ORLOVSKY, VOYNITSKY, and FYODOR IVANOVICH (the latter dressed in Circassian attire with a papakha (a fur cap) in his hand)
VOYNITSKY (listening to the music): It’s Elena Andreyevna playing … my favourite aria… (The music coming to an end.) Yes … it’s a fine piece. … It seems never to have been so boring here as it is now… .
FYODOR: You’ve never tasted real boredom, my dear fellow. When I was a volunteer in Serbia, there I experienced the real thing! Hot, stuffy, dirty, head simply splitting after a drinking bout… Once I remember sitting in a dirty little shed… Captain Kashkinazi was there, too… Every subject of conversation long exhausted, no place to go to, nothing to do, no desire to drink — just sickening, you see, sickening to the point of putting one’s head in a noose! We sat, in a frenzy, gazing at one another. … He gazes at me, I at him; he at me, I at him… We gaze and don’t know why we’re doing it… An hour passes, you know, then another hour, and still we keep on gazing. Suddenly he jumps up for no reason, draws his sabre and goes for me… Hey presto! … I, of course, instantly draw my sabre — for he’ll kill me! — and it started: chic-chac, chic-chac, chic-chac, … with the greatest difficulty we were at last separated. I got off all right, but to this very day Captain Kashkinazi walks about with a scar on his face. See how desperately bored one may get! …
ORLOVSKY: Yes, such things do happen.
ENTER SONYA.
SCENE II
THE SAME AND SONYA
SONYA (aside): I don’t know what to do with myself! …
(Walking about and laughing.)
ORLOVSKY: Puss, darling, where are you going? Do sit with us a while.
SONYA: Fedya, come here… (Taking FYODOR aside.) Come here… .
FYODOR: What do you want? Why such a radiant face?
SONYA: Give me your word that you will do what I ask you!
FYODOR: Well?
SONYA: Drive over to the … Wood Demon.
FYODOR: What for?
SONYA: Just so … just drive over to him … ask him why he has kept away so long … a fortnight now.
FYODOR: Blushing! Shame! Here, Sonya’s in love!
ALL: Shame! Shame!
[SONYA covers her face and runs away.
FYODOR: She’s flitting about, like a shadow, from room to room, and doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s in love with the Wood Demon.
ORLOVSKY: She’s a glorious little girl. … I love her. I longed, Fyodor dear, that you should marry her, you won’t easily find a better bride. But well, probably God wills it so… And what a pleasure and delight mine would be! Ishould come over to you, you with your young wife, your family hearth, the samovar chirping away on the table… .
FYODOR: I’m unskilled in these matters. If the crazy notion of marriage ever came into my head, I should in any case marry Julie. She, at any rate, is little, and of all evils one should always choose the least. And then, too, she’s a good housekeeper… (Clapping his forehad.) That’s an idea!
ORLOVSKY: What is it?
FYODOR: Let’s have champagt!
VOYNITSKY: It’s too early, and o it’s hot … you wait awhile… .
ORLOVSKY (admiringly): My sonny, my beauty! … He wants champagne, the dear soul! …
ENTER ELENA ANDREYEVNA.
SCENE III
THE SAME AND ELENA ANDREYEVNA
ELENA ANDREYEVNA (walks across the stage).
VOYNITSKY: Look at her: she walks and sways from sheer indolence! Fine! Very fine!
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Stop it, George! It’s boring enough without your buzzing.
VOYNITSKY (barring her way): A talent, an artist! Well, do yoa look like an artist? Apathetic, indolent, sluggish… . So much virtue that, pardon me, it’s even unpleasant to look at… .
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Don’t look then … let me go… .
VOYNITSKY: Why are you pining away? (In a lively tone) My dear, my lovely one, be a good girl! There’s mermaid’s blood flowing in your veins, why not be a mermaid?
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: Let me alone!
VOYNITSKY: Let yourself go, if only once in your life, fall in love quickly up to your very eyes with a merman …
FYODOR: And then flop headlong into the water with him and leave the Herr Professor and all of us waving our hands!
VOYNITSKY: Mermaid, eh? Love while you may!
ELENA ANDREYEVNA: And why do you go on teaching me? As if I don’t know, without your telling me, how I should live if I had my will! Like a care-free bird I should fly away, from all of you, from your sleepy faces, from your boring, wearisome conversations. I should forget your very existence in the world, and no one would dare then teach me. But I haven’t my own will. I’m cowardly, shy, and it seems to me all along that, if I were to be unfaithful, all wives would follow my example and leave their husbands; that God would punish me, and my conscience torment me; otherwise I would show you what a free life is like! [Goes out.
ORLOVSKY: Dear soul, the beauty! …
VOYNITSKY: I believe I shall soon begin to despise this woman! She’s shy like a little girl, and philosophizes like an old deacon, adorned with virtues! Curdled milk!
ORLOVSKY: Stop, stop! … Where’s the professor now?
VOYNITSKY: In his study. Writing away.
ORLOVSKY: He called me here by letter on some business. Do you happen to know what the business is?
VOYNITSKY: He can’t have any business. He writes rubbish, grumbles and is jealous, that’s all.
ZHELTOUKHIN and JULIE enter by the door on the right.
SCENE IV
THE SAME, ZHELTOUKHIN AND JULIE
ZHELTOUKHIN: How do you do, all? (Greeting them.)
JULIE: How do you do, godpa dear? (Kissing him.) How do you do, Fedya? (Kissing him.) How do you do, George Petrovich? (Kissing him.)
ZHELTOUKHIN: Alexander Vladiniirovich is at home?
ORLOVSKY: Yes. He’s in his study.
ZHELTOUKHIN: I must go to him. He wrote asking to see me on a matter of business… . [Goes out.
JULIE: George Petrovieh, did you receive the barley yesterday, for which you asked in your note?
VOYNITSKY: Thanks, I did. How much is it? We also had something from you in the spring. I don’t remember what … we must settle our accounts. I can’t bear messing up things and postponing settlements.
JULIE: In the spring you had eight