The Greatest Dramatic Works of Anton Chekhov: 12 Plays in One Edition. Антон Чехов

her face for some time that she could not last much longer.

      LVOFF. Can’t you speak quietly? She can hear everything you say. [A pause.]

      BORKIN. [Sighing] The life of man is like a flower, blooming so gaily in a field. Then, along comes a goat, he eats it, and the flower is gone!

      SHABELSKI. Oh, nonsense, nonsense. [Yawning] Everything is a fraud and a swindle. [A pause.]

      BORKIN. Gentlemen, I have been trying to tell Nicholas how he can make some money, and have submitted a brilliant plan to him, but my seed, as usual, has fallen on barren soil. Look what a sight he is now: dull, cross, bored, peevish ——

      SHABELSKI. [Gets up and stretches himself] You are always inventing schemes for everybody, you clever fellow, and telling them how to live; can’t you tell me something? Give me some good advice, you ingenious young man. Show me a good move to make.

      BORKIN. [Getting up] I am going to have a swim. Goodbye, gentlemen. [To Shabelski] There are at least twenty good moves you could make. If I were you I should have twenty thousand roubles in a week.

      [He goes out; SHABELSKI follows him.]

      SHABELSKI. How would you do it? Come, explain.

      BORKIN. There is nothing to explain, it is so simple. [Coming back] Nicholas, give me a rouble.

      IVANOFF silently hands him the money

      BORKIN. Thanks. Shabelski, you still hold some trump cards.

      SHABELSKI follows him out.

      SHABELSKI. Well, what are they?

      BORKIN. If I were you I should have thirty thousand roubles and more in a week. [They go out together.]

      IVANOFF. [After a pause] Useless people, useless talk, and the necessity of answering stupid questions, have wearied me so, doctor, that I am ill. I have become so irritable and bitter that I don’t know myself. My head aches for days at a time. I hear a ringing in my ears, I can’t sleep, and yet there is no escape from it all, absolutely none.

      LVOFF. Ivanoff, I have something serious to speak to you about.

      IVANOFF. What is it?

      LVOFF. It is about your wife. She refuses to go to the Crimea alone, but she would go with you.

      IVANOFF. [Thoughtfully] It would cost a great deal for us both to go, and besides, I could not get leave to be away for so long. I have had one holiday already this year.

      LVOFF. Very well, let us admit that. Now to proceed. The best cure for consumption is absolute peace of mind, and your wife has none whatever. She is forever excited by your behaviour to her. Forgive me, I am excited and am going to speak frankly. Your treatment of her is killing her. [A pause] Ivanoff, let me believe better things of you.

      IVANOFF. What you say is true, true. I must be terribly guilty, but my mind is confused. My will seems to be paralysed by a kind of stupor; I can’t understand myself or any one else. [Looks toward the window] Come, let us take a walk, we might be overheard here. [They get up] My dear friend, you should hear the whole story from the beginning if it were not so long and complicated that to tell it would take all night. [They walk up and down] Anna is a splendid, an exceptional woman. She has left her faith, her parents and her fortune for my sake. If I should demand a hundred other sacrifices, she would consent to every one without the quiver of an eyelid. Well, I am not a remarkable man in any way, and have sacrificed nothing. However, the story is a long one. In short, the whole point is, my dear doctor — [Confused] that I married her for love and promised to love her forever, and now after five years she loves me still and I — [He waves his hand] Now, when you tell me she is dying, I feel neither love nor pity, only a sort of loneliness and weariness. To all appearances this must seem horrible, and I cannot understand myself what is happening to me. [They go out.]

      SHABELSKI comes in.

      SHABELSKI. [Laughing] Upon my word, that man is no scoundrel, but a great thinker, a master-mind. He deserves a memorial. He is the essence of modern ingenuity, and combines in himself alone the genius of the lawyer, the doctor, and the financier. [He sits down on the lowest step of the terrace] And yet he has never finished a course of studies in any college; that is so surprising. What an ideal scoundrel he would have made if he had acquired a little culture and mastered the sciences! “You could make twenty thousand roubles in a week,” he said. “You still hold the ace of trumps: it is your title.” [Laughing] He said I might get a rich girl to marry me for it! [ANNA opens the window and looks down] “Let me make a match between you and Martha,” says he. Who is this Martha? It must be that Balabalkina — Babakalkina woman, the one that looks like a laundress.

      ANNA. Is that you, Count?

      SHABELSKI. What do you want?

      ANNA laughs.

      SHABELSKI. [With a Jewish accent] Vy do you laugh?

      ANNA. I was thinking of something you said at dinner, do you remember? How was it — a forgiven thief, a doctored horse.

      SHABELSKI. A forgiven thief, a doctored horse, and a Christianised Jew are all worth the same price.

      ANNA. [Laughing] You can’t even repeat the simplest saying without ill-nature. You are a most malicious old man. [Seriously] Seriously, Count you are extremely disagreeable, and very tiresome and painful to live with. You are always grumbling and growling, and everybody to you is a blackguard and a scoundrel. Tell me honestly, Count, have you ever spoken well of any one?

      SHABELSKI. Is this an inquisition?

      ANNA. We have lived under this same roof now for five years, and I have never heard you speak kindly of people, or without bitterness and derision. What harm has the world done to you? Is it possible that you consider yourself better than any one else?

      SHABELSKI. Not at all. I think we are all of us scoundrels and hypocrites. I myself am a degraded old man, and as useless as a cast-off shoe. I abuse myself as much as any one else. I was rich once, and free, and happy at times, but now I am a dependent, an object of charity, a joke to the world. When I am at last exasperated and defy them, they answer me with a laugh. When I laugh, they shake their heads sadly and say, “The old man has gone mad.” But oftenest of all I am unheard and unnoticed by every one.

      ANNA. [Quietly] Screaming again.

      SHABELSKI. Who is screaming?

      ANNA. The owl. It screams every evening.

      SHABELSKI. Let it scream. Things are as bad as they can be already. [Stretches himself] Alas, my dear Sarah! If I could only win a thousand or two roubles, I should soon show you what I could do. I wish you could see me! I should get away out of this hole, and leave the bread of charity, and should not show my nose here again until the last judgment day.

      ANNA. What would you do if you were to win so much money?

      SHABELSKI. [Thoughtfully] First I would go to Moscow to hear the Gipsies play, and then — then I should fly to Paris and take an apartment and go to the Russian Church.

      ANNA. And what else?

      SHABELSKI. I would go and sit on my wife’s grave for days and days and think. I would sit there until I died. My wife is buried in Paris. [A pause.]

      ANNA. How terribly dull this is! Shall we play a duet?

      SHABELSKI. As you like. Go and get the music ready. [ANNA goes out.]

      IVANOFF and LVOFF appear in one of the paths.

      IVANOFF. My dear friend, you left college last year, and you are still young and brave. Being thirty-five years old I have the right to advise you. Don’t marry a Jewess or a bluestocking or a woman who is queer in any way. Choose some nice, commonplace girl without any strange and startling points in her character. Plan your life for quiet; the greyer and more monotonous you can make the background, the better. My dear boy, do not try to fight alone against thousands; do not tilt with windmills; do not dash yourself against the rocks. And, above all, may you be spared the so-called rational life, all wild theories and impassioned