Ivanov

cross-examination? Anna Petrovna We’ve been living under the same roof for five years and I’ve never once heard you speak of people calmly, without malice and derision. What harm have people done you? And do you really imagine that you are better than anyone else? Shabelsky I don’t imagine it at all. I am just as great a blackguard and pig in a skullcap as everyone else, mauvais ton and an old rag. I always abuse myself. Who am I? What am I? I was rich, free and rather happy, but now⁠ ⁠… I am a dependant, a hanger-on, a degraded buffoon. I am indignant, I am contemptuous, and people laugh at me: I laugh and they shake their heads at me mournfully and say the old chap is cracked⁠ ⁠… and most often they don’t hear me, don’t heed me.⁠ ⁠… Anna Petrovna Calmly. It is screeching again. Shabelsky Who is screeching? Anna Petrovna The owl. It screeches every evening. Shabelsky Let it screech. Nothing can be worse than what is now stretching. Ah, my dear Sarra, if I were to win a hundred or two hundred thousand I’d show you a thing or two! You’d see no more of me here. I’d get away from this hole, away from the bread of charity⁠ ⁠… and wouldn’t set foot here again till the day of judgment.⁠ ⁠… Anna Petrovna And what would you do if you did win a lot of money? Shabelsky After a moment’s thought. First of all I would go to Moscow to hear the gypsies. Then⁠ ⁠… then I should be off to Paris. I should take a flat there, I should go to the Russian church.⁠ ⁠… Anna Petrovna And what else? Shabelsky I should sit for days together on my wife’s grave and think. I should sit there till I died. My wife is buried in Paris.⁠ ⁠… a pause. Anna Petrovna How awfully dull it is! Shall we play another duet? Shabelsky Very well, get the music ready. Anna Petrovna goes out. Enter Ivanov and Lvov. Ivanov Comes into sight with Lvov in the avenue. You took your degree only last year, my dear friend, you are still young and vigorous while I am five and thirty. I have the right to advise you. Don’t marry a Jewess nor a neurotic nor a blue stocking, but choose what is commonplace, grey, with no vivid colours or superfluous flourishes. In fact, build your whole life on the conventional pattern. The greyer and the more monotonous the background the better, my dear boy. Don’t fight with thousands single-handed, don’t wage war on windmills, don’t batter your head against the wall.⁠ ⁠… God preserve you from all sorts of scientific farming, wonderful schools, enthusiastic speeches.⁠ ⁠… Shut yourself up in your shell, do the humble duty God has laid upon you.⁠ ⁠… That’s snugger, happier and more honest. But the life that I have led, how tiring it is! Ah, how tiring!⁠ ⁠… How many mistakes, how much that was unjust and absurd.⁠ ⁠… Seeing the Count, irritably. You are always in the way, Uncle, you never let one have a talk in peace! Shabelsky In a tearful voice. Oh, the devil take me, there’s no refuge for me anywhere! Jumps up and goes into the house. Ivanov Calls after him. Oh, I am sorry! To Lvov. What made me hurt his feelings? Yes, I must be out of gear. I must do something with myself, I really must.⁠ ⁠… Lvov In agitation. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, I have listened to you and⁠ ⁠… and forgive me, I will speak plainly, without beating about the bush. Your voice, your intonation, to say nothing of your words, are full of such soulless egoism, such cold heartlessness.⁠ ⁠… Someone very near to you is dying through her love for you, her days are numbered, and you⁠ ⁠… you can be cold to her, can walk about and give advice, and pose.⁠ ⁠… I cannot tell you, I have no gift for words, but⁠ ⁠… but you are intensely repulsive to me! Ivanov Very likely, very likely.⁠ ⁠… You can see it all more clearly from outside.⁠ ⁠… It’s very possible that you understand.⁠ ⁠… I daresay I am horribly to blame, horribly⁠ ⁠… listens. I fancy I hear the carriage. I am going to get ready⁠ ⁠… goes to the house and stops. You dislike me, doctor, and don’t conceal your dislike. It does credit to your heart⁠ ⁠… goes into the house. Lvov Alone. My cursed weakness! Again I’ve missed the chance and haven’t said what I ought to have said.⁠ ⁠… I cannot speak to him calmly! As soon as I open my mouth and say a word I feel such a suffocation, such a heaving here points to his chest, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I hate this Tartuffe, this highflown scoundrel, I hate him.⁠ ⁠… Here he is going away.⁠ ⁠… His poor wife’s only happiness is to have him near her, she lives in him, she implores him to spend one evening with her, and he⁠ ⁠… he cannot! He feels stifled and cramped at home, if you please. If he were to spend a single evening at home, he’d be so depressed that he’d blow his brains out. Poor fellow⁠ ⁠… he must have freedom to contrive some new villainy.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I know why you go to these Lebedyevs every evening! I know! Enter Ivanov in his hat and overcoat, Anna Petrovna and Shabelsky. Shabelsky As he comes out of the house with Anna Petrovna and Ivanov. Really, Nicolas, this is positively inhuman! You go out every evening and we are left alone. We are so bored we go to bed at eight o’clock. It’s hideous, it’s not life at all! And why is it that you can go and we mayn’t? Why? Anna Petrovna Leave him alone! Let him go, let him.⁠ ⁠… Ivanov To his wife. How can you go when you are ill? You are ill and you mustn’t be out after sunset.⁠ ⁠… Ask the doctor.