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SEREBRYAKOV (sitting in a chair in front of the window and dozing) and ELENA ANDREYEVNA (sitting near by and also dozing)

SEREBRYAKOV (awaking): Who’s there! Is it you, Sonya?

HLENA ANDREYEVNA: It’s me… .

SEREBRYAKOV: You, Lena dear? … The pain is excruciating!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Your rug is on the floor… .

(Wrapping it round his legs.) I’ll shut the window, Alexander.

SEREBRYAKOV: No, don’t, I’m hot. … I had just fallen into a doze and dreamed that my left leg did not belong to me. … I awoke with excruciating pain. No, it’s not gout. I think it is rheumatism. What’s the time now?

ELENA ANDREYEVNA I TWENTY PAST ONE, (A PAUSE.)

SEREBRYAKOV: Have a look in the morning, in the library, for Batyushkov. I believe we’ve got his books.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA WHAT?

SEREBRYAKOV: Have a look for Batyushkov. I remember we had his works. But why am I breathing with such difficulty?

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: You’re tired. It’s the second night now you haven’t slept.

SEREBRYAKOV: They say that Turgenev’s gout has developed into angina pectoris. I am afraid that this will happen in my case, too. Cursed, loathsome old age! Curse it! Since I’ve grown old I’ve become disgusting to myself. And to all of you I must present a disgusting spectacle.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: You speak of your old age in such a tone as if we all were to blame for your growing old.

SEREBRYAKOV: You are the first to be disgusted by me.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: How stupid of you!

(Moving away and sitting down at some distance.)

SEREBRYAKOV: Of course, you’re right. I’m not a fool and quite understand. You’re young, healthy, handsome, you’re eager for life; and I am an old man, almost a corpse. Well? Don’t I real-ze it all? And, of course, it is foolish of me to be still alive., But wait a little while, I’ll free you all soon.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Alexander, it’s crushing me! If I deserve any reward for the sleepless nights, I ask only this from you: be quiet! For the love of Christ, be quiet! I ask for nothing else.

SEREBRYAKOV: It comes to this then, that, thanks to me, all of you have become crushed, and are bored and wasting your youth; and I am the only one who is enjoying life and is content. Just so, of course!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA ‘. Be quiet! You’ve worn me out!

SEREBRYAKOV: I have worn out everyone. Of course!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA (crying): It’s unbearable! Tell me what you want from me.

SEREBRYAKOV: Nothing.

ELENA ANDREYEVNA Be quiet, then, I beg.

SEREBRYAKOV: Isn’t it curious, if George or that old idiot Marie Vassilievna starts speaking, it seems all right; everybody listens to them. But if I say a single word, everybody begins to feel distressed. Even my voice is disgusting. Well, let us suppose I am disgusting, I am an egotist, I am a despot; but indeed haven’t I, even in my old age, a certain right to egotism? Haven’t I indeed deserved it? My life has been hard. I and Orlovsky were undergraduates together. Ask him. He had a good time and went about with gipsy women; he was my benefactor; and I at that time lived in a cheap, dirty room. I worked day and night, like an ox. I starved and worried because I lived at someone else’s expense. Then I went to Heidelberg University, but I saw nothing of Heidelberg; I went to Paris, but I saw nothing of Paris — all the time I sat within four walls and worked. And since I became professor, and all through my life, I have served science, as they say, with faith and truth, as I am still serving her. Indeed, for all this, I ask you, have I not the right to a peaceful old age, to some consideration from people?

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Nobody disputes your right. (The window is rattling in the wind.) The wind is getting up; I’ll shut the window. (Shutting it.) It’s going to rain presently, … Nobody disputes your rights.

(A pause. Outside the night watchman knocks and sings a song.)

SEREBRYAKOV: To work all one’s life long for science, to get accustomed to one’s study, to one’s audience, to respected colleagues, and then all of a sudden, without rhyme or reason, to find oneself in this sepulchre, to have to see stupid people, day in and day out to hear trivial conversations! I want to live, I love success, I love popularity, noise; but here I am — in exile. Every minute pining for the past, watching the successes of others, afraid of death! … I cannot! I haven’t the strength! And here some people won’t even forgive me my old age!

ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Wait awhile, have patience: in five or six years’ time I too shall be old.

ENTER SONYA.