Ivanov

Please sit down gets up, goes out of door on right and at once returns; she looks extremely preoccupied. Sasha sits down in the same place as before. Ivanov greets everyone in silence. Lebedyev To Shabelsky. Where have you dropped from? What brought you here? It is a surprise! Kisses him. Count, you are a rascal! Is that the way for decent people to behave? Leads him by the hand to the footlights. Why do you never come and see us? Are you cross, or what? Shabelsky How can I come and see you? Astride a stick? I have no horses, and Nikolay won’t bring me with him: he tells me to stay with Sarra, to keep her company. Send your horses for me, and then I will come.⁠ ⁠… Lebedyev With a wave of his hand. Oh, well! Zyuzushka would burst before she’d let me have the horses. You dear creature, you darling, you know you are nearer and dearer to me than anyone! Of all the old set there is no one left but you and me! In you I love my sorrows of past years, and my fair youth so idly flung away.⁠ ⁠… Joking apart, I feel ready to cry! Kisses the Count. Shabelsky Let go⁠—let go! You smell like a wine-cellar.⁠ ⁠… Lebedyev My dear soul, you can’t think how I miss my old friends! I could hang myself, I am so miserable softly. Zyuzushka, with her money-grubbing, has driven all decent people away, and as you see we have none but Zulus left⁠ ⁠… these Dudkins and Budkins.⁠ ⁠… Come, drink your tea! Gavril brings Shabelsky tea. Zinaida Anxiously to Gavril. What are you doing? Bring some jam⁠ ⁠… gooseberry, or something⁠ ⁠… Shabelsky Laughs; to Ivanov. There; did I not tell you? To Lebedyev. I bet him on the way that as soon as we got here Zyuzushka would regale us with gooseberry jam.⁠ ⁠… Zinaida You are just as fond of your joke as ever, Count sits down. Lebedyev She has made two barrels of gooseberry jam, so what is she to do with it? Shabelsky Sitting down near the table. You are saving money, Zyuzushka, aren’t you? I suppose you are a millionaire by now, eh? Zinaida With a sigh. Yes, to outsiders it seems as though we are richer than anyone, but where could we get money from? That’s all gossip.⁠ ⁠… Shabelsky Come, come! We know all about that!⁠ ⁠… We know what a poor hand you are at the game⁠ ⁠… To Lebedyev. Pasha, tell the truth, have you saved a million? Lebedyev I don’t know. Ask Zyuzushka.⁠ ⁠… Shabelsky To Madame Babakin. And our fat little dumpling will soon have a million too! She gets plumper and prettier, not every day, but every hour! That’s what it is to have plenty of money.⁠ ⁠… Madame Babakin I am very much obliged to your Excellency, but I am not fond of being jeered at. Shabelsky My dear goldmine, do you suppose it was a jeer? It was simply a cry from the heart. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh.⁠ ⁠… There is no limit to my affection for you and Zyuzushka gaily. It’s rapture, ecstasy! I can’t look at either of you unmoved! Zinaida You are just the same as ever. To Yegorushka. Yegorushka, put out the candles! Why let them burn for nothing when you are not playing? Yegorushka starts; puts out the candles and sits down. To Ivanov. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, how is your wife? Ivanov She is very ill. The doctor told us today that it is certainly consumption. Zinaida Really? What a pity! A sigh. We are all so fond of her. Shabelsky Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense!⁠ ⁠… There is no consumption at all: it’s all quackery⁠—doctors’ tricks. The learned gentleman likes to hang about the house, so he makes out it’s consumption. Luckily for him the husband is not jealous. Ivanov makes a gesture of impatience. As for Sarra herself, I don’t trust a word she says or a thing she does. All my life I’ve never trusted doctors, lawyers, or women. It’s all nonsense and nonsense, quackery and tricks! Lebedyev To Shabelsky. You are a strange individual, Matvey!⁠ ⁠… You’ve taken up this affectation of misanthropy and play about with it like a fool with a new hat. You are a man like anyone else, but you are as peevish in your talk as though you had a blister on your tongue, or indigestion.⁠ ⁠… Shabelsky Why, would you have me kiss rogues and scoundrels, or what? Lebedyev Where do you see rogues and scoundrels? Shabelsky I don’t refer to present company, of course, but⁠ ⁠… Lebedyev There you are with your buts.⁠ ⁠… It’s all affectation. Shabelsky Affectation?⁠ ⁠… It’s a good thing you’ve no philosophy of life. Lebedyev What philosophy could I have? I sit every minute expecting to kick the bucket. That’s my philosophy of life. It’s too late for you and me, old man, to talk of philosophies of life. Yes, indeed! Shouts. Gavril! Shabelsky You have had too much of Gavril as it is.⁠ ⁠… Your nose is like beetroot already. Lebedyev Drinks. Never mind, my dear soul⁠ ⁠… it’s not my wedding day. Zinaida It is a long while since Dr. Lvov has been to see us. He has quite deserted us. Sasha My pet aversion. The walking image of honesty. He can’t ask for a glass of water or smoke a cigarette without displaying his extraordinary honesty. If he walks about or talks, his face is always labelled “I am an honest man.” He bores me. Shabelsky He is a stiff-necked, narrow-minded individual! Mimicking. “Make way for honest labour!” He shouts like a cockatoo at every step, and he fancies he is really a second Dobrolyubov. If a man does not shout as he does, he is a scoundrel. His views are wonderfully profound. If a peasant is well off and lives like a human being, he is a scoundrel and a bloodsucker. I put on a velvet jacket