ACT FOUR
page 162 / Before: SOFYA YEGOROVNA. Don’t get so excited! —
KATYA. He ain’t nowheres, mistress!
SOFYA YEGOROVNA. Where did you look for him?
KATYA. Everywheres, everywheres I could . . . At the schoolhouse I poked my nose in every corner. Doors and windows all broke in, but he ain’t there . . . I even went down cellar . . . A carpenter was sitting by the cellar, I asked him whether he seen him . . . and he says I ain’t seen ‘im. I thought if I go through the woods . . .
SOFYA YEGOROVNA. Did you stop by the priest’s?
KATYA. I sure did . . . The holy father says that they ain’t seen Mikhail Vasilich a whole week . . . Went by the deacon’s . . . Went by Aleksey Makarych the clerk’s, and he don’t know . . . I figured the gent might be taking a hike in the woods . . . so I went through the woods . . . I looked and looked . . .
page 163 / After: Go out again, Katya! — Go back to the holy father, to that carpenter . . .
page 164 / After: He doesn’t love me! — All right! He doesn’t love me . . . Otherwise he wouldn’t torture me this way . . . Maybe the school inspector called him to town for some reason . . . No, no . . . He didn’t come yesterday, doesn’t come today . . . (Gets up.)
page 166 / After: look down your nose at me like that! — My mind can’t grasp it! It’s horrible to remember! You know what happened yesterday? Yesterday I almost killed Platonov! I almost cut his throat! If he hadn’t woken up, I would have killed him! I crept over to him with a knife, like a highway robber, to a sleeping, unarmed man!
SOFYA YEGOROVNA. When?
VOINITSEV. Last night! He saw me!
SOFYA YEGOROVNA (sits and covers her face). What happened?
VOINITSEV. I wanted to kill him because he stole my wife! I didn’t want to let him have you without a fight! If he hadn’t woke up, I would have killed him outright with that damned dagger!
page 166 / After: Where is he? — Did he get scared of your knife and run away? He can’t have run away!
page 166 / Before: Where is he? — You were willing to kill him when he was asleep, why didn’t you kill him when he woke up? Stab him in the back? A man awake is more dangerous than a man asleep?
page 173 / After: Good morning, Sergey Pavlovich! — Ah, you can’t imagine!
page 174 / After: I’m not wrong! — (Slaps himself on the forehead.)
page 174 / After: I should shoot myself. — (Sobs.)
Pause.
page 175 / Replace: do not . . . kill yourself! . . . Grief will do you in . . .
with: but don’t sully your hands with a crime . . . Are you the one to be killed? You? A bitter insult! God will see that I believe in your unhappiness and that it makes me no less unhappy than you! Why be the cause of another crime? You want revenge? Hm . . . But revenge is stupid, isn’t it, as stupid as a savage! What would become of you if you succeeded in . . . a murder? You . . . you would be ruined! In any case murder is the lowest ebb of all human vulgarity! Now, let’s assume, I did something despicable . . . Why should you defile yourself, yourself, for that?
Pause.
Nothing to say? Hm . . . You don’t understand me . . . In any case, if your thirst for revenge is that great, if the desire for vengeance has got the upper hand over your human dignity, if grief has disabled your reason because you always were a reasonable man, then tell me . . .
page 175 / Replace: VOINITSEV. I don’t want anything.
with: VOINITSEV. I want you to.
PLATONOV. Fine. I’ll shoot myself. I’ll shoot myself with pleasure. (Claps him on the shoulder.) Cultivated people aren’t worth a good goddam . . . It’s no great honor to live with such gee . . . gentlemen . . .
page 176 / After: bother maman? — I came to a cultivated, humane opponent of capital punishment to advise him and ask him not to kill . . . Ech! The lower you stoop, the further you have to turn away your face!
page 176 / After: The end has come! — Now a person can creep in with a knife, a person can put a bullet through his brain, insult a man, insult all holy feeling!
page 176 / Replace: since you left!
with: you jumped through the window! If you had seen me that night, you with your thirst for revenge would have had a gullet full of it!
page 177 / Before: I am sorry that I spoke to you — The hell—with you!
page 177 / Replace: ANNA PETROVNA (wrings her hands).
with: ANNA PETROVNA (runs over to Voinitsev). Serzhel . . . What is he . . . what was he referring to? You were with him yesterday?
Pause.
Speak! Don’t torment me, speak!
VOINITSEV. There’s no need . . .
ANNA PETROVNA (shakes him by the shoulders). Speak! What happened?
VOINITSEV. Spare me . . . You at least should have some compassion!
ANNA PETROVNA. Speak!
Pause.
VOINITSEV. I wanted to kill him . . . I crept in to him with a knife . . . If he hadn’t woke up . . . He was asleep . . .
ANNA PETROVNA. Aah . . . Now I get it . . . And after that you dared to call
him a bastard? Fine! What’ll become of this, what’ll become of this . . . (Wrings her hands.)
page 178 / After: insult people! — To creep up on a sleeping man with a knife and then . . . then to call him a bastard, and kick him out! . . . You’re not worth this man’s tiniest finger, you little brat!
page 179 / After: Go on! — God grant we shall make peace somehow . . .
page 180 / After: I don’t need anything! — I’m worn out, Sofya, honest to God, I’m worn out! There’s a lot of you, but I’m on my own . . . Take pity on me, please!
NOTES
1 French: my angel.
2 Latin: a healthy mind in a healthy body.
3 First lines of a ballad by K. Frantz, “The Dart,” popular in Russia in the 1870s and early 1880s.
4 French: your excellency. As the widow of a general, Anna Petrovna is entitled to her husband’s form of address.
5 Presumably from bandages.
6 Literally, arzamasy. Arzamas, named after a provincial town, was a group of Russian noblemen, men of letters, and army officers who gathered together ca. 1815–1840, for literary and political iscussions; they supported Romanticism against more conservative movements.
7 Literally, the same patchouli that Gaev complains about; see The Cherry Orchard, note 23.
8 Vershinin is to repeat this argument in Three Sisters.
9 See Three Sisters, note 7.
10 The rest of the page of the manuscript is missing.
11 In Southern Russia, this would consist of a blouse (rubakha) worn under an ankle-high, paneled skirt (ponyova) and apron (perednik), all heavily embroidered. It might also include a beaded, horned cap (kichka), which hid the hair of married women.