OLGA. The very slightest rudeness, a tactless word, upsets me. . . .
NATASHA. I often say too much, that's true, but you must admit, dear, that she might just as well be in the country.
OLGA. She's been with us for thirty years.
NATASHA. But now she can't work! Either I don't understand, or you won't understand me. She's not fit for work. She does nothing but sleep or sit still.
OLGA. Well, let her sit still.
NATASHA [surprised]. How, sit still? Why, she's a servant. [Through tears] I don't understand you, Olya. I've a nanny to look after the children as well as a wet nurse for baby, and we have a housemaid and a cook, what do we want that old woman for? What's the use of her?
[The alarm bell rings behind the scenes.]
OLGA. This night has made me ten years older.
NATASHA. We must come to an understanding, Olya. You are at the high-school, I'm at home; you're teaching while I look after the house, and if I say anything about the servants, I know what I'm talking about; I do know-what-I-am-talk-ing-a-bout. . . . And that old thief, that old hag . . . [stamps her foot], that old witch shall clear out of the house tomorrow! . . . I won't have people annoy me! I won't have it! [Feeling that she has gone too far] Really, if you don't move downstairs, we'll always be quarrelling. It's awful.
[Enter KULYGIN.]
KULYGIN. Where is Masha? It's time to be going home. The fire is dying down, so they say [stretches]. Only one part of the town has been burnt, and yet there was a wind; it seemed at first as though the whole town would be destroyed [sits down]. I'm exhausted. Olechka, my dear . . . I often think if it had not been for Masha I should have married you. You're so good. . . . I'm tired out [listens].
OLGA. What is it?
KULYGIN. It is unfortunate the doctor should have a drinking bout just now; he is helplessly drunk. Most unfortunate [gets up]. Here he comes, I do believe. . . . Do you hear? Yes, he's coming this way . . . [laughs]. What a man he is, really. . . . I'll hide [goes to the wardrobe and stands in the corner]. Isn't he a ruffian!
OLGA. He hasn't drunk for two years and now he's gone and done it . . . [walks away with NATASHA to the back of the room].
[CHEBUTYKIN comes in; walking as though sober without staggering, he walks across the room, stops, looks round; then goes up to the washing-stand and begins to wash his hands.]
CHEBUTYKIN [morosely]. The devil take them all . . . damn them all. They think I'm a doctor, that I can treat all sorts of complaints, and I really know nothing about it, I've forgotten all I did know, I remember nothing, absolutely nothing. [OLGA and NATASHA go out unnoticed by him.] The devil take them. Last Wednesday I treated a woman at Zasyp -- she died, and it's my fault that she died. Yes . . . I did know something twenty-five years ago, but now I remember nothing, nothing. Perhaps I'm not a man at all but only pretend to have arms and legs and head; perhaps I don't exist at all and only imagine that I walk around, eat and sleep [weeps]. Oh, if only I didn't exist! [Stops weeping, morosely] I don't care! I don't care a scrap! [a pause] Who the hell knows. . . . The day before yesterday there was a conversation at the club: they talked about Shakespeare, Voltaire. . . . I've read nothing, nothing at all, but I looked as though I'd read them. And the others did the same as I
