I am touched… Certainly, I am touched… . Yes… . [Irresolutely goes out.
ELENA ANDREYEVNA (alone): My head aches… Every night I dream bad dreams and have a presentiment of something terrible… Yet how horrid! The young people were born here and grew up together, they “thou “one another, always kiss one another; they ought to live in peace and harmony; but soon, I think, they will all have devoured one another… The forests are being saved by the Wood Demon, but there’s no one to save human beings.
[She goes towards the left door, but on noticing ZHELTOUKHIN and JULIE coming in by that door, she goes out by the middle door.
SCENE VIII
ZHELTOUKHIN AND JULIE
JULIE: How unlucky we are, you, Lennie, and I, ah, how unlucky!
ZHELTOUKHIN: But who authorized you to speak to her? You self-appointed matchmaker, you minx! You’ve spoilt the whole business for me! She’ll think that I can’t speak for myself, and … how very common! I’ve told you a thousand times that the whole affair must be let alone. Nothing but humiliation and all these hints, vileness, meanness.… The old fellow must have guessed that I’m in love with her, and is already exploiting my feelings! He wants me to buy this estate from him.
JULIE: And how much does he ask for it?
ZHELTOUKHIN: Sh-h! … They’re coming… .
Enter by the left door SEREBRYAKOV, ORLOVSKY, and MARIE
VASSILIEVNA; the latter reading a pamphlet as she comes in.
SCENE IX
THE SAME, SEREBRYAKOV, ORLOVSKY, AND MARIE VASSILIEVNA
ORLOVSKY: I too, old boy, am not quite fit. The last two days my head and my whole body have been aching… .
SEREBRYAKOV: Where are the others? I don’t like this house. It is a labyrinth. Twenty-six huge rooms. They all disperse and you can never find anyone. (Ringing.) Ask George Petrovich and Elena Andreyevna to come here.
ZHELTOUKHIN: Julie, you have nothing to do: go and find George and Elena Andreyevna. [JULIE goes out.
SEREBRYAKOV: One can reconcile oneself to one’s ailments, however hard it may be, but what I can’t stand is this present mood of mine. I have a feeling as though I were already dead, or had fallen off the earth on to a strange planet.
ORLOVSKY: It depends on how you look at it… .
MARIE VASSILIEVNA (reading): Give me a pencil… . There’s a contradiction again! I must mark it.
ORLOVSKY: Here you are, Your Excellency!
(Handing her a pencil and kissing her hand.)
ENTER VOYNITSKY.
SCENE X
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.
SCENE XI
The same and DYADIN
DYADIN: I have the honour to salute you. I apologize for venturing to enter without being announced. I am guilty, but I claim your indulgence, as there was not a single domestic