Three Sisters

Full Text and Introduction (NHB Drama Classics)

Anton Chekhov

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781780014258
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding.

This Drama Classics edition of Anton Chekhov's masterpiece of provincial claustrophobia is translated and introduced by Stephen Mulrine.

Act Two

The stage is set as in Act One. It is eight o’clock in the evening. Offstage, an accordion is being played outside, faintly audible. The room is unlit. NATASHA enters in her dressing-gown, holding a candle. She crosses the stage and pauses at the door leading to ANDREI’s room.

NATASHA. Andrei, what are you doing? You’re reading? Oh, it doesn’t matter, I was just wondering … (She moves on, opens another door, looks in, then closes it.) No lights left on …

ANDREI.(emerging with a book in his hand). What is it, Natasha?

NATASHA. I’m checking to see if there’s a light on … It’s carnival time, the servants are getting careless, you have to keep an eye on them constantly, to make sure nothing’s wrong. I walked through the dining room at midnight last night, and there was a candle left burning. And I still haven’t found out who lit it. (She sets down the candle.) What time is it?

ANDREI (looks at his watch). Quarter past eight.

NATASHA. And Olga and Irina still aren’t in. They haven’t come home. They’re kept busy the whole time, poor things. Olga at her staff meeting, Irina at her telegraph office … (Sighs.) I said that to your sister this morning, ‘You must look after yourself, Irina darling,’ I said. But she doesn’t listen. Quarter past eight, did you say? You know, I’m afraid our little Bobik isn’t at all well. Why is he so cold? He had a fever yesterday, and today he’s freezing … I’m really worried about him!

ANDREI. He’s fine, Natasha. The boy’s fine.

NATASHA. Still, we’d better see he’s eating properly. I’m worried. And there’s supposed to be carnival people arriving at ten o’clock, I’d rather they didn’t come, Andryusha.

ANDREI. Well, I don’t know … After all, we did invite them.

NATASHA. You know, that darling little boy woke up this morning and looked at me, and he suddenly smiled – yes, he recognised me. ‘Hello, Bobik!’ I said, ‘Hello, my darling!’ And he laughed, yes. Children know everything that’s going on, they understand perfectly. Anyway, Andryusha, I’ll tell them not to let the musicians in.

ANDREI (indecisively). Well, that’s surely up to my sisters. I mean, it’s their house …

NATASHA. Yes, of course, I’ll tell them too. They’re so kind … (Makes to leave.) I’ve ordered sour milk for supper. The doctor says you’re to have nothing but sour milk, otherwise you’ll never lose weight. (Pauses.) Bobik gets a chill so easily. I’m worried in case it’s too cold for him in there. We ought to put him in another room, at least until the warm weather. Irina’s room, for instance – that’s just perfect for a baby: it’s dry, and it gets the sun all day. She’ll have to be told, and she can move in with Olga meantime … She’s not at home during the day anyway, she’s only here at nights …

A pause.

Andryusha, love, you’re not answering.

ANDREI. I’m thinking … Anyway, I’ve nothing to say …

NATASHA. Well … There was something I meant to tell you … Oh yes, Ferapont’s come from the council, he wants to see you.

ANDREI (Yawns). Send him in.

NATASHA exits. ANDREI, stooping over the candle she has left behind, goes on reading his book. FERAPONT enters; he is wearing an old shabby overcoat, with the collar turned up, and a scarf round his ears.

Well, hello, old chap – what is it?

FERAPONT. The Chairman’s sent you a book, and papers of some sort. I’ve got them here … (Hands over a book, and a package.)

ANDREI. Thank you. That’s fine. Why didn’t you come earlier? It’s gone eight o’clock.

FERAPONT. What?

ANDREI (louder). I said, you’re late, it’s eight o’clock already.

FERAPONT. That’s true. It was still light when I came to see you, but they wouldn’t let me in, no. The master’s busy, they said. Well, never mind. If you’re busy, you’re busy, I’m in no hurry. (He thinks ANDREI has asked him something.) What?

ANDREI. Nothing. (Inspects the book.) Tomorrow’s Friday, there’s no meeting, but I’ll go in anyway … it’ll give me something to do. I’m bored stiff at home …

A pause.

Yes, my dear old chap, it’s odd how things change, how life plays tricks on us. Out of sheer boredom today, nothing better to do, I picked up this book – my old university lectures, and I thought it was so funny … Good God, I’m the secretary to the district council, under chairman Protopopov – I’m secretary, and the most I can aspire to is to become a member! Yes, me – a member of the district council … and there I am dreaming every night that I’m a professor at Moscow University, a famous scholar, the pride of all Russia!

FERAPONT. I dunno … I don’t hear too well …

ANDREI. Well, if you could hear, I doubt if I’d be talking like this. I’ve got to talk to somebody, but my wife doesn’t understand me, and for some reason or other I’m afraid of my sisters. I’m afraid they’ll laugh at me, or make me feel ashamed … I don’t drink, I don’t like taverns, but oh, my dear old chap, what wouldn’t I give to be sitting right now in Moscow at Tyestov’s, or the Grand Hotel!

FERAPONT. A builder at the council was saying just the other day that some merchants in Moscow were eating pancakes; and one of them, who’d eaten forty of the things, dropped down dead. Maybe it wasn’t forty, maybe it was fifty. I don’t rightly recall.

ANDREI. Yes, you can sit in Moscow, in an enormous restaurant dining-room, you don’t know anybody, nobody knows you, and yet you don’t feel like a stranger. But in this place, you know everybody, everybody knows you, but you’re an outsider, a total stranger … Alone, and alien …

FERAPONT. What?

A pause.

That same builder was saying – maybe he was making it up – he said there was a rope stretched right across Moscow, from one end to the other.

ANDREI. What for?

FERAPONT. I dunno. That’s what the builder said.

ANDREI. That’s rubbish. (Returns to his book.) Have you ever been in Moscow?

FERAPONT (After a pause). I haven’t. It’s not been God’s will.

A pause.

Shall I go?

ANDREI. You can go now. Take care, old chap.

FERAPONT exits.

Take care. (Reading.) You can come back tomorrow morning, collect these papers … Off you go …

A pause.

He’s gone.

The door-bell rings.

Yes, more work … (Stretches, and makes his way slowly off to his own room.)

The old nurse is heard singing off-stage, rocking the baby to sleep. MASHA and VERSHININ enter. While they converse, a maid lights the oil-lamp and candles.

MASHA. I don’t know.

A pause.

I don’t know. Habit counts for a great deal, of course, what you’re accustomed to. After father’s death, for example, we just couldn’t get used to the fact that we didn’t have orderlies any longer. But quite apart from habit, I think I’m justified in saying this. Maybe it isn’t the same in other places, but in this town the most decent, the most honourable and well-bred people are the military.

VERSHININ. I’m really thirsty. I wouldn’t mind some tea.

MASHA (glancing at her watch). They’ll be bringing it soon. Yes, I got married when I was eighteen – I was in awe of my husband, because he was a teacher, and I’d only just left school. He was terribly learned, clever and important, so I thought. And now I don’t, sad to say.

VERSHININ. Yes … I see.

MASHA. I’m not talking about my husband, I’ve got used to him, but among civilians in general there are so many boorish people, no manners, badly brought up. It upsets me, rudeness really offends me – when people show a lack of sensitivity, or kindness, or common courtesy, I feel pain. When I’m with the teachers, for instance, my husband’s colleagues, I really suffer.

VERSHININ. Yes … Even so, I think the military and civilians are pretty much of a muchness, in this town at any rate. No difference! If you listen to any educated person hereabouts, soldier or civilian, they’re fed up with their wives, they’re fed up with their house or their land, they’re sick to death of their horses … I mean, why is it that Russians, who lay claim to the most exalted ideas, have such low expectations of life? Why is that?

MASHA. Why?

VERSHININ. Why is your average Russian sick to death of his wife and childre...