SOLYONY. If a man philosophises, there will be philosophy or sophistry, anyway, but if a woman philosophises, or two do it, then it will be so much twiddle-twaddle!
MASHA. What do you mean to say by that, you terrible person?
SOLYONY. Nothing. He had not time to say "alack," before the bear was on his back [a pause].
MASHA [to OLGA, angrily]. Don't blubber!
[Enter ANFISA and FERAPONT carrying a cake.]
ANFISA. This way, my good man. Come in, your boots are clean. [To IRINA] From the District Council, from Mihail Ivanitch Protopopov. . . . A cake.
IRINA. Thanks. Thank him [takes the cake].
FERAPONT. What?
IRINA [more loudly]. Thank him from me!
OLGA. Nanny dear, give him something to eat. Ferapont, go along, they will give you something to eat.
FERAPONT. Eh?
ANFISA. Come along, Ferapont Spiridonitch, my good soul, come along. . . [goes out with FERAPONT].
MASHA. I don't like that Protopopov, that Mihail Potapitch or Ivanitch. He ought not to be invited.
IRINA. I didn't invite him.
MASHA. That's a good thing.
[Enter CHEBUTYKIN, followed by an orderly with a silver samovar; a hum of surprise and displeasure.]
OLGA [putting her hands over her face]. A samovar! How awful! [Goes out to the table in the dining-room.]
IRINA. My dear Ivan Romanitch, what are you thinking about!
TUZENBAKH [laughs]. I warned you!
MASHA. Ivan Romanitch, you really have no conscience!
CHEBUTYKIN. My dear girls, my darlings, you are all that I have, you are the most precious treasures I have on earth. I shall soon be sixty, I am an old man, alone in the world, a useless old man. . . . There is nothing good in me, except my love for you, and if it were not for you, I should have been dead long ago. . . . [To IRINA] My dear, my little girl, I've known you from a baby. . . I've carried you in my arms. . . . I loved your dear mother. . . .
IRINA. But why such expensive presents?
CHEBUTYKIN [angry and tearful]. Expensive presents. . . . Get along with you! [To the orderly] Take the samovar in there. . . [Mimicking] Expensive presents . . . [The orderly carries the samovar into the dining-room.]
ANFISA [crossing the room]. My dears, a colonel is here, a stranger. . . . He has taken off his overcoat, children, he is coming in here. Irinushka, you must be nice and polite, dear. . . [As she goes out] And it's time for lunch already. . . mercy on us. .
TUZENBAKH. Vershinin, I suppose.
[Enter VERSHININ.]
TUZENBAKH. Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin.
VERSHININ [to MASHA and IRINA]. I've the honour to introduce myself, my name is Vershinin. I'm very, very glad to be in your house at last. How you've grown up! Oh! Oh!
IRINA. Please sit down. We are delighted to see you.
VERSHININ [with animation]. How glad I am, how glad I am! But there are three of you sisters. I remember three little girls. I don't remember your faces, but that your father, Colonel Prozorov, had three little girls I remember perfectly, and saw them with my own eyes. How time passes! Hey-ho, how it passes!
TUZENBAKH. Alexandr Ignatyevitch has come from Moscow.
IRINA. From Moscow? You have come from Moscow?
VERSHININ. Yes. Your father was in command of a battery there, and I was an officer in the same brigade. [To MASHA] Your face, now, I seem to remember.
MASHA. I don't remember you.
IRINA. Olya! Olya! [Calls into the dining-room] Olya, come!
[OLGA comes out of the dining-room into the drawing-room.]
IRINA. Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin is from Moscow, it appears.
VERSHININ. So you are Olga Sergeyevna, the eldest. . . . And you are Marya. . . . And you are Irina, the youngest. . . .
OLGA. You come from Moscow?
VERSHININ. Yes. I studied in Moscow. I began my service there, I served there for years, and at last I've been given a battery here -- I have moved here as you see. I don't remember you exactly, I only remember you were three sisters. I remember your father. If I shut my eyes, I can see him as though he were living. I used to visit you in Moscow. . . .
OLGA. I thought I remembered everyone, and now all at once. . .
VERSHININ. My name is Alexandr Ignatyevitch.
IRINA. Alexandr Ignatyevitch, you've come from Moscow. . . . What a surprise!
OLGA. We're going to move there, you know.
IRINA. We're hoping to be there by the autumn. It's our native town, we were born there. . . . In Old Basmannaya Street . . . [both laugh with delight].
MASHA. To see some one from our own town unexpectedly! [Eagerly] Now I remember! Do you remember, Olya, they used to talk of the "love-sick major"? You were a lieutenant at that time and were in love, and for some reason everyone called you major to tease you. . . .
VERSHININ [laughs]. Yes, yes. . . . The love-sick major, that was it.
MASHA. You only had a moustache then. . . . Oh, how much older you look! [through tears] how much older!
VERSHININ. Yes, when I was called the love-sick major I was young, I was in love. Now it's very different.
OLGA. But you haven't a single grey hair. You've grown older but you're not old.
VERSHININ. I'm in my forty-third year, though. Is it long since you left Moscow?
IRINA. Eleven years. But why are you crying, Masha, you foolish girl?. . . [through her tears] I shall cry too. . . .
MASHA. I'm all right. And in which street did you live?
VERSHININ. In Old Basmannaya.
OLGA. And that's where we lived too. . . .
VERSHININ. At one time I lived in Nyemetsky Street. I used to go from there to the Red Barracks. There is a gloomy-looking bridge on the way, where the water makes a noise. It makes a lonely man feel melancholy [a pause]. And here what a broad, splendid river! A marvellous river!
OLGA. Yes, but it is cold. It's cold here and there are mosquitoes. . . .
VERSHININ. How can you! You've such a splendid healthy Russian climate here. Forest, river. . . and birches here too. Charming, modest birches, I love them better than any other trees. It's nice to live here. The only strange thing is that the railway station is fifteen miles away. . . . And no one knows why it's so.
SOLYONY. I know why it is. [They all look at him.] Because if the station had been near it would not have been so far, and if it is far, it's because it's not near.
[An awkward silence.]
TUZENBAKH. He's fond of his joke, Vassily Vassilyevitch.
OLGA. Now I recall you, too. I remember.
VERSHININ. I knew your mother.
CHEBUTYKIN. She was a fine woman, the Kingdom of Heaven be hers.
IRINA. Mother is buried in Moscow.
OLGA. In the Novo-Dyevitchy. . . .
MASHA. Would you believe it, I'm already beginning to forget her face. So people won't remember us either; they'll forget us.
VERSHININ. Yes. They'll forget us. Such is our fate, there is no help for it. What seems to us serious, significant, very important, will one day be forgotten or will seem unimportant [a pause]. And it's curious that we can't possibly tell what exactly will be considered great and important, and what will seem petty and ridiculous. Didn't the discoveries of Copernicus or Columbus, let's say, seem useless and ridiculous at first, while the nonsensical writings of some fool seemed true? And it may be that our present life, which we accept so readily, will in time seem strange, inconvenient, stupid, not clean enough, perhaps even sinful. . . .