YELENA ANDREEVNA exits into the house.
VOINITSKY (following her). Let me talk about my love, don’t drive me away, and that alone will be my greatest joy.
Curtain
ACT TWO
Dining room in Serebryakov’s house. A sideboard, and a dining table in the middle of the room. Past one o’clock at night. We can hear the watchman tapping in the garden.19
I
SEREBRYAKOV (sits in an armchair before an open window and drowses) and YELENA ANDREEVNA (sits beside him and drowses too).
SEREBRYAKOV (waking). Who’s there? Sonya, you?
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I’m here . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. You, Lenochka . . . The pain’s unbearable!
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Your lap rug’s fallen on the floor . . . (Wraps up his legs.) Aleksandr, I’ll close the window.
SEREBRYAKOV. No, I’m suffocating . . . I just now started to doze off and dreamed that my left leg belonged to somebody else . . . I woke up with the agonizing pain. No, it isn’t gout, more like rheumatism. What’s the time now?
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Twenty past one.
Pause.
SEREBRYAKOV. In the morning see if we’ve got a Batyushkov20 in the library. I think we have him.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Huh? . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. Look for Batyushkov’s works in the morning. I seem to remember we had a copy. But why am I finding it so hard to breathe?
YELENA ANDREEVNA. You were tired. Second night without sleep.
SEREBRYAKOV. They say that Turgenev had gout that developed into angina pectoris?21 I’m afraid I may have it too. Wretched, repulsive old age. Damn it to hell. When I got old, I began to disgust myself. Yes, and all the rest of you, I daresay, are disgusted to look at me.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. You talk about your old age as if it was our fault you’re old.
SEREBRYAKOV. You’re the first one to be disgusted by me.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. This is tiresome! (She moves away and sits at a distance.)
SEREBRYAKOV. Of course, you’re in the right. I’m no fool and I understand. You’re young, healthy, beautiful, enjoy life, while I’m an old man, practically a corpse. That’s it, isn’t it? Have I got it right? And, of course, it was stupid of me to live this long. But wait a while, I’ll soon liberate you all. I can’t manage to hang on much longer.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Sasha, I’m worn out . . . If I’ve earned any reward for these sleepless nights, all I ask of you is: be quiet! For God’s sake be quiet. That’s all I ask.
SEREBRYAKOV. It turns out that thanks to me you’re all worn out, bored, wasting your youth, I’m the only one enjoying life and having a good time. Oh, yes, of course!
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Do be quiet! You’ve run me ragged!
SEREBRYAKOV. I’ve run all of you ragged . . . Of course.
YELENA ANDREEVNA (weeping). This is unbearable! Say it, what do you want from me?
SEREBRYAKOV. Not a thing.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Well then, be quiet; I beg of you.
SEREBRYAKOV. Funny, isn’t it: let Georges start talking or that old she-idiot Mariya Vasilyevna — and nothing happens, everyone listens, but let me say just one word, watch how they all start feeling sorry for themselves. Even my voice is disgusting. Well, suppose I am disgusting, I’m selfish, I’m a tyrant, but surely in my old age haven’t I got a right to be selfish? Surely I’ve earned it? I had a hard life. Ivan Ivanych and I were students together. Ask him. He kicked up his heels, consorted with gypsy girls, looked after me, and all the while I lived in a cheap, squalid room in a boarding house, worked night and day like an ox, starved and fretted because I was living off of somebody else. Later I was in Heidelberg and never saw Heidelberg; I was in Paris and never saw Paris: the whole time I sat indoors and worked. Once I got my chair, I devoted my whole life to the service of learning, as the saying goes, faithfully and honestly as I’m doing even now. Surely, I ask you, I’ve earned the right to a peaceful old age, to have people show me some consideration?
YELENA ANDREEVNA. No one is disputing your rights.
The window rattles in the wind.
The wind’s rising, I’ll close the window. (Closes it.) It’ll rain presently. No one is disputing your rights.
Pause. The WATCHMAN in the garden taps and sings a song.
SEREBRYAKOV. To labor all one’s life in the cause of learning, to grow accustomed to one’s study, to the lecture hall, to esteemed colleagues and suddenly, with no rhyme or reason, to find oneself in this mausoleum, to spend every day seeing stupid people, listening to trivial chitchat . . . I want to live, I love success, I love celebrity, fame, and here it’s like being in exile. Every minute yearning for the past, watching the successes of others, fearing death . . . I can’t do it! I haven’t got the strength! And on top of that they won’t forgive me my old age!
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Wait, be patient: in five or six years I too shall be old.
Enter SONYA.
II
The same and SONIYA.
SONYA. I don’t know why the doctor is taking so long. I told Stepan that if he couldn’t find the district doctor22 to go and get the Wood Goblin.
SEREBRYAKOV. What do I care about your Wood Goblin? He understands as much about medicine as I do about astronomy.
SONYA. Just for your gout we can’t send for a whole medical school.
SEREBRYAKOV. I won’t even give that maniac23 the time of day.
SONYA. Have it your way. (Sits.) It’s all the same to me.
SEREBRYAKOV. What’s the time now?
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Nearly two.
SEREBRYAKOV. It’s stifling . . . Sonya, get me the drops from the table!
SONYA. Right away. (Gives him the drops.)
SEREBRYAKOV (aggravated). Ah, not those! A person can’t ask for a thing!
SONYA. Please don’t be crotchety. Some people may care for it, but don’t try it on me, if you’ll be so kind. I do not like it.
SEREBRYAKOV. This girl has an impossible temper. What are you getting angry for?
SONYA. And why do you go on whining so miserably? For pity’s sake, someone would think you actually were miserable. There are few people on this earth as lucky as you are.
SEREBRYAKOV. Yes, of course! I’m very, very lucky!
SONYA. Naturally, you’re lucky . . . And if you do have gout, you know perfectly well that the attack will be gone by morning. What’s there to moan about? What self-importance!
Enter VOINITSKY in dressing gown, holding a candle.
III
The same and VOINITSKY.
VOINITSKY. Clear out now! Hélène and Sonya, go to bed. I’ve come to take over for you.
SEREBRYAKOV (terrified). No, no, don’t leave me with him! No! He’ll talk me blue in the face!