Selected plays

nobility ---

VOYNITSKY. [Laughing] Bravo! Bravo! All that's very pretty, but it's also unconvincing. So, my friend [To ASTROV] you must let me go on burning firewood in my stoves and building my sheds of planks.

ASTROV. You can burn peat in your stoves and build your sheds of stone. Oh, I don't object, of course, to cutting wood from necessity, but why destroy the forests? The woods of Russia are trembling under the blows of the axe. Millions of trees have perished. The homes of the wild animals and birds have been desolated; the rivers are shrinking, and many beautiful landscapes are gone forever. And why? Because men are too lazy and stupid to stoop down and pick up their fuel from the ground. [To HELENA] Am I not right, Madame? Who but a stupid barbarian could burn so much beauty in his stove and destroy that which he cannot make? Man is endowed with reason and the power to create, so that he may increase that which has been given him, but until now he has not created, but demolished. The forests are disappearing, the rivers are running dry, the wild life is exterminated, the climate is spoiled, and the earth becomes poorer and uglier every day. [To VOYNITSKY] I see irony in your look; you don't take what I am saying seriously, and -- and -- after all, it may very well be nonsense. But when I pass village forests that I have preserved from the axe, or hear the rustling of the young trees set out with my own hands, I feel as if I had had some small share in improving the climate, and that if mankind is happy a thousand years from now I'll have been a little bit responsible for their happiness. When I plant a little birch tree and then see it budding into young green and swaying in the wind, my heart swells with pride and I -- [Sees the WORKMAN, who is bringing him a glass of vodka on a tray] however -- [He drinks] I must be off. Probably it's all nonsense, anyway. Good-bye.

He goes toward the house. SONYA takes his arm and goes with him.

SONYA. When are you coming to see us again?

ASTROV. I can't say.

SONYA. Not for a month again?

ASTROV and SONYA go into the house. MME. VOYNITSKAYA and TELEGIN remain near the table. HELENA and VOYNITSKY walk over to the terrace.

HELENA. You have behaved shockingly again. Ivan, what sense was there in teasing your mother and talking about perpetuum mobile? And at lunch you quarreled with Alexander again. Really, your behaviour is too petty.

VOYNITSKY. But what if I hate him?

HELENA. You hate Alexander without reason; he's like every one else, and no worse than you are.

VOYNITSKY. If you could only see your face, the way you move! Oh, how tedious your life must be, absolutely tedious.

HELENA. It is tedious, yes, and boring! You all abuse my husband and look on me with compassion; you think, 'Poor woman, she's married to an old man.' How well I understand your compassion! As Astrov said just now, see how you thoughtlessly destroy the forests, so that there will soon be none left. So you also destroy mankind, and soon loyalty and purity and self-sacrifice will have vanished with the woods. Why cannot you look calmly at a woman unless she is yours? Because, the doctor was right, you are all possessed by a devil of destruction; you have no mercy on the woods or the birds or on women or on one another.

VOYNITSKY. I don't like your philosophy.

HELENA. That doctor has a sensitive, weary face -- an interesting face. Sonya evidently likes him, and she's in love with him, and I can understand it. This is the third time he's