The dining room in Serebryakov’s house. Night. A watchman can be heard rapping in the garden.
Serebryakov sits in an armchair by an open window and dozes; Elena Andreevna sits next to him and also dozes.
SEREBRYAKOV
(Rousing himself) Who’s here? Is it you, Sonya?
ELENA ANDREEVNA
It’s me.
SEREBRYAKOV
Ah, Lenochka … Unbearable pain!
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Your blanket fell on the floor. (Covers his legs) I’ll close the window, Alexander.
No, don’t. It’s stifling … I dozed off and dreamed that my left leg was someone else’s. I woke up in excruciating pain. No, this isn’t gout, it’s more likely rheumatism. What time is it now?
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Twenty past midnight.
Pause.
SEREBRYAKOV
In the morning look for Batyushkov’s poems in the library.5 I think we have them.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
What?
SEREBRYAKOV
Look for Batyushkov’s poems in the morning. I remember we had them. But why do I have such trouble breathing?
ELENA ANDREEVNA
You’re tired. It’s the second night you haven’t slept.
SEREBRYAKOV
They say Turgenev got angina from gout. I’m afraid it will be the same with me. Cursed, repulsive old age. Damn it all! Now that I’ve grown old, I’ve become disgusting to myself. And you all must be disgusted looking at me.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
The way you talk about being old makes it sound like it’s our fault.
SEREBRYAKOV
You’re the first to find me disgusting. (Elena Andreevna steps away and sits down at a distance) Of course, you’re right. I’m not stupid, I understand. You’re young, healthy, beautiful, you want to live, and I’m an old man, almost a corpse. So? Do you think I don’t understand? And, of course, it’s stupid that I’m still alive. But wait a little, I’ll soon relieve you all. I won’t have to drag on much longer.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
I’m worn out … For God’s sake, stop talking.
SEREBRYAKOV
It turns out that, thanks to me, everybody’s worn out, bored, has wasted their youth, and I’m the only one who enjoys life and is content. Oh, yes, of course!
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Stop it! You’re tormenting me!
SEREBRYAKOV
I torment everybody. Of course.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
(Through tears) Unbearable! Tell me, what do you want from me?
SEREBRYAKOV
Nothing.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Well, then stop talking. I beg you.
SEREBRYAKOV
It’s strange, Ivan Petrovich talks, or that old idiot Marya Vassilyevna—and it’s all right, everybody listens. But if I utter just one word, everybody starts to feel miserable. Even my voice is disgusting. Well, suppose I am disgusting, I’m an egoist, I’m a despot, but don’t I have a certain right to egoism at least in my old age? Haven’t I earned it? Can it be, I ask, that I have no right to a peaceful old age, to some attention from people?
Nobody’s disputing your rights.
The window slams in the wind.
The wind’s picking up. I’ll latch the window. (She latches it) It’s about to start raining. Nobody disputes your rights.
Pause. The watchman in the garden raps and sings a song.
SEREBRYAKOV
To be a scholar all my life, accustomed to my office, to the lecture hall, to my respected colleagues—and suddenly, without rhyme or reason, to find myself in this crypt, to see stupid people here every day, to listen to worthless conversations … I want to live, I love success, I love fame, fanfare, and here—it’s like exile. To pine for my past every moment, to follow other people’s successes, to fear death … I can’t! I have no strength! And here they won’t even forgive me my old age!
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Wait, be patient: in five or six years I’ll be old, too.
Sonya enters.
SONYA
Papa, you yourself told us to send for Doctor Astrov, and when he comes you refuse to see him. That’s inconsiderate. We troubled the man for nothing …
SEREBRYAKOV
What do I need your Astrov for? He understands as much about medicine as I do about astronomy.
SONYA
We can’t invite the whole medical faculty here for the sake of your gout.
I won’t even speak to that blessed fool.
SONYA
As you like. (Sits down) It makes no difference to me.
SEREBRYAKOV
What time is it now?
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Past midnight.
SEREBRYAKOV
Stifling … Sonya, give me those drops on the table!
SONYA
Here. (She hands him the drops)
SEREBRYAKOV
(Annoyed) Ah, not these! I can’t ask you for anything!
SONYA
Please don’t make a fuss. Maybe some people enjoy it, but kindly spare me! I don’t like it. And I have no time, I must get up early tomorrow, I’ve got the haymaking.
Voinitsky enters in a dressing gown and with a candle.
VOINITSKY
There’s a thunderstorm coming.
Lightning.
See that! Hélène and Sonya, go to bed, I’ve come to relieve you.
SEREBRYAKOV
No, no! Don’t leave me with him! No! He’ll talk me to death!
Give them some peace! It’s their second night without sleep.
SEREBRYAKOV
Let them go and sleep, but you leave, too. I thank you. I beg you. In the name of our former friendship, don’t protest. We’ll talk later.
VOINITSKY
(With a smirk) Our former friendship … Former …
SONYA
Be quiet, Uncle Vanya.
SEREBRYAKOV
(To his wife) My dear, don’t leave me with him! He’ll talk me to death!
VOINITSKY
This is getting ridiculous.
Marina enters with a candle.
SONYA
Go lie down, nanny. It’s already late.
MARINA
The samovar’s still on the table. I can’t very well lie down.
SEREBRYAKOV
No one’s asleep, everybody’s exhausted, I alone am in bliss.
MARINA
(Going to Serebryakov, tenderly) What is it, dear heart? It hurts? My legs ache, too—oh, how they ache! (Straightens his blanket) You’ve been ailing a long time. The late Vera Petrovna, Sonechka’s mother, used to stay up all night grieving … She loved you so …
Pause.
Old folks are like children, they want somebody to pity them, but nobody pities old folks. (She kisses Serebryakov on the shoulder) Let’s go to bed, dear heart … Let’s go, my bright one … I’ll give you linden blossom tea, I’ll warm your legs … I’ll pray to God for you …
SEREBRYAKOV
(Touched) Let’s go, Marina.
MARINA
And my legs, too—they ache, oh, how they ache! (As she leads him out together with Sonya) Vera Petrovna used to grieve so, to weep so … You were still little and stupid then, Sonyushka … Come on, dear heart, come on …
Serebryakov, Sonya and Marina exit.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
He wears me out. I can barely stand up.
VOINITSKY
He wears you out, and I wear myself out. It’s the third night I haven’t slept.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Things aren’t right in this house. Your mother hates everything except her pamphlets and the professor; the professor is exasperated, he doesn’t believe me, he’s afraid of you; Sonya is angry with her father, angry with me, hasn’t spoken to me for two weeks now; you hate my husband and openly despise your mother; I’m exasperated, and I’ve been on the verge of tears twenty times today … Things aren’t right in this house.
VOINITSKY
Let’s drop the philosophy!
You’re an educated and intelligent man, Ivan Petrovich, and I’d think you should understand that the world perishes not from robbers, not from fires, but from hatred, hostility, from all these petty squabbles … You’d do better not to grumble, but to make peace among us all.
VOINITSKY
First get me to make peace with myself! My dear … (Falls on her hand and kisses it)
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Stop it! (Pulls her hand back) Go away!
VOINITSKY
The rain will soon pass, and everything in nature will be refreshed and breathe freely. Only I won’t be refreshed by the storm. Day and night the thought chokes me, like a little demon, that my life has been irretrievably lost. I have no past, it was stupidly wasted on trifles. And the present is terrible in its absurdity. Here are my life and my love for you: where can I put them, what can I do with them? My love is perishing for nothing, like a ray of sunlight fallen into a pit, and I myself am perishing.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
When you speak to me about your love, I somehow go blank and don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can tell you. (Wants to leave) Good night.
VOINITSKY
(Standing in her way) If you knew how I suffer from the thought that right next to me in this same house another life is perishing—yours! What are you waiting for? What cursed philosophy prevents you? Don’t you see … don’t you see …
ELENA ANDREEVNA
(Looks at him intently) Ivan Petrovich, you’re drunk!
It’s possible, it’s possible …
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Where’s the doctor?
VOINITSKY
He’s there … he’s spending the night in my room. It’s possible, it’s possible … Anything’s possible!
ELENA ANDREEVNA
So you’ve been drinking today, too? Why do you do it?
VOINITSKY
Anyhow it resembles a life … Don’t interfere with me, Hélène!
ELENA ANDREEVNA
You never drank before, and you never talked so much … Go to bed! You bore me.
VOINITSKY
(Falls on her hand and kisses it) My dear … my wonder!
ELENA ANDREEVNA
(Annoyed) Leave me alone. This is really disgusting. (She exits)
VOINITSKY
(Alone) Gone …
Pause.
Ten years ago I used to meet her at my late sister’s. She was seventeen then, and I was thirty-seven. Why didn’t I fall in love with her then and propose to her? It was so possible! And she would now be my wife … Yes … Now we would both be awakened by the storm; she would be frightened by the thunder, and I would hold her in my arms and whisper: “Don’t be afraid, I’m here.” Oh, wonderful thoughts, so good, I even laugh … but, God, everything’s mixed up in my head … Why am I old? Why doesn’t she understand me? Her rhetoric, her lazy moralizing, her nonsensical, lazy thoughts about the world perishing—I really hate it all.
Pause.
Oh, how deceived I’ve been! I adored this professor, this pitiful, gouty man. I worked like an ox for him! Sonya and I wrung this estate out to the last drop; we traded like greedy peasants in linseed oil, peas, cottage cheese; we ate less ourselves so as to scrape kopecks together and send him thousands. I was proud of him and his scholarship. I lived and breathed by him! Everything he wrote and uttered seemed brilliant to me … My God, and now? He’s retired, and the sum total of his life can now be seen: not one page of his work will remain after him, he’s totally unknown, he’s nobody! A soap bubble! And I’ve been deceived … I see it … stupidly deceived …
Astrov enters in a frock coat without waistcoat or tie; he is tipsy. Telegin follows him with the guitar.
ASTROV
Play!
TELEGIN
But everybody’s asleep!
ASTROV
Play!
Telegin strums softly.
(To Voinitsky) You’re here alone? No ladies? (Arms akimbo, sings softly) “Dance, cottage, dance, stable, / The master’s sleeping under the table …” The thunderstorm woke me up. Some rain! What time is it now?
Damned if I know.
ASTROV
I thought I heard Elena Andreevna’s voice.
VOINITSKY
She was here just now.
ASTROV
A resplendent woman. (Studies the vials on the table) Medicines. Prescriptions from all over! Kharkov, Moscow, Tula … He’s plagued all the towns with his gout. Is he sick or pretending?
VOINITSKY
He’s sick.
Pause.
ASTROV
Why are you so sad today? Sorry for the professor, are you?
VOINITSKY
Leave me alone.
ASTROV
Or maybe you’re in love with the professoress?
VOINITSKY
She’s my friend.
ASTROV
Already?
VOINITSKY
What do you mean by “already”?
A woman can be a man’s friend only in this sequence: first an acquaintance, then a mistress, and after that a friend.
VOINITSKY
Trite philosophy.
ASTROV
What? Yes … I must admit I’ve become trite. I’m also drunk, as you see. Usually I get drunk like this once a month. When I’m in this state, I become impudent and insolent in the extreme. I breeze through everything! Undertake the most difficult surgeries and perform them beautifully; make the most far-reaching plans for the future; and in those moments I no longer see myself as a misfit, and I believe that I’m of enormous use to mankind … enormous! In those moments I have my own philosophical system, and you, dear brothers, all seem to me like little bugs … microbes. (To Telegin) Play, Waffle!
TELEGIN
My dear friend, I’d be glad to with all my heart, but try to understand—the whole house is asleep!
ASTROV
Play!
Telegin strums softly.
I could do with a drink. Let’s go. I think there’s some cognac left. And at daybreak we’ll go to my place. Alrighty? I’ve got an assistant who never says, “All right”; it’s always, “Alrighty.” A terrible crook. So—alrighty? (Seeing Sonya enter) Excuse me, I’ve got no tie on. (Exits quickly; Telegin follows)
SONYA
You got drunk again with the doctor, Uncle Vanya. Two shining knights made friends. Well, he’s always like that, but why you? At your age it’s quite unbecoming.
Age has nothing to do with it. When there’s no real life, you live by mirages. Anyhow it’s better than nothing.
SONYA
The hay’s all mowed, it rains every day, everything’s rotting, and you’re busy with mirages. You’ve completely abandoned the farming … it’s all left to me, I’m completely exhausted … (Frightened) Uncle, there are tears in your eyes!
VOINITSKY
What tears? It’s nothing … nonsense … You looked at me just now like your late mother. My dearest … (Greedily kisses her hands and face) My sister … my dearest sister … where is she now? If she knew! Ah, if she knew!
SONYA
What, uncle? Knew what?
VOINITSKY
It’s painful, not nice … Never mind … Later … Never mind … I’ll leave … (Exits)
SONYA
(Knocks on the door) Mikhail Lvovich! You’re not asleep? Just one little moment!
ASTROV
(From behind the door) I’m coming! (Enters a moment later; now in his waistcoat and tie) What are your orders?
SONYA
You can drink, if it doesn’t disgust you, but I beg you not to let my uncle drink. It’s bad for him.
ASTROV
Very well. We won’t drink any more.
I’ll go home now. Signed and sealed. Dawn will break while they’re hitching up the horses.
SONYA
It’s raining. Wait till morning.
ASTROV
The storm is skirting us, we’ll only get the edge of it. I’ll go. And please don’t send for me to see your father anymore. I tell him it’s gout, he says it’s rheumatism; I ask him to lie down, he sits. And today he wouldn’t even speak to me.
SONYA
He’s spoiled. (Looks in the sideboard) Would you like a bite to eat?
ASTROV
Yes, why not?
SONYA
I like to have a bite in the middle of the night. There seems to be something in the sideboard. They say he had great success with women in his life, and the ladies spoiled him. Here, have some cheese.
They both stand by the sideboard and eat.
ASTROV
I didn’t eat a thing all day, I only drank. Your father has a difficult character. (Takes a bottle from the sideboard) May I? (Drinks a glass) There’s nobody here, and I can speak openly. You know, I don’t think I’d last a month in your house, I’d suffocate in this atmosphere … Your father, who’s all sunk in his gout and his books, Uncle Vanya with his moping, your grandmother, and finally your stepmother …
What about my stepmother?
ASTROV
Everything about a person should be beautiful: the face, the clothes, the soul, the thoughts. She’s beautiful, no question, but … she just eats, sleeps, strolls around, enchants us all with her beauty—and nothing more. She has no responsibilities, others work for her … Isn’t it so? And an idle life can’t be pure.
Pause.
However, maybe I’m being too severe. I’m dissatisfied with life, like your Uncle Vanya, and we’re both turning into grumblers.
SONYA
So you’re displeased with life?
ASTROV
I love life in general, but our provincial, Russian, philistine life I can’t bear, and I despise it with all the strength of my soul. As for my own personal life, by God, there’s absolutely nothing good in it. You know, when you’re walking in the forest on a dark night, and there’s a little light shining in the distance, you don’t notice your weariness, nor the darkness, nor the prickly branches hitting you in the face … I work—as you’re aware—harder than anyone else in the district, fate keeps dealing me blows, at times my suffering is unbearable, but for me there’s no little light in the distance. I no longer expect anything for myself, I don’t love people … I haven’t loved anyone for a long time.
SONYA
Not anyone?
ASTROV
Not anyone. I feel a certain tenderness only for your nanny—for old times’ sake. The peasants are all alike, uneducated, live in filth, and it’s hard to get along with the educated ones. They’re tiresome. Our good friends here, all of them, have petty thoughts, petty feelings, and they don’t see beyond the end of their noses—they’re quite simply stupid. And those who are more intelligent, of higher caliber, are hysterical, devoured by analysis, by reflex … They whine, they hate, they’re infected with slander, they come at you sideways, look askance at you, and decide: “Oh, this one’s psychotic!” or “That one’s a phrase-monger!” And when they don’t know what label to paste on my forehead, they say: “He’s a strange man, a strange man!” I love the forest—that’s strange; I don’t eat meat—that’s also strange. A pure, free, straightforward attitude towards nature and people no longer exists … No, no! (Wants to drink)
SONYA
(Prevents him) No, I ask you, I beg you, don’t drink any more.
ASTROV
Why?
SONYA
It just doesn’t become you! You’re refined, you have such a gentle voice … Even more than that, like no one else I know—you are beautiful. Why do you want to be like ordinary people who drink and play cards? Oh, don’t do it, I beg you! You keep saying that people don’t create, they only destroy what’s given to them from above. Why, then, why do you destroy your own self? Don’t, please don’t, I beg you, I implore you.
ASTROV
(Offering her his hand) I won’t drink anymore.
SONYA
Give me your word.
ASTROV
My word of honor.
(Firmly pressing his hand) Thank you!
ASTROV
Basta! I’ve sobered up. See, I’m completely sober now and will stay that way to the end of my days. (Looks at his watch) And so, let’s continue. I say: my time’s already gone by, it’s too late for me … I’ve aged, I’m overworked, I’ve grown trite, my senses have all gone dull, and it seems I can no longer be attached to anybody. I don’t love anybody and … never will. If there’s one thing that still captivates me, it’s beauty. I’m susceptible to it. I think that if Elena Andreevna wanted to, she could turn my head in a single day … But that’s not love, that’s not attachment … (He closes his eyes with his hand and shudders)
SONYA
What’s the matter?
ASTROV
It’s just … During Lent I had a patient die under chloroform.
SONYA
It’s time you forgot about it.
Pause.
Tell me, Mikhail Lvovich … if I had a friend or a younger sister, and you learned that she … well, suppose she was in love with you, how would you respond to it?
ASTROV
(Shrugs) I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t. I’d let her understand that I couldn’t love her … and that my head was occupied with other things. In any case, if I’m going to leave, it’s time I did. Goodbye, dear girl, otherwise we’ll go on till morning. I’ll pass through the drawing room, if I may. Otherwise I’m afraid your uncle will keep me here. (Exits)
(Alone) He didn’t say anything to me … His heart and soul are still hidden from me, but then why do I feel so happy? (Laughs happily) I said to him: you’re refined, noble, you have such a gentle voice … Did it seem inappropriate? His voice pulses, caresses … here, I can feel it in the air. And when I said that about a younger sister, he didn’t understand … (Wringing her hands) Oh, it’s so terrible that I’m not beautiful! So terrible! And I know I’m not beautiful, I know, I know … Last Sunday, as people were leaving church, I heard them talking about me, and one woman said: “She’s kind, generous, it’s too bad she’s not beautiful …” Not beautiful …
Elena Andreevna enters.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
(Opens the windows) The storm is over. The air feels so good!
Pause.
Where’s the doctor?
SONYA
He left.
Pause.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Sophie!
SONYA
What?
ELENA ANDREEVNA
How long are you going to pout at me? We haven’t done each other any wrong. Why should we be enemies? Enough now …
SONYA
I also wanted … (Embraces her) No more being angry.
That’s perfect. Both are moved.
SONYA
Has papa gone to bed?
ELENA ANDREEVNA
No, he’s sitting in the drawing room … You and I haven’t spoken to each other for weeks now, and God knows why that is … (Seeing that the sideboard is open) What’s this?
SONYA
Mikhail Lvovich had supper.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
And there’s some wine … Let’s drink to our friendship.
SONYA
Yes, let’s.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
From the same glass … (Pours) It’s better like this. So, to us?
SONYA
To us!
They drink and kiss.
I’ve been wanting to make peace, but I somehow kept feeling ashamed … (Starts to cry)
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Why are you crying?
SONYA
No reason, I just am.
Well, there, there … (Starts to cry) You funny girl, now I’m crying, too …
Pause.
You’re angry with me because it seems I married your father for money … If you believe in oaths, I swear to you, I married him for love. He fascinated me as a scholar and a famous man. It wasn’t real love, it was artificial, but it seemed real to me then. I’m not to blame. And ever since our wedding, you’ve never stopped punishing me with your intelligent, suspicious eyes.
SONYA
Well, peace now, peace! Let’s forget it.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
You shouldn’t look at people that way, it doesn’t become you. You should trust everybody, otherwise life is impossible.
Pause.
SONYA
Tell me in good conscience, as a friend … Are you happy?
ELENA ANDREEVNA
No.
SONYA
I knew it. One more question. Tell me frankly—would you like to have a young husband?
ELENA ANDREEVNA
What a little girl you still are. Of course I would. (Laughs) Well, ask me something else, go on …
Do you like the doctor?
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Yes, very much.
SONYA
(Laughs) I look silly … don’t I? He’s gone now, but I can still hear his voice and footsteps, and glancing at the dark window—I imagine his face there. Let me say it all … But I can’t talk so loudly, I’m ashamed. Let’s go to my room, we can talk there. Don’t I seem silly to you? Admit it … Tell me something about him …
ELENA ANDREEVNA
Like what?
SONYA
He’s intelligent … He knows everything, he can do everything … He cures people, he plants forests …
ELENA ANDREEVNA
The point isn’t forests and medicine … Understand, my dear, he has talent! Do you know what it means to have talent? Boldness, freedom of mind, breadth of vision … He plants a little tree, and he already tries to guess what will come of it in a thousand years, he already pictures mankind’s happiness. Such people are rare, they should be loved … He drinks, he’s sometimes a bit rude—what’s the harm in that? In Russia a talented man can’t be all pure. Think for yourself what a life this doctor has! Impassable, muddy roads, frost, blizzards, enormous distances, coarse, savage people, poverty and disease all around—in such circumstances it’s hard for someone who works and struggles day in and day out to stay pure and sober till he reaches forty … (Kisses her) You deserve happiness, I wish it with all my heart … (Stands up) And I’m a bore, a minor character … In music, in my husband’s house, in all my romances—in short, everywhere, I’ve been a minor character. As a matter of fact, Sonya, now that I think of it, I’m very, very unhappy! (Paces in agitation) There’s no happiness for me in this world. No happiness! Why are you laughing?
SONYA
(Laughs, covering her face) I’m so happy … so happy!
ELENA ANDREEVNA
I’d like to play the piano … Maybe I’ll play something now.
SONYA
Yes, play. (Embraces her) I can’t sleep. Play!
ELENA ANDREEVNA
One second! Your father’s not asleep. When he’s sick, music annoys him. Go and ask. If he doesn’t mind, I’ll play. Go.
SONYA
One second. (Exits)
The watchman raps in the garden.
ELENA ANDREEVNA
I haven’t played for a long time now. I’ll play and cry, cry like a fool. (Through the window) Is that you rapping, Efim?
The watchman’s voice: “Yes, ma’am!”
Don’t rap, the master isn’t well.
The watchman’s voice: “I’ll leave right now!” (Whistles) “Here, Zhuchka! Here, Boy! Zhuchka!”
Pause.
SONYA
(Comes back) You can’t!
Curtain.