GLAGOLYEV SR. Eh, my friends, my friends! You didn’t know the past! You’d be singing a different tune . . . You’d understand . . . (Sighs.) You just can’t understand!
VOINITSEV. Literature and history are more to be trusted, I think . . . We didn’t know the past, Porfiry Semyonych, but we feel it . . . Very often this is where we feel it the most . . . (Slaps himself on the back of the neck.) You’re the one who doesn’t know or feel the present.
TRILETSKY. Would you like me to put it on your tab, votre excellence, or are you ready to pay up now?
ANNA PETROVNA. Stop it! You’re not letting me listen!
TRILETSKY. And why should you listen to them? They’ll go on talking till nightfall!
ANNA PETROVNA. Serzhel, give this maniac ten rubles!
VOINITSEV. Ten? (Takes out his billfold.) Let’s change the subject, Porfiry Semyonovich . . .
GLAGOLYEV SR. Let’s, if you don’t care for it.
VOINITSEV. I don’t mind listening to you, but I do mind listening to what sounds like defamation of character . . . (Gives Triletsky ten rubles.)
TRILETSKY. Merci. (Claps Vengerovich on the shoulder.) That’s how you’ve got to live in this world! Sit a defenseless woman down at the chessboard and clean her out of a ten-spot without a twinge of conscience. How about it? Praiseworthy behavior?
VENGEROVICH SR. Praiseworthy behavior. Doctor, you’re a real Jerusalem gentleman!
ANNA PETROVNA. Stop it, Triletsky! (To Glagolyev.) So a woman is the paragon of humanity, Porfiry Semyonovich?
GLAGOLYEV SR. The paragon.
ANNA PETROVNA. Hm . . . Evidently, you are a great ladies’ man, Porfiry Semyonovich!
GLAGOLYEV SR. Yes, I do love the ladies. I worship them, Anna Petrovna. I see in them almost everything I love: heart, and . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. You adore them . . . And are they worthy ofyour adoration?
GLAGOLYEV SR. They are.
ANNA PETROVNA. You’re sure about that? Firmly convinced or only talking yourself into thinking that way?
TRILETSKY takes the violin and draws the bow along it.
GLAGOLYEV SR. Firmly convinced. I only need to know one of you to be convinced of it . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. Seriously? You’ve got a funny way of looking at things.
VOINITSEV. He’s a romantic.
GLAGOLYEV SR. Maybe . . . What of it? Romanticism is not entirely a bad thing. You’ve discarded romanticism . . . That’s all right, but I’m afraid you discarded something else along with it . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. Don’t start a debate, my friend. I don’t know how to make a logical argument. Whether we discarded it or not, in any case we’ve become more intelligent, thank God! Aren’t we more intelligent, Porfiry Semyonych? And that’s the main thing . . . (Laughs.) So long as there are intelligent people and they keep growing more intelligent, the rest will take care of itself . . .8 Ah! stop that scraping, Nikolay Ivanych! Put the violin away!
TRILETSKY (hangs up the violin). Nice instrument.
GLAGOLYEV SR. Platonov once put it very neatly . . . He said, we have become more intelligent about women, and to become more intelligent about women means trampling ourselves and women in the mire . . .
TRILETSKY (roars with laughter). I suppose it was his saint’s day9 . . . He’d had a bit too much . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. What did he say? (Laughs.) Yes, sometimes he likes to come out with snide remarks like that . . . But he probably said it for effect . . . By the way, while we’re on the subject . . . What sort of a man, in your view, is our Platonov? A hero or an anti-hero?
GLAGOLYEV SR. How can I put this? Platonov, as I see it, is the finest exponent of modern infirmity of purpose . . . He is the hero of the best, still, unfortunately, unwritten, modern novel . . . (Laughs.) By infirmity of purpose I mean the current state of our society: the Russian novelist experiences this infirmity. He has turned up a blind alley, he’s lost, he doesn’t know what to focus on, he doesn’t understand . . . Indeed it’s no easy task to understand gentlemen like these! (Indicates Voinitsev.) The novels are impossibly bad, stilted, trivial . . . and no wonder! Everything is extremely tentative, unintelligible . . . Everything is so utterly confused, muddled . . . And the exponent of this infirmity of purpose, in my opinion, is our highly intelligent Platonov. Is he well?
ANNA PETROVNA. I’m told he is.
Pause.
A remarkable man . . .
GLAGOLYEV SR. Yes . . . It’s a mistake to underestimate him. I dropped in on him a few times last winter and will never forget those few hours which I had the good fortune to spend with him.
ANNA PETROVNA (looks at the clock). It’s high time he was here. Sergey, did you send for him?
VOINITSEV. Twice.
ANNA PETROVNA. You’re all talking nonsense, gentlemen. Triletsky, run and send Yakov to fetch him!
TRILETSKY (stretching). Shall I tell them to set the table?
ANNA PETROVNA. I’ll do it myself.
TRILETSKY (goes and at the door bumps into Bugrov). Chugging like a locomotive, it’s the grocery man! (Slaps him on the stomach and exits.)
SCENE IV
ANNA PETROVNA, GLAGOLYEV SR., VENGEROVICH SR., VOINITSEV, and BUGROV.
BUGROV (entering). Oof! This terrible heat! About to rain, looks like.
VOINITSEV. You came through the garden?
BUGROV. I did, sir . . .
VOINITSEV. Is Sophie there?
BUGROV. Who’s Sophie?
VOINITSEV. My wife, Sofya Yegorovna!10
VENGEROVICH SR. I’ll just go and . . . (Exits into the garden.)
SCENE V
ANNA PETROVNA, GLAGOLYEV SR., VOINITSEV, BUGROV, PLATONOV, and SASHA (in Russian folk costume).11
PLATONOV (in the doorway, to Sasha). Please! After you, young woman! (Enters behind Sasha.) Well, we didn’t stay at home after all! Make your curtsey, Sasha! Good afternoon, your excellency! (Walks over to Anna Petrovna, kisses one hand and then the other.)
ANNA PETROVNA. You cruel, discourteous creature . . . How could you make us wait so long? Don’t you know how impatient I am? Dear Aleksan-dra Ivanovna . . . (Exchanges kisses with Sasha.)12
PLATONOV. So we didn’t stay at home after all! Hallelujah, gentlemen! For six months we haven’t seen a parquet floor, or easy chairs, or high ceilings, or even the decent people beneath them . . . All winter we hibernated in our den like bears, and only today have we crawled out into broad daylight! This is for Sergey Pavlovich! (Exchanges kisses with Voinitsev.)