Selected plays

use of such expressions in conversation? With your attractive appearance I tell you straight out, you would be simply fascinating in a well-bred social circle if it were not for the things you say. Je vous prie, pardonnez-moi, Marie, mais vous avez des manieres un peu grossieres.

TUZENBAKH [suppressing a laugh]. Give me . . . give me . . . I think there is some brandy there.

NATASHA. Il parait que mon Bobik deja ne dort pas, he's awake. He isn't well today. I must go to him, excuse me. . . . [goes out] .

IRINA. Where has Alexandr Ignatyevitch gone?

MASHA. Home. Something going on with his wife again.

TUZENBAKH [goes up to SOLYONY with a decanter of brandy in his hand]. You always sit alone, thinking, and there's no making out what you think about. Come, let's make peace. Let's have a drink of brandy. [They drink.] I'll have to play the piano all night, I suppose, play all sorts of trash. . . . Here goes!

SOLYONY. Why do you want to make peace? I haven't quarrelled with you.

TUZENBAKH. You always make me feel as though something had gone wrong between us. You are a strange character, there's no denying that.

SOLYONY. [declaims]. I am strange, who is not strange! Be not wrath, Aleko!

TUZENBAKH. I don't see what Aleko has got to do with it, . . . [a pause]

SOLYONY. When I'm tete-a-tete with somebody, I'm all right, just like anyone else, but in company I'm depressed, ill at ease and . . . say all sorts of idiotic things, but at the same time I'm more conscientious and straightforward than many. And I can prove it, . . .

TUZENBAKH. I often feel angry with you, you're always attacking me when we're in company, and yet I somehow like you. What the hell, I'm going to drink a lot today. Let's drink!

SOLYONY. Let's [drinks]. I've never had anything against you, Baron. But I have the temperament of Lermontov. [In a low voice] In fact I'm rather like Lermontov to look at . . . so I'm told [takes out scent-bottle and sprinkles scent on his hands].

TUZENBAKH. I have sent in my resignation. I've had enough of it! I have been thinking of it for five years and at last I have come to a decision. I'm going to work.

SOLYONY [declaims]. Be not wrath, Aleko, . . . Forget, forget thy dreams. . . .

[While they are talking ANDREY comes in quietly with a book and sits down by a candle.]

TUZENBAKH. I'm going to work.

CHEBUTYKIN [coming into the drawing-room with IRINA]. And the food too was real Caucasian stuff: onion soup and for the meat course tchehartma, . . .

SOLYONY. Tcheremsha is not meat at all, it's a plant rather like our onion.

CHEBUTYKIN. No, my dear soul. It's not onion, but mutton roasted in a special way.

SOLYONY. But I tell you that tcheremsha is an onion.

CHEBUTYKIN. And I tell you that tchehartma is mutton.