Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (409 page)

and if a thousand years hence man is to be happy, I too shall have had a share in it. When I plant a little birch tree and then see how it is growing green and shaking in the wind, my soul is filled with pride from the realization that, thanks to me, there is one more life added on earth
         

FYODOR (interrupting): Your health, Wood Demon!

VOYNITSKY: All this is very fine, but if you looked at the matter, not from a novelette point of view, but from a scientific point of view, then
              

SONYA: Uncle George, your tongue is covered with rust.

Do keep quiet!

KHROUSCHOV: Indeed, George Petrovich, let’s not discuss it. Please.

VOYNITSKY: As you like!

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: Ah!

SONYA: Granny, what’s the matter?

MARIE VASSILIEVNA (to SEREBRYAKOV): I had forgotten to tell you, Alexander... I’m losing my memory. ... I had a letter to-day from Kharkov, from Paul Alexeyevich. . . .

He asks to be remembered to you. . . .

SEREBRYAKOV: Thank you, I am very glad.

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: He sent me his new pamphlet and asked me to show it to you.

SEREBRYAKOV: It is interesting?

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: It is interesting, but somewhat odd.

He refutes what he himself was defending seven years ago.

It is very, very typical of our time. Never have people betrayed their convictions with such levity as they do now.

It is terrible!

VOYNITSKY: There’s nothing terrible. Won’t you have some fish, maman?

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: But I want to speak!

VOYNITSKY: We have been talking for the last fifty years about tendencies and schools; it’s time we stopped.

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: It does not please you for some reason when I speak. Excuse me, George, but this last year you have changed so much that I can’t make you out at all.

You used to be a man of definite conviction, an enlightened personality. . . .

VOYNITSKY: Oh, yes! I was an “ enlightened personality “

from which no one got any light. Permit me to get up. I was an “ enlightened personality.” A more venomous joke couldn’t have been uttered! Now I am forty-seven. Up till last year I was deliberately trying, like you, to fog my eyes with all sorts of abstractions and scholasticism, in order not to see real life; and I thought that I was doing the right thing... But now, if only you knew what a great fool I seem to myself for having so stupidly let slip the time when I might have had everything, everything which my old age denies me now!

SEREBRYAKOV: Look here, George, you seem to blame your former convictions for something
          

SONYA: Enough, papa! It’s dull!

SEREBRYAKOV: Look here! You, as it were, blame your former convictions for something. But it is not they, it’s yourself who is at fault. You forget that convictions without deeds are dead. You ought to have been at work.

VOYNITSKY: Work? Not everyone is capable of being a writing perpeuium mobile.

SEREBRYAKOV: What do you mean to convey by that?

VOYNITSKY: Nothing. Let’s stop the conversation. We aren’t at home.

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: I am completely losing my memory.

. . . I forgot to remind you, Alexander, to take your drops before lunch; I brought them with me, but forgot to remind you.

SEREBRYAKOV: You need not.

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: But you are ill, Alexander! You’re very ill!

SEREBRYAKOV: Why make a fuss about it? Old, ill, old,

ill . . . that’s the only thing I hear! (7o ZHELTOUKHIN)

Leonid Stepanovich, allow me to get up and to go into the house. It is rather hot here and the mosquitoes are biting.

ZHELTOUKHIN: Please do. We’ve finished lunch.

SEREBRYAKOV: Thank you.

(Goes into the house; MARIE VASSILIEVNA follows him.)

JULIE {to her brother): Go to the professor! It’s awkward

!

ZHELTOUKHIN (to her): Damn him!
             
[Goes out.

DYADIN: Yulia Stepanovna, allow me to thank you from the bottom of my soul.
      
(Kissing her hand.)

JULIE: Don’t mention it, Ilya Ilyich! You’ve eaten so little... (The company get up and thank her.) Don’t mention it! You’ve all eaten so little!

FYODOR: What are we going to do now? Let’s now go to the croquet lawn and settle our bet . . . and then?

JULIE: And then we shall have dinner.

FYODOR: And then?

KHROUSCHOV: And then you all come to me. In the evening we’ll arrange a fishing party on the lake.

FYODOR: Splendid!

DYADIN: That is fascinating!

SONYA: Well, it is settled then. It means we are going now to the croquet lawn to settle our bet... Then Julie will give us an early dinner, and about seven we’ll drive over to the Wood
                         
I mean to M. Khrouschov. Splendid!

Come, Julie, let’s get the balls.

(Goes with JULIE into the house.)

FYODOR: Vassili, carry the wine to the lawn! We will drink the health of the conquerors. Now, pater, come and let’s have a noble game.

ORLOVSKY: Wait awhile, my own, I must sit with the professor for a few minutes, for it’s a bit awkward. One must keep up appearances. You play my ball for a while,

I’ll come presently. . . .
        
(Goes into the house.)

DYADIN: I am going to listen to the most learned Alexander Vladimirovich. In anticipation of the high delight, which
     

VOYNITSKY: You’re a bore, Waffle! Go away!

DYADIN: I am going.
        
(Goes into the house.)

FYODOR (walking into the garden, singing): “Thou wilt be the queen of the universe, thou my dearest.” . . .

[Goes out.

KHROUSCHOV: I’ll leave quietly. (To VOYNITSKY) George Petrovich, I earnestly ask you, let us never talk either of forests,

or of medicine. I don’t know why, but when you start discussing

these matters, I have a feeling all day afterwards as if I had eaten my dinner out of rusty pots. Allow me!

[Goes out.

SCENE VIII

ELENA ANDREYEVNA AND VOYNITSKY

VOYNITSKY: The narrow-minded fellow! Everyone is permitted to say stupid things, but I dislike it when it is done with pathos.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: You have again behaved impossibly,

George! Why need you have argued with Marie Vassilievna and Alexander, and spoken about perpetuum mobile? How petty it is!

VOYNITSKY: But if I hate him?

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: There’s nothing to hate Alexander for; he’s like all the rest. . . .

(SONYA and JULIE pass into the garden with croquet balls and mallets.)

VOYNITSKY: If you could see the expression on your face,

your movements! . . . You’re too lazy to live! Oh, what laziness!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Oh, lazy, boring! (After a pause.)

Everyone scoffs at my husband before my eyes, without minding my presence. Everyone looks at me with compassion

: “ Poor woman, she has an old husband! “ All,

even very kind people, would like me to leave Alexander.

. . . That sympathy, all those compassionate glances and sighs of pity come simply to this. As the Wood Demon has just said, all of you nonsensically destroy forests, and soon none will be left on the earth. Just as nonsensically do you all destroy man, and soon, thanks to you, there will remain on earth neither faithfulness, nor purity, nor the capacity for self-sacrifice. Why can’t you look unconcernedly at a faithful wife, if she’s not yours? The Wood Demon is right. There’s lurking in all of you a demon of destruction. You spare neither forests, nor birds, nor women, nor one another.

VOYNITSKY: I don’t love this philosophy!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Tell that Fyodor that his impudence bores me. It’s loathsome in the end. To look into my eyes and to speak aloud in the presence of all about his love for a married woman — how wonderfully witty!

VOICES IN THE GARDEN: Bravo! Bravo!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: But how nice the Wood Demon is!

He often comes to us, but I’m shy and have never talked to him, as I should have liked to; I did not make a friend of him. He may think that I am ill-natured or proud. George,

probably you and I are such good friends because we both are dull and boring people! Bores! Don’t look at me like that, I don’t like it.

VOYNITSKY: But how else can I look at you, if I love you? You are my happiness, my life, my youth! . . . I know that the chances of your returning my love are nil, but I want nothing more, only allow me to look at you, to hear your voice. . . .

SCENE IX

THE SAME AND SEREBRYAKOV

SEREBRYAKOV (at the window): Elena dear, where are you?

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: I’m here.

SEREBRYAKOV: Come and sit with us awhile, dear. . . .

(Disappears, ELENA ANDREYEVNA goes into the house.)

VOYNITSKY (following her): Allow me to speak of my love,

don’t drive me away, and this alone will be my greatest happiness.

CURTAIN