IRINA. That was mother's clock.
CHEBUTYKIN. Perhaps. . . . Well, if it was hers, it was. Perhaps I didn't smash it, but it only seems as though I had. Perhaps it only seems to us that we exist, but really we aren't here at all. I don't know anything -- nobody knows anything. [By the door] What are you staring at? Natasha has got a little affair going with Protopopov, and you don't see it, . . . You sit here and see nothing, while Natasha has a little affair on with Protopopov . . . [sings]. May I offer you this fig? . . . [Goes out.]
VERSHININ. Yes . . . [laughs]. How very strange it all is, really! [a pause] When the fire began I ran home as fast as I could. I went up and saw our house was safe and sound and out of danger, but my little girls were standing in the doorway in their night-gowns; their mother was nowhere to be seen, people were bustling about, horses and dogs were running about, and my children's faces were full of alarm, horror, pleas for help, and I don't know what; it wrung my heart to see their faces. My God, I thought, what more have these children to go through in the long years to come! I took their hands and ran along with them, and could think of nothing else but what more they would have to go through in this world! [a pause] When I came to your house I found their mother here, screaming, angry.
[MASHA comes in with the pillow and sits down on the sofa.]
VERSHININ. And while my little girls were standing in the doorway in their nightgowns and the street was red with the fire, and there was a fearful noise, I thought that something like it used to happen years ago when the enemy would suddenly make a raid and begin plundering and burning, . . . And yet, in reality, what a difference there is between what is now and has been in the past! And when a little more time has passed -- another two or three hundred years -- people will look at our present manner of life with horror and derision, and everything of today will seem awkward and heavy, and very strange and uncomfortable. Oh, what a wonderful life that will be -- what a wonderful life! [Laughs] Forgive me, here I am airing my theories again! Allow me to go on. I have such a desire to talk about the future. I'm in the mood [a pause]. It's as though everyone were asleep. And so, I say, what a wonderful life it will be! Can you only imagine? . . . Here there are only three of your sort in the town now, but in generations to come there will be more and more and more; and the time will come when everything will be changed and be as you would have it; they will live in your way, and later on you too will be out of date -- people will be born who will be better than you. . . . [laughs]. I am in such a strange state of mind today. I have a fiendish longing for life . . . [sings]. Young and old are bound by love, and precious are its pangs . . . [laughs].
MASHA. Tram-tam-tam!
VERSHININ. Tam-tam!
MASHA. Tra-ra-ra?
VERSHININ. Tra-ta-ta! [Laughs]
[Enter FEDOTIK.]
FEDOTIK [dances]. Burnt to ashes! Burnt to ashes! Everything I had in the world [laughter].
IRINA. That's not something to joke about. Is everything burnt?
FEDOTIK [laughs]. Everything I had in the world. Nothing is left. My guitar is burnt, and the camera and all my letters. . . . And the note-book I meant to give you -- that's burnt too.
[Enter SOLYONY.]
IRINA. No; please go, Vassily Vassilyitch. You
