CHEBUTYKIN. Hokium. Hokum.
NATASHA (out the window). The headmistress!
KULYGIN. The headmistress is here . . . Let’s go in.
Exits into the house with IRINA.
CHEBUTYKIN (reads the papers and sings softly). Tarara . . . boom de-ay . . . I sit in gloom all day . . .
MASHA comes up; upstage ANDREY wheels the baby carriage.
MASHA. Sitting by himself, taking it easy . . .
CHEBUTYKIN. So what?
MASHA (sits down). Nothing . . .
Pause.
Did you love my mother?
CHEBUTYKIN. Very much.
MASHA. And she loved you?
CHEBUTYKIN (after a pause). I can’t remember any more.
MASHA. Is my man here? That’s how our cook Marfa used to refer to her policeman: my man. Is my man here?
CHEBUTYKIN. Not yet.
MASHA. When you get happiness in bits and pieces, in snatches, and then you lose it, as I do, you gradually toughen up, you get bitchy. (Points to her bosom.) I’m seething inside . . . (Looking at her brother Andrey, wheeling the baby carriage.) Look at our Andrey, our baby brother . . . All hope is lost. Thousands of people were hoisting a bell, a lot of energy and money was expended, and all of a sudden it fell to the ground and smashed. All of a sudden, without rhyme or reason. ‘S just the same with Andrey . . .
ANDREY. When will the house finally quiet down? Such a rumpus.
CHEBUTYKIN. Soon. (Looks at his watch, then winds it; the watch chimes.) I’ve got an antique watch, with a chime . . . The first, second, and fifth batteries are leaving at one on the dot.
Pause.
And I go tomorrow.
ANDREY. Forever?
CHEBUTYKIN. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be back within the year. Who the hell knows, though . . . Doesn’t matter . . .
Somewhere far away a harp and a fiddle can be heard playing.
ANDREY. The town’s emptying out. Just as if a dust-cover had been dropped over it.
Pause.
Something happened yesterday outside the theater: they’re all talking about it, but I don’t know what it was.
CHEBUTYKIN. Nothing. Trivia. Solyony started needling the Baron, so the Baron flared up and insulted him, and what with one thing and another in the end Solyony was obliged to challenge him to a duel. (Looks at his watch.) It’s about time now, I think . . . Half past twelve, in the state forest preserve, that one over there, the one you can see on the far side of the river . . . Bing-bang. (Laughs.) Solyony imagines he’s Lermontov, and even writes poetry. Look, a joke’s a joke, but this is his third duel by now.
MASHA. Whose?
CHEBUTYKIN. Solyony’s!
MASHA. And what about the Baron?
CHEBUTYKIN. What about the Baron?
Pause.
MASHA. My thoughts are all snarled . . . Even so, I say it’s not right to let him do it. He might wound the Baron or even kill him.
CHEBUTYKIN. The Baron’s all right, but one baron more or less—does it really matter? Let it be! It doesn’t matter! (Beyond the garden a shout “Yoo-hoo! Hop to it!”) You wait. That’s Skvortsov shouting, one of the seconds. He’s sitting in a rowboat.
ANDREY. In my opinion, even taking part in a duel, even being present at one, if only in the capacity of a medical man, is simply immoral.
CHEBUTYKIN. It only seems that way . . . There’s nothing on this earth, we aren’t here, we don’t exist, but it only seems that we exist . . . So what does it matter?
MASHA. So they waste the whole day here talking and talking . . . (Walks.) You live in a climate like this, expecting it to snow any minute, and you still carry on these conversations . . . (Stops.) I won’t go inside the house, I can’t go in there . . . When Vershinin comes, let me know . . . (Walks up the path.) And the birds of passage are already on the wing . . . (Looks upward.) Swans, or geese . . . My beauties, my happy creatures . . . (Exits.)
ANDREY. Our house is emptying out. The officers are going, you’re going, sister’s getting married, and I’ll be left alone in the house.
CHEBUTYKIN. What about your wife?
FERAPONT enters with papers.
ANDREY. A wife is a wife. She’s honest, decent, oh, and kind, but for all that there’s something in her that reduces her to a petty, blind sort of bristly animal. In any case, she’s not human. I’m talking to you as a friend, the only person I can open my heart to. I love Natasha, I do, but sometimes she seems to me incredibly vulgar, and then I get mixed up, I don’t understand how and why I love her so or, at least, loved her . . .
CHEBUTYKIN (rises). My boy, I’ll be leaving tomorrow, maybe we’ll never meet again, so here’s my advice to you. Look, put on your hat, take up your stick, and leave . . . leave and go away, go without looking back. And the farther you go the better.
SOLYONY passes by upstage with TWO OFFICERS; catching sight of Chebutykin, he turns towards him; the officers walk farther on.
SOLYONY. Doctor, it’s time! Half past twelve already. (Exchanges greetings with ANDREY.)
CHEBUTYKIN. Right away. You all make me sick. (To Andrey.) If anyone asks for me, Andryusha, say I’ll be right back . . . (Sighs.) Oy-oy-oy!
SOLYONY. “He scarcely had time to gasp, when the bear had him in its grasp.” (Walks with him.) What are you groaning about, old man?
CHEBUTYKIN. Oh!
SOLYONY. Feeling healthy?
CHEBUTYKIN (angrily). Like a rich man’s wealthy.
SOLYONY. The old man’s getting upset for no good reason. I’ll indulge myself a bit, I’ll only wing him, like a wood-snipe. (Takes out the perfume and sprinkles his hands.) Look, I’ve poured a whole flask on them today, but they still smell. My hands smell like a corpse.
Pause.
So, sir . . . You remember the poem? “But he, the rebel, seeks the storm, As if a storm could give him peace . . .”70
CHEBUTYKIN. Yes. “He scarcely had time to gasp, when the bear had him in its grasp.”
Exits with SOLYONY.
FERAPONT. Papers to sign . . .
ANDREY (jittery). Get away from me! Get away! For pity’s sake! (Exits with the baby carriage.)
FERAPONT. But that’s what papers is for, to be signed. (Exits upstage.)
Enter IRINA and TUSENBACH, wearing a straw hat. KULYGIN crosses the stage, shouting “Yoo-hoo, Masha, yoo-hoo!”
TUSENBACH. It looks like he’s the only man in town who’s glad the military are leaving.
IRINA. That’s understandable.
Pause.