ORLOVSKY. But I like it, my dear boy. You sit, you stand, your shoulder itches, you scratch it, and time passes by.
VOINITSKY. As if waiting for something . . . And what are you waiting for? You look back, all your life’s been filled with boredom, you look at the present, more boredom.
page 627 / Replace: If I ever did have a bee in my bonnet . . . Let’s have some champagne!
with: VOINITSKY. He has to have chik-chak, chik-chak.
ORLOVSKY. A beautiful girl . . .
FYODOR IVANOVICH. She slinks like a shadow, from room to room and can’t find a place for herself. She’s in love with the Wood Goblin.
VOINITSKY. Well, isn’t she the lucky girl.
FYODOR IVANOVICH. Why not? He’s a good fellow.
ORLOVSKY. Amen to that! May God help them . . . If people are good, you’ve got to act in a way that makes them even better. We ought to make the Wood Goblin some kind of gift. Fedya, you should send him a team of horses, or something . . .
FYODOR IVANOVICH. All right. Remind me when we get home. A team of horses and maybe I could add a gun. (Stretches.) Oof! Gentlemen, let’s have some champagne, shall we?
page 629 / Replace:
YELENA ANDREEVNA. And what do you know about it? . . .
ORLOVSKY. A darling, a beauty . . .
with: YELENA ANDREEVNA. Don’t tempt me, you devil! (Exits.)
page 629 / Replace: Sour grapes! Curdled cream!
with: If you don’t want to live, then go to a desert, to a convent, die at last, but why hoodwink people, why under the guise of virtue pass off something that is downright criminal? After all, isn’t it criminal to cripple one’s youth, after all . . .
page 630 / After: Fine, thank God. — Only his neck hurts a bit.
page 631 / Replace: ORLOVSKY. The reception room it is . . . I couldn’t care less.
with: FYODOR IVANOVICH. Let’s go.
page 631 / Replace: YULYA (alone, after a pause.) . . . (Clicks beads on the abacus.)
with: YULYA (alone). First I have to . . . Two calves at three fifty a piece. I could charge three a piece for them . . . (Clicks.) A bullock . . . well, ten . . . (Clicks.) For yesterday’s barley thirty-two rubles. Eighty gallons of oil at twenty-three kopeks . . . Three times eight is twenty-four . . . four, carry the two, one times three is three . . . Hm . . . for the oil, that makes four rubles fourteen kopeks. (Clicks.) I can knock off the fourteen kopeks.
page 631 / Replace: They can’t match me up with a decent suitor!
with: You know, when you’ve got such a good, clever, exceptional brother, somehow you don’t want to marry any Tom, Dick, or Harry. After all, they can’t match me up with a decent suitor!
page 632 / After: spiritual bond with you . . . — We’ve been friends.
page 632 / After: What’s making you embarrassed, Yulechka? — Is it a secret or what?
page 633 / Replace: Scene VII
with:
VII
YELENA ANDREEVNA, then FYODOR IVANOVICH.
YELENA ANDREEVNA (alone). What is this? A letter from Georges to me! Why is that my fault? Oh, how cruel, how shameless. Her heart is so pure that she cannot talk to me . . . My God, what an insult . . . My God, my head is spinning, I’m going to faint . . .
FYODOR IVANOVICH (enters through the door at left and walks across the stage). Why do you all give a start when you see me?
Pause.
Hm . . . (Takes the letter from her hands and tears it to shreds.) Drop all this . . . You must think only of me . . . (Exits through the door at right.)
YELENA ANDREEVNA (alone). What did he just say? What did he do? Talking about windows again? That damned man embarrasses me, I’m afraid of him, but yet Sonya’s heart is so pure that she cannot talk to me . . . (Weeps.) I should get out of this maelstrom — out into the fields and walk day and night so that I see nothing, hear nothing, think nothing . . . (Goes to the door at left, but, on seeing ZHELTUKHIN and YULYA coming to meet her, exits through the central door.)
page 635 / Replace: Scene IX
with:
IX
The same, SEREBRYAKOV, ORLOVSKY, and MARIYA VASILYEVNA.
ORLOVSKY. I’m not in the best of health either, my dear boy. Why, for two days now my head’s been aching and my whole body tingles . . . (Blows into the palm of his hand.) And my breath is hot.
SEREBRYAKOV. Where are the others? I do not like this house. Just like a labyrinth. Twenty-six enormous rooms, everyone scatters, and you can never find anyone. (Rings.) Request Yegor Petrovich and Yelena Andreevna to come here!
ZHELTUKHIN. Yulya, you’ve got nothing to do, go and find Yegor Petrovich and Yelena Andreevna.
YULYA exits.
SEREBRYAKOV. Ill health one might be reconciled to, if the worse came to the worst, but what I cannot stomach is my state of mind at the present time. I have the feeling that I’m already dead or have dropped off the earth on to some alien planet.
ZHELTUKHIN. I’ve got exactly the same feeling. Here in Russia the only people who live well are the rich peasants and the heroes of Shchedrin’s novels.2 And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you and I starved to death or . . . or well, generally speaking . . .
ORLOVSKY. It depends on how you look at it. That might be so. But this is the way I understand your mood, Sasha. Before you retired, before you wound up here, you were happy, content with yourself and others, you didn’t feel old or sick, but as soon as you wound up here against your will, everything went contrary for you: you don’t like the people, you don’t like yourself, the set-up here is alien to you, so you feel sick and old . . . In that case, of course, you’re bound to feel a turmoil in your soul . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. Yes, I do feel it.
ORLOVSKY. And when there’s turmoil in your soul, you can’t help yourself with words or tears or any kind of idea. Sasha, old pal, for forty years I led exactly the same kind of life as my Fyodor. I went on benders, and tossed money around, and when it came to the fair sex I was nobody’s fool either. The other day I was asking him: “Fedya, tell me honestly, how many women have you made unhappy in your time?” He thought a bit and says, “I don’t remember. Around sixty, but maybe it’s seventy. You can’t recall them all.” That’s how many I had too. Well sir, as soon 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, I wept, didn’t want to see people, even considered shooting myself— in short, turmoil, and that’s that. What’s to be done then? I did one thing after another, I’d read books, I’d work, I’d travel — nothing helped! Well, sir, old pal o’ mine, now you’ll ask: what saved me? A trifle. 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: the gentry, and peasants, and sportsmen, and even our Waffles. 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 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.