DYADIN. At your service, your honor. (Exits.)
KHRUSHCHOV. How are you getting on, Yulechka?
YULYA. We’re getting on.
KHRUSHCHOV. Hm . . . And what’s your Lyonechka doing?
YULYA. Sits at home . . . Always with Sonechka . . .
KHRUSHCHOV. I’ll bet!
Pause.
He ought to marry her.
YULYA. Is that so? (Sighs.) God grant it! He’s a cultured, well-born man, she’s from a good family too . . . I always wished for it . . .
KHRUSHCHOV. She’s a fool . . .
YULYA. Now, don’t say that.
KHRUSHCHOV. And your Lyonechka is as bright as a button too . . . Generally speaking, your whole crowd is the pick of the litter. The best and the brightest!
YULYA. I suppose you haven’t had dinner today.
KHRUSHCHOV. Why do you think that?
YULYA. You’re so ill tempered.
Enter DYADIN and SEMYON; they are carrying a small table.
V
The same, DYADIN, and SEMYON.
DYADIN. You know a sure thing when you see it. You picked a beautiful spot for your work. It’s an oasis! A genuine oasis! Imagine that you’re surrounded by palm trees, Yulechka is a gentle gazelle, you’re a lion, I’m a tiger.
KHRUSHCHOV. You’re a decent enough fellow, a sensitive soul, Ilya Ilyich, but why do you act this way? These sickly sweet words, the way you shuffle your feet, jerk your shoulders . . . If a stranger caught sight of you, he’d think you’re not a man but some other damned thing! . . . It’s annoying . . .
DYADIN. Which means, it was so ordained at my birth . . . Fatal predestination.
KHRUSHCHOV. There you go again, fatal predestination. Drop all that. (Pinning a diagram to the table.) I’m going to spend the night here.
DYADIN. I am extremely pleased . . . Now you’re angry, Misha, but my heart’s filled with indescribable joy! As if a dicky-bird were sitting in my breast, warbling a little ditty.
KHRUSHCHOV. O be joyful.
Pause.
You’ve got a dicky-bird in your breast, and I’ve got a toad in mine. A million things have gone wrong! Shimansky sold his forest for timber . . . That’s one! Yelena Andreevna ran away from her husband, and now nobody knows where she is. That’s two! I feel with every passing day that I’m becoming more stupid, more picayune, and more untalented . . . That’s three! Yesterday I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t, I didn’t have the courage. You may congratulate me. The late Yegor Petrovich left behind a diary. This diary first got into Ivan Ivanych’s hands, I was with him and I’ve read it over about a dozen times . . .
YULYA. Our folks read it too.
KHRUSHCHOV. Georges’s affair with Yelena Andreevna, which reverberated through the whole district, turns out to be a vulgar, filthy slander . . . I believed that slander and defamed him along with the others, hated, despised, insulted him.
DYADIN. Of course, that was wrong.
KHRUSHCHOV. The first person whom I believed was your brother, Yul-echka! I’m a fine one too! I believed your brother, whom I don’t respect, but I didn’t believe the woman who was sacrificing herself before my very eyes. I was more eager to believe evil than good, I couldn’t see past my own nose. And this means that I am as common as everybody else.
DYADIN (to Yulya). Let’s go to the mill, my girl. Let the bad-tempered fellow work here, while you and I have some fun. Let’s go . . . Get on with your work, Mishenka. (He and YULYA exit.)
KHRUSHCHOV (alone; mixes colors in a saucer). One night I saw him press his face to her hand. In his diary he has described that night in detail, described how I came by there, what I said to him. He’s put down my words and calls me a stupid, narrow-minded fellow.
Pause.
It’s too dark . . . Should be lighter . . . She never loved me . . . I made a blot . . . (Scrapes the paper with a knife.) Even if I admit there may be some truth to it, still it doesn’t do to think about it . . . It began stupidly, it ended stupidly . . .
SEMYON and WORKMEN bring in a big table.
What are you doing? What’s this for?
SEMYON. Ilya Ilyich told us to. Company’s coming from the Zheltukhins’ for tea.
KHRUSHCHOV. Thank you kindly. That means, I’ve got to leave off work . . . I’ll pack up and go home.
Enter ZHELTUKHIN arm in arm with SONYA.
VI
KHRUSHCHOV, ZHELTUKHIN, and SONYA.
ZHELTUKHIN (sings). “Reluctant to this mournful shore an unknown power doth me draw . . .”44
KHRUSHCHOV. Who’s that? Ah! (Hastens to pack up his drawing implements in their case. )
ZHELTUKHIN. Just one more question, Sophie dear . . . Do you remember on my birthday you had lunch at our place? You’ve got to admit that that time you burst out laughing at the way I looked.
SONYA. That’s enough of that, Leonid Stepanych. How can you say a thing like that? I burst out laughing at nothing in particular.
ZHELTUKHIN (on seeing Khrushchov). Ah, look who it is! You’re here too? Afternoon.
KHRUSHCHOV. Afternoon.
ZHELTUKHIN. Working? Wonderful . . . Where’s Waffles?
KHRUSHCHOV. Over there . . .
ZHELTUKHIN. Where’s over there?
KHRUSHCHOV. I think I’ve made it clear. Over there, in the mill.
ZHELTUKHIN. I’ll go and get him. ((Walks, singing.) “Reluctant to this mournful shore . . .” (Exits.)
SONYA. Good afternoon . . .
KHRUSHCHOV. Good afternoon.
Pause.
SONYA. What are you drawing?
KHRUSHCHOV. Nothing special . . . it’s of no interest.
SONYA. Is it a chart?
KHRUSHCHOV. No, it’s a diagram of the forests in our district. I’ve mapped them out.
Pause.
The green color indicates the places where there were forests in our grandfathers’ day and earlier; the light green is where forests have been felled in the last twenty-five years, well, and the light blue is where forests are still intact . . . Yes . . .
Pause.
Well, what about you? Happy?
SONYA. Now, Mikhail Lvovich, is not the time to think about happiness.
KHRUSHCHOV. What else is there to think about?
SONYA. Our sorrow came about only because we were thinking too much about our happiness . . .
KHRUSHCHOV. If you say so, ma’am.
Pause.
SONYA. Every cloud has its silver lining. Sorrow has taught me. We have to forget about our own happiness, Mikhail Lvovich, and think only about other people’s happiness. Our whole life has to be made up of sacrifices.
KHRUSHCHOV. Well, yes . . .
Pause.