The Complete Plays

VOINITSKY. Waffles, turn off the waterworks!

DYADIN. I shall always pay my reverent respects (bows down to the ground) to the luminaries of science, who adorn our national horizon. Forgive me the audacious dream of paying your excellency a visit and beguiling my heart with a colloquy about the latest scientific findings.

SEREBRYAKOV. Please do come. I shall be delighted.

SONYA. Now, do tell us, godfather . . . Where did you spend the winter? Where did you disappear to?

ORLOVSKY. I was in Gmunden, I was in Paris, Nice, London, dear heart . . .

SONYA. That’s wonderful! You lucky man!

ORLOVSKY. Come with me in the fall! Would you like to?

SONYA (sings). “Tempt me not, it dare not be . . .”¹¹

FYODOR IVANOVICH. Don’t sing after lunch, or else your husband’s wife will be a fool.

DYADIN. Now, it would be interesting to observe this table à vol d’oiseau.¹² What a fascinating nosegay! A combination of grace, beauty, profound learning, swee . . .

FYODOR IVANOVICH. What a fascinating tongue! What the hell is this? You sound as if somebody were shaving your back with a carpenter’s plane . . .

Laughter.

ORLOVSKY (to Sonya). And you, dear heart, are still not married . . .

VOINITSKY. For pity’s sake, who’s she supposed to marry? Humboldt is dead, Edison’s in America, Lassalle’s dead too¹³. . . The other day I found her diary on the table: this big! I open it up and read: “No, I shall never fall in love . . . Love is the egocentric attraction of my self to an object of the opposite sex . . .” And who the hell knows what else is in it? “Transcenden-tally, the culminating point of the integral principle” . . . phooey! And where did you go to school?

SONYA. Leave it to others to be ironical, you shouldn’t, Uncle Georges . . .

VOINITSKY. What are you getting angry about?

SONYA. If you say another word, one of us will have to go home. You or I . . .

ORLOVSKY (laughs loudly). Why, what a temper!

VOINITSKY. Yes, a temper, I grant you that . . . (To Sonya.) Well, your little paw! Give me your little paw! (Kisses her hand.) Peace and harmony . . . I won’t do it again.

VII

The same and KHRUSHCHOV.

KHRUSHCHOV (coming out of the house). Why aren’t I a painter? What a wonderful composition!

ORLOVSKY (gleefully). Misha! My dear little godson!

KHRUSHCHOV. Many happy returns to the birthday boy! Greeting, Yulechka, how pretty you look today! Godfather! (Exchanges kisses with Orlovsky.) Sofya Aleksandrovna . . . (Greets everyone.)

ZHELTUKHIN. Well, how can a person be so late? Where were you?

KHRUSHCHOV. With a patient.

YULYA. The pie’s gone cold long ago.

KHRUSHCHOV. Never mind, Yulechka, I’ll eat it cold. Where should I sit?

SONYA. Sit down here . . . (Offers him the place beside her.)

KHRUSHCHOV. The weather’s splendid today, and I’ve got a hell of an appetite . . . Hold on, I’ll have some vodka . . . (Drinks.) To the birthday boy! I’ll try this little pie . . . Yulechka, kiss this pie, it’ll make it tastier . . .

She kisses it.

Merci. How are you getting on, godfather? I haven’t seen you for a long time.

ORLOVSKY. Yes, we haven’t met for quite a while. I was abroad, you see.

KHRUSHCHOV. I heard, I heard . . . I envied you. Fyodor, how about you?

FYODOR IVANOVICH. I’m all right, your good wishes are our bulwark never-failing . . .

KHRUSHCHOV. How’s business?

FYODOR IVANOVICH. I can’t complain. We earn a living. Only, pal, there’s too much back and forth. Wears me down. From here to the Caucasus, from the Caucasus back here, from here back to the Caucasus — and it never ends, you’re on the go like a maniac. After all, I’ve got two estates there!

KHRUSHCHOV. I know.

FYODOR IVANOVICH. I spend my time advertising for settlers and all I attract is tarantulas and scorpions. My business is going all right for the most part, but as for “down, down, ye surging passions”¹⁴—it’s the same old story.

KHRUSHCHOV. In love, of course?

FYODOR IVANOVICH. On which account, Wood Goblin, I need a drink. (Drinks.) Ladies and gentlemen, never fall in love with married women! Word of honor, it’s better to be wounded in the shoulder and shot in the leg, like your humble servant, than love a married woman . . . So much trouble it’s simply . . .

SONYA. Hopeless?

FYODOR IVANOVICH. What a word to use! Hopeless . . . There’s nothing hopeless under the sun. Hopeless, unrequited love, oohing and aahing— that’s just self-indulgence. You only have only to apply willpower . . . If I will my gun not to misfire, it won’t. If I will a young lady to love me, she’ll love me. Just like that, Sonya old pal. And once I’ve got my eye on a woman, I think it’ll be easier for her to fly to the moon than get away from me.

SONYA. Aren’t you a terror . . .

FYODOR IVANOVICH. You won’t get away from me, no! I wouldn’t have to say a dozen words to her, before she’s in my power . . . Yes . . . I only have to say to her: “Madam, every time you look out a window, you must remember me. I will it.” Which means, she’ll remember me a thousand times a day. That’s not all, I bombard her with letters on a daily basis.

YELENA ANDREEVNA. Letters are an unreliable medium. She may receive them but not read them.

FYODOR IVANOVICH. You think so? Hm . . . I’ve lived on this earth thirty-five years, and have never yet met the phenomenal woman who has the fortitude not to open a letter.

ORLOVSKY (admiring him). How do you like that? My sonny boy, my beauty! I was just the same. Down to the last detail! Only I didn’t go to war, just drank vodka and wasted money—terrible way to carry on!

FYODOR IVANOVICH. I do love her, Misha, seriously, excruciatingly . . . She only has to say the word and I would give her all I’ve got . . . I’d carry her off to my place in the Caucasus, the mountains, we would live in clover . . . Yelena Andreevna, I would protect her, like a faithful hound, and I’d treat her like in that song our marshal of nobility¹⁵ sings, “And thou shalt be queen of the world, my love for all eternity.”¹⁶ Ech, she doesn’t know the happiness she’s missing!

KHRUSHCHOV. Who is this lucky creature?