down to the candle which she has left behind, reads. Enter FERAPONT; he wears an old shabby overcoat, with the collar turned up, and has a scarf over his ears.]
ANDREY. Good evening, my good man. What is it?
FERAPONT. The Chairman has sent a book and a paper of some sort here . . . [gives the book and an packet].
ANDREY. Thanks. Very good. But why have you come so late? It's past eight.
FERAPONT. Eh?
ANDREY [louder]. I say, you have come late. It's past eight o'clock.
FERAPONT. Just so. I came before it was dark, but they wouldn't let me see you. The master is busy, they told me. Well, of course, if you are busy, I'm in no hurry [thinking that ANDREY has asked him a question]. Eh?
ANDREY. Nothing [examines the book]. Tomorrow is Friday. We don't have a meeting, but I'll come all the same . . . and do my work. It's boring at home . . . [a pause]. Dear old man, how strangely life changes and deceives you! Today I was so bored and had nothing to do, so I picked up this book -- old university lectures -- and I laughed. . . . Good heavens! I'm the secretary of the District Council of which Protopopov is the chairman. I am the secretary, and the most I can hope for is to become a member of the Board! Me, a member of the local District Council, while I dream every night I'm professor at the University of Moscow -- a distinguished man, of whom all Russia is proud!
FERAPONT. I can't say, sir. . . . I don't hear well. . . .
ANDREY. If you did hear well, perhaps I shouldn't talk to you. I must talk to somebody, and my wife doesn't understand me. My sisters I'm somehow afraid of -- I'm afraid they will laugh at me and make me ashamed. . . . I don't drink, I'm not fond of restaurants, but how I'd enjoy sitting at Tyestov's or the Bolshoy Moskovsky at this moment, dear old man!
FERAPONT. A contractor was saying at the Board the other day that there were some merchants in Moscow eating pancakes; one who ate forty, it seems, died. It was either forty or fifty, I don't remember.
ANDREY. In Moscow you sit in a huge room at a restaurant; you know no one and no one knows you, and at the same time you don't feel a stranger. . . . But here you know everyone and everyone knows you, and yet you are a stranger -- a stranger. . . . A stranger, and lonely, . . .
FERAPONT. Eh? [a pause] And the same contractor says -- maybe it's not true -- that there's a rope stretched right across Moscow.
ANDREY. What for?
FERAPONT. I can't say, sir. The contractor said so.
ANDREY. Nonsense [reads]. Have you ever been to Moscow?
FERAPONT [after a pause]. No, never. It wasn't God's will I should [a pause]. Mind if I go?
ANDREY. You can go. Take care of yourself. [FERAPONT goes out.] Take care [reading]. Come tomorrow morning and pick up some papers here. . . . Go. . . . [a pause]. He's gone [a ring]. Yes, it's work . . . [stretches and goes slowly into his own room].
[Behind the scenes a nanny is singing, rocking a baby to sleep. Enter MASHA and VERSHININ. While they are talking a maidservant is lighting a lamp and candles in the dining-room.]
MASHA. I don't know [a pause]. I don't
