VOINITSKY. Oh yes! I was a shining light but no one ever basked in my rays. May I leave the table? I was a shining light . . . Don’t rub salt in my wounds! Now I’m forty-seven. Before last year I was the same as you, deliberately trying to cloud my vision with all these abstractions and book learning to keep from seeing real life — and I thought I was doing the right thing. And now, if you only knew, what a big idiot I feel myself to be for having wasted my time so stupidly when I could have had everything that’s withheld from me now by my old age!
SEREBRYAKOV. Hold on! Georges, you seem to be blaming your former convictions for something . . .
SONYA. That’s enough, Papa! It’s boring!
SEREBRYAKOV. Hold on. You are indeed blaming your former convictions for something. But they aren’t to blame, you are. You have forgotten that convictions without deeds are a dead letter. One must take action.18
VOINITSKY. Take action? Not everyone is capable of being a perpetual-motion writing machine.
SEREBRYAKOV. What do you mean by that?
VOINITSKY. Nothing. Let’s change the subject. We’re not at home.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA. I really am losing my memory . . . . I forgot to remind you, Aleksandr, to take your drops before lunch. I brought them along, but I forgot to remind you . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. You needn’t have.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA. But after all you’re a sick man, Aleksandr! You’re a very sick man!
SEREBRYAKOV. Why shout it from the housetops? Old, sick, old, sick . . . that’s all I ever hear! (To Zheltukhin.) Leonid Stepanych, may I leave the table and go inside? It’s rather hot here and the mosquitoes are ferocious.
ZHELTUKHIN. Please do. Lunch is over.
SEREBRYAKOV. Thank you. (Exits into the house, followed by Marya Vasilyevna.)
YULYA (to her brother). See to the professor! It’s impolite!
ZHELTUKHIN (to her). The hell with him! (Exits.)
DYADIN. Yulya Stepanovna, may I thank you from the bottom of my heart. (Kisses her hand.)
YULYA. Don’t mention it, Ilya Ilyich! You’ve eaten so little . . .
They thank her.
Don’t mention it, gentlemen! You all ate so little!
FYODOR IVANOVICH. Well, gents, what shall we do now? Let’s go right now to the croquet lawn and settle our wager . . . and after that?
YULYA. After that we’ll have dinner.
FYODOR IVANOVICH. And after that?
KHRUSHCHOV. After that you can all come to my place. In the evening we’ll organize a fishing party on the lake.
FYODOR IVANOVICH. Excellent.
DYADIN. Fascinating.
SONYA. Let me get this straight, gentlemen . . . In other words, right now we’re going to the croquet lawn to settle the wager . . . Then we’ll have an early dinner with Yulya and about seven we’ll drive over to the Woo . . . I mean, to Mikhail Lvovich’s. Wonderful. Let’s go, Yulechka, and get the balls. (She and YULYA exit into the house.)
FYODOR IVANOVICH. Vasily, bring the wine to the croquet lawn! We’ll drink to the health of the winner. Well, my old progenitor, let’s take part in this noble game.
ORLOVSKY. Wait, my own dear boy, I have to sit with the professor for about five minutes, otherwise it would seem impolite. One has to observe etiquette. Meanwhile, play my ball, and I’ll be there soon . . . (Exits into the house.)
DYADIN. I shall go at once and listen to the most learned Aleksandr Vladi-mirovich. I anticipate a sublime pleasure, whi . . .
VOINITSKY. I’m sick to death of you, Waffles. Go on.
DYADIN. I’m going, sir. (Exits into the house.)
FYODOR IVANOVICH (going into the garden, sings). “And thou shalt be queen of the world, my love for all eternity . . .”(Exits.)
KHRUSHCHOV. I’m going to slip away nice and quiet. (To Voinitsky.) Yegor Petrovich, I sincerely entreat you, let’s never talk about forests or medicine again. I don’t know why, but when you launch into that sort of talk, for the rest of the day I feel as if I’ve been eating my dinner out of a rusty pot. My respects! (Exits.)
VIII
YELENA ANDREEVNA and VOINITSKY.
VOINITSKY. A narrow-minded fellow. Everyone is entitled to talk nonsense, but I don’t like it when they talk it with deep feeling.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Well, Georges, you behaved impossibly again! You had to provoke Mariya Vasilyevna and Aleksandr with talk about perpetual motion! It’s all so petty!
VOINITSKY. And what if I hate him?
YELENA ANDREEVNA. There’s no point in hating Aleksandr, he’s the same as anybody else . . .
SONYA and YULYA cross into the garden with the croquet balls and mallets.
VOINITSKY. If you could see your face, your movements . . . What an indolent life you lead! Ah, the indolence of it!
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Ah, indolent and boring as well!
Pause.
Everyone insults my husband to my face, unconstrained by my presence. Everyone throws me sympathetic glances: unhappy creature, she’s got an old husband! Everybody, even very respectable people, want me to leave Aleksandr . . . This concern for me, all these compassionate glances and sighs of pity come down to one thing. It’s what the Wood Goblin was saying just now, you all recklessly chop down forests, and soon nothing will be left on earth. That’s just how you recklessly destroy a human being, and soon, thanks to you, there won’t be any loyalty or purity or capacity for self-sacrifice left on earth. Why can’t you look at a decent woman with indifference if she isn’t yours? Because — that Wood Goblin’s right—inside all of you there lurks a demon of destruction. You have no pity for forests or birds or women or one another . . .
VOINITSKY. I don’t like this philosophizing!
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Tell that Fyodor Ivanych that I’m fed up with his impertinence. It’s beginning to be sickening. To look me in the face and tell me in front of everybody about his love for some married woman— wonderfully witty!
Voices in the garden: “Bravo! Bravo!”
And yet, how nice that Wood Goblin is! He stops by our place rather often, but I’m inhibited and haven’t once had a proper chat with him, haven’t shown him much affection. He probably thinks that I’m ill tempered and stuck-up. No doubt, Georges, that’s why we’re such friends, you and I, we’re both exasperating, tiresome people! Exasperating! Don’t look at me that way, I don’t like it.
VOINITSKY. How else can I look at you if I love you? You’re my happiness, life, my youth! . . . I know, my chances of reciprocity are practically nil, but I don’t want anything, just let me look at you, hear your voice . . .
IX
The same and SEREBRYAKOV
SEREBRYAKOV (at the window). Lenochka, where are you?
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Here.
SEREBRYAKOV. Come and sit with us a bit, my dear . . . (Disappears.)