Selected plays

know. Of course habit means a great deal. After father's death, for instance, it was a long time before we could get used to having no orderlies in the house. But apart from habit, I think it's a feeling of justice makes me say so. Perhaps it's not so in other places, but in our town the most decent, honourable, and well-bred people are all in the army.

VERSHININ. I'm thirsty. I'd like some tea.

MASHA [glancing at the clock]. They'll soon be bringing it. I was married when I was eighteen, and I was afraid of my husband because he was a teacher, and I had only just left school. In those days I thought him an awfully scholarly, clever, and important person. And now it's not the same, unfortunately. . . .

VERSHININ. Yes. . . . I see. . . .

MASHA. I'm not speaking of my husband -- I'm used to him; but among civilians generally there are so many rude, ill-mannered, badly-brought-up people. Rudeness upsets and distresses me: I'm unhappy when I see that a man is not refined, not gentle, not polite enough. When I have to be among the teachers, my husband's colleagues, it makes me quite miserable.

VERSHININ. Yes. . . . But, to my mind, it makes no difference whether they are civilians or military men -- they are equally uninteresting, in this town anyway. It's all the same! If one listens to a man of the educated class here, civilian or military, he's worried to death by his wife, worried to death by his house, worried to death by his estate, worried to death by his horses. . . . A Russian is peculiarly given to exalted ideas, but why is it he always falls so short in life? Why?

MASHA. Why?

VERSHININ. Why is he worried to death by his children and by his wife? And why are his wife and children worried to death by him?

MASHA. You are rather depressed this evening.

VERSHININ. Perhaps. . . . I've had no dinner today, and had nothing to eat since the morning. My daughter is not quite well, and when my little girls are ill I am consumed by anxiety; my conscience reproaches me for having given them such a mother. Oh, if you had seen her today! What a fool she is! We began quarrelling at seven o'clock in the morning, and at nine I slammed the door and went away [a pause]. I never talk about it. Strange, it's only to you I complain [kisses her hand]. Don't be angry with me. . . . Except for you I have no one -- no one . . . [a pause].

MASHA. What a noise in the stove! Before father died there was howling in the chimney. There, just like that.

VERSHININ. Are you superstitious?

MASHA. Yes.

VERSHININ. That's strange [kisses her hand]. You're a splendid, wonderful woman. Splendid! Wonderful! It's dark, but I see the light in your eyes.

MASHA [moves to another chair]. It's lighter here.

VERSHININ. I love you -- love you, love you, . . . I love your eyes, your movements, I see them in my dreams. . . . Splendid, wonderful woman!

MASHA [laughing softly]. When you talk to me like that, for some reason I laugh, though I am frightened. . . . Please don't do it again . . . [In an undertone] You may say it, though; I don't mind . . . [covers her face with her hands]. I don't mind, . . . Someone is coming. Talk of something else.

[IRINA and TUZENBAKH come in through the dining-room.]

TUZENBAKH. I've got a three-barrelled name. My name is Baron Tusenbach-Krone-Altschauer, but I