Читать книгу THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ANTON CHEKHOV - Anton Chekhov - Страница 137
SCENE VII
ОглавлениеTHE SAME, JULIE, DYADIN, ZHELTOUKHIN, AND THEN SEREBRYAKOV AND ORLOVSKY
SEREBRYAKOV’S VOICE: Hallo! Where are you all?
SONYA (crying out): We’re here, papa!
DYADIN: They’re bringing the samovar! That is fascinating! (He and JULIE arrange things on the table.)
Enter SEREBRYAKOV and ORLOVSKY.
SONYA: Here, papa!
SEREBRYAKOV: I see, I see! …
ZHELTOUKHIN (aloud): Gentlemen, I declare the sitting open! Waffle, uncork the liqueur.
KHROUSCHOV (to SEREBRYAKOV): Professor, let us forget what has occurred between us! (Holding out his hands) I beg you to forgive me… .
SEREBRYAKOV: I thank you. I am very glad. You too must forgive me. When the next day after that incident I tried to think over all that had taken place and recalled our conversation, I felt very upset… Let us be friends.
(Taking his arm and going to the table.)
ORLOVSKY: You should have done this long ago, dear soul.A bad peace is better than a good quarrel.
DYADIN: Your Excellency, I am delighted that it pleased you to honour my oasis. Inexpressibly delighted!
SEREBRYAKOV: Thank you, my dear sir. Indeed, it is a fine place. A real oasis!
ORLOVSKY: And do you, Alexander, love nature?
SEREBRYAKOV: Very much. (A pause.) Gentlemen, let us not keep silent, let us talk. In our position that is the best thing to do. One must look misfortune straight and boldly in the face. I am more cheerful than any of you, and for this reason, that I am the most unhappy.
JULIE: I shan’t add any sugar; have your tea with jam.
DYADIN (bustling about among the company): How glad, how very glad I am!
SEREBRYAKOV: Latterly, Mikhail Lvovich, I have gone through such a great deal and thought over things so much that I believe I could write a treatise, for the edification of posterity, on how to live. Live an age and learn an age, but it is misfortunes that teach us.
DYADIN: He who remembers the evil past, should lose an eye. God is merciful; all will end well, (SONYA starts.)
ZHELTOUKHIN I What made you start?
SONYA: I heard a cry.
DYADIN: It’s the peasants on the river catching crayfish.
(Pause.)
ZHELTOUKHIN: Didn’t we agree to spend the evening as if nothing had happened? … And yet … there’s some kind of tension… .
DYADIN: Your Excellency, I cherish towards science feelings not only of reverence, but even of blood relationship. My brother’s wife’s brother — you may perhaps have heard his name, Konstantin Gavrilych Novossyolov — was a master of foreign literature.
SEREBRYAKOV: I didn’t know him personally, but I know the name. (A pause.)
JULIE: Tomorrow it will be exactly fifteen days since George died.
KHROUSCHOV: Julie dear, don’t let us talk about it.
SEREBRYAKOV: Courage! Courage! (A pause.)
ZHELTOUKHIN: There is still some kind of tension… .
SEREBRYAKOV: Nature abhors a vacuum. She has deprived me of two intimate relations and, in order to fill up the gap, she has soon given me new friends. I drink your health, Leonid Stepanovich!
ZHELTOUKHIN: I thank you, dear Alexander Vladimirovich! Allow me in my turn to drink to your fruitful scientific activity.
“Sow the seeds of wisdom, of goodness, of eternity! Sow the seeds! The Russian folk will give you their hearty gratitude!”
SEREBRYAKOV: I value the compliment you pay me. I wish from my heart that the time may soon come when out friendly relations shall have grown into more intimate ones.
ENTER FYODOR.
