Selected plays

SONYA. Oh, splendid! You so seldom spend the night with us. Have you had dinner yet?

ASTROV. No, I haven't.

SONYA. Good. So you will have it with us. We dine at seven now. [Drinks her tea] This tea is cold!

TELEGIN. Yes, the temperature in the samovar has indeed considerably diminished.

HELENA. Don't mind, Monsieur Ivan, we will drink cold tea, then.

TELEGIN. I beg your pardon, my name is not Ivan, but Ilya, ma'am -- Ilya Telegin, or Waffles, as I am sometimes called on account of my pock-marked face. I am Sonya's godfather, and his Excellency, your husband, knows me very well. I now live with you, ma'am, on this estate, and perhaps you will be so good as to notice that I dine with you every day.

SONYA. He's our great help, our right-hand man. [Tenderly] Dear godfather, let me pour you some tea.

MME. VOYNITSKAYA. Oh! Oh!

SONYA. What is it, grandmother?

MME. VOYNITSKAYA. I forgot to tell Alexander -- it slipped my mind -- I received a letter today from Paul Alexevitch in Kharkov. He has sent me a new pamphlet.

ASTROV. Is it interesting?

MME. VOYNITSKAYA. Yes, but strange. He refutes the very theories which he defended seven years ago. It is appalling!

VOYNITSKY. There's nothing appalling about it. Drink your tea, mamma.

MME. VOYNITSKAYA. But I want to talk.

VOYNITSKY. For fifty years we've talked and talked and read pamphlets. It's about time we stopped.

MME. VOYNITSKAYA. It seems you never want to listen to what I have to say. Pardon me, Jean, but you have changed so in the last year that I hardly know you. You used to be a man of settled convictions and had an illuminating personality ---

VOYNITSKY. Oh, yes. I had an illuminating personality, which illuminated no one. [A pause] I had an illuminating personality! You couldn't have made a more bitter joke. I'm forty-seven years old. Until last year I endeavoured, as you do now, to blind my eyes by your pedantry to the truths of life. But now -- Oh, if you only knew! If you knew how I lie awake at night, heartsick and angry, to think how stupidly I've wasted my time when I might have been winning from life everything -- but now I'm too old.

SONYA. Uncle Vanya, how boring!

MME. VOYNITSKAYA. [To her son] You speak as if your former convictions were somehow to blame, but you yourself, not they, are at fault. You have forgotten that a conviction, in itself, is nothing but a dead letter. You should have done something.

VOYNITSKY. Done something! Not every man is capable of being a writer perpetuum mobile like your Herr Professor.

MME. VOYNITSKAYA. What do you mean by that?

SONYA. [Imploringly] Grandmother! Uncle Vanya! Please stop it!

VOYNITSKY. I am silent. I apologise and am silent. [A pause.]

HELENA. What a fine day! Not too hot. [A pause.]