Uncle Vanya | Page 4

yet, though my feelings have grown numb. I ask nothing, I need
nothing, I love no one, unless it is yourself alone. [He kisses her head] I
had a nurse just like you when I was a child.
MARINA. Don't you want a bite of something to eat?
ASTROFF. No. During the third week of Lent I went to the epidemic at
Malitskoi. It was eruptive typhoid. The peasants were all lying side by
side in their huts, and the calves and pigs were running about the floor
among the sick. Such dirt there was, and smoke! Unspeakable! I slaved
among those people all day, not a crumb passed my lips, but when I got
home there was still no rest for me; a switchman was carried in from
the railroad; I laid him on the operating table and he went and died in
my arms under chloroform, and then my feelings that should have been
deadened awoke again, my conscience tortured me as if I had killed the
man. I sat down and closed my eyes--like this--and thought: will our
descendants two hundred years from now, for whom we are breaking

the road, remember to give us a kind word? No, nurse, they will forget.
MARINA. Man is forgetful, but God remembers.
ASTROFF. Thank you for that. You have spoken the truth.
Enter VOITSKI from the house. He has been asleep after dinner and
looks rather dishevelled. He sits down on the bench and straightens his
collar.
VOITSKI. H'm. Yes. [A pause] Yes.
ASTROFF. Have you been asleep?
VOITSKI. Yes, very much so. [He yawns] Ever since the Professor and
his wife have come, our daily life seems to have jumped the track. I
sleep at the wrong time, drink wine, and eat all sorts of messes for
luncheon and dinner. It isn't wholesome. Sonia and I used to work
together and never had an idle moment, but now Sonia works alone and
I only eat and drink and sleep. Something is wrong.
MARINA. [Shaking her head] Such a confusion in the house! The
Professor gets up at twelve, the samovar is kept boiling all the morning,
and everything has to wait for him. Before they came we used to have
dinner at one o'clock, like everybody else, but now we have it at seven.
The Professor sits up all night writing and reading, and suddenly, at
two o'clock, there goes the bell! Heavens, what is that? The Professor
wants some tea! Wake the servants, light the samovar! Lord, what
disorder!
ASTROFF. Will they be here long?
VOITSKI. A hundred years! The Professor has decided to make his
home here.
MARINA. Look at this now! The samovar has been on the table for
two hours, and they are all out walking!
VOITSKI. All right, don't get excited; here they come.
Voices are heard approaching. SEREBRAKOFF, HELENA, SONIA,
and TELEGIN come in from the depths of the garden, returning from
their walk.
SEREBRAKOFF. Superb! Superb! What beautiful views!
TELEGIN. They are wonderful, your Excellency.
SONIA. To-morrow we shall go into the woods, shall we, papa?
VOITSKI. Ladies and gentlemen, tea is ready.
SEREBRAKOFF. Won't you please be good enough to send my tea
into the library? I still have some work to finish.

SONIA. I am sure you will love the woods.
HELENA, SEREBRAKOFF, and SONIA go into the house. TELEGIN
sits down at the table beside MARINA.
VOITSKI. There goes our learned scholar on a hot, sultry day like this,
in his overcoat and goloshes and carrying an umbrella!
ASTROFF. He is trying to take good care of his health.
VOITSKI. How lovely she is! How lovely! I have never in my life seen
a more beautiful woman.
TELEGIN. Do you know, Marina, that as I walk in the fields or in the
shady garden, as I look at this table here, my heart swells with
unbounded happiness. The weather is enchanting, the birds are singing,
we are all living in peace and contentment--what more could the soul
desire? [Takes a glass of tea.]
VOITSKI. [Dreaming] Such eyes--a glorious woman!
ASTROFF. Come, Ivan, tell us something.
VOITSKI. [Indolently] What shall I tell you?
ASTROFF. Haven't you any news for us?
VOITSKI. No, it is all stale. I am just the same as usual, or perhaps
worse, because I have become lazy. I don't do anything now but croak
like an old raven. My mother, the old magpie, is still chattering about
the emancipation of woman, with one eye on her grave and the other on
her learned books, in which she is always looking for the dawn of a
new life.
ASTROFF. And the Professor?
VOITSKI. The Professor sits in his library from morning till night, as
usual--
"Straining the mind, wrinkling the brow, We write, write, write,
Without respite Or