GLAGOLYEV JR. (leaps up). I swear it’s a great idea! Damn and blast! I shall ask, Platonov, and I give you my word of honor that she’ll be mine! I feel it in my bones! I’ll ask her right away! I’ll make a bet that she’ll be mine! (Runs into the house and in the doorway bumps into Anna Petrovna and Triletsky.) Mille pardons, madame!53 (Bows and scrapes and exits into the house.)
PLATONOV sits back in his old place.
SCENE XIII
PLATONOV, ANNA PETROVNA, and TRILETSKY.
TRILETSKY (on the porch steps). There he sits, our great sage and philosopher! He sits on the alert, impatient to pounce on his prey: whom shall he read a lecture to before bedtime?
ANNA PETROVNA. Not a nibble, Mikhail Vasilich!
TRILETSKY. That’s bad! Not taking the bait today for some reason! Poor moralist! I feel sorry for you, Platonov! However, I am drunk and . . . however, the deacon is waiting for me! Good-bye! (Exits.)
ANNA PETROVNA (goes to Platonov). Why are you sitting here?
PLATONOV. It’s suffocating inside the house, and this lovely sky is better than your ceiling whitewashed by peasant women!
ANNA PETROVNA (sits down). Isn’t it splendid weather! Pure air, cool, a starry sky, and the moon! I’m sorry that it isn’t possible for our class to sleep outside in the open air. When I was a little girl, I always spent the night in the garden in summer.
Pause.
Is that a new necktie?
PLATONOV. It is.
Pause.
ANNA PETROVNA. I’ve been in rather an odd mood today . . . Today I like everything . . . I’m having fun! Now tell me something, Platonov! Why do you keep silent? I came out here precisely to hear you talk . . . That’s just like you!
PLATONOV. Talk about what?
ANNA PETROVNA. Tell me something a bit novel, a bit nice, a bit spicy . . . Today you’re so very clever, so very good-looking . . . Honestly, I think that I’m more in love with you today than ever . . . You’re such a darling today! And not such a trouble-maker!
PLATONOV. And today you are such a beauty . . . But then you always are a beauty!
ANNA PETROVNA. Are we friends, Platonov?
PLATONOV. In all likelihood . . . Probably we are friends . . . What else can you call it but friendship?
ANNA PETROVNA. In any case, friends, right?
PLATONOV. I would even declare, great friends . . . I’m extremely used to you and attached . . . It would take a long time to break myself of the habit of you . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. Great friends?
PLATONOV. Why all these niggling questions? Cut it out, dear lady! Friends . . . friends . . . Just like an old maid . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. All right . . . We are friends, and you do know that a friendship between a man and a woman is only one step away from love, my dear sir?
PLATONOV. So that’s it! (Laughs.) Why are you bringing that up? You and I are never going to stroll down the road to perdition, no matter how far we stray . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. Love as the road to perdition . . . What a metaphor! Your wife’s not listening now! Pardon, if I’m getting too familiar . . . For heaven’s sake, Michel, it just popped out! Why shouldn’t we stroll down that road? Are we human or not? Love is a good thing . . . What’s there to blush about?
PLATONOV (stares fixedly at her). You, I see, are either having your charming joke or else you want . . . to make a deal . . . Let’s go and dance a waltz!
ANNA PETROVNA. You don’t know how to dance! I have to have a proper talk with you . . . It’s about time . . . (Looks around.) Make an effort, mon cher, to listen and not spout philosophy!
PLATONOV. Let’s go and kick up our heels, Anna Petrovna!
ANNA PETROVNA. Let’s sit farther off . . . Come over here! (Sits on a different bench.) Only I don’t know how to begin . . . You’re such an awkward and tricky piece of humanity . . .
PLATONOV. Shouldn’t I begin, Anna Petrovna?
ANNA PETROVNA. You talk nothing but stuff and nonsense, Platonov, when you begin! Well, I’ll be! He’s embarrassed! That’ll be the day! (Claps Platonov on the shoulder.) Misha’s a joker! Well, go on and talk, talk . . . Only keep it short . . .
PLATONOV. I will be brief . . . All I have to say is: why bother?
Pause.
Word of honor, it isn’t worth it, Anna Petrovna!
ANNA PETROVNA. Why not? Now you listen to me . . . You don’t understand me . . . If you had been unattached, I would have become your wife without a second thought, my rank and title would have been yours to have and to hold forever, but as it is . . . . Well? Is silence a token of assent? So, how about it?
Pause.
Listen here, Platonov, in cases like this it is indecent to keep silent!
PLATONOV (leaps up). Let’s forget this conversation, Anna Petrovna! Come on, for God’s sake, let’s act as if it had never happened! It never was!
ANNA PETROVNA (shrugs). Strange man! Why ever not?
PLATONOV. Because I respect you! I respect my respect for you so much that giving it up would be harder for me than dropping dead! My friend, I am a free man, I am not averse to having a good time, I am not opposed to relations with women, not even opposed to passionate romances, but . . . to have a tawdry little affair with you, to make you the subject of my idle thoughts, you, an intelligent, beautiful, independent woman?! No! That’s too much! You’d better banish me to the ends of the earth! To spend a month stupidly, then another, and then . . . to part with a blush?!
ANNA PETROVNA. The subject is love!
PLATONOV. And what if I don’t love you? I do love you as a good, intelligent, kind-hearted woman . . . I love you desperately, madly! I would give my life for you, if you wanted it! I love you as a woman — as a human being! Does every kind of love have to be mixed up with one particular kind of love? My love for you is a thousand times more precious than the one you’ve got in mind! . . .
ANNA PETROVNA (gets up). Go, my dear, and take a nap! When you wake up, we’ll talk about it . . .
PLATONOV. Let’s forget this conversation . . . (Kisses her hand.) Let’s be friends, but let’s not play tricks on one another: our relationship deserves a better fate! . . . And besides, after all, I am . . . even if only a little bit, married! Let’s drop this conversation! Let everything be as it was before!
ANNA PETROVNA. Go on, my dear, go on! Married . . . Do you really love me? Then why do you bring up your wife? March! Later we’ll talk, in an hour or two . . . Now you’re having a fit of lying . . .
PLATONOV. I don’t know how to lie to you . . . (Quietly, in her ear.) If I did know how to lie to you, I would have been your lover a long time ago . . .
ANNA PETROVNA (sharply). Get out of here!