SONYA enters and runs out the central door.
SEREBRYAKOV
What is it?
ORLOVSKY
ZHELTUKHIN
SONYA’s screams are heard; she returns and cries out: “Uncle Georges has shot himself!” She, ORLOVSKY, SEREBRYAKOV, and ZHELTUKHIN run out the central door.
YELENA ANDREEVNA (moans). What for? What for?
DYADIN appears in the doorway at right.
XVI
YELENA ANDREEVNA, MARIYA VASILYEVNA, and DYADIN.
DYADIN (in the doorway). What’s going on?
YELENA ANDREEVNA (to him). Take me away from here! Throw me down a mineshaft, kill me, but I cannot stay here. Quickly, for pity’s sake! (Exits wzth DYADIN.)
Curtain
ACT FOUR
A forest and the house by the mill, which Dyadin rents from Khrushchov.
I
YELENA ANDREEVNA and DYADIN are sitting on a bench beneath a window.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Ilya Ilyich, dovey, tomorrow please drive over to the post office again.
DYADIN. Absolutely.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I shall wait another three days. If my brother hasn’t answered my letter by then, I’ll borrow some money from you and go to Moscow myself. I can’t live with you here at the mill forever.
DYADIN. You’re quite right . . .
Pause.
It’s not my place to teach you, my deeply respected lady, but all your letters, telegrams, which I take to the post office every day—they are all, forgive me, labors lost. Whatever answer your brother may send, sooner or later you have to go back to your husband.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I won’t go back . . . We have to look at it rationally, Ilya Ilyich. I don’t love my husband. The young people I did love were unfair to me from start to finish. Why should I go back there? You’ll say-duty . . . I know that perfectly well, but, I repeat, we have to look at it rationally . . .
Pause.
DYADIN. Quite right, ma’am . . . The greatest of Russian poets, Lomonosov,42 ran away from the district of Archangel to seek his fortune in Moscow. Of course, that was noble on his part . . . But why did you run away? After all, your happiness, no matter how rational you may be, is, to put it bluntly, nowhere to be found . . . It is ordained that the canary bird sit in a cage and gaze at the happiness of others, yes, and sit there for all its life long.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. But maybe I’m not a canary, but an uncaged sparrow!
DYADIN. Oho! A bird is identified by its flight pattern, most respected lady . . . These past two weeks any other lady would have had plenty of time to visit a dozen towns and leave everybody in her dust, but you chose to run only as far as the mill, and even here you’ve been eating your heart out . . . No, where’s there to go? You shall live with me for a little while longer, your feelings will simmer down, and you’ll go back to your husband. (Hearkening.) Someone’s driving up in a carriage. (Gets up.)
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I shall go.
DYADIN. I dare not impose my presence on you any further . . . I’ll go to my room in the mill and have a little nap . . . This morning I got up earlier than Aurora.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. When you wake up, come and we’ll take tea together. (Goes into the house.)
DYADIN (alone). If I lived in a cultural center, they would draw a caricature of me in a magazine with a hilarious satirical caption. Goodness me, at my advanced age and with my unprepossessing appearance, I’ve carried off the young wife of a famous professor! It’s fascinating! (Exits.)
II
SEMYON (carries buckets) and YULYA (enters).
YULYA. Good afternoon, Semyon, God save you! Is Ilya Ilyich at home?
SEMYON. He is. He went to the mill.
YULYA. Go and fetch him.
SEMYON. Right away. (Exits.)
YULYA (alone). He’s sleeping, I suppose . . . (Sits on the little bench beneath the widow and sighs deeply.) Some people sleep, others enjoy themselves, but I spend my days on the go, on the go . . . God won’t let me die. (Sighs even more deeply.) Lord, how can people be as foolish as that Waffles! I was driving past his barn just now, and a little black piglet ran out the door . . . If those pigs start rooting in other people’s grain sacks, he’ll be hearing about it . . .
Enter DYADIN.
III
YULYA and DYADIN.
DYADIN (putting on a frockcoat). Is it you, Yulya Stepanovna? Sorry, I’m in a state of undress . . . I was about to drop into the arms of Morpheus.
YULYA. Good afternoon.
DYADIN. Forgive me for not inviting you inside . . . My house is in a bit of a mess and so on . . . If you like, please come to the mill . . .
YULYA. I’ll just sit here. This is why I’ve dropped in on you, Ilya Ilyich. Lyonechka and the Professor, for some recreation, want to have a picnic here at your mill today, a tea party . . .
DYADIN. Extremely gratified.
YULYA. I came ahead of them . . . They’ll be here soon. Please arrange for a table to be set up, oh, and a samovar, of course . . . Have Senka get the baskets of food out of my carriage.
DYADIN. Can do.
Pause.
What’s it like now? How are things over there?
YULYA. Bad, Ilya Ilyich . . . Believe you me, it’s made me sick with worry. You know, of course, that the Professor and Sonya are living with us now?
DYADIN. I know.
YULYA. After Yegor Petrovich did himself in, they couldn’t live in his house. They’re afraid. By day there’s no problem, but when night falls, they all gather in one room and sit there until dawn. They’re all terrified. They’re afraid that Yegor Petrovich is haunting the dark corners . . .
DYADIN. Superstition . . . And do they mention Yelena Andreevna?
YULYA. Of course, they mention her.
Pause.
She cleared out!
DYADIN. Yes, a subject that deserves treatment by a painter of shipwrecks and tempests . . .43 She up and cleared out.
YULYA. And now nobody knows where . . . Maybe she went away, but maybe, in her desperation . . .
DYADIN. God is merciful, Yuliya Stepanovna! Everything will turn out for the best.
Enter KHRUSHCHOV with a portfolio and a case with drawing implements.
IV
The same and KHRUSHCHOV
KHRUSHCHOV. Hey! Anybody here? Semyon!
DYADIN. Look over here!
KHRUSHCHOV. Ah! . . . Good afternoon, Yulechka!
YULYA. Good afternoon, Mikhail Lvovich.
KHRUSHCHOV. I’ve dropped by your place again, Ilya Ilyich, to get some work done. Sitting at home’s no good. Tell them to set up my table under this tree as they did yesterday, oh and tell them to get two lamps ready. It’s getting dark already . . .