Uncle Vanya | Page 9

But you must give them a little rest. They have not slept for two nights.
SEREBRAKOFF. Then let them go to bed, but you go away too! Thank you. I implore you to go. For the sake of our former friendship do not protest against going. We will talk some other time---
VOITSKI. Our former friendship! Our former---
SONIA. Hush, Uncle Vanya!
SEREBRAKOFF. [To his wife] My darling, don't leave me alone with him. He will begin to lecture me.
VOITSKI. This is ridiculous.
MARINA comes in carrying a candle.
SONIA. You must go to bed, nurse, it is late.
MARINA. I haven't cleared away the tea things. Can't go to bed yet.
SEREBRAKOFF. No one can go to bed. They are all worn out, only I enjoy perfect happiness.
MARINA. [Goes up to SEREBRAKOFF and speaks tenderly] What's the matter, master? Does it hurt? My own legs are aching too, oh, so badly. [Arranges his shawl about his legs] You have had this illness such a long time. Sonia's dead mother used to stay awake with you too, and wear herself out for you. She loved you dearly. [A pause] Old people want to be pitied as much as young ones, but nobody cares about them somehow. [She kisses SEREBRAKOFF'S shoulder] Come, master, let me give you some linden-tea and warm your poor feet for you. I shall pray to God for you.
SEREBRAKOFF. [Touched] Let us go, Marina.
MARINA. My own feet are aching so badly, oh, so badly! [She and SONIA lead SEREBRAKOFF out] Sonia' s mother used to wear herself out with sorrow and weeping. You were still little and foolish then, Sonia. Come, come, master.
SEREBRAKOFF, SONIA and MARINA go out.
HELENA. I am absolutely exhausted by him, and can hardly stand.
VOITSKI. You are exhausted by him, and I am exhausted by my own self. I have not slept for three nights.
HELENA. Something is wrong in this house. Your mother hates everything but her pamphlets and the professor; the professor is vexed, he won't trust me, and fears you; Sonia is angry with her father, and with me, and hasn't spoken to me for two weeks; I am at the end of my strength, and have come near bursting into tears at least twenty times to-day. Something is wrong in this house.
VOITSKI. Leave speculating alone.
HELENA. You are cultured and intelligent, Ivan, and you surely understand that the world is not destroyed by villains and conflagrations, but by hate and malice and all this spiteful tattling. It is your duty to make peace, and not to growl at everything.
VOITSKI. Help me first to make peace with myself. My darling! [Seizes her hand.]
HELENA. Let go! [She drags her hand away] Go away!
VOITSKI. Soon the rain will be over, and all nature will sigh and awake refreshed. Only I am not refreshed by the storm. Day and night the thought haunts me like a fiend, that my life is lost for ever. My past does not count, because I frittered it away on trifles, and the present has so terribly miscarried! What shall I do with my life and my love? What is to become of them? This wonderful feeling of mine will be wasted and lost as a ray of sunlight is lost that falls into a dark chasm, and my life will go with it.
HELENA. I am as it were benumbed when you speak to me of your love, and I don't know how to answer you. Forgive me, I have nothing to say to you. [She tries to go out] Good-night!
VOITSKI. [Barring the way] If you only knew how I am tortured by the thought that beside me in this house is another life that is being lost forever--it is yours! What are you waiting for? What accursed philosophy stands in your way? Oh, understand, understand---
HELENA. [Looking at him intently] Ivan, you are drunk!
VOITSKI. Perhaps. Perhaps.
HELENA. Where is the doctor?
VOITSKI. In there, spending the night with me. Perhaps I am drunk, perhaps I am; nothing is impossible.
HELENA. Have you just been drinking together? Why do you do that?
VOITSKI. Because in that way I get a taste of life. Let me do it, Helena!
HELENA. You never used to drink, and you never used to talk so much. Go to bed, I am tired of you.
VOITSKI. [Falling on his knees before her] My sweetheart. my beautiful one---
HELENA. [Angrily] Leave me alone! Really, this has become too disagreeable.
HELENA goes out. A pause.
VOITSKI [Alone] She is gone! I met her first ten years ago, at her sister's house, when she was seventeen and I was thirty-seven. Why did I not fall in love with her then and propose to her? It would have been so easy! And now she would have been my wife. Yes, we would both have been waked to-night by the thunderstorm, and she would have been frightened, but I