YELENA ANDREEVNA. Later.
SONYA. You’re trembling? You’re upset? (Looks searchingly into her face.) I understand . . . He said he won’t come here any more . . . Right?
Pause.
Tell me: am I right?
YELENA ANDREEVNA nods her head Yes.
SEREBRYAKOV (to Telegin). Ill health one might be reconciled to, if the worst came to the worst, but what I cannot stomach is this regimen of rustication. I have the feeling I’ve dropped off the earth on to some alien planet. Sit down, ladies and gentlemen, please. Sonya!
SONYA does not hear him, she stands with her head bowed in sorrow.
Sonya!
Pause.
She’s not listening. (To Marina.) And you sit down too, Nanny.
The NANNY sits down and knits a stocking.
Please, my friends. Lend me your ears, as the saying goes. (Laughs.)
VOINITSKY (getting excited). Maybe I’m not needed? I can go?
SEREBRYAKOV. No, you are needed here more than anyone.
VOINITSKY. What do you want from me, sir?[36]
SEREBRYAKOV. Sir? . . . Why are you getting angry?
Pause.
If I’ve offended you in any way, then please forgive me.
VOINITSKY. Drop that tone. Let’s get down to business . . . What do you want?
Enter MARIYA VASILYEVNA.
SEREBRYAKOV. And here’s Maman. I shall begin, ladies and gentlemen.
Pause.
I have invited you here, my friends, to inform you that we are about to be visited by an Inspector General.’37- However, joking aside. The matter is a serious one. Ladies and gentlemen, I have convened you in order to solicit your aid and advice and, knowing your customary civility, I trust to receive them. I am a man of learning, a bookworm, and have ever been a stranger to practical life. I cannot do without the counsel of informed individuals, and so I ask you, Ivan Petrovich, and you too, Ilya Ilyich, you, Maman . . .. What it comes down to is manet omnes una nox,[38] we are all mortal in the sight of God; I am old, ill, and therefore deem it appropriate to regulate my material concerns insofar as they relate to my family. My life is over now, it’s not myself I’m thinking of, but I have a young wife, an unmarried daughter.
Pause.
To go on living in the country I find impossible. We were not made for country life. To live in town on those funds which we earn from this estate is equally impossible. If we were to sell, say, our forest, that is an extraordinary measure which could not be repeated annually. We must seek out measures that will guarantee us a regular, more or less fixed amount of income. I have thought of one such measure and I have the honor to submit it for your discussion. Leaving aside the details, I set it forth in its general outlines. Our estate yields on average no more than two percent. I propose to sell it. If we turn the money thus acquired into interest-bearing securities, we shall receive from four to five percent, and I think there may even be a surplus of a few thousand, which will enable us to buy a small cottage in Finland.[39]
VOINITSKY. Hold on . . . my ears seem to be deceiving me. Repeat what you just said.
SEREBRYAKOV. Turn the money into interest-bearing securities and with the surplus left over buy a cottage in Finland.
VOINITSKY. Not Finland . . . You said something else.
SEREBRYAKOV. I propose to sell the estate.
VOINITSKY. There, that’s it. You’ll sell the estate, splendid, good thinking . . . And where do you propose I go with my old mother and Sonya there?
SEREBRYAKOV. All that will be discussed in due time. Not everything at once.
VOINITSKY. Hold on. Obviously, up to now I didn’t have a grain of common sense. Up to now I was stupid enough to think that this estate belongs to Sonya. My late father bought this estate as a dowry for my sister. Up to now I was naive, I didn’t interpret the laws like a heathen, and I thought the estate passed from my sister to Sonya.
SEREBRYAKOV. Yes, the estate belongs to Sonya. Who disputes it? Without Sonya’s consent I will not resolve to sell it. Besides, I’m proposing to do this on Sonya’s behalf.
VOINITSKY. This is incomprehensible, incomprehensible! Either I’ve gone out of my mind, or . . . or . . .
MARIYA VASILYEVNA. Jean, don’t contradict Alexandre. Believe me, he knows better than we what is right and what is wrong.
VOINITSKY. No, give me some water. (Drinks water.) Say what it is you want, what do you want!
SEREBRYAKOV. I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up. I don’t say my project is ideal. If everyone finds it infeasible, I shall not insist.
Pause.
TELEGIN (embarrassed). Your Excellency, I cherish for learning not just reverence, but even a kindred feeling. My brother Grigory’s wife’s brother, maybe you deign to know him, Konstantin Trofimovich Spartakov,32 had a master’s degree . . .
VOINITSKY. Hold on, Waffles, we’re talking business . . . Wait, later . . . (To Serebryakov.) You go ahead and ask him. This estate was bought from his uncle.
SEREBRYAKOV. Ah, why should I ask him? What for?
VOINITSKY. This estate was bought at that time for ninety-five thousand. Father paid only seventy down, so there was a mortgage of twenty-five thousand left. Now listen . . . This estate would not be free and clear if I hadn’t relinquished an inheritance in favor of my sister, whom I loved devoutly. Moreover, for ten years I worked like an ox and paid off the whole debt . . .
SEREBRYAKOV. I’m sorry I brought up the subject.
VOINITSKY. The estate is clear of debt and turning a profit thanks only to my personal efforts. And now, when I’m growing old, they want to throw me out of here on my ear!
SEREBRYAKOV. I can’t understand what you’re driving at!
VOINITSKY. For twenty-five years I ran this estate, worked hard, sent you money like the most conscientious bookkeeper, and in all that time not once did you thank me. The whole time — both in my youth and now— you paid me a salary of five hundred rubles a year—a pittance! — and not once did you have the decency to raise it by even one ruble!
SEREBRYAKOV. Ivan Petrovich, how was I to know? I’m not a man of business and I have no head for such things. You could have raised it yourself as much as you liked.
VOINITSKY. Why didn’t I steal? Why don’t you all despise me because I didn’t steal? That would have been the thing to do! and now I wouldn’t be a pauper!
MARIYA VASILYEVNA (sternly). Jean!
TELEGIN (getting upset). Vanya, dear friend, you mustn’t, you mustn’t . . . . I’m all a-tremble . . . Why spoil good relations? (Kisses him.) You mustn’t.
VOINITSKY. For twenty-five years I and my mother here, like moles, sat between these four walls . . . All our thoughts and feelings concerned no one but you. Days we talked about you, about your work, took pride in you, uttered your name with reverence; nights we wasted reading periodicals and books, which I now deeply despise!