Three Sisters

epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Laughs through her tears. We’ll have a talk later on, but goodbye for the present, my dear; I’ll go somewhere. Irina Displeased. You are queer.⁠ ⁠… Olga Crying. I understand you, Masha. Soleni When a man talks philosophy, well, it is philosophy or at any rate sophistry; but when a woman, or two women, talk philosophy⁠—it’s all my eye. Masha What do you mean by that, you very awful man? Soleni Oh, nothing. You came down on me before I could say⁠ ⁠… help! Pause. Masha Angrily, to Olga. Don’t cry! Enter Anfisa and Ferapont with a cake. Anfisa This way, my dear. Come in, your feet are clean. To Irina. From the District Council, from Mihail Ivanitch Protopopov⁠ ⁠… a cake. Irina Thank you. Please thank him. Takes the cake. Ferapont What? Irina Louder. Please thank him. Olga Give him a pie, nurse. Ferapont, go, she’ll give you a pie. Ferapont What? Anfisa Come on, gran’fer, Ferapont Spiridonitch. Come on. Exeunt. Masha I don’t like this Mihail Potapitch or Ivanitch, Protopopov. We oughtn’t to invite him here. Irina I never asked him. Masha That’s all right. Enter Chebutikin followed by a soldier with a silver samovar; there is a rumble of dissatisfied surprise. Olga Covers her face with her hands. A samovar! That’s awful! Exit into the dining-room, to the table. Irina My dear Ivan Romanovitch, what are you doing! Tuzenbach Laughs. I told you so! Masha Ivan Romanovitch, you are simply shameless! Chebutikin My dear good girl, you are the only thing, and the dearest thing I have in the world. I’ll soon be sixty. I’m an old man, a lonely worthless old man. The only good thing in me is my love for you, and if it hadn’t been for that, I would have been dead long ago.⁠ ⁠… To Irina. My dear little girl, I’ve known you since the day of your birth, I’ve carried you in my arms⁠ ⁠… I loved your dead mother.⁠ ⁠… Masha But your presents are so expensive! Chebutikin Angrily, through his tears. Expensive presents.⁠ ⁠… You really, are!⁠ ⁠… To the orderly. Take the samovar in there.⁠ ⁠… Teasing. Expensive presents! The orderly goes into the dining-room with the samovar. Anfisa Enters and crosses stage. My dear, there’s a strange Colonel come! He’s taken off his coat already. Children, he’s coming here. Irina darling, you’ll be a nice and polite little girl, won’t you.⁠ ⁠… Should have lunched a long time ago.⁠ ⁠… Oh, Lord.⁠ ⁠… Exit. Tuzenbach It must be Vershinin. Enter Vershinin. Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin! Vershinin To Masha and Irina. I have the honour to introduce myself, my name is Vershinin. I am very glad indeed to be able to come at last. How you’ve grown! Oh! oh! Irina Please sit down. We’re very glad you’ve come. Vershinin Gaily. I am glad, very glad! But there are three sisters, surely. I remember⁠—three little girls. I forget your faces, but your father, Colonel Prosorov, used to have three little girls, I remember that perfectly, I saw them with my own eyes. How time does fly! Oh, dear, how it flies! Tuzenbach Alexander Ignateyevitch comes from Moscow. Irina From Moscow? Are you from Moscow? Vershinin Yes, that’s so. Your father used to be in charge of a battery there, and I was an officer in the same brigade. To Masha. I seem to remember your face a little. Masha I don’t remember you. Irina Olga! Olga! Shouts into the dining-room. Olga! Come along! Olga enters from the dining-room. Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin comes from Moscow, as it happens. Vershinin I take it that you are Olga Sergeyevna, the eldest, and that you are Maria⁠ ⁠… and you are Irina, the youngest.⁠ ⁠… Olga So you come from Moscow? Vershinin Yes. I went to school in Moscow and began my service there; I was there for a long time until at last I got my battery and moved over here, as you see. I don’t really remember you, I only remember that there used to be three sisters. I remember your father well; I have only to shut my eyes to see him as he was. I used to come to your house in Moscow.⁠ ⁠… Olga I used to think I remembered everybody, but⁠ ⁠… Vershinin My name is Alexander Ignateyevitch. Irina Alexander Ignateyevitch, you’ve come from Moscow. That is really quite a surprise! Olga We are going to live there, you see. Irina We think we may be there this autumn. It’s our native town, we were born there. In Old Basmanni Road.⁠ ⁠… They both laugh for joy. Masha We’ve unexpectedly met a fellow countryman. Briskly. I remember: Do you remember, Olga, they used to speak at home of a “lovelorn Major.” You were only a Lieutenant then, and in love with somebody, but for some reason they always called you a Major for fun. Vershinin Laughs. That’s it⁠ ⁠… the lovelorn Major, that’s got it! Masha You only wore moustaches then. You have grown older! Through her tears. You have grown older! Vershinin Yes, when they used to call me the lovelorn Major, I was young and in love. I’ve grown out of both now. Olga But you haven’t a single white hair yet. You’re older, but you’re not yet old. Vershinin I’m forty-two, anyway. Have you been away from Moscow long? Irina Eleven years. What are you crying for, Masha, you little fool.⁠ ⁠… Crying. And I’m crying too. Masha It’s all right. And where did you live? Vershinin Old Basmanni Road. Olga Same as we. Vershinin Once I used to live in German Street. That was when the Red Barracks were my headquarters. There’s an ugly bridge in between, where the water rushes underneath. One gets melancholy when one is alone there. Pause. Here the river is so wide and fine! It’s a splendid river! Olga Yes, but it’s so cold. It’s very cold here, and the midges.⁠ ⁠… Vershinin What are you saying! Here you’ve got such a fine healthy Russian climate. You’ve a forest, a river⁠ ⁠… and birches. Dear, modest birches, I like them more than any other tree. It’s good to live here. Only it’s odd that the