IRINA. Yes, how petty our Andrey has grown, how dull and old he has become beside that woman! At one time he was working to get a professorship and yesterday he was boasting of having succeeded at last in becoming a member of the District Council. He's a member, and Protopopov is chairman... The whole town is laughing and talking of it and he's the only one who sees and knows nothing... And here everyone has been running to the fire while he sits still in his room and takes no notice. He does nothing but play his violin... [nervously]. Oh, it's awful, awful, awful! [Weeps] I can't bear it any more, I can't! I can't, I can't!
[OLGA comes in and begins tidying up her table.]
IRINA [sobs loudly]. Throw me out, throw me out, I can't bear it any more!
OLGA [alarmed]. What is it? What is it, darling?
IRINA [sobbing]. Where? Where has it all gone? Where is it? Oh, my God, my God! I've forgotten everything, everything... everything is in a tangle in my mind... I don't remember the Italian for window or ceiling... I'm forgetting everything; every day I forget something more and life is slipping away and will never come back, we'll never, never go to Moscow.... I see that we won't go...
OLGA. Darling, darling...
IRINA [restraining herself]. Oh, I'm miserable... I can't work, I'm not going to work. I've had enough of it, enough of it! I've been a telegraph clerk and now I have a job in the town council and I hate and despise every bit of the work they give me... I'm already twenty-three, I've been working for years, my brains are drying up, I'm getting thin and old and ugly and there's nothing, nothing, not the slightest satisfaction, and time is passing and you feel that you are moving away from a real, a beautiful life, moving farther and farther away and being drawn into the depths. I'm in despair and I don't know how it is I'm alive and haven't killed myself yet...
OLGA. Don't cry, my child, don't cry. It makes me miserable.
IRINA. I'm not crying, I'm not crying.... It's over... There, I'm not crying now. I won't... I won't.
OLGA. Darling, I'm speaking to you as a sister, as a friend, if you care for my advice, marry the baron!
[IRINA weeps quietly.]
OLGA. You know you respect him, you think highly of him.... It's true he isn't good-looking, but he is such a thoroughly nice man, so good.... A person doesn't marry for love, but to do her duty.... That's what I think, anyway, and I would marry without love. Whoever proposed to me I'd marry him, if only he were a good man.... I'd even marry an old man...
IRINA. I kept expecting we should move to Moscow and there I should meet my true love. I've been dreaming of him, loving him... But it seems that was all nonsense, nonsense...
OLGA [puts her arms round her sister]. My darling, lovely sister, I understand it all; when the baron left the army and came to us in a plain coat, I thought he looked so ugly that it positively made me cry... He asked me, "Why are you crying?" How could I tell him! But if God brought you together I should be happy. That's a different thing, you know, quite different.
[NATASHA with a candle in her hand walks across the stage from door on right to door on left without speaking.]
MASHA [sits up]. She walks about as though it were she who set fire to the town.
OLGA. Masha, you're silly. The very silliest of the family, that's you. Please forgive me [a pause].
MASHA. I want to confess my sins, dear sisters. My soul is yearning. I'm going to confess to you and never again to anyone... I'll tell you this minute [softly]. It's my secret, but you must know everything.... I can't be silent... [a pause]. I'm in love, I'm in love... I love that man.... You have just seen him... Well, I may as well say it. I love Vershinin.
OLGA [going behind her screen]. Stop it. I'm not listening anyway.
MASHA. But what am I to do? [Clutches her head.] At first I thought him strange... then I was sorry for him... then I came to love him... to love him with his voice, his words, his misfortunes, his two little girls...
OLGA [behind the screen]. I'm not listening. Whatever silly things you say I won't hear them.
MASHA. Oh, sister, you are silly. I love him -- so that's my fate. It means that that's my lot... And he loves me... It's all terrifying. Yes? Is it wrong? [Takes IRINA by the hand and draws her to herself] Oh, my darling... How are we going to live our lives, what will become of us?.. When you read a novel it all seems trite and obvious, but when you're in love yourself you see that no one knows anything and we all have to settle things for ourselves... My darlings, my sisters... I've confessed it to you, now I'll hold my tongue... I'll be like Gogol's madman... silence... silence...
Adam Gillette
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