Selected plays

VOYNITSKY. A fine day to hang oneself.

TELEGIN tunes the guitar. MARINA appears near the house, calling the chickens.

MARINA. Chick, chick, chick!

SONYA. What did the peasants want, Nanny?

MARINA. The same old thing, the same old nonsense about the waste land. Chick, chick, chick!

SONYA. Why are you calling the chickens?

MARINA. The speckled hen has disappeared with her chicks. I'm afraid the crows have got them. [Walks away]

TELEGIN plays a polka. All listen in silence. Enter WORKMAN.

WORKMAN. Is the doctor here? [To ASTROV] Excuse me, sir, but I've been sent to fetch you.

ASTROV. Where are you from?

WORKMAN. The factory.

ASTROV. [Annoyed] Thank you. There is no way out, I've got to go. [Looking around him for his cap] Damn it, this is annoying!

SONYA. Yes, it's too bad, really. You must come back to dinner when you're finished at the factory.

ASTROV. No, I won't be able to do that. It'll be too late. Now where, where -- [To the WORKMAN] Look here, my man, get me a glass of vodka, will you? [The WORKMAN goes out] Where -- where -- [Finds his cap] One of the characters in Ostrovsky's plays is a man with a long moustache and thin wits, like me. However, let me bid you good-bye, ladies and gentlemen. [To HELENA] I should be really delighted if you would come to see me some day with Miss Sonya. My estate is small, a little more than eighty acres, but if you are interested in such things I should like to show you a nursery and seed bed whose like you will not find within a thousand miles of here. My place is surrounded by government forests. The forester is old and always ailing, so I superintend almost all the work myself.

HELENA. I have always heard that you were very fond of the woods. Of course one can do a great deal of good by helping to preserve them, but does not that work interfere with your real occupation? You are a doctor, after all.

ASTROV. God alone knows what a man's real occupation is.

HELENA. And do you find it interesting?

ASTROV. Yes, very.

VOYNITSKY. [Sarcastically] Oh, extremely!

HELENA. You're still young, not over thirty-six or seven, I should say, and I suspect that the woods don't interest you as much as you say they do. Nothing but tree after tree -- I should think you would find them monotonous.

SONYA. No, the work is very interesting. Dr. Astrov watches over the old woods and sets out new forests every year, and he has already received a diploma and a bronze medal. If you'll listen to what he can tell you, you'll agree with him entirely. He says that forests are the ornaments of the earth, that they teach mankind to understand beauty and attune his mind to lofty sentiments. Forests temper a stern climate, and in countries where the climate is milder, less strength is wasted in the battle with nature, and the people are kind and gentle. The inhabitants of such countries are handsome, tractable, sensitive, graceful in speech and gesture. Their philosophy is joyous, art and science blossom among them, their treatment of women is full of exquisite