DYADIN. It’s fascinating! She’s here, here in my house! From the Count’s woods she ran here and has been living with me for two weeks now. Misha, what bliss! (Shouts.) Yelena Andreevna, please come out here! No more hiding!
SONYA. Listen to what she’s playing! It’s her favorite aria.
KHRUSHCHOV. Where is she? (Runs into the house.)
SEREBRYAKOV. I don’t understand a thing . . . not a thing.
DYADIN (rubbing his hands). Right away, right away . . . We’ve come to the end!
Enter from the house YELENA ANDREEVNA, followed by KHRUSHCHOV.
IX
The same, YELENA ANDREEVNA, and KHRUSHCHOV.
KHRUSHCHOV. Just one word! Only one word! Don’t be cruel as I was, but forgive me, I implore you!
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I heard it all. (Kisses him on the head.) That’s enough. Let’s be friends. Afternoon, Aleksandr! Afternoon, Sonya!
SONYA (rushes to throw her arms around her neck). Lenochka!
They all surround Yelena Andreevna. Kisses all around.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. All these days I was brooding and thinking as much as you were. You forgave me, I forgave you, and we’ve all become better people. Let us live a new way—a springtime way. Let’s go home. I was bored and missed you.
DYADIN. This is fascinating!
KHRUSHCHOV. How light my heart is now! There’s nothing wrong, it’s dee-lightful!
SEREBRYAKOV. Let’s go, Lenochka . . . Now the walls will seem charming to me.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I was sitting at the window and heard it all. My poor friends! Well, let’s hurry and go! (Takes her husband by the arm.) Let’s let bygones by bygones . . . Mikhail Lvovich, come and see us!
KHRUSHCHOV. I’m at your service.
YULYA (to her brother). You should ask for forgiveness too.
ZHELTUKHIN. I can’t stand this sourness! This sickly sweetness. . . Let’s go home, it’s getting damp . . . (Coughs.)
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Sonya’s laughing . . . Laugh, my dear! I’ll laugh too. That’s how it ought to be . . . Let’s go, Aleksandr! (She and her husband exit.)
ZHELTUKHIN. Let’s go! (He and his sister exit; he shouts from offstage). Aleksey, the carriage!
KHRUSHCHOV (to Sonya). When one’s mind is clear, one’s eyes are clear! I see it all. Let’s go, my darling! (Embraces her and they exit.)
DYADIN (alone). And they all forgot about me! This is fascinating! This is fascinating!
Curtain
NOTES
1 Dr. Khrushchov’s nickname, “Leshy,” makes too diabolic an impression when translated as “Wood Demon.” The mischievous sprite that the ancient Slavs and their posterity believed inhabited the forests is closer to Puck or Robin Goodfellow, in his fondness for leading travelers astray and imitating the sounds of various animals. In Chekhov’s day, Russians said “leshy vozmi” as a mild expletive, the way an Englishman might say “Deuce take it.”
2 A small case that keeps a watch upright on a table, so its face can be seen.
3 A periodic painful swelling in the lower joints, owing to the accumulation of uric acid; often a result of rich diet, heavy drinking, and a sedentary life.
4 This may be one of Chekhov’s sly parodies of Pushkin’s famous lyric “Whether I walk the noisy streets.”
5 Quotation from the satirical poem “At Second Hand” (Chuzhoy tolk, 1794) by Ivan Dimitriev (1760–1837). The poem, which mocks the rhetorical form of the ode, was one of the standard texts of the pre-Pushkin era.
6 Shakespeare’s Moorish general was known on the Russian stage chiefly through the touring performances of the Italian tragedians Tomasso Salvini and Ernesto Rossi.
7 If Yelena Andreevna’s father is a senator, he outranks a general in the military, which means the Professor “married up.”
8 From the “Thoughts and Aphorisms” of the poet Kozma Prutkov, a fictional creation of A. K. Tolstoy and the brothers Zhemchuznikov, “published” between 1854 and 1863. One of his synthetic aphorisms is “If you have waterworks, turn them off; give the waterworks a rest too.”
9 One of Chekhov’s favorite flowery phrases, later put into the mouth of Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard.
10 From Ivan Krylov’s fable “The Sight-seer” (1814): a curiosity seeker is so distracted with minor phenomena that he ends up saying, “I noticed not the elephant at all.”
11 From Evgeny Baratynsky’s elegy “Dissuasion” (1821), set to music as a duet by Glinka and many other composers.
12 French: a bird’s-eye view.
13 These names are shorthand for different types of genius: Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), German naturalist and traveler who explored Russian Asia in 1829; Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931), who patented over a thousand inventions; and Ferdinand Lassalle (1825– 1864), German Socialist who promoted political power for workers.
14 From Glinka’s ballad based on a poem of Nikolay Kukolnik, “Doubt” (1838).
15 A deputy elected by the local and district assemblies of nobles, to represent them in dealings with the government. They were often chosen for their social rather than their political skills.
16 Sung by the Demon in Rubinstein’s opera The Demon, based on the poem by Lermontov.
17 The Russo-Turkish war of 1877–1878.
18 Nado delo delat, “one must do something,” “be active,” “be committed,” “get involved.” A motto of liberalism in the 1860s, it does not mean “One must work.”
19 See Ivanov, First Version, note 19.
20 Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov (1781–1855), Russian Romantic poet, an immediate forerunner of Pushkin, and author of the best anacreontic verse in Russian. Evidently the Professor wants to read about wine, woman, and song.
21 Latin for “a frog on the chest.” Severe chest pain caused by deficient oxygenation of the heart muscles. The novelist Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), who had suffered from gout, actually died of spinal cancer.
22 The official physician appointed by the zemstvo or rural board, like Dr. Lvov in Ivanov. Khrushchov practices as a sideline.
23 In the original, yurodivy, a holy fool, feebleminded beggars considered to be touched by God and hence licensed to speak the truth.
24 They’re both wrong: the ancient Romans threw condemned criminals off the Tarpeian rock.
25 In Russian, the wordplay is on idet, “let’s go, let’s pay a visit,” and idyot, which sounds like idiot, “imbecile,” a joke Chekhov often used privately, especially in letters to his brother Aleksandr.
26 Narodnik, member of a revolutionary movement, following the teachings of Aleksandr Herzen and Mikhail Bakunin, which, in the “crazy summer” of 1873, sent young people into the country to educate the peasants.
27 In the original, she uses the German word Bruderschaft, “brotherhood” or “fellowship.” They are pledging, arms linked, out of one glass, like fraternity brothers.
28 Literally, na ty, meaning their relationship will now be on a “thou” basis, rather than the formal “you.”