The Three Sisters

Anton Chekhov

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780486275444
• eBook ISBN: 9780486157528
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

First performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901, The Three Sisters probes the lives and dreams of Olga, Masha, and Irina, former Muscovites now living in a provincial town from which they long to escape. Their hopes for a life more suited to their cultivated tastes and sensibilities provide a touching counterpoint to the relentless flow of compromising events in the real world.
In this powerful play, a landmark of modern drama, Chekhov masterfully interweaves character and theme in subtle ways that make the work's climax seem as inevitable as it is deeply moving. It is reprinted here from a standard text with updated transliteration of character names and additional explanatory footnotes.

Act IV

The old garden at the house of the PROZOROVS. There is a long avenue of firs, at the end of which the river can be seen. There is a forest on the far side of the river. On the right is the terrace of the house: bottles and tumblers are on a table here; it is evident that champagne has just been drunk. It is midday. Every now and again passers-by walk across the garden, from the road to the river; five soldiers go past rapidly. CHEBUTYKIN, in a comfortable frame of mind which does not desert him throughout the act, sits in an armchair in the garden, waiting to be called. He wears a peaked cap and has a stick. IRINA, KULYGIN with a cross hanging from his neck and without his moustaches, and TUZENBAKH are standing on the terrace seeing off FEDOTIK and RODÉ, who are coming down into the garden; both officers are in service uniform.

TUZENBAKH. [Exchanges kisses with FEDOTIK.] You’re a good sort, we got on so well together. [Exchanges kisses with RODÉ.] Once again. . . . Good-bye, old man!

IRINA. Au revoir!

FEDOTIK. It isn’t au revoir, it’s good-bye; we’ll never meet again!

KULYGIN. Who knows! [Wipes his eyes; smiles.] Here, I’ve started crying!

IRINA. We’ll meet again sometime.

FEDOTIK. After ten years—or fifteen? We’ll hardly know one another then; we’ll say, “How do you do?” coldly. . . . [Takes a snapshot.] Keep still. . . . Once more, for the last time.

RODÉ. [Embracing TUZENBAKH.] We shan’t meet again. . . . [Kisses IRINA’S hand.] Thank you for everything, for everything!

FEDOTIK. [Grieved.] Don’t be in such a hurry!

TUZENBAKH. We shall meet again, if God wills it. Write to us. Be sure to write.

RODÉ. [Looking round the garden.] Good-bye, trees! [Shouts.] Yo-ho! [Pause.] Good-bye, echo!

KULYGIN. Best wishes. Go and get yourselves wives there in Poland. . . . Your Polish wife will clasp you and call you “kochanku!”¹³ [Laughs.]

FEDOTIK. [Looking at the time.] There’s less than an hour left. Solyoni is the only one of our battery who is going on the barge; the rest of us are going with the main body. Three batteries are leaving to-day, another three to-morrow and then the town will be quiet and peaceful.

TUZENBAKH. And terribly dull.

RODÉ. And where is Marya Sergeyevna?

KULYGIN. Masha is in the garden.

FEDOTIK. We’d like to say good-bye to her.

RODÉ. Good-bye, I must go, or else I’ll start weeping. . . . [Quickly embraces KULYGIN and TUZENBAKH, and kisses IRINA’S hand.] We’ve been so happy here. . . .

FEDOTIK. [To KULYGIN.] Here’s a keepsake for you . . . a note-book with a pencil. . . . We’ll go to the river from here. . . . [They go aside and both look round. ]

RODÉ. [Shouts.] Yo-ho!

KULYGIN. [Shouts.] Good-bye.

At the back of the stage FEDOTIK and RODÉ meet MASHA; they say good-bye and go out with her.

IRINA. They’ve gone. . . . [Sits on the bottom step of the terrace.] CHEBUTYKIN. And they forgot to say good-bye to me.

IRINA. But why is that?

CHEBUTYKIN. I just forgot, somehow. Though I’ll soon see them again, I’m going to-morrow Yes . . . just one day left. I shall be retired in a year, then I’ll come here again and finish my life near you. I’ve only one year before I get my pension. . . . [Puts one newspaper into his pocket and takes another out. ] I’ll come here to you and change my life radically . . . I’ll be so quiet . . . so agree . . . agreeable, respectable. . . .

IRINA. Yes, you ought to change your life, dear man, somehow or other.

CHEBUTYKIN. Yes, I feel it. [Sings softly.] “Tarara-boom-deay . . . . ”

KULYGIN. We won’t reform Ivan Romanovich! We won’t reform him!

CHEBUTYKIN. If only I was apprenticed to you! Then I’d reform.

IRINA. Fyodor has shaved his moustache! I can’t bear to look at him.

KULYGIN. Well, what about it?

CHEBUTYKIN. I could tell you what your face looks like now, but it wouldn’t be polite.

KULYGIN. Well! It’s the custom, it’s modus vivendi. Our Director is clean-shaven, and so I too, when I received my inspectorship, had my moustaches removed. Nobody likes it, but it’s all one to me. I’m satisfied. Whether I’ve got moustaches or not, I’m satisfied. . . . [Sits.]

At the back of the stage ANDREY is wheeling a perambulator containing a sleeping infant.

IRINA. Ivan Romanovich, be a darling. I’m awfully worried. You were out on the boulevard last night; tell me, what happened?

CHEBUTYKIN. What happened? Nothing. Quite a trifling matter. [Reads paper.] Of no importance!

KULYGIN. They say that Solyoni and the Baron met yesterday on the boulevard near the theatre. . . .

TUZENBAKH. Stop! What right. . . . [Waves his hand and goes into the house.]

KULYGIN. Near the theatre . . . Solyoni started behaving offensively to the Baron, who lost his temper and said something nasty. . . .

CHEBUTYKIN. I don’t know. It’s all bunkum.

KULYGIN. At some seminary or other a master wrote “bunkum” on an essay, and the student couldn’t make the letters out—thought it was a Latin word “luckum.” [Laughs.] Awfully funny, that. They say that Solyoni is in love with Irina and hates the Baron. . . . That’s quite natural. Irina is a very nice girl. She’s even like Masha, she’s so thoughtful. . . . Only, Irina, your character is gentler. Though Masha’s character, too, is a very good one. I’m very fond of Masha.

Shouts of “Yo-ho!” are heard behind the stage.

IRINA. [Shudders.] Everything seems to frighten me today. [Pause.] I’ve got everything ready, and I send my things off after dinner. The Baron and I will be married to-morrow, and to-morrow we go away to the brickworks, and the next day I go to school, and the new life begins. God will help me! When I took my examination for the teacher’s post, I actually wept for joy and gratitude. . . . [Pause.] The cart will be here in a minute for my things. . . .

KULYGIN. Somehow or other, all this doesn’t seem at all serious. As if it was all ideas, and nothing really serious. Still, with all my soul I wish you happiness.

CHEBUTYKIN. [With deep feeling.] My splendid . . . my dear, precious girl. . . . You’ve gone on far ahead, I won’t catch up with you. I’m left behind like a migrant bird grown old, and unable to fly. Fly, my dear, fly, and God be with you! [Pause.]...

Table of contents

• DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS FICTION
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright Page
• Note
• Dramatis Personæ
• Act I
• Act II
• Act III
• Act IV