Pause.
You dear old man, it’s funny the way things change, the way life isn’t fair! Today out of boredom, with nothing to do, I picked up this book here — my old university lecture notes, and I had to laugh . . . Good grief, I’m secretary to the County Council, the council Protopopov presides over, I’m secretary and the most I can hope for—is to become a full member of the County Council! Me a member of the local County Council, me, who dreams every night that I’m a professor at Moscow University, a famous scholar, the pride of Russia!
FERAPONT. I couldn’t say . . . I’m hard o’ hearing . . .
ANDREY. If your hearing was good, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you. I have to talk to someone, and my wife doesn’t understand me, my sisters scare me for some reason, I’m afraid they’ll make fun of me, embarrass me . . . I don’t drink, I’ve no great fondness for barrooms, but I’d love to be sitting in Moscow at Testov’s tavern right now or the Grand Moscow restaurant, my friend.
FERAPONT. Why, in Moscow, a contractor at the Council was saying the other day, there was some shopkeepers eating pancakes;28 one ate forty pancakes and like to died. May ha’ been forty, may ha’ been fifty. I don’t rec’llect.
ANDREY. You sit in Moscow in the vast main dining room of a restaurant, you don’t know anyone and no one knows you, and at the same time you don’t feel like a stranger. Whereas here you know everyone and everyone knows you, but you’re a stranger, a stranger . . . A stranger and alone.
FERAPONT. How’s that?
Pause.
And that same contractor was saying—lying too, mebbe—as how there’s a rope stretched acrost all Moscow.
ANDREY. What for?
FERAPONT. How do I know? The contractor said so.
ANDREY. Don’t be silly. (Reads the book.) Were you ever in Moscow?
FERAPONT (after a pause). I was not. ‘Tweren’t God’s will.
Pause.
Can I go?
ANDREY. You may go. Keep well.
FERAPONT exits.
Keep well. (Reading.) Come back tomorrow morning, pick up the paper . . . Go on . . .
Pause.
He’s gone. (The doorbell rings.) Yes, business . . . (Stretches and unhurriedly goes back into his room.)
Offstage a nursemaid is singing a lullaby to a baby. Enter MASHA and VERSHININ. Later, during their dialogue, the PARLOR MAID lights a lamp and candles.
MASHA. I don’t know. (Pause.) I don’t know. Of course, habit has a lot to do with it. After Father died, for instance, it was a long time before we could get used to not having orderlies any more. But, habit aside, I think I’m being impartial. Maybe it isn’t like this in other places, but in our town the most decent, most honorable and cultured people are the military.
VERSHININ. I’d like something to drink. I could use some tea.
MASHA (after a glance at the clock). They’ll bring some soon. They married me off when I was eighteen, and I was afraid of my husband because he was a schoolteacher and at the time I’d just graduated. At the time he seemed to me to be terribly clever, learned, and important. But that’s no longer the case, sad to say.
VERSHININ. Is that so . . . yes.
MASHA. I’m not including my husband, I’m used to him, but among civilians in general there so many crude, uncongenial, uncouth people. I get upset, I’m offended by crudeness, it pains me to see a man who’s not as refined or sensitive or congenial as he should be. When I have to be with schoolteachers, my husband’s colleagues, I’m just in agony.
VERSHININ. Yes, ma’am . . . But I don’t think it matters much, civilian or military, they’re equally uninteresting, at least in this town. Makes no difference! If you listen to any educated man in this town, civilian or military, he’s sick and tired of his wife, sick and tired of his home, sick and tired of his estate, sick and tired of his horses . . . A Russian is highly capable of coming up with advanced ideas, so tell me, why is his aim in life so low? Why?
MASHA. Why?
VERSHININ. Why is he sick and tired of his children, sick and tired of his wife? And why are his wife and children sick and tired of him?
MASHA. You’re in a bad mood today.
VERSHININ. Could be. I haven’t had dinner today, I’ve eaten nothing since this morning. One of my daughters is under the weather, and when my little girls are ill, anxiety gets the better of me. My conscience bothers me for giving them such a mother. Oh, if only you could have seen her today! So petty! We started bickering at seven in the morning, and at nine I slammed the door and went out.
Pause.
I never talk about this, and it’s strange, you’re the only one I complain to. (Kisses her hand.) Don’t be angry with me. Except for you, only you, I have no one, no one . . .
Pause.
MASHA. What a racket in the stove! Not long before Father died, there was a whistling in our stovepipe. It was exactly like that.
VERSHININ. You’re superstitious?
MASHA. Yes.
VERSHININ. ‘S funny. (Kisses her hand.) You’re a superb, a marvelous woman. Superb, marvelous woman! It’s dark in here, but I can see the sparkle in your eyes.
MASHA (moves to another chair). There’s more light over here . . .
VERSHININ. I love, love, love . . . I love your eyes, your movements, which come to me in my dreams . . . Superb, marvelous woman!
MASHA (laughing quietly). When you talk to me that way, for some reason I have to laugh, even though I feel terrified. Don’t say it again, please don’t . . . (In an undertone.) Go on, do talk, it doesn’t matter to me . . . (Hides her face in her hands.) To me it doesn’t matter. Someone’s coming in here, talk about something else . . .
IRINA and TUSENBACH enter through the reception room.
TUSENBACH. I have a tripartite name. I’m called Baron Tusenbach-Krone-Altschauer, but I’m a Russian, of the Orthodox faith, same as you. There’s only a bit of German left in me, actually only the dogged obstinacy I pester you with. I escort you home every single night.
IRINA. I’m so tired!
TUSENBACH. And every single night I’ll come to the telegraph office and escort you home, I will for ten, twenty years, until you chase me away . . . (On seeing Masha and Vershinin, gleefully.) Is that you? Good evening.
IRINA. Here I am, home at last. (To Masha.) Just now a lady comes in, wires her brother in Saratov29 to say that her son has died, and she couldn’t manage to remember the address. So she sent it without an address, simply to Saratov. Crying the whole time. And I was rude to her for no reason at all. “I haven’t got the time,” I said. It sounded so stupid. Are the masqueraders dropping by tonight?
MASHA. Yes.
IRINA (sits in an armchair). Have to rest. I’m tired.
TUSENBACH (with a smile). Whenever you come home from work, you look so small, such a tiny little thing . . .