MARIYA VASILYEVNA. Do as the Professor says!
VOINITSKY. Mommy! What am I to do? Don’t, don’t say anything! I know what I have to do! (To Serebryakov.) You’re going to remember me! (Exits through the center door.)
MARIYA VASILYEVNA goes after him.
SEREBRYAKOV. Ladies and gentlemen, what is all this, I mean really? Get that madman away from me!
ORLOVSKY. Never mind, never mind, Sasha, let his temper cool down a bit. Don’t get so excited.
SEREBRYAKOV. I cannot live under the same roof with him! He lives right there (indicates the center door), practically on top of me . . . Move him into the village, to the servant’s quarters, or I’ll move, but to stay in the same house with him is out of the question . . .
YELENA ANDREEVNA (to her husband). If there is a repeat of anything like this, I shall leave!
SEREBRYAKOV. Oh, please, don’t try and scare me!
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I’m not trying to scare you, but you have all apparently conspired to make my life a living hell . . . I’m going . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. Everyone knows perfectly well that you are young, I am old, and that you’re doing me a great favor living here . . .
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Keep going, keep going . . .
ORLOVSKY. There, there, there . . . My friends . . .
KHRUSHCHOV enters hurriedly.
XII
The same and KHRUSHCHOV.
KHRUSHCHOV (agitated). I’m delighted to find you at home, Aleksandr Vladimirovich . . . Forgive me, I may have come at a bad time and am disturbing you . . . But that’s not the point. Good afternoon . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. What can I do for you?
KHRUSHCHOV. Excuse me, I’m overexcited — it’s because I just rode over here so quickly . . . Aleksandr Vladimirovich, I heard that the day before yesterday you sold your forest to Kuznetsov for timber. If that’s true, and not mere gossip, then I beg you not to do it.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Mikhail Lvovich, my husband is not disposed to talk business at the moment. Let’s go into the garden.
KHRUSHCHOV. But I have talk to him right now!
YELENA ANDREEVNA. You know best . . . I’ve done all I can . . . (Exits.)
KHRUSHCHOV. Let me ride over to Kuznetsov and tell him that you’ve reconsidered . . . All right? May I? To fell a thousand trees, to destroy them for the sake of a few thousand, for pay for women’s fripperies, caprices, luxuries . . . To destroy so that future generations will curse our barbarity! If you, a learned, famous man, make up your mind to such cruelty, what are other people, far inferior to you, to do? This is really horrible!
ORLOVSKY. Misha, put it off to later!
SEREBRYAKOV. Let’s go, Ivan Ivanovich, there’ll be no end to this.
KHRUSHCHOV (blocks Serebryakov’s path). In that case, tell you what, Professor . . . Wait, in three months I’ll put the money together and buy it from you myself.
ORLOVSKY. Excuse me, Misha, but this is rather peculiar . . . Well, you are, let’s say, a man of ideals . . . we humbly thank you for that, we bow down to you (bows), but why make such a fuss!41
KHRUSHCHOV (flaring up). Everybody’s darling godfather! There are a lot of good-natured people on this earth, and that always struck me as suspicious! They’re good-natured because they couldn’t care less!
ORLOVSKY. So you’ve come here to quarrel, my dear boy . . . That’s not nice! An ideal is an ideal, but, lad, you’ve got to have something else as well . . . (Points to his heart.) Without this, my dear boy, all your forests and peat aren’t worth a tinker’s dam . . . Don’t be offended, but you’re still green, oof, are you ever green!
SEREBRYAKOV (sharply). And next time be so good as not to come in unannounced, and please spare me your psychotic stunts! You all wanted to try my patience, and you succeeded . . . Please leave me alone! All these forests of yours, the peat I consider to be delirium and psychosis—there, that’s my opinion! Let’s go, Ivan Ivanovich! (He exits.)
ORLOVSKY (following him). That’s going too far, Sasha . . . Why be so cutting? (Exits.)
KHRUSHCHOV (alone, after a pause). Delirium, psychosis . . . Which means, in the opinion of a famous scholar and professor, I’m insane . . . I submit to Your Excellency’s authority and shall now go home and shave my head. No, the earth which still supports you is insane!
He goes quickly to the door at right; enter from the door at left SONYA, who had been eavesdropping in the doorway throughout all of Scene XII.
XIII
KHRUSHCHOV and SONYA.
SONYA (runs after him). Wait . . . I heard it all . . . Go on talking . . . Say something right away or else I won’t be able to keep it in and I’ll start talking!
KHRUSHCHOV. Sofya Aleksandrovna, I have already had my say. I pleaded with your father to spare the forest, I was in the right, but he insulted me, called me insane . . . I am insane!
SONYA. That’s enough, that’s enough . . .
KHRUSHCHOV. Yes, the sane are the ones who disguise themselves as learned men to conceal their hearts of stone and pass off their callousness as profound wisdom! The sane are the ones who marry old men so they can cheat on them in broad daylight, so they can buy themselves stylish, elegant gowns with money made by felling forests!
SONYA. Listen to me, please listen . . . (Seizes his hand.) Let me tell you . . .
KHRUSHCHOV. Let’s stop this. Let’s put an end to it. I mean nothing to you, your opinion of me I know already and there’s nothing left for me to do here. Good-bye. I’m sorry that the only memory I shall retain of our close acquaintance, which I so cherished, is of your father’s gout and your debating points about my democratic tendencies . . . But I’m not the one to blame . . . Not I . . .
SONYA weeps, hides her faces and quickly exits out the door at left.
I was careless enough to fall in love here, let it be a lesson to me! Away from this dungeon!
He heads for the door at right; enter at the left YELENA ANDREEVNA.
XIV
KHRUSHCHOV and YELENA ANDREEVNA.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Are you still here? Wait . . . Just now Ivan Ivanovich told me that my husband was rude to you . . . Forgive him, he is irritable today and did not understand you . . . As for me, my heart is on your side, Mikhail Lvovich! Believe in the sincerity of my respect, I sympathize, I’m moved, and allow me to offer you my friendship out of a pure heart! (Extends her hands.)
KHRUSHCHOV (in disgust). Get away from me . . . I despise your friendship! (Exits.)
YELENA ANDREEVNA (alone, moans). What for? What for?
A shot offstage.
XV
YELENA ANDREEVNA, MARIYA VASILYEVNA, then SONYA, SEREBRYAKOV, ORLOVSKY, and ZHELTUKHIN.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA staggers out the central door, screams, and falls unconscious.