Man From the USSR & Other Plays (21 page)

 

MESHAEV ONE

In that case I shall limit myself to wishing you a happy birthday, Antonina Pavlovna,
(takes out crib notes)
My wish to you is that you may entertain us for a long time to come with your splendid female talent. The days go by, but books—books, Antonina Pavlovna—remain on their shelves, and the grand cause that you selflessly serve is truly grand and abundant, and every one of your lines rings on and on in our minds and hearts in an eternal refrain. How beautiful, how fresh the roses were.
⁵
(gives her the roses) (applause)

 

ANTONINA PAVLOVNA

Thank you for the kind wishes, my dear Osip Mikheyevich. But why are you alone? Didn't you promise to bring your brother who lives in the country?

 

MESHAEV ONE

I thought he'd be here already. He probably missed his train and will come on the evening one. It's a pity: I particularly wanted to entertain all of you with our striking resemblance. But please go on with your reading!

 

WRITER

Yes, please. Make yourselves comfortable, ladies and gentlemen. We are probably in for a long session. Closer, closer together.
(They all move slightly upstage.)

 

ANTONINA PAVLOVNA

“On this sedge, with one wing folded, and the other spread wide, lay a dead swan. Its eyes were half-open, and tears still glistened on the long lashes. Meanwhile the east was coming aglow, and the sun's chords rang ever more brightly on the broad lake. With each touch of the long rays, with every light breath of air, the leaves....”
(As she reads, her face remains distinct, but she seems to have receded with her armchair into the distance, so that her voice grows inaudible even though her lips continue to move and her hand keeps on turning the pages. The listeners around her, who have also lost all contact with the front of the stage, sit in motionless, drowsy attitudes: Ryovshin has frozen with a bottle of champagne between
his knees; the Writer's eyes are shaded by his hand. Actually, a scrim ought to descend, or a drop on which the whole group is depicted with all their attitudes exactly reproduced.)

 

(Troshcheykin and Lyubov'advance quickly to the proscenium.)

 

LYUBOV'

Alyosha, I can't stand it any longer.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

I can't either....

 

LYUBOV'

The most terrible day of our lives—

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

... our last day—

 

LYUBOV'

... has turned into a grotesque farce. From these painted specters we can expect neither salvation nor-compassion.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

We must run...

 

LYUBOV'

Yes, oh yes!

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

... Run—and for some reason we dawdle like motionless operatic characters singing of escape under immobile palm trees. I can sense the approaching—

 

LYUBOV'

... Danger. But what kind of danger? Oh, if only you could understand!

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

... Danger just as real as our hands, our shoulders, our cheeks. Lyuba, we are absolutely alone....

 

LYUBOV'

Yes, alone. But these are two solitudes, and each is a closed circle. Try to understand me!

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

... Alone on this narrow, lighted stage. Behind us, the old theatrical frippery of our whole life, the frozen masks of a second-rate comedy, and in front a dark chasm full of eyes, eyes, eyes watching us, awaiting our destruction.

 

LYUBOV'

Answer quick: you know that I deceive you?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Yes. But you will never leave me.

 

LYUBOV'

I'm so overcome with regret sometimes. Things weren't always like this.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Don't let go, Lyuba!

 

LYUBOV'

Our little son broke the mirror with a ball today. Hold me, Alyosha. Don't loosen your grip.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

I can't see clearly.... Everything is growing hazy again. I don't feel you anymore. You are merging with life again. We are sinking again. Lyuba, it's all over!

 

LYUBOV'

Onegin, I was younger then, I was, I daresay, better-looking.
⁶
...Yes, I've weakened too. I can't remember.... How marvelous it was on those momentary heights.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Fantasies. Delusions. If somebody doesn't get me money today I won't live through the night.

 

LYUBOV'

Look, how strange: Marfa is tiptoeing toward us from the door. Look at the awful expression on her face. Just look! She's creeping in with some terrible news. She can barely move....

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

(to Marfa)
Is it him? Out with it: is he here?

 

LYUBOV'

(clapping her hands and laughing)
She's nodding. Alyoshen'ka, she's nodding!
(Shekel' enters. He is round-shouldered and wean dark glasses.)

 

SHCHEL'

I beg your pardon.... My name is Ivan Ivanovich Shchel'. Your half-witted maid didn't want to let me in. You don't know me, but you may know that I have a gun store across from the cathedral.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

I'm listening.

 

SHCHEL'

I felt it my duty to come and see you. I must warn you about something.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Come closer, come closer. Here, kitty, kitty.

 

SHCHEL'

But you are not alone. This is a gathering....

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Don't pay any attention.... It's a kind of mirage. They are extras. They don't exist. Actually, I daubed it all myself. A poor painting, but innocuous.

 

SHCHEL'

Don't try to fool me. That man over there bought a shotgun from me last year.

 

LYUBOV'

You're imagining things. Believe us! We know better. My husband painted it in very natural colors. We are alone. You may speak freely.

 

SHCHEL'

In that case allow me to inform you.... Immediately upon learning who has returned, I recollected with alarm that at noon today a Browning-type automatic was purchased in my store.
(The drop rises, and the reader's voice loudly concludes: “.,. and then the swan came back to life. ”Ryovshin uncorks the champagne. The sound of animation is immediately cut short, however.)

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Did Barbashin buy it?

 

SHCHEL'

No, the buyer was a Mr. Arshinski. However, I can see that you understand for whom the weapon was intended.

The studio again. The balls in the picture have all been painted in. Lyubov' is alone. She looks out the window, then slowly draws the blind. On the table lies a pack of cigarettes that Ryovshin forgot that morning. She lights one. Sits down. A mouse (the illusion of a mouse), taking advantage of the stillness, emerges from a crack, and Lyubov'follows its movements with a smile; she cautiously changes her position, leans forward, but suddenly the mouse skitters away. Marfa enters from the left.

 

LYUBOV'

There's a little mouse here again.

 

MARFA

And in the kitchen there are cockroaches. It's all part of the same thing.

 

LYUBOV'

What's wrong with you?

 

MARFA

What do you think? If you don't need anything else today,
Lyubov' Ivanovna, I'll be going.

 

LYUBOV'

Where are you off to?

 

MARFA

I'll spend the night at my brother's, and tomorrow please let me leave for good. I am afraid to remain here. I'm a feeble old woman, and this house is an unhealthy place.

 

LYUBOV'

That wasn't a very good performance. I'll show you how it ought to be done. “Have mercy on me....I am a feeble, sickly old woman.... I'm all in a funk.... The Evil One is on the loose here....” That's the way. A very common part, actually.... You can get the hell out of here whenever you want, for all I care.

 

MARFA

I'll do just that, Lyubov' Ivanovna, I'll do just that. Living with a bunch of loonies isn't for me.

 

LYUBOV'

Don't you think that's a pretty swinish thing to do, though? You could at least have stayed the night.

 

MARFA

Swinish? Had my fill of swinery. Boyfriend here, boyfriend there....

 

LYUBOV'

Oh no—not like that at all: More tremolo, more indignation. Something about Jezebel.

 

MARFA

I am afraid of you, Lyubov' Ivanovna. You ought to call a doctor.

 

LYUBOV'

A
healer,
not a doctor. No, I'm definitely not pleased with your acting. I was going to recommend you for the part of a cantankerous biddy, but now I see I can't.

 

MARFA

I don't need to be mended by you.

 

LYUBOV'

Better, better. That's enough, though. Good-by.

 

MARFA

Killers all over the place. 'Tis a night of ill omens.

 

LYUBOV'

Good-by!

 

MARFA

I'm going, I'm going. And tomorrow you'll pay me for the last two months,
(leaves)

 

LYUBOV'

Onegin, I was younger then....I was, I daresay, better-looking... What a nasty old woman! Have you ever seen anything like it? Oh, what a....
(Troshcheykin comes in from the right.)

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Lyuba, it's all over! Baumgarten just called—there won't be any money.

 

LYUBOV'

I beg you.... Don't get so excited all the time. This tension is unbearable.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

He promised to have it for me in a week. Who needs it then? What for? To hand out tips in the afterworld?

 

LYUBOV'

Please, Alyosha.... I have a splitting headache.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

All right. But what do we do now? What?

 

LYUBOV'

It's eight-thirty now. In an hour we'll go to bed. That's all. I'm so worn out from today's bedlam that my teeth are chattering.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

I beg your pardon. I'm going to have one more visitor tonight. Did you really think I was going to leave it at that? Until I am certain that no one is going to come charging in here tonight, I'm not going to bed. No siree!

 

LYUBOV'

And I am. And to sleep. And that is that.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Only now do I realize how destitute, how helpless we are. Somehow our life went on and our poverty went unnoticed. Listen, Lyuba: the way things are going, the only solution is to accept Ryovshin's proposal.

 

LYUBOV'

What do you mean, Ryovshin's proposal?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

My proposal, actually. You see, he will give me money for the trip and so forth, and you will temporarily move in with his sister in the country.

 

LYUBOV'

A splendid plan.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Of course it's splendid. I can see no other solution to the problem. Tomorrow we'll be off—if we live through the night.

 

LYUBOV'

Alyosha, look into my eyes.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Cut it out. I consider it indispensable, if only for two weeks. We'll have a rest, we'll catch our breath.

 

LYUBOV'

Then let me tell you something. Not only will I never go to Ryovshin's sister's, but I won't budge from here.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Lyuba, Lyuba, Lyuba. Don't exasperate me. My nerves are out of control today. You obviously want to perish.... Goodness, it's practically night. Look, I never noticed—there's not a single street lamp outside our building. Look how far it is to the nearest one. If only the moon would hurry and come up.

 

LYUBOV'

Let me give you the glad news. Marfa has given notice. And already left.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

There we are. The rats are abandoning the ship. Great.... Lyuba, I beg you on bended knee: let's go away tomorrow. Don't you see—this is inexorable hell. Fate itself is evicting us. All right, let's assume there will be a detective with us, but we can't send him out to the store, can we ? That means tomorrow we have to start looking for a new maid, going to all kinds of trouble, asking your idiot sister to help.... These are headaches I can't face in the present situation. Come on, Lyubushka, come on, sweet, what will it cost you? If you don't do it, Ryovshin won't give me the money—after all, it's a question of life and death, not of philistine propriety.