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[The room shared by OLGA and IRINA. Beds, screened off, on the right and left. It is past 2 a.m. Behind the stage a fire-alarm is ringing; it has apparently been going for some time. Nobody in the house has gone to bed yet. MASHA is lying on a sofa dressed, as usual, in black. Enter OLGA and ANFISA.]

ANFISA. Now they are downstairs, sitting under the stairs. I said to them, “Won’t you come up,” I said, “You can’t go on like this,” and they simply cried, “We don’t know where father is.” They said, “He may be burnt up by now.” What an idea! And in the yard there are some people… also undressed.

OLGA. [Takes a dress out of the cupboard] Take this grey dress…. And this… and the blouse as well…. Take the skirt, too, nurse…. My God! How awful it is! The whole of the Kirsanovsky Road seems to have burned down. Take this… and this…. [Throws clothes into her hands] The poor Vershinins are so frightened…. Their house was nearly burnt. They ought to come here for the night…. They shouldn’t be allowed to go home…. Poor Fedotik is completely burnt out, there’s nothing left….

ANFISA. Couldn’t you call Ferapont, Olga dear. I can hardly manage….

OLGA. [Rings] They’ll never answer…. [At the door] Come here, whoever there is! [Through the open door can be seen a window, red with flame: afire-engine is heard passing the house] How awful this is. And how I’m sick of it! [FERAPONT enters] Take these things down…. The Kolotilin girls are down below… and let them have them. This, too.

FERAPONT. Yes’m. In the year twelve Moscow was burning too. Oh, my God! The Frenchmen were surprised.

OLGA. Go on, go on….

FERAPONT. Yes’m. [Exit.]

OLGA. Nurse, dear, let them have everything. We don’t want anything. Give it all to them, nurse…. I’m tired, I can hardly keep on my legs…. The Vershinins mustn’t be allowed to go home…. The girls can sleep in the drawing-room, and Alexander Ignateyevitch can go downstairs to the Baron’s flat… Fedotik can go there, too, or else into our dining-room…. The doctor is drunk, beastly drunk, as if on purpose, so nobody can go to him. Vershinin’s wife, too, may go into the drawing-room.

ANFISA. [Tired] Olga, dear girl, don’t dismiss me! Don’t dismiss me!

OLGA. You’re talking nonsense, nurse. Nobody is dismissing you.

ANFISA. [Puts OLGA’S head against her bosom] My dear, precious girl, I’m working, I’m toiling away… I’m growing weak, and they’ll all say go away! And where shall I go? Where? I’m eighty. Eighty-one years old….

OLGA. You sit down, nurse dear…. You’re tired, poor dear…. [Makes her sit down] Rest, dear. You’re so pale!

[NATASHA comes in.]

NATASHA. They are saying that a committee to assist the sufferers from the fire must be formed at once. What do you think of that? It’s a beautiful idea. Of course the poor ought to be helped, it’s the duty of the rich. Bobby and little Sophy are sleeping, sleeping as if nothing at all was the matter. There’s such a lot of people here, the place is full of them, wherever you go. There’s influenza in the town now. I’m afraid the children may catch it.

OLGA. [Not attending] In this room we can’t see the fire, it’s quiet here.

NATASHA. Yes… I suppose I’m all untidy. [Before the looking-glass] They say I’m growing stout… it isn’t true! Certainly it isn’t! Masha’s asleep; the poor thing is tired out…. [Coldly, to ANFISA] Don’t dare to be seated in my presence! Get up! Out of this! [Exit ANFISA; a pause] I don’t understand what makes you keep on that old woman!

OLGA. [Confusedly] Excuse me, I don’t understand either…

NATASHA. She’s no good here. She comes from the country, she ought to live there…. Spoiling her, I call it! I like order in the house! We don’t want any unnecessary people here. [Strokes her cheek] You’re tired, poor thing! Our head mistress is tired! And when my little Sophie grows up and goes to school I shall be so afraid of you.

OLGA. I shan’t be head mistress.

NATASHA. They’ll appoint you, Olga. It’s settled.

OLGA. I’ll refuse the post. I can’t… I’m not strong enough…. [Drinks water] You were so rude to nurse just now… I’m sorry. I can’t stand it… everything seems dark in front of me….

NATASHA. [Excited] Forgive me, Olga, forgive me… I didn’t want to annoy you.

[MASHA gets up, takes a pillow and goes out angrily.]

OLGA. Remember, dear… we have been brought up, in an unusual way, perhaps, but I can’t bear this. Such behaviour has a bad effect on me, I get ill… I simply lose heart!

NATASHA. Forgive me, forgive me…. [Kisses her.]

OLGA. Even the least bit of rudeness, the slightest impoliteness, upsets me.

NATASHA. I often say too much, it’s true, but you must agree, dear, that she could just as well live in the country.

OLGA. She has been with us for thirty years.

NATASHA. But she can’t do any work now. Either I don’t understand, or you don’t want to understand me. She’s no good for work, she can only sleep or sit about.

OLGA. And let her sit about.

NATASHA. [Surprised] What do you mean? She’s only a servant. [Crying] I don’t understand you, Olga. I’ve got a nurse, a wet-nurse, we’ve a cook, a housemaid… what do we want that old woman for as well? What good is she? [Fire-alarm behind the stage.]

OLGA. I’ve grown ten years older tonight.

NATASHA. We must come to an agreement, Olga. Your place is the school, mine — the home. You devote yourself to teaching, I, to the household. And if I talk about servants, then I do know what I am talking about; I do know what I am talking about… And tomorrow there’s to be no more of that old thief, that old hag… [Stamping] that witch! And don’t you dare to annoy me! Don’t you dare! [Stopping short] Really, if you don’t move downstairs, we shall always be quarrelling. This is awful.

[Enter KULIGIN.]

KULIGIN. Where’s Masha? It’s time we went home. The fire seems to be going down. [Stretches himself] Only one block has burnt down, but there was such a wind that it seemed at first the whole town was going to burn. [Sits] I’m tired out. My dear Olga… I often think that if it hadn’t been for Masha, I should have married you. You are awfully nice…. I am absolutely tired out. [Listens.]

OLGA. What is it?

KULIGIN. The doctor, of course, has been drinking hard; he’s terribly drunk. He might have done it on purpose! [Gets up] He seems to be coming here…. Do you hear him? Yes, here…. [Laughs] What a man… really… I’ll hide myself. [Goes to the cupboard and stands in the corner] What a rogue.

OLGA. He hadn’t touched a drop for two years, and now he suddenly goes and gets drunk….

[Retires with NATASHA to the back of the room. CHEBUTIKIN enters; apparently sober, he stops, looks round, then goes to the washstand and begins to wash his hands.]

CHEBUTIKIN. [Angrily] Devil take them all… take them all…. They think I’m a doctor and can cure everything, and I know absolutely nothing, I’ve forgotten all I ever knew, I remember nothing, absolutely nothing. [OLGA and NATASHA go out, unnoticed by him] Devil take it. Last Wednesday I attended a woman in Zasip — and she died, and it’s my fault that she died. Yes… I used to know a certain amount five-and-twenty years ago, but I don’t remember anything now. Nothing. Perhaps I’m not really a man, and am only pretending that I’ve got arms and legs and a head; perhaps I don’t exist at all, and only imagine that I walk, and eat, and sleep. [Cries] Oh, if only I didn’t exist! [Stops crying; angrily] The devil only knows…. Day before yesterday they were talking in the club; they said, Shakespeare, Voltaire… I’d never read, never read at all, and I put on an expression as if I had read. And so did the others. Oh, how beastly! How petty! And then I remembered the woman I killed on Wednesday… and I couldn’t get her out of my mind, and everything in my mind became crooked, nasty, wretched…. So I went and drank….

[IRINA, VERSHININ and TUZENBACH enter; TUZENBACH is wearing new and fashionable civilian clothes.]

IRINA. Let’s sit down here. Nobody will come in here.

VERSHININ. The whole town would have been destroyed if it hadn’t been for the soldiers. Good men! [Rubs his hands appreciatively] Splendid people! Oh, what a fine lot!

KULIGIN. [Coming up to him] What’s the time?

TUZENBACH. It’s past three now. It’s dawning.

IRINA. They are all sitting in the dining-room, nobody is going. And that Soleni of yours is sitting there. [To CHEBUTIKIN] Hadn’t you better be going to sleep, doctor?

CHEBUTIKIN. It’s all right… thank you…. [Combs his beard.]

KULIGIN. [Laughs] Speaking’s a bit difficult, eh, Ivan Romanovitch! [Pats him on the shoulder] Good man! In vino veritas, the ancients used to say.

TUZENBACH. They keep on asking me to get up a concert in aid of the sufferers.

IRINA. As if one could do anything….

TUZENBACH. It might be arranged, if necessary. In my opinion Maria Sergeyevna is an excellent pianist.

KULIGIN. Yes, excellent!

IRINA. She’s forgotten everything. She hasn’t played for three years… or four.

TUZENBACH. In this town absolutely nobody understands music, not a soul except myself, but I do understand it, and assure you on my word of honour that Maria Sergeyevna plays excellently, almost with genius.

KULIGIN. You are right, Baron, I’m awfully fond of Masha. She’s very fine.

TUZENBACH. To be able to play so admirably and to realize at the same time that nobody, nobody can understand you!

KULIGIN. [Sighs] Yes…. But will it be quite all right for her to take part in a concert? [Pause] You see, I don’t know anything about it. Perhaps it will even be all to the good. Although I must admit that our Director is a good man, a very good man even, a very clever man, still he has such views…. Of course it isn’t his business but still, if you wish it, perhaps I’d better talk to him.

[CHEBUTIKIN takes a porcelain clock into his hands and examines it.]

VERSHININ. I got so dirty while the fire was on, I don’t look like anybody on earth. [Pause] Yesterday I happened to hear, casually, that they want to transfer our brigade to some distant place. Some said to Poland, others, to Chita.

TUZENBACH. I heard so, too. Well, if it is so, the town will be quite empty.

IRINA. And we’ll go away, too!

CHEBUTIKIN. [Drops the clock which breaks to pieces] To smithereens!

[A pause; everybody is pained and confused.]

KULIGIN. [Gathering up the pieces] To smash such a valuable object — oh, Ivan Romanovitch, Ivan Romanovitch! A very bad mark for your misbehaviour!

IRINA. That clock used to belong to our mother.

CHEBUTIKIN. Perhaps…. To your mother, your mother. Perhaps I didn’t break it; it only looks as if I broke it. Perhaps we only think that we exist, when really we don’t. I don’t know anything, nobody knows anything. [At the door] What are you looking at? Natasha has a little romance with Protopopov, and you don’t see it…. There you sit and see nothing, and Natasha has a little romance with Protopovov…. [Sings] Won’t you please accept this date…. [Exit.]

VERSHININ. Yes. [Laughs] How strange everything really is! [Pause] When the fire broke out, I hurried off home; when I get there I see the house is whole, uninjured, and in no danger, but my two girls are standing by the door in just their underclothes, their mother isn’t there, the crowd is excited, horses and dogs are running about, and the girls’ faces are so agitated, terrified, beseeching, and I don’t know what else. My heart was pained when I saw those faces. My God, I thought, what these girls will have to put up with if they live long! I caught them up and ran, and still kept on thinking the one thing: what they will have to live through in this world! [Fire-alarm; a pause] I come here and find their mother shouting and angry. [MASHA enters with a pillow and sits on the sofa] And when my girls were standing by the door in just their underclothes, and the street was red from the fire, there was a dreadful noise, and I thought that something of the sort used to happen many years ago when an enemy made a sudden attack, and looted, and burned…. And at the same time what a difference there really is between the present and the past! And when a little more time has gone by, in two or three hundred years perhaps, people will look at our present life with just the same fear, and the same contempt, and the whole past will seem clumsy and dull, and very uncomfortable, and strange. Oh, indeed, what a life there will be, what a life! [Laughs] Forgive me, I’ve dropped into philosophy again. Please let me continue. I do awfully want to philosophize, it’s just how I feel at present. [Pause] As if they are all asleep. As I was saying: what a life there will be! Only just imagine…. There are only three persons like yourselves in the town just now, but in future generations there will be more and more, and still more, and the time will come when everything will change and become as you would have it, people will live as you do, and then you too will go out of date; people will be born who are better than you…. [Laughs] Yes, to-day I am quite exceptionally in the vein. I am devilishly keen on living…. [Sings.]

“The power of love all ages know,

From its assaults great good does grow.” [Laughs.]

MASHA. Trum-tum-tum…

VERSHININ. Tum-tum…

MASHA. Tra-ra-ra?

VERSHININ. Tra-ta-ta. [Laughs.]

[Enter FEDOTIK.]

FEDOTIK. [Dancing] I’m burnt out, I’m burnt out! Down to the ground! [Laughter.]

IRINA. I don’t see anything funny about it. Is everything burnt?

FEDOTIK. [Laughs] Absolutely. Nothing left at all. The guitar’s burnt, and the photographs are burnt, and all my correspondence…. And I was going to make you a present of a notebook, and that’s burnt too.

[SOLENI comes in.]

IRINA. No, you can’t come here, Vassili Vassilevitch. Please go away.

SOLENI. Why can the Baron come here and I can’t?

VERSHININ. We really must go. How’s the fire?

SOLENI. They say it’s going down. No, I absolutely don’t see why the Baron can, and I can’t? [Scents his hands.]

VERSHININ. Trum-tum-tum.

MASHA. Trum-tum.

VERSHININ. [Laughs to SOLENI] Let’s go into the dining-room.

SOLENI. Very well, we’ll make a note of it. “If I should try to make this clear, the geese would be annoyed, I fear.” [Looks at TUZENBACH] There, there, there…. [Goes out with VERSHININ and FEDOTIK.]

IRINA. How Soleni smelt of tobacco…. [In surprise] The Baron’s asleep! Baron! Baron!

TUZENBACH. [Waking] I am tired, I must say…. The brickworks…. No, I’m not wandering, I mean it; I’m going to start work soon at the brickworks… I’ve already talked it over. [Tenderly, to IRINA] You’re so pale, and beautiful, and charming…. Your paleness seems to shine through the dark air as if it was a light…. You are sad, displeased with life…. Oh, come with me, let’s go and work together!

MASHA. Nicolai Lvovitch, go away from here.

TUZENBACH. [Laughs] Are you here? I didn’t see you. [Kisses IRINA’S hand] goodbye, I’ll go… I look at you now and I remember, as if it was long ago, your nameday, when you, cheerfully and merrily, were talking about the joys of labour…. And how happy life seemed to me, then! What has happened to it now? [Kisses her hand] There are tears in your eyes. Go to bed now; it is already day… the morning begins…. If only I was allowed to give my life for you!

MASHA. Nicolai Lvovitch, go away! What business…

TUZENBACH. I’m off. [Exit.]

MASHA. [Lies down] Are you asleep, Feodor?

KULIGIN. Eh?

MASHA. Shouldn’t you go home.

KULIGIN. My dear Masha, my darling Masha….

IRINA. She’s tired out. You might let her rest, Fedia.

KULIGIN. I’ll go at once. My wife’s a good, splendid… I love you, my only one….

MASHA. [Angrily] Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.

KULIGIN. [Laughs] No, she really is wonderful. I’ve been your husband seven years, and it seems as if I was only married yesterday. On my word. No, you really are a wonderful woman. I’m satisfied, I’m satisfied, I’m satisfied!

MASHA. I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m bored…. [Sits up] But I can’t get it out of my head…. It’s simply disgraceful. It has been gnawing away at me… I can’t keep silent. I mean about Andrey…. He has mortgaged this house with the bank, and his wife has got all the money; but the house doesn’t belong to him alone, but to the four of us! He ought to know that, if he’s an honourable man.

KULIGIN. What’s the use, Masha? Andrey is in debt all round; well, let him do as he pleases.

MASHA. It’s disgraceful, anyway. [Lies down]

KULIGIN. You and I are not poor. I work, take my classes, give private lessons… I am a plain, honest man… Omnia mea mecum porto, as they say.

MASHA. I don’t want anything, but the unfairness of it disgusts me. [Pause] You go, Feodor.

KULIGIN. [Kisses her] You’re tired, just rest for half an hour, and I’ll sit and wait for you. Sleep…. [Going] I’m satisfied, I’m satisfied, I’m satisfied. [Exit.]

IRINA. Yes, really, our Andrey has grown smaller; how he’s snuffed out and aged with that woman! He used to want to be a professor, and yesterday he was boasting that at last he had been made a member of the district council. He is a member, and Protopopov is chairman…. The whole town talks and laughs about it, and he alone knows and sees nothing…. And now everybody’s gone to look at the fire, but he sits alone in his room and pays no attention, only just plays on his fiddle. [Nervily] Oh, it’s awful, awful, awful. [Weeps] I can’t, I can’t bear it any longer!… I can’t, I can’t!… [OLGA comes in and clears up at her little table. IRINA is sobbing loudly] Throw me out, throw me out, I can’t bear any more!

OLGA. [Alarmed] What is it, what is it? Dear!

IRINA. [Sobbing] Where? Where has everything gone? Where is it all? Oh my God, my God! I’ve forgotten everything, everything… I don’t remember what is the Italian for window or, well, for ceiling… I forget everything, every day I forget it, and life passes and will never return, and we’ll never go away to Moscow… I see that we’ll never go….

OLGA. Dear, dear….

IRINA. [Controlling herself] Oh, I am unhappy… I can’t work, I shan’t work. Enough, enough! I used to be a telegraphist, now I work at the town council offices, and I have nothing but hate and contempt for all they give me to do… I am already twenty-three, I have already been at work for a long while, and my brain has dried up, and I’ve grown thinner, plainer, older, and there is no relief of any sort, and time goes and it seems all the while as if I am going away from the real, the beautiful life, farther and farther away, down some precipice. I’m in despair and I can’t understand how it is that I am still alive, that I haven’t killed myself.

OLGA. Don’t cry, dear girl, don’t cry… I suffer, too.

IRINA. I’m not crying, not crying…. Enough…. Look, I’m not crying any more. Enough… enough!

OLGA. Dear, I tell you as a sister and a friend if you want my advice, marry the Baron. [IRINA cries softly] You respect him, you think highly of him…. It is true that he is not handsome, but he is so honourable and clean… people don’t marry from love, but in order to do one’s duty. I think so, at any rate, and I’d marry without being in love. Whoever he was, I should marry him, so long as he was a decent man. Even if he was old….

IRINA. I was always waiting until we should be settled in Moscow, there I should meet my true love; I used to think about him, and love him…. But it’s all turned out to be nonsense, all nonsense….

OLGA. [Embraces her sister] My dear, beautiful sister, I understand everything; when Baron Nicolai Lvovitch left the army and came to us in evening dress, [Note: I.e. in the correct dress for making a proposal of marriage.] he seemed so bad-looking to me that I even started crying…. He asked, “What are you crying for?” How could I tell him! But if God brought him to marry you, I should be happy. That would be different, quite different.

[NATASHA with a candle walks across the stage from right to left without saying anything.]

MASHA. [Sitting up] She walks as if she’s set something on fire.

OLGA. Masha, you’re silly, you’re the silliest of the family. Please forgive me for saying so. [Pause.]

MASHA. I want to make a confession, dear sisters. My soul is in pain. I will confess to you, and never again to anybody… I’ll tell you this minute. [Softly] It’s my secret but you must know everything… I can’t be silent…. [Pause] I love, I love… I love that man…. You saw him only just now…. Why don’t I say it… in one word. I love Vershinin.

OLGA. [Goes behind her screen] Stop that, I don’t hear you in any case.

MASHA. What am I to do? [Takes her head in her hands] First he seemed queer to me, then I was sorry for him… then I fell in love with him… fell in love with his voice, his words, his misfortunes, his two daughters.

OLGA. [Behind the screen] I’m not listening. You may talk any nonsense you like, it will be all the same, I shan’t hear.

MASHA. Oh, Olga, you are foolish. I am in love — that means that is to be my fate. It means that is to be my lot…. And he loves me…. It is all awful. Yes; it isn’t good, is it? [Takes IRINA’S hand and draws her to her] Oh, my dear…. How are we going to live through our lives, what is to become of us…. When you read a novel it all seems so old and easy, but when you fall in love yourself, then you learn that nobody knows anything, and each must decide for himself…. My dear ones, my sisters… I’ve confessed, now I shall keep silence…. Like the lunatics in Gogol’s story, I’m going to be silent… silent…

[ANDREY enters, followed by FERAPONT.]

ANDREY. [Angrily] What do you want? I don’t understand.

FERAPONT. [At the door, impatiently] I’ve already told you ten times, Andrey Sergeyevitch.

ANDREY. In the first place I’m not Andrey Sergeyevitch, but sir. [Note: Quite literally, “your high honour,” to correspond to Andrey’s rank as a civil servant.]

FERAPONT. The firemen, sir, ask if they can go across your garden to the river. Else they go right round, right round; it’s a nuisance.

ANDREY. All right. Tell them it’s all right. [Exit FERAPONT] I’m tired of them. Where is Olga? [OLGA comes out from behind the screen] I came to you for the key of the cupboard. I lost my own. You’ve got a little key. [OLGA gives him the key; IRINA goes behind her screen; pause] What a huge fire! It’s going down now. Hang it all, that Ferapont made me so angry that I talked nonsense to him…. Sir, indeed…. [A pause] Why are you so silent, Olga? [Pause] It’s time you stopped all that nonsense and behaved as if you were properly alive…. You are here, Masha. Irina is here, well, since we’re all here, let’s come to a complete understanding, once and for all. What have you against me? What is it?

OLGA. Please don’t, Audrey dear. We’ll talk tomorrow. [Excited] What an awful night!

ANDREY. [Much confused] Don’t excite yourself. I ask you in perfect calmness; what have you against me? Tell me straight.

VERSHININ’S VOICE. Trum-tum-tum!

MASHA. [Stands; loudly] Tra-ta-ta! [To OLGA] Goodbye, Olga, God bless you. [Goes behind screen and kisses IRINA] Sleep well…. Goodbye, Andrey. Go away now, they’re tired… you can explain tomorrow…. [Exit.]

ANDREY. I’ll only say this and go. Just now…. In the first place, you’ve got something against Natasha, my wife; I’ve noticed it since the very day of my marriage. Natasha is a beautiful and honest creature, straight and honourable — that’s my opinion. I love and respect my wife; understand it, I respect her, and I insist that others should respect her too. I repeat, she’s an honest and honourable person, and all your disapproval is simply silly… [Pause] In the second place, you seem to be annoyed because I am not a professor, and am not engaged in study. But I work for the zemstvo, I am a member of the district council, and I consider my service as worthy and as high as the service of science. I am a member of the district council, and I am proud of it, if you want to know. [Pause] In the third place, I have still this to say… that I have mortgaged the house without obtaining your permission…. For that I am to blame, and ask to be forgiven. My debts led me into doing it… thirty-five thousand… I do not play at cards any more, I stopped long ago, but the chief thing I have to say in my defence is that you girls receive a pension, and I don’t… my wages, so to speak…. [Pause.]

KULIGIN. [At the door] Is Masha there? [Excitedly] Where is she? It’s queer…. [Exit.]

ANDREY. They don’t hear. Natasha is a splendid, honest person. [Walks about in silence, then stops] When I married I thought we should be happy… all of us…. But, my God…. [Weeps] My dear, dear sisters, don’t believe me, don’t believe me…. [Exit.]

[Fire-alarm. The stage is clear.]

IRINA. [behind her screen] Olga, who’s knocking on the floor?

OLGA. It’s doctor Ivan Romanovitch. He’s drunk.

IRINA. What a restless night! [Pause] Olga! [Looks out] Did you hear? They are taking the brigade away from us; it’s going to be transferred to some place far away.

OLGA. It’s only a rumour.

IRINA. Then we shall be left alone…. Olga!

OLGA. Well?

IRINA. My dear, darling sister, I esteem, I highly value the Baron, he’s a splendid man; I’ll marry him, I’ll consent, only let’s go to Moscow! I implore you, let’s go! There’s nothing better than Moscow on earth! Let’s go, Olga, let’s go!

Curtain