MASHA. Nikolay Lvovich, go away! Now really, what . . .
TUSENBACH. I’m going . . . (Exit.)
MASHA (lies down). You asleep, Fyodor?
KULYGIN. Huh?
MASHA. You should go home.
KULYGIN. My dearest Masha, my dearest Masha . . .
IRINA. She’s worn out. You should let her rest, Fedya.
KULYGIN. I’ll go right away . . . My wife’s lovely, splendid . . . I love you, my one and only . . .
MASHA (angrily). Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.57
KULYGIN (laughs). No, really, she’s marvelous. I’ve been married to you for seven years, but it feels as if we were wed only yesterday. Word of honor. No, really, you’re a marvelous woman. I’m content, I’m content, I’m content!
MASHA. I’m sick and tired, sick and tired, sick and tired . . . (Rises to speak in a sitting position.) I just can’t get it out of my head . . . it’s simply appalling. Stuck in my brain like a spike, I can’t keep quiet. I mean about Andrey . . . He’s mortgaged this house to the bank, and his wife snatched all the money, but in fact the house belongs not just to him but to the four of us! He ought to know that, if he’s a decent human being.
KULYGIN. Why bother, Masha! What’s it to you? Andryusha’s in debt all around, so leave him alone.
MASHA. It’s appalling in any case. (Lies down.)
KULYGIN. You and I aren’t poor. I work, I’m at the high school, later in the day I give lessons . . . I’m an honest man. A simple man . . . Omnia mea mecum porto,58 as the saying goes.
MASHA. It’s not that I need the money, but the unfairness of it galls me.
Pause.
Get going, Fyodor.
KULYGIN (kisses her). You’re tired, rest for just half an hour, while I sit outside and wait. Get some sleep . . . (Goes.) I’m content, I’m content, I’m content. (Exits.)
IRINA. As a matter of fact, our Andrey’s become so shallow, so seedy and old living with that woman! He used to make plans to be a professor, but yesterday he was boasting that he’s finally managed to make member of the County Council. He’s a Council member, but Protopopov’s the chairman . . . The whole town’s talking, laughing, and he’s the only one who sees and knows nothing . . . Here again, everybody runs off to the fire, but he sits by himself in his room and pays no attention. All he does is play the violin. (On edge.) Oh, it’s horrible, horrible, horrible! (Weeps.) I cannot, cannot stand it any more! . . . I cannot, I cannot! . . .
OLGA enters and tidies her nighttable.
(Sobs loudly.) Throw me out, throw me out, I can’t stand any more! . . .
OLGA (alarmed). What’s wrong, what’s wrong? Dearest!
IRINA (sobbing). Where? Where has it all gone? Where is it? Oh, my God, my God! I’ve forgotten everything, forgotten . . . It’s all tangled up in my mind . . . I can’t remember the Italian for window or, uh, ceiling . . . I forget everything, every day I forget, and life goes on and won’t ever, ever come back, we’ll never get to Moscow . . . I can see that we won’t . . .
OLGA. Dearest, dearest . . .
IRINA (under control). Oh, I’m unhappy . . . I cannot work, I will not go on working. Enough, enough! I used to be a telegraph operator, now I work for the town council and I hate, despise whatever they give me to do . . . I’m twenty-four already, I’ve been working for a long time now, and my brain has dried up, I’ve got skinny and ugly and old, and I’ve got nothing, nothing, no sort of satisfaction, while time marches on, and I keep feeling that I’m moving away from a genuine, beautiful life, moving ever farther and farther into some kind of abyss. I’m desperate, I’m desperate! And why I’m still alive, why I haven’t killed myself before now, I don’t understand . . .
OLGA. Don’t cry, my little girl, don’t cry . . . It pains me.
IRINA. I’m not crying, not crying . . . Enough . . . There, look, I’m not crying any more. Enough . . . Enough!
OLGA. Dearest, I’m speaking to you as a sister, as a friend; if you want my advice, marry the Baron! (IRINA weeps quietly.) After all, you do respect him, think highly ofhim . . . True, he’s not good looking, but he’s so decent, so pure . . . After all, people don’t marry for love, but just to do their duty. At least that’s how I think of it, and I would marry without love. Anyone who came courting, I’d marry him all the same, I mean if he were a decent man. I’d even marry an old man . . .
IRINA. I kept waiting for us to move to Moscow, there my true love would find me, I would dream about him, love him . . . But it’s all turned out to be foolishness, nothing but foolishness.
OLGA (embraces her sister). My darling, lovely sister, I understand it all; when the Baron resigned from military service and came calling on us in a suit jacket, he looked so homely I even started to cry . . . He asked me, “What are you crying for?” How could I tell him! But if it were God’s will that he marry you, I’d be very happy. That would make a change, a complete change.
NATASHA, carrying a candle, crosses the stage from the door right to the door left, in silence.59
MASHA (sits up). She prowls around as if she was the one who’d set the fire.
OLGA. Don’t be silly, Masha. The silliest in our family, that’s you. Forgive me, please.
Pause.
MASHA. I want to make a confession, dear sisters. My heart is heavy, I’ll confess to you and never again to anyone, ever . . . I’ll speak my piece right now. (Quietly.) This is my secret, but you ought to know it all . . . I can’t keep still . . .(Pause.) I love, love . . . I love that man . . . You just saw him . . . Well, there you have it. In short, I love Vershinin.60
OLGA (goes behind her screen). Stop it. It doesn’t matter, I’m not listening.
MASHA. What can I do? (Clutches her head.) At first he struck me as peculiar, then I felt sorry for him . . . then I fell in love . . .
OLGA (behind the screen). I’m not listening, it doesn’t matter. Whatever silly things you say, it doesn’t matter, I’m not listening.
MASHA. Ay, you’re incredible, Olya. I love — which means, it’s my fate. Which means, such is my lot . . . And he loves me . . . it’s all terrible. Right? it’s no good, is it? (Takes Irina by the hands and draws her to her.) Oh my dear . . . How are we to get through our lives, what’s to become of us . . . When you read a novel, it all seems so trite and so easy to understand, but when you fall in love yourself, you realize that no one knows anything about it and everyone has to decide for herself . . . My dears, my sisters . . . I’ve confessed to you, now I’ll keep still . . . Now I’ll be like that madman in Gogol’s story . . .61 still . . . still . . .