Ivanov

be heard in the house a pause. Borkin Sighing. Such is life.⁠ ⁠… The life of man is like a flower growing luxuriantly in a field: a goat comes and eats it, and the flower is no more. Shabelsky It’s all nonsense, nonsense, nonsense⁠ ⁠… yawns. Nonsense and fraud a pause. Borkin And here, gentlemen, I keep showing Nikolay Alexeyevitch how to make money. I’ve just given him a glorious idea, but as usual he throws cold water on it. There’s no moving him.⁠ ⁠… Just look at him: melancholy, spleen, depression, hypochondria, dejection.⁠ ⁠… Shabelsky Stands up and stretches. You’ve got some scheme for everyone, you genius; you teach everyone how to live, you might try it on me for once.⁠ ⁠… Give me a lesson, you brainy person, show me a way of escape.⁠ ⁠… Borkin Getting up. I’m going to bathe.⁠ ⁠… Goodbye, gentlemen. To the Count. There are twenty things you could do.⁠ ⁠… If I were in your place I would have twenty thousand within a week is going. Shabelsky Follows him. How’s that? Come, show me how to do it. Borkin It doesn’t need showing. It’s very simple coming back. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, give me a rouble! Ivanov gives him the money in silence. Borkin Merci! To the Count. You’ve still lots of trump cards in your hand. Shabelsky Following him. Well, what are they? Borkin If I were in your place, within a week I would have thirty thousand, if not more goes out with the Count. Ivanov After a pause. Superfluous people, superfluous words, the necessity of answering foolish questions⁠—all this has so exhausted me that I am quite ill, doctor. I have grown irritable, hasty, harsh, and so petty that I don’t know myself. For days together my head aches; I cannot sleep, there’s a noise in my ears.⁠ ⁠… And there’s no getting away from it all⁠ ⁠… simply nothing I can do.⁠ ⁠… Lvov I want to talk to you seriously, Nikolay Alexeyevitch. Ivanov What is it? Lvov It’s about Anna Petrovna sits down. She won’t consent to go to the Crimea, but with you she would go. Ivanov Pondering. To go together we must have the means to do it. Besides, they won’t give me a long leave. I’ve taken my holiday this year already⁠ ⁠… Lvov Well, supposing that is so. Now for the next point. The most important condition for the treatment of consumption is absolute peace of mind, and your wife never has a moment’s peace of mind. She is in continual agitation over your attitude to her. Forgive me, I am excited and am going to speak frankly to you. Your conduct is killing her a pause. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, allow me to think better of you! Ivanov It’s all true, quite true.⁠ ⁠… I expect I am terribly to blame, but my thoughts are in a tangle, my soul is paralysed by inertia, and I am incapable of understanding myself. I don’t understand others or myself⁠ ⁠… looks at the window. We may be overheard, let us go for a stroll. They get up. I’d tell you the whole story from the beginning, my dear fellow, but it’s a long story and so complicated that I shouldn’t be finished by tomorrow morning. They are walking away. Anyuta is a remarkable, exceptional woman.⁠ ⁠… For my sake she has changed her religion, given up her father and mother, abandoned wealth, and if I wanted a hundred more sacrifices she would make them without the quiver of an eyelash. Well, and I am in no way remarkable, and I have made no sacrifices. But it’s a long story.⁠ ⁠… The point of it all is, dear doctor hesitates, is that⁠ ⁠… The long and the short of it is that I was passionately in love when I married and vowed I would love her forever; but⁠ ⁠… five years have passed, she still loves me, and I⁠ ⁠… makes a gesture of despair. Here you tell me that she is soon going to die, and I feel neither love nor pity, but a sort of emptiness and weariness.⁠ ⁠… If one looks at me from outside it must be horrible. I don’t myself understand what is happening in my soul. They go out along the avenue. Enter Shabelsky. Shabelsky Laughing. Upon my honour, he is no common rascal, he is a genius, an expert! We ought to put up a statue to him. He combines in himself every form of modern rottenness: the lawyer’s and the doctor’s, and the huckster’s and the cashier’s sits down on the lowest step of the verandah. And yet I believe he has never finished his studies! That’s what is so surprising.⁠ ⁠… What a rascal of genius he would have been if he had absorbed culture and learning! “You can have twenty thousand in a week,” says he. “You’ve still the ace of trumps in your hands,” says he, “your title.” Laughs. “Any girl with a dowry would marry you.⁠ ⁠…” Anna Petrovna opens the window and looks down. Shabelsky “Would you like me to make a match for you with Marfusha?” says he. Qui est-ce que c’est Marfusha? Ah, it’s that Balabalkin⁠ ⁠… Babakalkin⁠ ⁠… who looks like a washerwoman.⁠ ⁠… Anna Petrovna Is that you, Count? Shabelsky What is it? Anna Petrovna laughs. Shabelsky With a Jewish accent. Vot for you laugh? Anna Petrovna I thought of something you said. Do you remember what you said at dinner: “A thief that is forgiven, a horse⁠ ⁠…” What is it? Shabelsky A Jew that is christened, a thief that isis forgiven, a horse that is doctored⁠—are worth the same price. Anna Petrovna Laughs. You can’t make even a simple joke without spite in it. You are a spiteful man. Earnestly. Joking apart, Count, you are very spiteful. It’s dull and dreadful living with you. You are always snarling and grumbling. You think all men are scoundrels and rascals. Tell me honestly, have you ever said anything good about anyone? Shabelsky Why this