VOINITSKY. Waffles, turn off the waterworks!
DYADIN. I shall always pay my reverent respects to the luminaries of science, who adorn our national horizon. Forgive me the audacity of dreaming of paying Your Excellency a visit and charming my heart with a colloquy about the latest scientific findings.
SEREBRYAKOV. Please do come. I shall be delighted.
SONYA. Now, do tell us, godfather . . . Where did you spend the winter? Where did you disappear to?
ORLOVSKY. I was in Gmunden, I was in Paris, Nice, London, dear heart . . .
SONYA. You lucky man! It must be nice to have lots of money. You just pick up and go.
DYADIN. Beg pardon, mademoiselle. I take the liberty of rephrasing your happy thought in this way: it must be nice not to need money. Not every millionaire leads a jolly life and not every beggar is downcast. The man who does not need money is nature’s nobleman.
SONYA. But what if you don’t have any money?
DYADIN. An extremely subtle observation! I am defeated. (Roars with laughter.) I am defeated! Bravo, mademoiselle!
SONYA laughs into her napkin.
Now, it would be interesting to observe this table a vol d’oiseau. What a fascinating nosegay! A combination of grace, beauty, profound learning, swee . . .
FYODOR IVANOVICH (interrupting him). What a fascinating tongue! What the hell is this? You talk as if somebody were shaving your back with a carpenter’s plane . . . “Your piehole fill and your tongue keep still.”
SEREBRYAKOV (eats). “Your piehole fill and your tongue keep still.” I recall a minor episode involving that proverb. A certain professor—I don’t believe I need to name names—when I was in Petersburg, invited me to his home for lunch. On the appointed day I arrived at his summer cottage and among others ran into the late Sergey Mikhailovich Solovyov. We were early and so the host, in order to keep us busy, began to talk to us about persons who had come down in life. He talked at great length and bored us frightfully. I thought he’d never end. When they served the pie, Sergey Mikhailovich took a piece and said, “Your piehole fill and your tongue keep still.” Of course he said it automatically, with any ulterior motive, but the host took him at his word and shut up. It all turned a bit awkward.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA (bursts out laughing). I can imagine . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. Later we laughed long and hard.
VOINITSKY (aside). Yes, very funny!
Pause.
SONYA. When you were away, godfather dear, the whole winter was so boring it was simply awful.
ORLOVSKY. It’s your own fault. Why don’t you visit your neighbors?
SONYA. I did visit Yulechka, but as for the rest—no, thank you very much! God forbid. Boredom is preferable to our neighbors.
ORLOVSKY. Why is that?
SONYA. Spare me. Not a single ordinary person, they all deserve to be put in a museum. Populists in embroidered peasant blouses, country doctors, like Bazarov.1
ORLOVSKY. You’ve no cause to think that way.
SONYA. Followers of Tolstoy, who, when they pay you a visit, insist on coming through the back door . . . no, spare me, for pity’s sake! And the poseurs in town get on my nerves too . . .
ORLOVSKY. You’ve got too much imagination! How come you don’t write serial stories for the papers?
VOINITSKY. She writes a diary. A really thick one! It’s resolved all the issues.
ORLOVSKY. Dear heart, you should fall in love and get married.
VOINITSKY. For pity’s sake, who’s she supposed to marry. Humboldt is dead, Edison’s in America, Lassalle’s dead too . . .
SONYA. Leave it to others to be ironical, but you shouldn’t, Uncle Georges . . .
VOINITSKY. What are you getting angry for?
SONYA. If you say another word, one of us will have to go home. You or I . . .
ORLOVSKY (roars with laughter). Why, what a temper!
VOINITSKY. Yes, a temper, I grant you that . . . (To Sonya.) Well, your little paw! Give me your little paw! (Kisses her hand.) Peace and harmony . . . I won’t do it again.
VII
The same and KHRUSHCHOV.
KHRUSHCHOV (coming out of the house). Why am I not an artist? What a wonderful composition.
ORLOVSKY (gleefully). Misha! My dear little godson!
FYODOR IVANOVICH. The wood goblin!
KHRUSHCHOV. Many happy returns to the birthday boy! Greeting, Yulechka, how pretty you look today! Godfather! (Exchanges kisses with Orlovsky). Sofya Aleksandrovna . . . (Greets everyone.)
ZHELTUKHIN. Well, how can a person be so late? Where were you?
KHRUSHCHOV. With a patient.
YULYA. The pie’s gone cold long ago.
KHRUSHCHOV. Never mind, Yulechka, I’ll eat it cold. Where should I sit?
SONYA. Sit down here . . . (Offers him the place beside her.)
KHRUSHCHOV. The weather’s splendid today. And that little pie is throwing me a mouth-watering glance! I’ll eat it up right now . . . (Drinks vodka.) To the birthday boy! I’ll taste this little pie . . . Yulechka, kiss this pie. It’ll make it tastier . . .
She kisses it.
Merci. How are you getting on, godfather? I haven’t seen you for a long time.
ORLOVSKY. Yes, we haven’t met for quite a while. I was abroad, you see.
KHRUSHCHOV. I heard, I heard . . . I envied you. Fyodor, how about you?
FYODOR IVANOVICH. I’m all right.
KHRUSHCHOV. How’s your business?
FYODOR IVANOVICH. I can’t complain. Only, there’s too much back and forth. Wears me down . . . From here to the Caucasus, from the Caucasus back here, from here back to the Caucasus—and it never ends. You’re on the go like a maniac. After all I’ve got two estates there!
KHRUSHCHOV. I know.
FYODOR IVANOVICH. I’m working at finding settlers and all I attract is tarantulas and scorpions. The business is going well in general, but as to “down, down, ye surging passions” — it’s the same old story.
KHRUSHCHOV. In love, of course?
FYODOR IVANOVICH. On which account, I need a drink. (Drinks.) Ladies and gentlemen, never fall in love with married women! Word of honor, it’s better to be wounded in the shoulder and shot in the leg, like your most humble servant, than love a married woman . . . So much trouble it’s simply . . .