SEREBRYAKOV. Ivan Ivanych, you’re an intelligent man! Why should I ask for forgiveness? It’s an absurd, homegrown philosophy! Other people should be asking my forgiveness! (To Zheltukhin.) Tell me please, are there any ordinary, normal people around here? Every last one is a deep thinker or a philosopher. Out of the blue, he starts to think thoughts. One for no reason at all asks forgiveness, another raves about those forests . . . No, gentlemen, one must take action! One can’t go on like this. One must take action.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA (reading). Give me a pencil . . . Another contradiction! I have to jot it down.
ORLOVSKY. Please take this one, Your Excellency! (Hands her a pencil and kisses her hand.)
ZHELTUKHIN (sighing). We won’t be taking action around here any time soon. The time’s not ripe, Aleksandr Vladimirovich. Much too early. The all-prevailing ignorance allied with the inertia of the ruling classes, moreover . . .
ORLOVSKY. Anyway I’ve got headache and . . . and . . . my face is flushed . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. Excuse me, I’m detaining you . . .
ORLOVSKY. Not at all, I just need to shake it off . . .
Enter VOINITSKY.
page 637 / Replace: To live in town . . . impossible.
with: The means we currently have at our disposal is insufficient for urban living. To live in town on the income from the estate is impossible.
page 638 / After: excursion — an expedition, so to speak,
page 639 / After: This estate was bought from his uncle — Waffles, how much did my father pay for this estate?
page 639 / Replace: For twenty-five years . . . sat between these four walls
with: Hold on, let me have my say at least once in my life. Twenty-five [sic] I and she, my mother, sat like moles between these four walls
page 640 / Replace: I’m going to another room . . . I can’t take any more of this!
with: Excuse me . . . (Exits in powerful excitement.)
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Georges, I insist that you keep quiet!
SEREBRYAKOV. What do you want from me?
page 641 / Replace: Move him into the village . . . There, there, there . . . My friends
with: If he needs to, let him move to the servant’s quarters, to the village, but I cannot remain with him. I shall go! I shall go!
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Aleksandr, I’m worn out. If you truly consider him to be deranged, I beg of you, don’t respond to his insults. Otherwise this war will never end. I’m begging you . . .
ZHELTUKHIN. I have been an involuntry witness to this dismaying scene and therefore I ask your permission to intervene. Today I’ll have a word with him and act so that he will ask your forgiveness.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. No, there no need for forgiveness! I’m afraid of these forgivenesses . . .
page 641 / Replace: Scene XII
with:
XII
The same and KHRUSHCHOV
KHRUSHCHOV (agitated). I’m delighted to find you at home, Aleksandr Vladimirovich . . . Forgive me, I may have come at a bad time and am disturbing you . . . But that’s not the point. Sorry, I haven’t said hello . . . Good afternoon, Godfather.
SEREBRYAKOV. What can I do for you?
KHRUSHCHOV. Excuse me, I’m over-excited — it’s because I just rode over here so quickly . . . Aleksandr Vladimirovich, I heard that the day before yesterday you sold your forest to Kuznetsov for timber. If that’s true, and not mere gossip, then I beg you, for heaven’s sake, not to do it.
SEREBRYAKOV. Forgive me, I don’t understand you and . . . and I am not disposed to understand.
KHRUSHCHOV. Let me ride over to Kuznetsov and tell him that you’ve reconsidered! All right? May I? I implore, I entreat you by all you hold sacred! (Weeps.) To fell thousands of trees, to destroy them for the sake of a few thousand, to pay for women’s fripperies, caprices, luxuries . . . To destroy so that future generations will curse our barbarity! If you, a learned, famous man, make up your mind to such cruelty, what are other people, far inferior to you, to do? This is really horrible!
ZHELTUKHIN. Misha, put it off to later . . . Aleksandr Vladimirovich isn’t disposed . . .
KHRUSHCHOV (to Serebryakov). You turn away from me . . . If, after imploring you like a beggar, I am, in your opinion, wrong, then prove it to me . . . You’re a professor, a celebrity, rich in knowledge and long in life—I’ll believe you! Prove it to me!
SEREBRYAKOV. Let’s go, Ivan Ivanych, there’ll be no end to this.
KHRUSHCHOV (blocks Serebryakov’s path). In that case, tell you what, Professor . . . Wait, in three months I’ll put the money together and buy it from you myself . . . Ivan Ivanovich, Godfather, at least you’ll stand up for me! At least say something, anything!
ORLOVSKY. The man’s a crackpot! What can I say?
KHRUSHCHOV (flaring up). Of course, what is there to say? Keep quiet and do nothing! Eh, Godfather, there are a lot of good-natured people on this earth, and that always struck me as suspicious! They’re good-natured because they’re couldn’t care less!
YELENA ANDREEVNA (to her husband). Aleksandr, listen to Mikhail Lvovich!
KHRUSHCHOV. You may go, Professor, wherever you like, I won’t detain you. I am not ashamed for having just humiliated myself and even wept in front of you. You and Ivan Ivanych aren’t ashamed either, which means everything is working out just fine, for which I congratulate you! My respects!
SEREBRYAKOV (sharply). And next time be so good as not to come in unannounced, and please spare me your psychotic stunts! You all wanted to try my patience, and you succeeded . . . Please leave me alone! All these forests of yours, the peat I consider to be delirium and psychosis—there, that’s my opinion! Let’s go, Ivan Ivanovich!
YELENA ANDREEVNA (follows him). Aleksandr, that’s going too far!
She, SEREBRYAKOV, and ORLOVSKY exit.
KHRUSHCHOV (alone, after a pause). Delirium, psychosis . . . Which means, in the opinion of a famous scholar and professor, I’m insane . . . I submit to Your Excellency’s authority and shall now go home and shave my head. No, the earth which still supports you is insane!
He goes quickly to the door at right; enter from the door at left SONYA, who had been eavesdropping in the doorway throughout all of Scene XII.