Three Sisters Anton Chekhov (open ebook TXT) 📖

where you don’t know anybody and where nobody knows you, and you don’t feel all the same that you’re a stranger. And here you know everybody and everybody knows you, and you’re a stranger⁠ ⁠… and a lonely stranger. Ferapont What? And the same contractor was telling⁠—perhaps he was lying⁠—that there was a cable stretching right across Moscow. Andrey What for? Ferapont I can’t tell. The contractor said so. Andrey Rubbish. He reads. Were you ever in Moscow? Ferapont After a pause. No. God did not lead me there. Pause. Shall I go? Andrey You may go. Goodbye. Ferapont goes. Goodbye. Reads. You can come tomorrow and fetch these documents.⁠ ⁠… Go along.⁠ ⁠… Pause. He’s gone. A ring. Yes, yes.⁠ ⁠… Stretches himself and slowly goes into his own room. Behind the scene the nurse is singing a lullaby to the child. Masha and Vershinin come in. While they talk, a maidservant lights candles and a lamp. Masha I don’t know. Pause. I don’t know. Of course, habit counts for a great deal. After father’s death, for instance, it took us a long time to get used to the absence of orderlies. But, apart from habit, it seems to me in all fairness that, however it may be in other towns, the best and most-educated people are army men. Vershinin I’m thirsty. I should like some tea. Masha Glancing at her watch. They’ll bring some soon. I was given in marriage when I was eighteen, and I was afraid of my husband because he was a teacher and I’d only just left school. He then seemed to me frightfully wise and learned and important. And now, unfortunately, that has changed. Vershinin Yes⁠ ⁠… yes. Masha I don’t speak of my husband, I’ve grown used to him, but civilians in general are so often coarse, impolite, uneducated. Their rudeness offends me, it angers me. I suffer when I see that a man isn’t quite sufficiently refined, or delicate, or polite. I simply suffer agonies when I happen to be among schoolmasters, my husband’s colleagues. Vershinin Yes.⁠ ⁠… It seems to me that civilians and army men are equally interesting, in this town, at any rate. It’s all the same! If you listen to a member of the local intelligentsia, whether to civilian or military, he will tell you that he’s sick of his wife, sick of his house, sick of his estate, sick of his horses.⁠ ⁠… We Russians are extremely gifted in the direction of thinking on an exalted plane, but, tell me, why do we aim so low in real life? Why? Masha Why? Vershinin Why is a Russian sick of his children, sick of his wife? And why are his wife and children sick of him? Masha You’re a little downhearted today. Vershinin Perhaps I am. I haven’t had any dinner, I’ve had nothing since the morning. My daughter is a little unwell, and when my girls are ill, I get very anxious and my conscience tortures me because they have such a mother. Oh, if you had seen her today! What a trivial personality! We began quarrelling at seven in the morning and at nine I slammed the door and went out. Pause. I never speak of her, it’s strange that I bear my complaints to you alone. Kisses her hand. Don’t be angry with me. I haven’t anybody but you, nobody at all.⁠ ⁠… Pause. Masha What a noise in the oven. Just before father’s death there was a noise in the pipe, just like that. Vershinin Are you superstitious? Masha Yes. Vershinin That’s strange. Kisses her hand. You are a splendid, wonderful woman. Splendid, wonderful! It is dark here, but I see your sparkling eyes. Masha Sits on another chair. There is more light here. Vershinin I love you, love you, love you⁠ ⁠… I love your eyes, your movements, I dream of them.⁠ ⁠… Splendid, wonderful woman! Masha Laughing. When you talk to me like that, I laugh; I don’t know why, for I’m afraid. Don’t repeat it, please.⁠ ⁠… In an undertone. No, go on, it’s all the same to me.⁠ ⁠… Covers her face with her hands. Somebody’s coming, let’s talk about something else. Irina and Tuzenbach come in through the dining-room. Tuzenbach My surname is really triple. I am called Baron Tuzenbach-Krone-Altschauer, but I am Russian and Orthodox, the same as you. There is very little German left in me, unless perhaps it is the patience and the obstinacy with which I bore you. I see you home every night. Irina How tired I am! Tuzenbach And I’ll come to the telegraph office to see you home every day for ten or twenty years, until you drive me away. He sees Masha and Vershinin; joyfully. Is that you? How do you do. Irina Well, I am home at last. To Masha. A lady came today to telegraph to her brother in Saratov that her son died today, and she couldn’t remember the address anyhow. So she sent the telegram without an address, just to Saratov. She was crying. And for some reason or other I was rude to her. “I’ve no time,” I said. It was so stupid. Are the entertainers coming tonight? Masha Yes. Irina Sitting down in an armchair. I want a rest. I am tired. Tuzenbach Smiling. When you come home from your work you seem so young, and so unfortunate.⁠ ⁠… Pause. Irina I am tired. No, I don’t like the telegraph office, I don’t like it. Masha You’ve grown thinner.⁠ ⁠… Whistles a little. And you look younger, and your face has become like a boy’s. Tuzenbach That’s the way she does her hair. Irina I must find another job, this one won’t do for me. What I wanted, what I hoped to get, just that is lacking here. Labour without poetry, without ideas.⁠ ⁠… A knock on the floor. The doctor is knocking. To Tuzenbach. Will you knock, dear. I can’t⁠ ⁠… I’m tired.⁠ ⁠… Tuzenbach knocks. He’ll come in a minute. Something ought to be done. Yesterday