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ACT II - Uncle Vanya
| | Page 11 of 33 | | |
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 would have held her in my arms and whispered: "Don't be afraid! I am here." Oh, enchanting dream, so sweet that I laugh to think of it. [He laughs] But my God! My head reels! Why am I so old? Why won't she understand me? I hate all that rhetoric of hers, that morality of indolence, that absurd talk about the destruction of the world--- [A pause] Oh, how I have been deceived! For years I have worshipped that miserable gout-ridden professor. Sonia and I have squeezed this estate dry for his sake. We have bartered our butter and curds and peas like misers, and have never kept a morsel for ourselves, so that we could scrape enough pennies together to send to him. I was proud of him and of his learning; I received all his words and writings as inspired, and now? Now he has retired, and what is the total of his life? A blank! He is absolutely unknown, and his fame has burst like a soap-bubble. I have been deceived; I see that now, basely deceived.
ASTROFF comes in. He has his coat on, but is without his waistcoat or collar, and is slightly drunk. TELEGIN follows him, carrying a guitar.
ASTROFF. Play!
TELEGIN. But every one is asleep.
ASTROFF. Play!
TELEGIN begins to play softly.
ASTROFF. Are you alone here? No women about? [Sings with his arms akimbo.]
"The hut is cold, the fire is dead;
Where shall the master lay his head?"
The thunderstorm woke me. It was a heavy shower. What time is it?
VOITSKI. The devil only knows.
ASTROFF. I thought I heard Helena's voice.
VOITSKI. She was here a moment ago.
ASTROFF. What a beautiful woman! [Looking at the medicine
bottles on the table] Medicine, is it? What a variety we have; prescriptions from Moscow, from Kharkoff, from Tula! Why, he has been pestering all the towns of Russia with his gout! Is he ill, or simply shamming?
VOITSKI. He is really ill.
ASTROFF. What is the matter with you to-night? You seem sad. Is it because you are sorry for the professor? 
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