SONYA. Why, that’s lovely. It’s so seldom you stay over with us. I don’t suppose you’ve had dinner?
ASTROV. No, ma’am, I have not.
SONYA. Then you’re just in time for some. Nowadays we dine between six and seven. (Drinks.) Tea’s cold!
TELEGIN. There’s been a perceptible drop in temperature in the samovar.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Never mind, Ivan Ivanych, we’ll drink it cold.
TELEGIN. Excuse me, ma’am . . . Not Ivan Ivanych, but Ilya Ilyich, ma’am . . . Ilya Ilyich Telegin, or, as some call me on account of my pockmarked face, Waffles. I once stood godfather to little Sonya, and His Excellency, your spouse, knows me very well. I’m now living with you, ma’am, on this estate, ma’am14 . . . . If you will kindly notice, I dine with you every day.
SONYA. Ilya Ilyich is our assistant, our right-hand man. (Affectionately.) Here, Godfather, I’ll pour you some more.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA. Ah!
SONYA. What’s the matter, Granny?
MARIYA VASILYEVNA. I forgot to tell Alexandre15 . . . I must be losing my memory . . . today I got a letter from Kharkov from Pavel Alekseevich . . . He sent his new pamphlet.
ASTROV. Interesting?
MARIYA VASILYEVNA. Interesting, but rather peculiar. He opposes the very thing he was promoting seven years ago. It’s appalling!
VOINITSKY. It’s not at all appalling. Drink your tea, maman.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA. But I want to talk!
VOINITSKY. For fifty years now we’ve been talking and talking, and reading pamphlets. It’s high time we stopped.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA. For some reason you don’t like to listen when I talk. Pardon me, Jean, but this last year you have changed so much that I utterly fail to recognize you . . . You used to be a man of steadfast convictions, a shining light . . .
VOINITSKY. Oh, yes! I was a shining light but no one ever basked in my rays . . .
Pause.
I was a shining light . . . Don’t rub salt in my wounds! Now I’m forty-seven. Before last year I was the same as you, deliberately trying to cloud my vision with this book learning of yours, to keep from seeing real life — and I thought I was doing the right thing. And now, if you had the least idea! I don’t sleep nights out of frustration, out of spite for having wasted my time so stupidly when I could have had everything that’s withheld from me now by my old age!
SONYA. Uncle Vanya, this is boring!
MARIYA VASILYEVNA (to her son). You seem to be blaming your former convictions for something . . . But they aren’t to blame, you are. You have forgotten that convictions per se mean nothing, they’re a dead letter . . . One must take action.16
VOINITSKY. Take action! Not everyone is capable of being a perpetual-motion writing machine like your Herr Professor.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA. What’s that supposed to mean?
SONYA (pleading). Granny! Uncle Vanya! For pity’s sake!
VOINITSKY. I’m mute. I’m mute and I apologize.
Pause.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. Lovely weather today . . . Not too hot . . .
Pause.
VOINITSKY. Good weather for hanging oneself . . .
TELEGIN strums his guitar. MARINA walks near the house and calls chickens.
MARINA. Chick, chick, chick . . .
SONYA. Nanny dear, what did the peasants come for?
MARINA. The same old thing, still on about those untilled fields. Chick, chick, chick . . .
SONYA. Who’re you calling?
MARINA. Speckles’s gone off with her chicks . . . The crows might get ‘em. (Exits.)
TELEGIN plays a polka; all listen in silence. Enter a WORKMAN.
WORKMAN. Is Mister Doctor here? (To Astrov.) ‘Scuse me, Dr. Astrov, there’s some folks here to fetch you.
ASTROV. Where from?
WORKMAN. The factory.17
ASTROV (vexed). Thanks a lot. That’s that, got to go . . . (Looking around for his peaked cap.) What a nuisance, damn it . . .
SONYA. How unpleasant, honestly . . . After the factory you’ll come to dinner.
ASTROV. No, it’ll be too late. Now where in the world . . . where, oh where?18. . . (To the Workman.) Listen, my boy, bring me a shot of vodka, anyway.
WORKMAN exits.
Now where in the world . . . where, oh where . . . (He has found his cap.) In one of Ostrovsky’s plays there’s a man who’s long on moustache and short on brains19. . . That’s me all over. Well, my respects, ladies and gents . . . (To Yelena Andreevna.) If you drop in on me some time, along with Sofiya Aleksandrovna, of course, I’d be really delighted. I have a smallish estate, no more than eighty acres in all, but if you’re interested, there’s an experimental orchard and a tree nursery the like of which you’ll not find a thousand miles around. Next door I’ve got the State forest preserve . . . The forest ranger there is old, always ailing, so, as a matter of fact, I do all the work.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. I’ve been told you’re very fond of forests. Of course, they may be admirable, but really, don’t they get in the way of your true calling? After all, you are a doctor.
ASTROV. God alone know what our true calling is.
YELENA ANDREEVNA. And is it interesting?
ASTROV. Yes, the work is interesting.
VOINITSKY (sarcastically). Very!
YELENA ANDREEVNA (to Astrov). You’re still a young man, you look . . . well, thirty-six, thirty-seven . . . and I don’t suppose it’s as interesting as you say. Nothing but forest and more forest. I suppose it’s monotonous.
SONYA. No, it’s remarkably interesting. Mikhail Lvovich plants a new forest every year, and they’ve already honored him with a bronze medal and a testimonial. He’s had a hand in preventing them from destroying the old-growth areas. If you hear him out, you’ll agree with him completely. He says that forests beautify the land, that they teach people to understand beauty and inspire them with a sense of grandeur. Forests alleviate a harsh climate. In lands where the climate is mild, less energy is spent on the struggle with nature and therefore human beings there are milder and more delicate; there people are beautiful, athletic, very sensitive, their speech is refined, their movements graceful. There art and sciences flourish, their philosophy is not gloomy, their attitude to women is full of exquisite chivalry . . .
VOINITSKY (laughing). Bravo, bravo! . . . Which is all very charming, but not convincing, so (To Astrov.) allow me, my friend, to go on stoking my stoves with logs and building my sheds out of wood.
ASTROV. You can stoke your stoves with peat20 and build sheds of stone. Well, all right, chop down forests when it’s absolutely necessary, but why destroy them? Russian forests are toppling beneath the axe, the habitats of birds and beasts are dwindling, tens of thousands of trees are perishing, rivers are running shallow and drying up, gorgeous natural scenery is disappearing irretrievably, and all because lazy human beings can’t be bothered to bend down and pick up fuel from the earth. (To Yelena Andreevna.) Am I right, madam? A person has to be an unreasoning barbarian to destroy what cannot be re-created. Human beings are endowed with reason and creative faculties in order to enhance what is given to them, but so far they have not created but destroyed. Forests are ever fewer and fewer, rivers dry up, wildlife is wiped out, the climate is spoiled, and every day the earth grows more impoverished and ugly. (To Voinitsky.) There you go, staring at me sarcastically, nothing I say is taken seriously, and . . . and, maybe I am talking like a crackpot, but, when I walk through the peasants’ forests that I have saved from being chopped down, or when I hear the wind rustling in my stand of saplings, planted by my own hands, I realize that the climate is to some slight degree in my control, and if, a thousand years from now, humanity is happy, then even I will be partially responsible. When I plant a birch tree, and then see how it grows green and sways in the wind, my soul swells with pride, and I . . . (Having seen the WORKMAN, who brings in a shot of vodka on a tray.) Anyway . . . (Drinks.) My time’s up. This is, most likely, crackpot talk, when’s all said and done. And so I take my leave! (Goes to the house.)