duet or something?