CHARACTERS
ALEXANDER VLADIMIROVICH SEREBRYAKOV (A RETIRED PROFESSOR)
ELENA ANDREYEVNA (his wife, aged twenty-seven)
SOPHIE ALEXANDROVNA (SONYA) (the professor’s daughter, by his first marriage, aged twenty)
MARIE VASSILIEVNA VOYNITSKY (widow of a privy councillor, the mother of the professor’s first wife)
GEORGE PETROVICH VOYNITSKY (her son)
LEONID STEPANOVICH ZHELTOUKHIN (a wealthy young man who has studied technology at the university)
YULIA STEPANOVNA (JULIE) (his sister, aged eighteen)
IVAN IVANOVICH ORLOVSKY (a landowner)
FYODOR IVANOVICH ORLOVSKY (his son)
MIKHAIL LVOVICH KHROUSCHOV (the Wood Demon) (a landowner who holds the degree of doctor of medicine)
ILYA ILYICH DYADIN
VASSILI (ZHELTOUKHIN’S manservant)
SEMYON (a labourer employed at DYADIN’S flour mill)
ACT I
The garden of ZHELTOUKHIN’S estate. The manor house with a terrace; in front of the house, on a platform, there are two tables; the large table is set for lunch; on the smaller table are placed zakouski (hors-d’oeuvres). Time: A little after two o’clock.
SCENE I
ZHELTOUKHIN and JULIE come out of the house
JULIE: You’d better put on your grey suit. This one does not become you.
ZHELTOUKHIN: It doesn’t matter. Nonsense.
JULIE: Lennie dear, why are you so dull? How can you be like that on your birthday? You are naughty! …
(Laying her head on his chest.)
ZHELTOUKHIN:’ No sentiment, please!
JULIE (through tears): Lennie!
ZHELTOUKHIN: Instead of all these sour kisses, all these loving glances, and little shoes as watch-stands, which are no damned use to me, you’d better do what I ask you to do! Why didn’t you write to the Serebryakovs?
JULIE: Lennie, but I did write!
ZHELTOUKHIN: Whom did you write to?
JULIE: I wrote to Sonya. I asked her to come to-day without fail, without fail at one o’clock. Honestly, I wrote to her!
ZHELTOUKHIN: And yet it is past two now, and they’re not here. Still, no matter! I don’t care! I must give it all up, nothing is to come of it… Only humiliations, and a rotten feeling, and nothing else… She doesn’t take the slightest interest in me. I’m not good-looking, I’m uninteresting, there’s nothing romantic about me, and if she were to marry me, it could only be out of calculation … for the sake of money!
JULIE: Not good-looking! … You’ve a wrong opinion of yourself.
ZHELTOUKHIN: Oh, yes, as if I were blind! My beard grown from there, from the neck, not as beards should grow… My moustache, damn it … and my nose …
JULIE: Why do you press your cheek?
ZHELTOUKHIN: It aches again under the eye.
JULIE: It is a tiny bit swollen. Let me kiss it, and it will go.
ZHELTOUKHIN: That’s silly!
ENTER ORLOVSKY AND VOYNITSKY.
SCENE II
THE SAME, ORLOVSKY AND VOYNITSKY
ORLOVSKY: Ducky, when are we going to have our lunch? It’s past two!
JULIE: Godpa dear, the Serebryakovs haven’t come yet!
ORLOVSKY: How long have we to wait then? I want to eat, my sweet. George, too, wants his lunch.
ZHELTOUKHIN (to VOYNITSKY): Are your people coming?
VOYNITSKY: When I left, Elena Andreyevna was dressing.
ZHELTOUKHIN: They’re coming for certain then?
VOYNITSKY: You can never be certain. Our general may