SHCHERBUK. Begone, Medusa!7
page 49 / After: not her love . . . — For amours he goes (points at Lizochka) to her! He’s turned her into a she-idiot. She used to be a submissive daughter, but he’s spoiled her . . .
page 50 / After: There’s a city for you! — A house twenty stories high!
page 51 / After: hopeless fools . . . — Stop being surprised! Be surprised by the staying power of your clever, luminous family.
page 51 / After: (Exits with Sofya Yegorovna.) —
VEROCHKA and LIZOCHKA exit into the garden.
page 53 / After: You crank! — Go and yawn!
page 53 / After: What business is it of yours, you shyster? — What’s it got to do with you as a matter of fact! Don’t you think I can take myself and get married? Why don’t you mind your own business?
page 55 / After: A big-hearted youngster! — Now I shall be careful!
page 56 / After: (Looks through the doorway to the dining room.) — They’re eating as if there’s no tomorrow! Triletsky is gulping down sardines like a shark . . . Voinitsev isn’t eating, but stares wide-eyed at his wife. Lucky dog! He loves her the way Adam loved his Eve! He’d be ready to eat candle-wax if it would make her happy . . . He’s having a wonderful time! Soon it will pass and never come again.
page 56 / After: kiss that hair! — stage direction: Pause.
page 56 / After: that head of hair brings back to me . . . — It’s past, it’s gone, it’s sunk as if drowned, as if it had never been! Ech . . . human happiness! Just enough to smear on your lips . . . There, pal, get a whiff of it just once, and you’ll remember all your life long what it smells like!
page 56 / After: a very good thing — a glorious, lawful, even if tormenting, thing, even if it is sometimes like envy . . .
page 57 / Replace: PLATONOV (looks through the doorway to the dining room).
with: PLATONOV. Only there’s one annoying thing . . . Still, why be so skeptical? What I wanted to say about rapid transit . . . Oh the hell with it! Enjoy yourselves! There’s no point in getting ahead of ourselves . . . We can and should live happily with it . . . (Looks through the dining-room door.) Not an ordinary woman . . . Not like my Sashka . . .
Pause.
page 57 / After: let’s have a drink! —
VOINITSEV (nods at Triletsky). Have you heard? “If people are there, he’ll pull up a chair!” He’s been courting Grekova! Have you noticed?
TRILETSKY. Save it for later. Say, are we going to get drunk today or not?
page 57 / After: and your sermons make me sick to my stomach! — Leave me alone, do me a favor!
page 58 / After: All day long, all day long . . . — Honestly, I’m soon going to prescribe you to my patients for chronic diseases, as sweat-producing and sleep-inducing.
page 58 / After: All day long . . . —
PLATONOV. Shut up!
page 59 / After: grief on account of my friendship — the way that my former friend but present enemy once came to grief, master of pharmacy Frantz Zakharovich Shriftbaum!
ACT TWO
TABLEAU ONE
page 60 / After: only you don’t want to! — You’ve got such a clever mind, such as you never had before!
page 61 / After: General’s lady’s mines? — You’re a con man, a con man!
page 63 / Replace: I didn’t look after her, old Fool Ivanych Merry-maker!
with: The Lord took her away! Forgive me. Forgive me, Sasha! I didn’t look after your mother . . . I didn’t look after her, old Fool Ivanych Merrymaker! I hastened her death!
page 63 / After: I understand! — From this minute on not a drop! You give the orders, and the ghost of your mother is on your side . . .
page 63 / After: All right, sir . . . — But, young man, aren’t you the son of Colonel Triletsky?
TRILETSKY. So it seems, I am, sir!
IVAN IVANOVICH. In that case I’ll take it! (Roars with laughter.)
page 63 / After: rich and famous! — During the war I had thousands, hundreds of thousands in my hands, and didn’t take the slightest kopek from the Russian Empire . . . I was content with nothing but my pay . . .
page 64 / After: I got the Vladimir third class . . . — Not second, second would have a star on it . . . Third . . . Here it is . . . Around my neck . . . Can you see it, Sasha? There it is . . . This is the Anna, this is the Stanislav, this is the Anna third class with crossed swords . . . This is for the Rumanian campaign . . . And here for no particular reason is the Persian Lion and Sun . . . Medals . . . One for life-saving . . . A silver one . . . In ‘63, I pulled the wife of the regimental doctor out of the water by her hair . . . The military George . . . I got another one for Sebastopol, on the very day you were born, Nikolay . . . During the war I was sent to supreme command three times . . . — “Been in the service long, Triletsky?” — “Thirty-one years, your imperial highness!” — “Stand easy. Go with God! My regards!” God will provide, my children . . . He’s already provided for my son-in-law . . . Over and done with! The grave, requiem mass . . . Your old man is falling apart, has fallen apart . . .
page 65 / After: when I was young — I played Pechorin and Bazarov
page 65 / After: L-e-eft face! — Forward ma . . . arch!
page 66 / After: All right, all right . . . — Hello and good-bye!
page 66 / After: I’m feeling generous, damn it all! — Here’s another little ruble for the two of you, because the two of you put together aren’t worth the two-hundredth part of this little ruble!
page 67 / After: he’s an old man . . . — What for? Still on about her?
page 67 / After: some little dimwit . . . — What’s she need a husband for? Camouflage? A Potiphar8 who’s never around? Never fear, she’s not marrying him for love, if she does marry him. Tempted by his riches.
page 68 / After: What are you thinking about? — You don’t want to understand the wretched situation I’m in! I’m suffering, Sophie! Your frigid yes and no are an utter calamity for me! You never laugh, you never smile, you never say a word, with something constantly on your mind . . . This thing you’re thinking about, which gives me no peace, no place, tears my soul to pieces . . .
page 68 / After: my moods — but forgive me for the yes and no.
page 70 / Before: There’s no reason — I am not avoiding people, Mikhail Vasilich!
page 70 / After: have a word with you — when you’re alone, when you have only a perceptibly small, not great, desire to get away from me
page 70 / After: repulsive? — After all, listen, to feel oneself a pariah, whom people run away from, is not very pleasant, it’s insulting, depressing!
page 71 / After: (Walks up to her). — Can you think that if I wanted to undermine the welfare of your Sergey Pavlovich, to make off with you now in my arms, I would start by using a weapon that for me is holier than any on earth? No, respected Sofya Yegorovna, I’m not strewing my pearls for the right to possess you, and if you become necessary to me, I shall take you for what you’re worth!