YULYA. Tea, drink tea!
DYADIN. Have some cookies with it, Fedenka.
ORLOVSKY (to Serebryakov). Sasha, old pal, for forty years I led exactly the same kind of life as my Fyodor. Once, dear boy, I started counting up: how many women had I made unhappy in my time? I counted and counted, got as far as seventy and gave it up. Well, sir, as soon as I reached the age of forty, suddenly, Sasha, old pal, something came over me. A desolation, I didn’t know what to do with myself, in short, my spirits sank, and that was that. I did one thing after another, I’d read books, I’d work, I’d travel— nothing helped! Well, sir, my dear boy, I was paying a call on a now deceased neighbor of mine, his Most Serene Highness Prince Dmitry Pavlovich. We had a snack, then we had dinner . . . After dinner, to keep from napping, we arranged for target shooting in the courtyard. Scads and scads of people gathered round. Our Waffles was there too.
DYADIN. I was, I was . . . I remember.
ORLOVSKY. The desolation I was feeling—you understand — good Lord! I couldn’t bear it. Suddenly, tears welled up in my eyes, I started to sway and I began to shout to the whole courtyard, at the top of my lungs:” My friends, good people, forgive me for Christ’s sake!” And at that very minute my heart grew pure, loving, warm, and from that time on, my dear boy, in all the district there’s no happier man than I am. And you should do the same thing.
SEREBRYAKOV. Do what?
A glow appears in the sky.
ORLOVSKY. The same as I did. You have to give in, to capitulate.
SEREBRYAKOV. A little sample of our homegrown philosophy. You advise me to ask for forgiveness. What for? Other people should be asking forgiveness of me!
SONYA. Papa, after all, we’re the ones at fault!
SEREBRYAKOV. Really? Gentlemen, obviously, at the moment you have in mind my relationship with my wife. Do you really believe that I am at fault? This is almost laughable, gentlemen. She shirked her duty, deserted me at a critical moment in my life . . .
KHRUSHCHOV. Aleksandr Vladimirovich, listen to me . . . For twenty-five years you’ve been a professor and served learning, I plant forests and practice medicine, but what’s the point, who’s it all for, if we don’t show mercy to the ones we’re working for? We say that we serve people, and at the same time we are inhumanly destroying each another. For instance, did you or I do anything to save Georges? Where is your wife, whom we all insulted? Where is your peace of mind, where is your daughter’s peace of mind? It’s all wrecked, destroyed, it’s all gone to rack and ruin. Gentlemen, you call me a Wood Goblin, but after all I’m not the only one, there’s a wood goblin lurking in all of you, you are all wandering through a dark wood and groping your way through life. Of intelligence, understanding, and feeling we have only just enough to spoil our own lives and other people’s.
YELENA ANDREEVNA enters from the house and sits on the bench beneath the window.
IX
The same and YELENA ANDREEVNA.
KHRUSHCHOV. I considered myself to be a humane man of ideals and yet I never forgave people the slightest error, believed slanders, gossiped with the rest, and when, for example, your wife trustingly offered me her friendship, I blurted out from the heights of my grandeur: “Get away from me! I despise your friendship!” That’s the sort of man I am. There’s a wood goblin lurking in me, I’m petty, average, blind, but you, Professor, are no great champion either! And meanwhile throughout the district, women take me to be a hero, a man of progress, while you are famous all over Russia. But if people like me are seriously taken to be heroes, and people like you are seriously famous, it means we’re in sore need of real people and anybody can be passed off as a somebody, there are no real heroes, no geniuses, no people who could lead us out of this dark wood, could put to rights the mess we make, no real champions, who might genuinely deserve an honorable fame . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. Excuse me . . . I did not come here to engage in a polemic with you and defend my right to be famous.
ZHELTUKHIN. Generally speaking, Misha, let’s change the subject.
KHRUSHCHOV. I’ll be done in a minute and go away. Yes, I’m petty, but you, Professor, are no champion! Georges was petty, the cleverest thing he could come up with was blowing his brains out. Everyone’s petty! As to the women . . .
YELENA ANDREEVNA (interrupting). As to the women, they are no better. (Comes to the table.) Yelena Andreevna left her husband, and do you think she did anything sensible with her freedom? Don’t worry . . . She will come back . . . (Sits down at the table.) And I have come back . . .
General consternation.
DYADIN (roars with laughter). This is fascinating! Gentlemen, don’t blame me, let me put in a word or two! Your Excellency, it is I who abducted your wife just as once a certain Paris did Helen! I did it! Although there are no pockmarked Parises, but, friend Horatio, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy!49
KHRUSHCHOV. I don’t understand a thing . . . Is that you, Yelena Andreevna?
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I’ve been staying with Ilya Ilyich the last two weeks . . . Why are you all looking at me like that? Well, good afternoon . . . I was sitting by the window and heard it all. (Embraces Sonya.) Let’s be reconciled. How are you, my dear little girl . . . Peace and harmony!
DYADIN (rubbing his hands). This is fascinating!
YELENA ANDREEVNA (to Khrushchov). Mikhail Lvovich. (Gives him her hand.) Let the dead past bury its dead. Good afternoon, Fyodor Ivanych . . . Yulechka . . .
ORLOVSKY. My dear boy, our professor’s lady is glorious, a beauty . . . She has come back, returned to us once more . . .
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I missed you all so much. Afternoon, Aleksandr! (Extends her hand to her husband, but he turns away.) Aleksandr!
SEREBRYAKOV. You shirked your duty.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Aleksandr!
SEREBRYAKOV. I won’t deny that I’m very glad to see you and I’m ready to talk to you, but not here, at home . . . (Walks away from the table.)
ORLOVSKY. Sasha!
Pause.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. So . . . Which means, Aleksandr, our problem has a very easy solution: none at all. Well, if that’s how it has to be! I’m a walkon part, my happiness is like a canary’s, a woman’s happiness . . . To be a stay-at-home all my life, eat, drink, sleep, and listen every day to people talk about their gout, their rights, their just deserts. Why are you all hanging your heads, as if you’re embarrassed? Let’s have a swig of that cordial, shall we? Ech!
DYADIN. It’ll all turn out all right, things’ll work out, we’ll all live happily ever after.
FYODOR IVANOVICH (walks over to Serebryakov, excited). Aleksandr Vladi-mirovich, I’m touched . . . I beg you, caress your wife, say at least one kind word to her, and, on the word of a gentleman, I’ll be your faithful friend for life, I’ll give you my best team of horses.
SEREBRYAKOV. Thank you, but, excuse me, I don’t understand you . . .