Selected plays

should have been dead long ago. . . . [To IRINA] My dear, my little girl, I've known you from a baby. . . I've carried you in my arms. . . . I loved your dear mother. . . .

IRINA. But why such expensive presents?

CHEBUTYKIN [angry and tearful]. Expensive presents. . . . Get along with you! [To the orderly] Take the samovar in there. . . [Mimicking] Expensive presents . . . [The orderly carries the samovar into the dining-room.]

ANFISA [crossing the room]. My dears, a colonel is here, a stranger. . . . He has taken off his overcoat, children, he is coming in here. Irinushka, you must be nice and polite, dear. . . [As she goes out] And it's time for lunch already. . . mercy on us. .

TUZENBAKH. Vershinin, I suppose.

[Enter VERSHININ.]

TUZENBAKH. Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin.

VERSHININ [to MASHA and IRINA]. I've the honour to introduce myself, my name is Vershinin. I'm very, very glad to be in your house at last. How you've grown up! Oh! Oh!

IRINA. Please sit down. We are delighted to see you.

VERSHININ [with animation]. How glad I am, how glad I am! But there are three of you sisters. I remember three little girls. I don't remember your faces, but that your father, Colonel Prozorov, had three little girls I remember perfectly, and saw them with my own eyes. How time passes! Hey-ho, how it passes!

TUZENBAKH. Alexandr Ignatyevitch has come from Moscow.

IRINA. From Moscow? You have come from Moscow?

VERSHININ. Yes. Your father was in command of a battery there, and I was an officer in the same brigade. [To MASHA] Your face, now, I seem to remember.

MASHA. I don't remember you.

IRINA. Olya! Olya! [Calls into the dining-room] Olya, come!

[OLGA comes out of the dining-room into the drawing-room.]

IRINA. Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin is from Moscow, it appears.

VERSHININ. So you are Olga Sergeyevna, the eldest. . . . And you are Marya. . . . And you are Irina, the youngest. . . .

OLGA. You come from Moscow?

VERSHININ. Yes. I studied in Moscow. I began my service there, I served there for years, and at last I've been given a battery here -- I have moved here as you see. I don't remember you exactly, I only remember you were three sisters. I remember your father. If I shut my eyes, I can see him as though he were living. I used to visit you in Moscow. . . .

OLGA. I thought I remembered everyone, and now all at once. . .

VERSHININ. My name is Alexandr Ignatyevitch.

IRINA. Alexandr Ignatyevitch, you've come from Moscow. . . . What a surprise!

OLGA. We're going to move there, you know.

IRINA. We're hoping to be there by the autumn. It's our native town, we were born there. . . . In Old Basmannaya Street . . . [both laugh with delight].

MASHA. To see some one from our own town unexpectedly! [Eagerly] Now I remember!