Ivanov

the very birds, the trees, were laughing at me.⁠ ⁠… Sasha This is not anger, it’s madness. Ivanov Do you think so? No, I am not mad. Now I see things in their true light and my mind is as clear as your conscience. We love each other, but we shall never be married! I can rave and be melancholy as much as I like, but I have no right to ruin other people. I poisoned the last year of my wife’s life with my whining. While you have been engaged to me, you have forgotten how to laugh and have grown five years older. Your father, to whom everything in life was clear, is at a loss to understand people, thanks to me. Whether I go to a meeting, or on a visit, or shooting, wherever I am, I bring boredom, depression, and dissatisfaction with me. Wait, don’t interrupt me! I am harsh and savage, but forgive me, I am choked with fury and cannot speak in any other way. I used never to tell lies about life or abuse it, but now that I have become an old grumbler I unconsciously abuse life falsely, repine against destiny and complain, and everyone who hears me is affected by the distaste for life and begins abusing it too. And what an attitude! As though I were doing a favour to nature by living! Damnation take me! Sasha Wait a minute.⁠ ⁠… From what you said just now it follows that you are weary of repining and that it’s time to begin a new life!⁠ ⁠… And a good thing too.⁠ ⁠… Ivanov I see nothing good, and what’s the use of talking about a new life? I am lost beyond all hope! It is time for us both to realise it. A new life! Sasha Nikolay, pull yourself together! What makes you think that you are lost? Why this cynicism? No, I won’t speak or listen.⁠ ⁠… Go to the church! Ivanov I am lost! Sasha Don’t shout like that, the visitors will hear you! Ivanov If an educated, healthy man who is not a fool begins, for no apparent reason, lamenting and rolling downhill, he will roll down without stopping, and nothing can save him! Come, where can I look for help? In what? I can’t drink⁠—wine makes my head ache; I can’t write bad verse; I can’t worship my spiritual sloth and see something lofty in it. Sloth is sloth, weakness is weakness⁠—I have no other names for them. I am done for, done for⁠—and it’s no good talking about it! Looks round. We may be interrupted. Listen! If you love me, help me. This very minute, at once, break it off with me. Make haste!⁠ ⁠… Sasha Oh, Nikolay, if you knew how you exhaust me! How you weary my soul! You are a good, clever man: judge for yourself, how can you set me such tasks? Every day there is some fresh problem, each harder than the one before.⁠ ⁠… I wanted active love, but this is martyrdom! Ivanov And when you are my wife the problems will be more complicated still. Break it off! You must understand; it is not love but the obstinacy of an honest nature that is working in you. You’ve made it your aim at all costs to make a man of me again, to save me. It flattered you to think you were doing something heroic.⁠ ⁠… Now you are ready to draw back but are hindered by a false sentiment. Do understand that! Sasha What queer, mad logic! Why, can I break it off with you? How can I break it off? You have neither mother, nor sister, nor friends.⁠ ⁠… You are ruined, you have been robbed right and left, everyone is telling lies about you.⁠ ⁠… Ivanov It was stupid of me to have come here⁠ ⁠… I ought to have done as I meant.⁠ ⁠… Enter Lebedyev. Sasha Runs to her father. Father, for mercy’s sake! He has rushed here as though he were frantic and is torturing me! He insists on my breaking it off; he doesn’t want to spoil my life. Tell him that I won’t accept his generosity. I know what I am doing. Lebedyev I can’t make head or tail of it.⁠ ⁠… What generosity? Ivanov There will be no marriage! Sasha There shall be! Father, tell him that there shall be! Lebedyev Wait a minute, wait a minute!⁠ ⁠… Why don’t you want to marry her? Ivanov I told her why, but she refuses to understand. Lebedyev No, don’t explain to her, but to me, and explain it so that I can understand! Ah, Nikolay Alexeyevitch, God be your judge! You’ve brought such a lot of muddle into our life that I feel as though I were living in a museum of curiosities: I look about and I can make nothing of it.⁠ ⁠… It is an infliction.⁠ ⁠… What is an old man to do with you? Challenge you to a duel or what? Ivanov There’s no need of a duel. All that is needed is to have a head on your shoulders and to understand Russian. Sasha Walks up and down the stage in agitation. This is awful, awful! Simply like a child.⁠ ⁠… Lebedyev One can only throw up one’s hands in amazement, that’s all. Listen, Nikolay! To you all this seems clever, subtle, and according to all the rules of psychology, but to me it seems a scandal and a misfortune. Listen to an old man for the last time! This is what I advise you: give your mind a rest! Look at things simply, like everyone else! Everything is simple in this world. The ceiling is white, the boots are black, sugar is sweet. You love Sasha, she loves you. If you love her⁠—stay; if you don’t love her⁠—go; we won’t make a fuss. Why, it’s so simple! You are both healthy, clever, moral, and you have food to eat and clothes to wear, thank God.⁠ ⁠… What more do you want? You’ve no money? As though that mattered.⁠ ⁠… Money does not give happiness.⁠ ⁠… Of course I understand⁠ ⁠… your estate is mortgaged,