Ivanov

ends of the earth with you. If you go uphill, I go uphill too; if you go down into a pit, I go down into the pit too. To me, for instance, it would be a great happiness to spend a whole night copying your papers, or the whole night watching that no one should wake you, or walking a hundred miles with you! I remember once three years ago at threshing time you came to see us, all covered with dust, sunburnt and exhausted and asked for water. By the time I brought you a glass, you were lying on the sofa, sleeping like the dead. You slept for twelve hours, and all the time I stood on guard at the door that no one should come in. And how happy I was! The harder the work, the better the love, that is, the more strongly it’s felt, you understand. Ivanov Active love.⁠ ⁠… Hm. Decadence, a young girl’s philosophy or perhaps that’s how it should be⁠ ⁠… shrugs his shoulders. Devil only knows! Gaily. Sasha, on my honour I am a decent man!⁠ ⁠… Think of this: I have always been fond of generalising, but I have never in my life said that “our women were demoralised” or that “woman was on the wrong track.” I have only been grateful to them and nothing else! Nothing else! My good little girl, how amusing you are! And what an absurd duffer I am! I shock good people and do nothing but whine for days together laughs. Oo‑oo! Oo‑oo! Walks quickly away. But do go, Sasha! we are forgetting⁠ ⁠… Sasha Yes, I must go. Goodbye! I am afraid your honest doctor’s sense of duty may make him tell Anna Petrovna that I am here. Listen to me: go to your wife at once and sit by her, sit by her.⁠ ⁠… If you have to sit by her for a year, sit by her for a year.⁠ ⁠… If it is ten years⁠—sit ten years. Do your duty. Grieve and beg her forgiveness and weep⁠—all that is only right. And, above all, don’t neglect your work. Ivanov Again I have that feeling as though I were poisoned. Again! Sasha Well, God bless you! You need not think about me at all. If you send me a line once a fortnight, that will do for me. I will write to you.⁠ ⁠… Borkin peeps in at the door. Borkin Nikolay Alexeyevitch, may I come in? Seeing Sasha. I beg your pardon, I did not see you⁠ ⁠… comes in. Bong jour! Bows. Sasha In confusion. How do you do? Borkin You have grown plumper and prettier. Sasha To Ivanov. I am just going. Nikolay Alexeyevitch.⁠ ⁠… I am going goes out. Borkin Lovely vision! I came for prose and stumbled on poetry.⁠ ⁠… Sings. “Thou dids’t appear like a bird at dawn.”⁠ ⁠… Ivanov walks up and down the stage in agitation. Borkin Sits down. There is a certain something about her, you know, Nicolas, unlike other girls. Isn’t there? Something special⁠ ⁠… phantasmagoric⁠ ⁠… sighs. As a matter of fact she is the wealthiest match in the countryside, but the mother is such a bitter radish that no one cares to be mixed up with her. When she is dead everything will be left to Sasha, but till then she will give nothing but a miserable ten thousand, with flat irons and gophering tongs, and one will have to go down on one’s knees to her for that too fumbles in his pockets. I’ll smoke De-los-mahoros. Wouldn’t you like one? Offers his cigar-case. They are good.⁠ ⁠… They are worth smoking. Ivanov Goes up to Borkin, breathless with anger. Clear out of my house this minute and do not set foot in it again! This minute! Borkin gets up and drops his cigar. Ivanov Get out! This minute! Borkin Nicolas, what’s the matter? Why are you angry? Ivanov What for? Where did you get those cigars? And do you suppose I don’t know where you are taking the old man every day and what your object is? Borkin Shrugging his shoulders. But what has that to do with you? Ivanov You blackguard! The vile projects which you scatter all over the district have disgraced my name in the eyes of everyone! We have nothing in common, and I beg you to leave my house this minute! Strides rapidly up and down. Borkin I know you are saying all this because you are irritated and so I am not angry with you. You can insult me as much as you like picks up his cigar. But it’s time to shake off your melancholy. You are not a schoolboy.⁠ ⁠… Ivanov What did I say to you? Trembling. Are you playing with me? Enter Anna Petrovna. Borkin Well, here is Anna Petrovna.⁠ ⁠… I will go goes out. Ivanov stops at the table and stands with bowed head. Anna Petrovna After a pause. What did she come for just now? A pause. I ask you, what did she come for? Ivanov Don’t ask me, Anyuta⁠ ⁠… a pause. I am terribly to blame. You can think of anything you like to punish me, I’ll bear anything, but⁠ ⁠… don’t question me.⁠ ⁠… I am not equal to talking. Anna Petrovna Angrily. What has she been here for? A pause. Ah, so that’s what you are like! Now I understand you. At last I see what sort of man you are. Dishonourable, mean.⁠ ⁠… Do you remember you came and told a lie, saying that you loved me.⁠ ⁠… I believed you; I gave up my father and mother and my religion and followed you.⁠ ⁠… You told me lies about truth and goodness and your noble plans. I believed every word.⁠ ⁠… Ivanov Anyuta, I’ve never told you a lie. Anna Petrovna I have lived with you five years. I have been depressed and ill, but I have loved you, and have never left you for