The evening damp is bad for you.

ANNA PETROVNA: Yes, sir.11

LVOV: What’s this ‘yes, sir’! I am being serious.

ANNA PETROVNA: But I don’t want to be serious. [Coughs.] LVOV: You see now — you’re already coughing ...

VII

[LVOV, ANNA PETROVNA and SHABELSKY.]

SHABELSKY [coming out of the house in hat and coat]: Where’s Nikolay? Have they brought round the horses? [Quickly goes and kisses Anna Petrovna’s hand.] Goot night, my angel. [He makes a face.] Gevalt!12Egsguse me, plees! [Quickly goes out.]

LVOV: What a clown.

[A pause: the distant sounds of a harmonica can be heard.]

ANNA PETROVNA: What boredom! ... The stables and kitchen are having a dance and I ... I feel abandoned ... Yevgeny Kostantinovich, where you are striding off to? Come here, sit down! ...

LVOV: I can’t sit still.

[A pause.]

ANNA PETROVNA: They’re playing ‘Birdy’ in the kitchen. [Sings] ‘Birdy, birdy, where’d you go? Drinking vodka high and low.’

[A pause.]

Doctor, do you have a father and mother?

LVOV: My father’s dead but I have a mother.

ANNA PETROVNA: Do you miss your mother?

LVOV: I have no time to miss her.

ANNA PETROVNA: The flowers come up again every spring, but joy there is none. Who said that sentence to me? God help me remember ... I think Nikolay himself said it. [Listens.] The owl is shrieking again.

LVOV: So let it shriek ...

ANNA PETROVNA: I am beginning to think, doctor, that fate has cheated me. The majority of people, who maybe are no better than I am, are happy and pay nothing for that happiness. I have paid for everything, absolutely everything! ... And how dearly! Why have I paid such terrible interest? ... My dear, you are all so careful with me, so full of tact, you’re frightened of telling the truth, but do you think I don’t know what is wrong with me? I know perfectly well. But it’s boring to talk about that ... [In a Jewish accent] Egsguse me, plees! Can you tell funny stories?

LVOV: No, I can’t.

ANNA PETROVNA: Nikolay can. And I’m also beginning to be surprised at people’s lack of justice: why is love not met with love, and why is truth paid for with lies? Tell me: how long will my father and mother hate me? They live fifty versts from here and I feel their hatred day and night, even in my dreams. And how do you think I should take Nikolay’s depression? He says he loses his love for me only in the evenings when the depression comes over him. That I understand and tolerate, but suppose he’s completely stopped loving me. Of course that’s impossible, but just suppose ... No, no, I mustn’t even think of that. [Sings] ‘Birdy, birdy, where’d you go?’ [Shudders.] What frightening thoughts I have! ... You don’t have a family, doctor, and you can’t understand much of this ...

LVOV: You are surprised ... [Sits down next to her.] No, I ... I am surprised, I am surprised at you. Now explain, give me an account of how it is that you, an intelligent, honest, almost saintly woman, have allowed yourself to be so brazenly deceived, to be dragged into this owl’s nest. Why are you here? What have you in common with this cold, heartless ... but let’s forget your husband — what do you have in common with this empty vulgar milieu? Lord God above! ... That perpetually grumpy, crazy Count, Misha, that sly old crook of crooks, with that hateful face of his ... Explain to me what’s the point of your being here.