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THE SAME, VOYNITSKY, AND THEN ELENA ANDREYEVNA

VOYNITSKY: You wanted me?

SEREBRYAKOV: Yes, George.

VOYNITSKY: What is it you want?

SEREBRYAKOV: Now … why are you cross? (A pause.) If I am in the wrong, excuse me, please… .

VOYNITSKY: Drop that tone… Let’s come to business.… What is it you want?

Enter ELENA ANDREYEVNA.

SEREBRYAKOV: Here’s Lenochka, too. … Sit down, ladies and gentlemen. (A pause.) I have summoned you here, gentlemen, to announce that the inspector-general is about to arrive… But no more joking. It is a serious matter. I have invited you here, gentlemen, in order to ask your help and advice, and knowing your unfailing kindness, I hope you will grant me them. I am a scholar, a bookish man, and I have always been a stranger to practical life. Dispense with the advice of well-informed people I cannot, and I beg you, Ivan Ivanych, and you, Leonid Stepanych, and you, George.… The point of the matter is manet omnes una nox, that is, we are all in God’s hands. I am old, ill, and therefore I consider it opportune to settle my financial affairs in so far as they concern my family. My life is over, I am not thinking of myself; but I have a young wife, and a young daughter. To continue living in the country is impossible for them.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA ‘. It’s all the same to me.

SEREBRYAKOV: We are not made for the country. But to live in town on the income we receive from this estate is impossible. The day before yesterday I sold part of a wood for timber for four thousand roubles; but that is an extraordinary measure, of which one cannot avail oneself every year. Such measures have to be taken as will guarantee us a constant, more or less fixed amount of income. I’ve thought out such a measure, and I have the honour to submit it for your consideration. Without entering into details, I will submit it in its general lines. Our estate yields us an average interest of two per cent. I propose to sell the estate. If we invest the money thus realized in interest-bearing securities, we shall get from four to five per cent. I think there might even be left a surplus of a few thousand roubles, which would allow us to buy a small bungalow in Finland… .

VOYNITSKY: Wait a moment, I fancy my hearing is playing me false… Repeat what you’ve just said… .

SEREBRYAKOV: To invest the money in interest-bearing securities and to buy a bungalow in Finland… .

VOYNITSKY: Not Finland… You said something else… .

SEREBRYAKOV: I propose to sell the estate.

VOYNITSKY: Yes, that’s it… You’ll sell the estate… . Admirable — a grand idea! … And what’s to happen to me and mother?

SEREBRYAKOV: We will consider all this in its turn… . Not everything at once… .

VOYNITSKY: Wait a moment… Evidently, up till now I had not a grain of common sense. Up till now I was stupid enough to think that the estate belonged to Sonya. My late father bought this estate and settled it on my sister. Up till now I was naive, I understood the law in no Turkish fashion, and I thought that the estate devolved from my sister to Sonya.

SEREBRYAKOV: Yes, the estate belongs to Sonya. Who disputes it? Without Sonya’s consent I shan’t undertake to sell it. Besides, I’m doing it for Sonya’s benefit.

VOYNITSKY: Inconceivable! Inconceivable! Either I’ve gone out of my mind, or … or …

MARIE VASSILIEVNA: George, don’t contradict the professor! He knows better than we do what’s right and what’s wrong.

VOYNITSKY: Give me some water… (Drinking.) Go on with it! Go on!

SEREBRYAKOV: I can’t understand why you are so agitated, George! I don’t say that my plan is ideal. If all of you find it unsound, I shan’t insist.

Enter DYADIN, wearing a frockcoat, white gloves, and a broad-brimmed top-hat.