the man she loved the day after our wedding, on the ground of my unprepossessing appearance. But I have never been false to my vows. I love her to this day and am faithful to her. I help her as far as I can, and I gave all I had for the education of her children by the man she loved. I have lost my happiness, but my pride has been left to me. And she? Her youth is over, her beauty, in accordance with the laws of nature, has faded, the man she loved is dead. … What has she left?
Enter Sonya and Yelena Andreyevna and a little later, Marya Vassilyevna with a book; she sits down and reads. They hand her tea, and she drinks it without looking at it.
Sonya
Hurriedly to the nurse. Nurse, darling, some peasants have come. Go and speak to them. I’ll look after the tea.
Exit Nurse. Yelena Andreyevna takes her cup and drinks it sitting in the swing.
Astrov
To Yelena Andreyevna. I’ve come to see your husband. You wrote to me that he was very ill—rheumatism and something else—but it appears he is perfectly well.
Yelena
Last night he was poorly, complaining of pains in his legs, but today he is all right. …
Astrov
And I have galloped twenty miles at breakneck speed! But there, it doesn’t matter! it’s not the first time. I shall stay with you till tomorrow to make up for it, and anyway I shall sleep quantum satis.
Sonya
That’s splendid! It’s not often you stay the night with us. I expect you’ve not had dinner?
Astrov
No, I haven’t.
Sonya
Oh, well, you will have some dinner, then! We have dinner now between six and seven drinks tea. The tea is cold!
Telyegin
The temperature in the samovar has perceptibly dropped.
Yelena
Never mind, Ivan Ivanitch; we will drink it cold.
Telyegin
I beg your pardon, I am not Ivan Ivanitch, but Ilya Ilyitch—Ilya Ilyitch Telyegin, or, as some people call me on account of my pockmarked face, Waffles. I stood godfather to Sonetchka, and his Excellency, your husband, knows me very well. I live here now on your estate. If you’ve been so kind as to observe it, I have dinner with you every day.
Sonya
Ilya Ilyitch is our helper, our right hand. Tenderly. Let me give you another cup, godfather.
Marya
Ach!
Sonya
What is it, grandmamma?
Marya
I forgot to tell Alexandr—I am losing my memory—I got a letter today from Harkov, from Pavel Alexeyevitch … he has sent his new pamphlet.
Astrov
Is it interesting?
Marya
It’s interesting, but it’s rather queer. He is attacking what he himself maintained seven years ago. It’s awful.
Voynitsky
There’s nothing awful in it. Drink your tea, maman.
Marya
But I want to talk.
Voynitsky
But we have been talking and talking for fifty years and reading pamphlets. It’s about time to leave off.
Marya
You don’t like listening when I speak; I don’t know why. Forgive my saying so, Jean, but you have so changed in the course of the last year that I hardly know you. You used to be a man of definite principles, of elevating ideas.
Voynitsky
Oh, yes! I was a man of elevating ideas which elevated nobody a pause. … A man of elevating ideas … you could not have made a more malignant joke! Now I am forty-seven. Till last year I tried, like you, to blind myself with all your pedantic rubbish on purpose to avoid seeing life as it is—and thought I was doing the right thing. And now, if only you knew! I can’t sleep at night for vexation, for rage that I so stupidly wasted the time when I might have had everything from which my age now shuts me out.
Sonya
Uncle Vanya, it’s so dreary!
Marya
To her son. You seem to be blaming your former principles. It is not they that are to blame, but yourself. You forget that principles alone are no use—a dead letter. You ought to have been working.
Voynitsky
Working? It is not everyone who can be a writing machine like your Herr Professor.
Marya
What do you mean by that?
Sonya
In an imploring voice. Grandmamma! Uncle Vanya! I entreat you!
Voynitsky
I’ll hold my tongue—hold my tongue and apologise.
A pause.
Yelena
What a fine day! It’s not too hot.
A pause.
Voynitsky
A fine day to hang oneself!
Telyegin tunes the guitar. Marina walks to and fro near the house, calling a hen.
Marina
Chook, chook, chook!
Sonya
Nurse, darling, what did the peasants come about?
Marina
It’s the same thing—about the waste land again. Chook, chook, chook!
Sonya
Which is it you are calling?
Marina
Speckly has gone off somewhere with her chickens. … The crows might get them walks away.
Telyegin plays a polka; they all listen to him in silence. Enter a Labourer.
Labourer
Is the doctor here? To Astrov. If you please, Mihail Lvovitch, they have sent for you.
Astrov
Where from?
Labourer
From the factory.
Astrov
With vexation. Much obliged to you. Well, I suppose I must go looks round him for his cap. What a nuisance, hang it!
Sonya
How annoying it is, really! Come back from the factory to dinner.
Astrov
No. It will be too late. “How should I? … How could I? …” To the Labourer. Here, my good man, you might get me a glass of vodka, anyway. Labourer goes off. “How should I? … How could I? …” Finds his cap. In one of Ostrovsky’s plays there is a man with a big moustache and little wit—that’s like me. Well, I have the honour to wish you all goodbye. To Yelena Andreyevna. If you ever care to look in upon me, with Sofya Alexandrovna, I shall be truly delighted. I have a little estate, only ninety acres, but there is a model garden and nursery such as you wouldn’t find for hundreds of miles round—if that interests you. Next to me is the government plantation. The forester there
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