He wants to loaf around playing Aesculapius,8 so he’s dreamt up consumption. It’s a good thing her husband isn’t jealous. [IVANOV makes an impatient movement.] As for Sara, I don’t trust one word of hers, not a single movement. I have never in my life trusted doctors or lawyers or women. Nonsense, nonsense, quackery and hocus-pocus.

LEBEDEV [to Shabelsky]: You’re an amazing character, Matvey ... You’ve assumed some kind of misanthropy and traipse around with it like a broody hen. You look like anyone else but as soon as you open your mouth, it’s as if you had a boil on your tongue or chronic catarrh ...

SHABELSKY: What am I meant to do, kiss every crook and rogue or something?

LEBEDEV: Where do you see crooks and rogues?

SHABELSKY: I’m not talking of present company of course, but ...

LEBEDEV: So much for but ... It’s all put on.

SHABELSKY: Put on ... It’s a good thing you have no world-view of your own.

LEBEDEV: What is my world-view? I sit and wait for the grim reaper every minute. That is my philosophy. You and I haven’t got time to think about philosophy, old man. So ... [Shouts] Gavrila!

SHABELSKY: You’ve had too much Gavrila as it is ... Look at your nose, it’s all lit up.

LEBEDEV [drinking]: Don’t worry, my love ... I don’t have to go to my wedding.

ZINAIDA SAVISHNA: It’s a long time since Dr Lvov came to us. He’s quite forgotten us.

SASHA: My pet aversion. Honesty on legs. He can’t ask for water or light a cigarette without displaying his exceptional honesty. Whether he’s walking or talking, his forehead has ‘I am an honest man’ written on it! It’s boring to be with him.

SHABELSKY: A narrow-minded, one-directional physician! [Imitating him] ‘The road to honest labour!’ He squawks like a parrot at every step and thinks he really is a second Dobrolyubov.9 Anyone who doesn’t squawk is a criminal. His views are amazingly profound. If a peasant is prosperous and lives like a human being, then he must be a crook and an exploiting kulak.10 I wear a velvet jacket and a manservant dresses me — I am a crook and a supporter of serfdom.11 He’s so honest, so honest he’s bursting with honesty. He doesn’t know where to put himself. I’m even frightened of him ... I really am! ... I’m afraid he might hit me on the snout or treat me like a crook out of a sense of duty.

IVANOV: He’s worn me out dreadfully, but I like him all the same; he has a lot of sincerity.

SHABELSKY: Sincerity is nice! He comes up to me yesterday evening, and for no reason at all: ‘Count, I find you deeply antipathetic.’ Thank you very much! And none of this is straightforward, it has a message; and the voice trembles and the eyes flash and the knees shake ... To hell with his wooden honesty! So, he finds me repellent, vile, that’s natural ... I recognize it myself, but why say it to my face? I am a worthless person, but be that as it may, I do have grey hairs ... This honesty is without talent, without pity!

LEBEDEV: There, there, there! ... You yourself were young, weren’t you, and can understand.

SHABELSKY: Yes, I’ve been young and foolish, in my time I’ve played Chatsky12 and exposed rogues and swindlers, but I’ve never in my life called thieves thieves to their face or talked of the rope in a hanged man’s house. I was properly brought up.