The antitragic tendency of the play is apparent in the title. Most serious Russian drama at the turn of the nineteenth century bore titles of symbolic import or else the name of its protagonist or a central relationship. As a rule, Chekhov follows this convention. In Uncle Vanya, though, the title reveals that the center of attention is not Astrov, whose attractive qualities can upstage the title role in performance, but the self-pitying Voinitsky. Our Uncle Jack, as he might be in English, sounds peripheral, the archetype of mediocrity. Such a man is not serious enough to be called by a grownup name; he counts chiefly in his relationship to others. But who calls him Uncle Vanya? To the Professor, Yelena, and Astrov he is Ivan Petrovich, except when they mean to be slighting. “That Uncle Vanya” is how Yelena dismisses him in Act Three, and in Act Four Astrov flippantly calls for an embrace before “Uncle Vanya” comes in. To his mother, he is Jean, the “shining light” of his youth. He is Vanya primarily to Sonya and Waffles, who love him. Therefore, if Voinitsky matters most when he is Uncle Vanya, his self-realization lies not in competing with the Professor or winning Yelena but in his dealings with his dependents. He gave up trying to be Jean long ago; when he stops trying to be Ivan Petrovich and fulfills himself as Uncle Vanya, a new life might commence.
NOTES
1 M. Gorky and A. Chekhov, Stati, vyskazyvaniya, perepiska (Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1951), pp. 6365.
2 O. Mandelshtam, “O pyese A. Chekhova ‘Dyadya Vanya,’” Sobranie sochineniya (Paris: YMCA Press), IV, 107–109.
3 Samuel Beckett, Proust (London: Chatto and Windus, 1931), p. 8.
UNCLE VANYA
Дя‰я Baня
Scenes from Country Life1
in Four Acts
[Bracketed footnote numerals refer to footnotes in The Wood Goblin.]
CHARACTERS 2
SEREBRYAKOV, ALEKSANDR VLADIMIROVICH, retired professor
YELENA ANDREEVNA, his wife
SOFIYA ALEKSANDROVNA (SONYA), his daughter by his first marriage
VOINITSKAYA, MARIYA VASILYEVNA, widow of a government official,3 and mother of the Professor’s first wife
VOINITSKY, IVAN PETROVICH, her son
ASTROV, MIKHAIL LVOVICH, a physician4
TELEGIN, ILYA ILYICH, an impoverished landowner
MARINA, an old nanny5
A WORKMAN
The action takes place on Serebryakov’s country estate.
ACT ONE
The garden. Part of the house and its veranda are visible. Along the path beneath an old poplar there is a table set for tea. Benches, chairs; a guitar lies on one of the benches. Not far from the table is a swing.—Between two and three in the afternoon. Overcast.
MARINA, a corpulent, imperturbable old woman, sits by the samovar knitting a stocking, while ASTROV paces nearby.
MARINA (pours a glass of tea). Have a bite to eat, dearie.
ASTROV (reluctantly takes the glass). Somehow I don’t feel like it.
MARINA. Maybe, you’ll have a nip of vodka?
ASTROV. No. I don’t drink vodka all the time. Besides, it’s stifling.
Pause.
Nanny old girl, how long have we known one another?
MARINA (thinking it over). How long? God help my memory . . . You came here, to these parts . . . when? . . . Vera Petrovna was still alive, dear little Sonya’s mother. In her time you visited us two winters . . . Well, that means nigh onto eleven years have gone by. (After giving it some thought.) Could be even more . . .
ASTROV. Have I changed terribly since then?
MARINA. Terribly. In those days you were young, good-looking, and now you’re old. And your good looks are gone too. And it’s got to be said — you like a nip of vodka.
ASTROV. Yes . . . In ten years’ time I’ve turned into another man. And what’s the reason? I’ve been working too hard, nanny old girl. Morning to night always on my feet, not a moment’s rest, at night you lie under the blanket afraid you’ll be hauled off to some patient.6 In all the time we’ve known one another, I haven’t had a single day to myself. Why wouldn’t a man grow old? Besides, life itself is dreary, silly, filthy . . . It drags you down, this life. You’re surrounded by crackpots, nothing but crackpots; you live with them for two, three years and, little by little, without noticing it, you turn into a crackpot yourself. (Twirling his long moustache.) Look at this interminable moustache I’ve been cultivating. A silly moustache. I’ve turned into a crackpot, nanny old girl . . . Speaking of silly, I’m still in my right mind, thank God, my brain’s still intact, but my feelings are sort of numb. There’s nothing I want, nothing I need, no one I love . . . Present company excepted. (Kisses her on the head.) When I was a child I had a dear old nanny just like you.
MARINA. Maybe you’d like a bite to eat?
ASTROV. No. In Lent, third week, I went to Malitskoe to deal with an epidemic . . . Spotted typhus7. . . In the huts the peasants were packed side by side . . . Mud, stench, smoke, bull calves on the floor right next to the sick . . . Piglets too . . . I was at it all day long, never sat down for a second, not a blessed drop passed my lips, and when I did get home, they wouldn’t let me rest—they brought over a signalman from the railway; I put him on the table to operate, and he goes and dies on me under the chloroform. And just when they’re least wanted, my feelings came back to life, and I felt a twinge of conscience, just as if I’d killed him on purpose . . . Down I sat, closed my eyes—just like this, and started thinking: the people who’ll live one or two hundred years from now, the people we’re blazing a trail for, will they remember us, have a kind word for us? Nanny old girl, they won’t remember a thing!
MARINA. People won’t remember, but God will remember.
ASTROV. Thank you for that. Just the right thing to say.
VOINITSKY emerges from the house; he has been napping after lunch and looks rumpled; he sits on the bench, adjusts his fancy tie.8
VOINITSKY. Yes . . .
Pause.
Yes . . .
ASTROV. Had enough sleep?
VOINITSKY. Yes . . . Plenty. (Yawns.) Ever since the Professor and his lady have been living here, our life’s been shunted on to a siding . . . I sleep at odd hours, for lunch and dinner eat all kinds of spicy food,9 drink wine . . . unhealthy, that’s what I call it! Before, there wasn’t a moment’s leisure, Sonya and I were always at work—now, lo and behold, Sonya does the work on her own and I sleep, eat, drink . . . It’s not right!