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Overview
Chekhov's taste for vaudeville shows and French farces influenced his comic one-acts, which are widely regarded as masterpieces of the genre. His greatest fame rests upon his full-length tragedies, which focus on mood and characterization rather than plot. Chekhov considered his famous tragedies a form of comic satire—with the bleakness of life in czarist Russia at the turn of the twentieth century as their central joke. "All I wanted was to say honestly to people: 'Have a look at yourselves and see how bad and dreary your lives are!'" explained the playwright. In addition to their enduring emotional and intellectual appeal to audiences, Chekhov's modern realist dramas continue to influence theatrical literature and performance.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486122649 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 02/14/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 336 |
| File size: | 701 KB |
About the Author
Next to Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) is the most popular playwright in the English-speaking world. The Russian physician also wrote a series of remarkable short stories, in which he pioneered the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique.
Read an Excerpt
Ten Plays
By ANTON CHEKHOV
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 2008 Dover Publications, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-46560-9
CHAPTER 1
ACT I
The garden on IVANOV's estate. On the left, the front of the house with the verandah. One window is open. In front of the verandah is a wide semicircular space, from which an avenue at right angles to the house, and another to the right, run into the garden. On the right side of the verandah are garden seats and tables. On one of the latter a lamp is burning. Evening is coming on. As the curtain rises there is the sound of a duet of piano and 'cello being practiced indoors.
IVANOV is sitting at a table reading. BORKIN, wearing high boots and carrying a gun, comes into sight at the further end of the garden—he is a little drunk; seeing IVANOV, he advances on tiptoe towards him, and when he reaches him aims his gun at his face.
IVANOV [seeing BORKIN, starts and jumps up]. Misha, what are you about? ... You gave me a fright.... I am worried as it is, and then you come with your stupid jokes ... [sits down]. He has frightened me, and is delighted ...
BORKIN [laughs]. There, there.... I am sorry, I am sorry [sits down beside him]. I won't do it again, I really won't ... [takes off his cap]. I'm hot. Would you believe it, my dear soul, I've done nearly twelve miles in three hours! ... Just feel how my heart is beating! ...
IVANOV [reading]. All right, presently....
BORKIN. No, feel now [takes IVANOV's hand and lays it on his chest]. Do you hear? Tootoo-too-too-too- too.... It shows I've got heart-disease, you know. I might die suddenly, any minute. I say, will you be sorry if I die?
IVANOV. I am reading ... presently....
BORKIN. No, seriously, will you be sorry if I die? Nikolay Alexeyevitch, will you be sorry if I die?
IVANOV. Don't pester me!
BORKIN. My dear fellow, do tell me whether you will be sorry.
IVANOV. I am sorry you smell of vodka. Misha, it's disgusting!
BORKIN [laughs]. Do I smell of it? How surprising! ... Though there is nothing surprising in it, really. At Plesniki I met the examining magistrate, and I must own we put away eight glasses or so each. Drinking is very bad for one, really. I say, it is bad for one, isn't it? It is, isn't it?
IVANOV. This is really intolerable.... You must see that it's simply maddening....
BORKIN. There, there.... I am sorry, I am sorry.... God bless you; sit still ... [gets up and walks away]. Queer people; there's no talking to them! [Comes back] Oh yes, I was almost forgetting.... Give me the eighty-two rubles.
IVANOV. What eighty-two rubles?
BORKIN. To pay the laborers to-morrow.
IVANOV. I haven't got it.
BORKIN. Very much obliged! [Mimicking] I haven't got it.... But the laborers must be paid, mustn't they?
IVANOV. I don't know. I haven't the money to-day. Wait till the first of next month, when I get my salary.
BORKIN. Much good it is talking to such a specimen! ... The laborers won't come for the money on the first; they will come tomorrow morning! ...
IVANOV. Well, what am I to do? You may cut my throat, hack me to pieces.... And what a revolting habit it is of yours to pester me just when I am reading or writing, or ...
BORKIN. I ask you, must the laborers be paid or not? But what's the use of talking to you! [waves his hand]. And he is a country gentleman—hang it all, a landowner! ... Up-to-date agricultural methods.... Three thousand acres, and not a penny in his pocket! ... There is a winecellar, and no corkscrew.... I'll go and sell the three horses to-morrow! Yes! I have sold the standing oats, and now I'll sell the rye! [strides about the stage]. Do you suppose I'd hesitate? Eh? No; you've hit on the wrong man for that....
[SHABELSKY's voice inside: "It is impossible to play with you.... You have no more ear than a stuffed pike, and your touch is appalling!"]
ANNA PETROVNA [appears at the open window]. Who was talking here just now? Was it you, Misha? Why are you striding about like that?
BORKIN. Your Nicolas-voilà is enough to drive one to anything!
ANNA PETROVNA. I say, Misha, tell them to bring some hay on to the croquet lawn.
BORKIN [waving her off]. Please let me alone....
ANNA PETROVNA. Goodness! what a way to speak! ... That tone doesn't suit you at all. If you want women to like you, you must never let them see you cross or standing on your dignity. [To her husband] Nikolay, let us roll about on the hay!
IVANOV. It's bad for you to stand at an open window, Anyuta. Please go in ... [Calls] Uncle, shut the window. [The window is shut.]
BORKIN. Don't forget that in two days' time you have to pay Lebedyev his interest.
IVANOV. I remember. I shall be at Lebedyev's to-day, and I will ask him to wait [looks at his watch].
BORKIN. When are you going?
IVANOV. Directly.
BORKIN [eagerly]. Wait a minute! I do believe it is Sasha's birthday to-day ... tut—tut— tut ... and I forgot it.... What a memory! [skips about]. I am going—I am going [sings]. I am going.... I'll go and have a bathe, chew some paper, take three drops of spirits of ammonia—and I shall be ready to begin all over again.... Nikolay Alexeyevitch darling, my precious, angel of my heart, you are always in a state of nerves, complaining, and in the dismal doldrums, and yet the devil only knows what we two might bring off together! I am ready to do anything for you.... Would you like me to marry Marfusha Babakin for you? Half her dowry shall be yours ... no, not half, all, all shall be yours!
IVANOV. Do shut up with your silly rot.
BORKIN. No, seriously! Would you like me to marry Marfusha? We'll go halves over the dowry.... But there, why do I talk about it to you? As though you would understand! [Mimicking] "Shut up with your silly rot." You are a fine man, an intelligent man, but you've none of that streak in you, you know—none of that go ... To have a fling to make the devils sick with envy.... You are a neurotic, a drooper, but if you were a normal man you would have a million in a year. For instance, if I had at this moment two thousand three hundred rubles, I would have twenty thousand in a fortnight. You don't believe it? You call that silly rot too? No, it's not silly rot.... There, give me two thousand three hundred rubles and in a week I'll bring you twenty thousand. On the other side of the river Ovsyanov is selling a strip of land just opposite us for two thousand three hundred rubles. If we were to buy that strip, both sides of the river would be ours, and if both banks were ours, you know, we should have the right to dam up the river, shouldn't we? We'd set about building a mill, and, as soon as we let people know we were going to make a dam, all the people living down the river would make a hullaballoo, and we'd say—kommen sie hier, if you don't want to have a dam, buy us off. Do you understand? Zarevsky's factory would give us five thousand, Korolkov three thousand, the monastery five thousand....
IVANOV. That's all stuff and nonsense, Misha.... If you don't want to quarrel with me, keep such schemes to yourself.
BORKIN [sits down to the table]. Of course! ... I knew it would be so! ... You won't do anything yourself, and you won't let me.
[Enter SHABELSKY and LVOV.]
SHABELSKY [coming out of the house with LVOV]. Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that the lawyers rob you, and the doctors rob you and murder you.... I am not speaking of present company [sits down on the garden-seat]. Charlatans, exploiters.... Perhaps in Arcadia there may be some exceptions to the general rule, but ... In the course of my life I've spent twenty thousand or so on doctors, and I never met a single one who did not seem to me a licensed swindler.
BORKIN [to IVANOV]. Yes, you do nothing yourself, and you won't let me do anything. That's why we have no money....
SHABELSKY. I repeat that I am not speaking of present company.... Perhaps there are exceptions, though indeed ... [yawns].
IVANOV [shutting his book]. What do you say, doctor?
LVOV [looking round towards the window]. What I said to you this morning: she must go to the Crimea at once [paces about the stage].
SHABELSKY [giggles]. Crimea! ... Why don't you and I go in for being doctors, Misha? It's so simple.... As soon as some Madame Angot or Ophelia begins wheezing and coughing because she has nothing better to do, you've to take a sheet of paper and prescribe according to the rules of your science: first, a young doctor, then a trip to the Crimea, a Tatar guide in the Crimea....
IVANOV [to SHABELSKY]. Oh, do stop it! How you do keep on! [to LVOV] To go to the Crimea one must have money. Even if I do manage to get it, she absolutely refuses to go.
LVOV. Yes, she does [pause].
BORKIN. I say, doctor, is Anna Petrovna really so ill that it is necessary for her to go to the Crimea?
LVOV [looking round towards the window]. Yes, it's consumption.
BORKIN. Ss—ss! ... That's bad.... For some time past I've thought she looked as though she wouldn't last long.
LVOV. But ... don't talk so loud ... you will be heard in the house [pause].
BORKIN [sighing]. Such is life.... The life of man is like a flower growing luxuriantly in a field: a goat comes and eats it, and the flower is no more.
SHABELSKY. It's all nonsense, nonsense, nonsense ... [yawns]. Nonsense and fraud [pause].
BORKIN. And here, gentlemen, I keep showing Nikolay Alexeyevitch how to make money. I've just given him a glorious idea, but as usual he throws cold water on it. There's no moving him.... Just look at him: melancholy, spleen, depression, hypochondria, dejection....
SHABELSKY [stands up and stretches]. You've got some scheme for everyone, you genius; you teach everyone how to live, you might try it on me for once.... Give me a lesson, you brainy person, show me a way of escape....
BORKIN [getting up]. I'm going to bathe.... Good-bye, gentlemen. [To the COUNT] There are twenty things you could do.... If I were in your place I would have twenty thousand within a week [is going].
SHABELSKY [follows him]. How's that? Come, show me how to do it.
BORKIN. It doesn't need showing. It's very simple [coming back]. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, give me a ruble!
[IVANOV gives him the money in silence.]
BORKIN. Merci! [To the COUNT] You've still lots of trump cards in your hand.
SHABELSKY [following him]. Well, what are they?
BORKIN. If I were in your place, within a week I would have thirty thousand, if not more [goes out with the COUNT].
IVANOV [after a pause]. Superfluous people, superfluous words, the necessity of answering foolish questions—all this has so exhausted me that I am quite ill, doctor. I have grown irritable, hasty, harsh, and so petty that I don't know myself. For days together my head aches; I cannot sleep, there's a noise in my ears.... And there's no getting away from it all ... simply nothing I can do....
LVOV. I want to talk to you seriously, Nikolay Alexeyevitch.
IVANOV. What is it?
LVOV. It's about Anna Petrovna [sits down]. She won't consent to go to the Crimea, but with you she would go.
IVANOV [pondering]. To go together we must have the means to do it. Besides, they won't give me a long leave. I've taken my holiday this year already ...
LVOV. Well, supposing that is so. Now for the next point. The most important condition for the treatment of consumption is absolute peace of mind, and your wife never has a moment's peace of mind. She is in continual agitation over your attitude to her. Forgive me, I am excited and am going to speak frankly to you. Your conduct is killing her [pause]. Nikolay Alexeyevitch, allow me to think better of you!
IVANOV. It's all true, quite true.... I expect I am terribly to blame, but my thoughts are in a tangle, my soul is paralyzed by inertia, and I am incapable of understanding myself. I don't understand others or myself ... [looks at the window]. We may be overheard, let us go for a stroll. [They get up.] I'd tell you the whole story from the beginning, my dear fellow, but it's a long story and so complicated that I shouldn't be finished by to-morrow morning. [They are walking away.] Anyuta is a remarkable, exceptional woman.... For my sake she has changed her religion, given up her father and mother, abandoned wealth, and if I wanted a hundred more sacrifices she would make them without the quiver of an eyelash. Well, and I am in no way remarkable, and I have made no sacrifices. But it's a long story.... The point of it all is, dear doctor [hesitates], is that ... The long and the short of it is that I was passionately in love when I married and vowed I would love her for ever; but ... five years have passed, she still loves me, and I ... [makes a gesture of despair]. Here you tell me that she is soon going to die, and I feel neither love nor pity, but a sort of emptiness and weariness.... If one looks at me from outside it must be horrible. I don't myself understand what is happening in my soul. [They go out along the avenue.]
[Enter SHABELSKY.]
SHABELSKY [laughing]. Upon my honor, he is no common rascal, he is a genius, an expert! We ought to put up a statue to him. He combines in himself every form of modern rottenness: the lawyer's and the doctor's, and the huckster's and the cashier's [sits down on the lowest step of the verandah]. And yet I believe he has never finished his studies! That's what is so surprising.... What a rascal of genius he would have been if he had absorbed culture and learning! "You can have twenty thousand in a week," says he. "You've still the ace of trumps in your hands," says he, "your title" [laughs]. "Any girl with a dowry would marry you...."
[ANNA PETROVNA opens the window and looks down.]
SHABELSKY. "Would you like me to make a match for you with Marfusha?" says he. Qui est-ce que c'est Marfusha? Ah, it's that Balabalkin ... Babakalkin ... who looks like a washer-woman....
ANNA PETROVNA. Is that you, Count?
SHABELSKY. What is it?
[ANNA PETROVNA laughs.]
SHABELSKY [with a Jewish accent]. Vot for you laugh?
ANNA PETROVNA. I thought of something you said. Do you remember you said at dinner: "A thief that is forgiven, a horse ..." What is it?
SHABELSKY. A Jew that is christened, a thief that is forgiven, a horse that is doctored— are worth the same price.
ANNA PETROVNA [laughs]. You can't make even a simple joke without spite in it. You are a spiteful man. [Earnestly] Joking apart, Count, you are very spiteful. It's dull and dreadful living with you. You are always snarling and grumbling. You think all men are scoundrels and rascals. Tell me honestly, have you ever said anything good about anyone?
SHABELSKY. Why this cross-examination?
ANNA PETROVNA. We've been living under the same roof for five years and I've never once heard you speak of people calmly, without malice and derision. What harm have people done you? And do you really imagine that you are better than anyone else?
SHABELSKY. I don't imagine it at all. I am just as great a blackguard and pig in a skullcap as everyone else, mauvais ton and an old rag. I always abuse myself. Who am I? What am I? I was rich, free and rather happy, but now ... I am a dependant, a hanger-on, a degraded buffoon. I am indignant, I am contemptuous, and people laugh at me: I laugh and they shake their heads at me mournfully and say the old chap is cracked ... and most often they don't hear me, don't heed me....
ANNA PETROVNA [calmly]. It is screeching again.
SHABELSKY. Who is screeching?
ANNA PETROVNA. The owl. It screeches every evening.
SHABELSKY. Let it screech. Nothing can be worse than what is now [stretching]. Ah, my dear Sarra, if I were to win a hundred or two hundred thousand I'd show you a thing or two! You'd see no more of me here. I'd get away from this hole, away from the bread of charity ... and wouldn't set foot here again till the day of judgment....
ANNA PETROVNA. And what would you do if you did win a lot of money?
SHABELSKY [after a moment's thought]. First of all I would go to Moscow to hear the gypsies. Then ... then I should be off to Paris. I should take a flat there, I should go to the Russian church....
ANNA PETROVNA. And what else?
SHABELSKY. I should sit for days together on my wife's grave and think. I should sit there till I died. My wife is buried in Paris.... [pause].
ANNA PETROVNA. How awfully dull it is! Shall we play another duet?
SHABELSKY. Very well, get the music ready.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ten Plays by ANTON CHEKHOV. Copyright © 2008 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Ivanov (1887)The Bear (1888)
The Proposal (1888-1889)
An Unwilling Martyr (1889)
The Wedding (1889)
The Anniversary (1891)
The Sea Gull (1896)
Uncle Vanya (1899-1900)
The Three Sisters (1901)
The Cherry Orchard (1904)