MASHA. How they keep on talking, talking all day long [goes]. To live in such a climate, it may snow any minute, and then all this talk on the top of it [stops]. I'm not going indoors, I can't go in there. . . . When Vershinin comes, tell me . . . [goes down the avenue]. And the birds are already flying south . . . [looks up]. Swans or geese. . . . Darlings, happy birds . . . . . . . [goes out].
ANDREY. Our house will be empty. The officers are going, you are going, Irina is getting married, and I shall be left in the house alone.
CHEBUTYKIN. What about your wife?
[Enter FERAPONT with papers.]
ANDREY. A wife is a wife. She's a straightforward, upright woman, kind, perhaps, but for all that there's something in her which makes her no better than some petty, blind, hairy animal. Anyway she's not a human being. I speak to you as to a friend, the one man to whom I can open my soul. I love Natasha, that's so, but sometimes she seems to me absolutely vulgar, and then I don't know what to think, I can't account for my loving her or, anyway, having loved her.
CHEBUTYKIN [gets up]. I'm going away tomorrow, my boy, perhaps we'll never meet again, so this is my advice to you. Put on your cap, you know, take your stick and walk off . . . walk off and just go, go without looking back. And the farther you go, the better.
[SOLYONY crosses the stage in the background with two officers; seeing CHEBUTYKIN he turns towards him; the officers walk on.]
SOLYONY. Doctor, it's time! It's half-past twelve [greets ANDREY].
CHEBUTYKIN. Directly. I'm sick of you all. [To ANDREY] If anyone asks for me, Andryusha, say I'll be back directly . . . [sighs]. Oho-ho-ho!
SOLYONY. He had not time to say alack before the bear was on his back [walks away with the doctor]. Why are you croaking, old man?
CHEBUTYKIN. Come!
SOLYONY. How do you feel?
CHEBUTYKIN [angrily]. Like a pig in clover.
SOLYONY. The old man doesn't need excite himself. I won't do anything much, I'll only shoot him like a snipe [takes out scent and sprinkles his hands]. I've used a whole bottle today, and still they smell. My hands smell like a corpse [a pause]. Yes. . . . Do you remember the poem? 'And, restless, seeks the stormy ocean, as though in tempest there were peace.' . . .
CHEBUTYKIN. Yes. He had not time to say alack before the bear was on his back [goes out with SOLYONY. Shouts are heard: 'Halloo! Oo-oo!' ANDREY and FERAPONT come in].
FERAPONT. Papers for you to sign. . . .
ANDREY [nervously]. Let me alone! Let me alone! I beg you! [Walks away with the baby carriage.]
FERAPONT. That's what the papers are for -- to be signed [retires into the background].
[Enter IRINA and TUZENBAKH, wearing a straw hat; KULYGIN crosses the stage shouting 'Aa-oo, Masha, aa-oo!']
TUZENBAKH. I believe that's the only man in the town who's glad that the officers are going away.
IRINA. That's very natural [a pause]. Our town will be empty now.
