SHABELSKY. All right. Get out the music.
ANNA PETROVNA exits.
V
SHABELSKY, IVANOV, and LVOV.
IVANOV (appearing on the path with Lvov). Dear friend, you got your degree only last year, you’re still young and vigorous, but I’m thirty-five. I have the right to give you advice. Don’t marry Jewish girls or neurotics or intellectuals, but pick out something ordinary, drab, without flashy colors or extraneous sounds. Generally speaking, match your life to a standard pattern. The grayer and more monotonous the background, the better. My dear man, don’t wage war singlehandedly against thousands, don’t tilt at windmills, don’t run headlong into walls . . . God forbid you go in for any experimental farming methods, alternative schools, impassioned speeches . . . Shut yourself up in your shell and go about your petty, God-given business. That’s more comfortable, more authentic, more healthy. Whereas the life I’ve led, what a bore! Ah, what a bore! . . . So many mistakes, injustices, so much absurdity . .1 (On seeing the Count, annoyed.) You’re always spinning around in front of us, uncle, you never let me have a moment’s privacy!
SHABELSKY (in a tearful voice). Damn it all, there’s no place for me anywhere. (Jumps up and goes into the house.)
IVANOV (shouts after him). There, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. (To Lvov.) Why did I have to insult him? No, I’m definitely going to pieces. Got to get a grip on myself. Got to . . .
LVOV (overwrought). Nikolay Alekseevich, I’ve been listening to you and . . . and, excuse me, I’ll speak frankly, no beating about the bush. Your voice, your intonations, let alone your words, are so full of heartless egotism, such cold cruelty . . . A person near and dear to you is perishing because she is near to you, her days are numbered, while you . . . you cannot love, you take walks, hand out advice, strike poses . . . I cannot find a way to express it, I haven’t got the gift of gab, but . . . but I find you deeply repugnant! . . .
IVANOV. Could be, could be . . . A third party might have a clearer picture . . . It’s quite possible that you do understand me . . . I’m probably very, very much at fault . . . (Lends an ear.) I think the horses have been brought round. I have to go and change . . . (He walks to the house and stops.) Doctor, you don’t like me and you don’t conceal the fact. It does your heart credit. (Exits into the house.)
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.
How sick and tired I am of the lot of you! But what am I saying, my friends? Anya, I’m speaking to you in an impossible tone. This is something new for me. Well, good-bye, Anya, I’ll be back by one.
ANNA PETROVNA. Kolya, darling, do stay home!
IVANOV (excited). My sweetest, my dearest, unhappy woman, for pity’s sake don’t keep me from going out at night. It’s cruel, unfair on my part, but let me commit this injustice! The house weighs on me like lead! As soon as the sun goes down my mind starts to be poisoned by tedium. Such tedium! Don’t ask why it’s like that. I don’t know myself. I swear to the God we believe in, I don’t know! I’m gloomy here, and when you go to the Lebedevs, it’s even worse there; you come back from there, it’s still gloomy here, and so it goes all night long . . . It’s totally hopeless! . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. Kolya . . . then you should stay here! We’ll talk about things, the way we used to . . . We’ll have some supper together, we’ll read . . . The grouch and I practiced lots of duets for you . . . (Embraces him.) Do stay!
Pause.
I don’t understand you. This has been going on all year long. Why have you changed?
IVANOV. I don’t know, I don’t know . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. And why don’t you want me to go out with you in the evenings?
IVANOV. If you must know, then, I suppose I can tell you. It’s rather cruel to talk this way, but it’s best to get it out . . . When I’m tormented by tedium, I . . . I start to stop loving you. At times like that I run away from you. In short, I have to get out of the house.
ANNA PETROVNA. Tedium? I understand, I understand . . . You know what, Kolya? You should try, as you used to, to sing, laugh, lose your temper . . . Stay here, we’ll laugh, have some homemade cordial, and we’ll chase away your tedium in a minute. Would you like me to sing something? Or we’ll go, sit in your study, in the shadows, the way we used to, and you can tell me about your tedium . . . Your eyes are filled with such pain! I’ll gaze into them and cry, and we’ll both feel better. . . . (Laughs and cries.) Or, Kolya, how does it go? The flowers return every spring, but joy never does?[17] Am I right? Well, go on, go on . . .