U N C L E V A N Y A

SCENES FROM A COUNTRY LIFE

f
"Uncle Vanya is an American play," a Russian director once told
me. "Family members come for a visit, they fight, they scream,
someone fires a gun, and then everyone makes up and says, 'See
you next Christmas.'" While this simplistic statement seems only
to be a joke, it is also quite accurate on certain levels. Surely the
passions that we find enacted in the play seem more appropriate
to contemporary America than Jhey do to a late-nineteenth-
century vision of Russia. Uncle Vanya himself would be more at
home as the whiney, narcissistic protagonist in a Woody Allen
comedy than as the anti-hero in a stuffy, period drama.
If we apply these contemporary visions to Uncle Vanya, we
begin to see how the play opens itself up to interpretation. It is
not, in fact, a quiet, sleepy little play, in spite of the size and
scope of its story. Take as an example the scene in which Dr.
Astrov comes to show Yelena some of his maps and launches into
a long discourse about them. This is, of course, in no way a
conversation about maps but instead a moment of incredible
seduction. Yelena is in love with Astrov, but her stated purpose to
Sonya is to find out whether he loves Sonya. He is similarly in
love with her and is using the maps as his excuse to get near her.
In the late 1980s, the State Theatre of Lithuania brought its
production of Uncle Vanya to Chicago. I remember watching as
Astrov walked into the study where Yelena was seated in a chair
and handed her a large plastic disc, the kind that is used by
people with weak vision to magnify images or text. He pulled his
wallet out of his pocket, took out a pair of tweezers, and then
 UNCLE VANYA

began to remove postage-stamp-size maps from that wallet.

Yelena had to hold the magnifying disc in front of her face in
order to see these tiny maps, but the result for the audience was
that her eyes were magnified to the size of the disc, about two
feet across. We were given access to her inner struggle, the
intensity of her passion, the torment of her betrayal of Sonia —
all while Astrov talked on at length about his tiny maps.
It is the little details that make Uncle Vanya resonate so
completely for today's audience. This play has great kinship to CHARACTERS
die work of Sam Shepherd or Edward Albee, in that it turns an
uncomfortable magnifying glass onto the emotional lives of
MARINA, an old peasant woman, Sonya's nanny
people who are very similar to us in their petty squabbles over
ASTROV, a country doctor
inheritance and their ridiculous search for love. And like those
VOINITSKY (UNCLE VANYA), a country gentleman
American relatives, it stays with us long after it has gone. SEREBRYAKOV, a retired professor of art
YELENA, his wife
SONYA, his daughter from a first marriage, Vanya's niece
TELEGIN (WAFFLES), their neighbor
MARYA VASSILEVNA, Vanya's mother and Sonya's grandmother
YEFIM, a farmhand
A WORKMAN

The action takes place on the Voinitsky estate.

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 ACT I

A garden. Part of a house and its terrace are visible. In the path by
the trees, under one old poplar, a table is set for tea. Benches, chairs;
on one of the benches lies a guitar. Not far from the table is a swing.
It is three o'clock in the afternoon. It is overcast.
Onstage are Marina, a grey, slow-moving old woman, who sits
near the samovar and knits a stocking, and Astrov, who walks
nearby.
MARINA (pouring a cup of tea): Have something, dear heart.
ASTROV (not taking the cup): Don't feel like anything.
MARINA: Maybe a thimbleful of vodka?
ASTROV: No. I don't drink vodka every day. Besides, it's too muggy.
(pause) Nanny, how long have we known each other?
MARINA (thinks): How long? Lord help me recall. . . . You came
here, to these p a r t s . . . W h e n was t h a t ? . . . Sonya's mother, dear
Vera, was still with us. You were with us two winters before she
passed. . . . That would make it around eleven years gone by.
(thinks) Even more, maybe.
ASTROV: Have I changed much since then?
MARINA: O h , yes. You were young then, and handsome. You've
gotten older. And your looks aren't what they used to be. And I
might add, you drink now.

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 UNCLE VANYA
ASTROV: Yes. . . . Ten years, and I've become a different person.
How did it happen? Work my fingers to the bone, nanny. From
morning till night, I'm on my feet, I know no peace, and at
night, I lay under the covers, I'm scared that they'll drag me out
of bed to some other sick man. In the whole time we've known
each other, I haven't had one day off. How could you help but
get old? Yes, life itself is boring and stupid and filthy. It tears you
apart, this life. Surrounded by "eccentrics " knee-deep in ec-
centrics; after a couple of years, you notice that slowly, imper-
ceptibly, you're turning into one of them. A foregone
conclusion, (twists his moustache) Look at this gigantic mous-
tache I've grown. Stupid moustache. I've become an eccentric,
nanny. I've gotten dumber, although I'm not a complete idiot
yet, thank God, my brains are still where they should be, but my
feelings have . . . deadened. I don't want anything, I don't need
anything, I don't love anyone. . . . Except you. I still love you.
(kisses her head) You know, when I was a little boy, I had a
nanny just like you.
MARINA: Have a little something, won't you?
ASTROV: No. During Lent, the third week, I went to Malitskoye.
Epidemic there. Typhus raging. In their shacks, people were
crammed together side by s i d e . . . . Filth, stink, smoke, a calf on
the floor there, next to the sick. . . . Piglets, too. . . . I worked
there the entire day, never sat down, nothing to eat, nothing to
drink. I came home, didn't even catch my breath when they
bring me this railroad switchman. Lay him on the table, so$hat
I can operate on him, and he up and dies on me under chloro-
form. T h e n , just when I don't need them, my feelings come
rushing back, and then my conscience chimes in, telling me
that I killed that man. I sat down, closed my eyes—and I start
thinking: What will they think of us, in a hundred, two hundred
years, those who come after us, who we're clearing the road for
today, will they have anything good to say about us? Nanny, will
they even remember us?
MARINA: People might not remember us, just so long as God does.
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UNCLE VANYA
ASTROV: Thank you. That was well put.
(Voinitsky [Uncle Vanya] comes out of the house. He has fallen
asleep after breakfast and has a matted look; he sits on the bench,
fixing his silk tie.)
VOINITSKY: Yes (pause)... Yes
ASTROV: Nice nap?
VOINITSKY: Yes. . . . Very, (yawns) Since the professor and his
"spouse" have come to live with us, it's as if we've all run off the
rails. . . . I fall asleep at odd hours, eat strange "delicacies" for
breakfast and lunch, I drink wine! It's not healthy, none of it! Be-
fore, we never had a free moment, Sonya and I, worked all the
time, and now, well Sonya is still working. Me, I sleep, eat,
drink. . . . Not good at all!
MARINA (shaking her head): Such a state! T h e professor doesn't get
out of bed till noon, and the kettle is boiling all morning. Every-
thing waits on him. Before they came, we ate lunch at one
o'clock, like good Christian people everywhere. Now, lunch is
at seven at night! All night long, he's reading and writing, then
he rings the bell around two in the m o r n i n g . . . . What is it, dear
heart? He wants teal Wake everybody up for him, put the kettle
on. . . . Such a state!
ASTROV: Are they here for long?
VOINITSKY (whistles): About a hundred years. T h e professor has
decided to move his headquarters here.
MARINA: Just look now. T h e tea's been ready for over two hours,
and they all go off for a walk.
VOINITSKY: Here they come, here they come. . . . Don't upset
yourself.
(Voices heard off. From the heart of the garden, returning from their
stroll, are Serebryakov, Yelena, Sonya, and Telegin.)
SEREBRYAKOV: Beautiful, just beautiful.. . . Spectacular view.
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 UNCLE VANYA
TELEGIN: Remarkable, your honor.
SONYA: Tomorrow we're going to the tree nursery, papa. Would
you like that?
VOINITSKY: Tea is served, ladies and gentlemen.
SEREBRYAKOV: My friends, would you be so kind as to bring my
tea into the study? There are several things that need my atten-
tion today.
SONYA: I'm sure you would love the tree nursery. . . .
(Yelena, Serebryakov, and Sonya exit into the house. Telegin sits at
the table next to Marina.)
VOINITSKY: It's hot, it's muggy, and this great, learned man is
wearing his overcoat, his galoshes, his gloves, and carrying an
umbrella.
ASTROV: It pays to take precautions, I suppose.
VOINITSKY: But isn't she beautiful! Isn't she? So beautiful! I have
never in all my life seen such a beautiful woman.
TELEGIN: Whether I am wandering the fields, nanny, or strolling
in a shady garden, or simply looking at this table, I feel inexpli-
cably blessed! T h e weather is perfect, the birds are singing, we
are living, all of us, in peace and harmony—what more could
we ask? (taking a cup of tea) Thank you so very, very much!
VOINITSKY (dreamily): Her e y e s . . . A miraculous woman! *
ASTROV: Tell us something new, Vanya.
VOINITSKY: What would you like to hear?
ASTROV: Anything, anything but this.
VOINITSKY: But there is nothing else. Nothing new. Everything
else is old. Like before. I myself have gotten worse, gotten lazy,
don't do anything except grumble, like some old crackpot. And
my old "hen," maman, keeps cackling on about the emancipa-
tion of women. She's got one eye on the grave, but the other is
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UNCLE VANYA
still searching for the dawn of a new life in those intellectual
booklets of hers.
ASTROV: And the professor?
VOINITSKY: And the professor sits at his desk, in his study, from
morning to the middle of the night, scribbling away like always!
"Straining his mind, he furrows his brow,
And composes his odes through the night.
But the public won't praise him. He cannot see how,
No one reads a word that he writes."
T h e poor paper! He'd be better off starting his memoirs. Now
there's a fascinating subject! T h e discarded academic, don't you
know, that dried-up old turd, that Caspian cockaroach! His gout,
his rheumatism, his migraines—all of his envy and his jealousy
have distended his liver! That old cockaroach is only still alive
because of my sister. He lives without a care, in town, with his
hands in somebody else's pockets. He complains incessantly
about his misfortunes, but in reality he's unbelievably lucky, (ir-
ritably) You cannot believe how lucky he is! T h e son of a simple
sexton, a seminarian, muscles his way through academia to be-
come chair of his department. Becomes "your honor" because
his father-in-law, my father, was a senator and so on and so forth.
It's all meaningless, by the way, because here's the really impor-
tant thing: this man has been reading and writing about art for
exactly twenty-five years now, and do you know, that he knows
precisely nothing about the subject! For twenty-five years he's
been spewing out other peoples' thoughts about realism, natu-
ralism, and other such nonsense; twenty-five years of reading
and writing about a subject which intelligent men already un-
derstood a long time ago, and that idiots couldn't care less about!
In other words, twenty-five years of spilling his seed on the hard,
dry ground. And in all that time he's been so self-important, so
pretentious. He leaves his position at the university, and not a
single soul remembers him, he's a complete unknown. For
twenty-five years it turns out he was simply taking up space. But
look at him now, he moves among us like a demigod!
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 UNCLE VANYA
ASTROV: Sounds to me like you envy him.
VOINITSKY: Of course I do! Look at his success with women! Don
Juan never had it so good! His first wife, my beautiful sister, a
gentle soul, pure as a clear blue sky, generous, sweet natured,
had more suitors than he had students. How she loved him. She
loved him like an angel, pure and simple. My own mother, his
mother-in-law, still worships him, and he fills her with holy ter-
ror. His second wife, smart, lovely—you just saw her—married
him, and he was already old! She's given him her youth, her
beauty, her freedom, her light. For what? Why?
ASTROV: She's faithful to him?
VOINITSKY: Unfortunately, yes.
ASTROV: Unfortunately?
VOINITSKY: Yes, because her faithfulness is false, from beginning
to end. She has plenty of rhetoric, but there's no logic in it! To
betray that old man, whom you can barely tolerate—that's im-
moral. But to strangle your poor youth and your living feelings—
isn't that immoral, too?
TELEGIN (with emotion): Vanya, I hate what you are saying. It's,
well, it's not right. . . . To deceive your wife or your husband,
that's just, well, such a man could deceive his people and his
homeland, too!
VOINITSKY (annoyed): You can turn off the waterworks, Waffles.
TELEGIN: Let me speak, Vanya. My wife ran out on me the day af-
ter our wedding with her lover on account of my unsightly ap-
pearance. Still, in spite of all that, I would not break my vows to
her. I love her to this day and have always been faithful to her,
I help her as I can, I have given over much of my estate for the
education of her children, whom she produced with her lover.
I have been deprived of my own happiness, but I still have my
pride. And her? Her youth has passed by, her looks have faded,
according to the laws of nature, and her lover has passed away.
What does she have left?
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UNCLE VANYA
(Enter Sonya and Yelena, followed a moment later by Marya Vas-
silevna with a book. Marya Vassilevna sits and reads. She is given
tea, and drinks it without looking.)
SONYA (hurriedly, to Marina): Nanny, some peasants have come to
the kitchen door. Go find out what they want, I need some tea.
(Marina exits. Yelena takes a cup of tea and drinks, sitting in the
swing.)
ASTROV (to Yelena): I've come to examine your husband. You
wrote that he was very sick, rheumatism and something else, but
he seems to have recovered.
YELENA: Yesterday evening he was depressed, complaining about
the pain in his legs, and today, it's n o t h i n g . . . .
ASTROV: And I nearly broke my neck, galloping the whole way
here. Well, who cares, it isn't the first time. In any case, I'll be
staying until tomorrow, so at least I can get some sleep, quantum
satis.*
SONYA: That's wonderful. You don't get to spend the night very of-
ten. You haven't eaten yet, have you?
ASTROV: No, my dear, I haven't.
SONYA: Well, you can eat with us. We eat lunch these days around
seven, (drinks) Ugh, cold tea!
TELEGIN: T h e temperature of the water has fallen quite signifi-
cantly.
YELENA: That's all right, Ivan Ivanich, we shall drink it cold.
TELEGIN: I certainly am to blame for this, madame, you must
have misheard, but my n a m e is Ilya Ilych, not Ivan Ivanich.
Ilya Ilych Telegin, or Waffles, as some people call me because
of the scarring on my face. I was honored to be Sonya's god-
father, and his honor, your husband, knows m e quite well. I
*"As much as necessary"—a Latin phrase used in writing prescriptions.
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 UNCLE VANYA
happen to be living here at the moment, madame, on the es-
tate, that is. . . . You may come to notice that I have dinner
with you all every day.
SONYA: Ilya Ilych is our staff, our right hand, (sweetly) Here, god-
father, let me get you some more tea.
MARYA VASSILEVNA: Ach!
SONYA: What's wrong, grandma?
MARYA VASSILEVNA: I forgot to tell your father . . . I must be los-
ing my mind . . . today I received a letter from Professor Chadin.
. . . He sent his new pamphlet.
ASTROV: Is it interesting?
MARYA VASSILEVNA: Interesting, but a little bit strange. He disproves
the very thing he was championing seven years ago. Horrible!
VOINITSKY: Nothing horrible about it. Drink your tea, maman.
MARYA VASSILEVNA: Am I not allowed to speak?
VOINITSKY: But we've already heard what you have to say over
and over for the last fifty years, you and your pamphlets. Enough
already.
MARYA VASSILEVNA: Listening to m e has become very unpleasant
to you. I beg your pardon, Jean, but in the last year, you have
changed, to the point where I simply do not recognize you. You
were always a man of strong convictions, a good man. . . .
VOINITSKY: O h , yes! I was a good man, so good that nobody ever
even noticed me. (pause) A good man. You might as well shoot
me. I'm forty-seven years old. Until a year ago, I kept trying, like
you, to cloud my vision with these scholarly pretensions, so we
wouldn't see how our life really was—and we thought this was
the right way to live? And now, if you only knew! I can't sleep
nights out of spite and disappointment, that I've wasted my life
so stupidly, when I could have had everything, and all that I
have left now is my old age!
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UNCLE VANYA
SONYA: Uncle Vanya, thafs depressing!
MARYA VASSILEVNA (to Vanya): Your former convictions were not
wrong, the weakness lies in you. They aren't to blame, you are.
You forget that conviction alone is nothing, it is what you do
with your convictions that counts.
VOINITSKY: What you do?! Not everyone can be a literary perpetual-
motion device, like your precious professor!
MARYA VASSILEVNA: Why must you say such things?
SONYA: Grandmother! Uncle Vanya! Please, stop!
VOINITSKY: I'll be quiet! I'll shut up. I'll say I'm sorry.
(pause)
YELENA: Isn't the weather nice? Not too warm . . .
(pause)
VOINITSKY: Nice weather, especially if you feel like hanging your-
self. . . .
(Telegin strums the guitar. Marina appears near the house, calling
the chickens.)
MARINA: Here, chick, chick, chick.. . .
SONYA: Nanny, what did those men want?
MARINA: Same as ever, asking to farm that empty lot again. Here,
chick, chick, chick.. . .
SONYA: W h o are you calling?
Hi
MARINA: T h e speckled hen's run off with her c h i c k s . . . . Hope the
crows don't make off with all of them. . . . (goes off)
(Telegin plays a polka. Everyone listens silently. Yefim enters.)
YEFIM: Pardon, is the doctor here? (to Astrov) Pardon, Dr. Astrov,
they sent for you.
ASTROV: From where?
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 UNCLE VANYA
YEFIM: T h e factory.
ASTROV (spitefully): How nice of them. Well, I must be off. . . .
(looking for his hat) Damned shame.
SONYA: That's too bad, really. . . . Why don't you come back for
dinner? After the factory?
ASTROV: No, it'll be too late. Where did I . . . where is . . . (to
Yefim) Listen, my good man, go get me a glass of vodka, make
yourself useful. (Yefim exits) Where did . . . where is that . . .
(finds his hat) Isn't there that Ostrovsky play with that character
who has a huge moustache and a tiny brain? That's me. Well,
it's been a pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, (to Yelena) If you ever
want to take a look around my place, with Sonya, of course, it
would be my pleasure to give you a tour. I only have a small es-
tate, about thirty acres, but if you're interested, I have an exper-
imental garden and nursery, the like of which you won't find for
thirty miles around. And there's my forest preserve, too.. . . T h e
forest warden there is really old, always sick, so in reality I look
after the place.
YELENA: They told me that you loved trees. It's all very useful, of
course, but doesn't it get in the way of your true calling? I mean,
you are a doctor.
ASTROV: Only God knows our true calling.
YELENA: But it interests you?
ASTROV: Its very interesting, yes.
VOINITSKY (with irony): Oh yes, very interesting.
YELENA (to Astrov): You're still young, you don't look more than
thirty-six, thirty-seven. . . . It can't be as interesting as all that. A
forest is a forest, after all. I imagine that they are all the same.
SONYA: No, ifs really extremely interesting. T h e doctor plants a
new forest every year, and he's already received a bronze medal
and a certificate for his work. He makes sure that they don't de-
stroy the old trees, too. If you heard his whole plan, you'd agree
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UNCLE VANYA
with him completely. He says that forests enhance the beauty of
the land, that man learns what's beautiful from them, that they
. . . instill in him higher thoughts and feelings. Forests soften a
harsh climate. And in countries with mild climates, they don't
waste their energy battling the elements, and so the people are
kinder and sweeter, and more beautiful, more adaptable.
They're more naturally curious, their language is more refined,
their movements are graceful. They have science and culture,
their philosophies aren't so gloomy, they relate to their women
in a refined manner. . . .
VOINITSKY (laughing): Bravo, bravo! That's so sweet, but it's not
very convincing, (to Astrov) I'm afraid, my friend, that in spite of
your work, people will continue stoking their stoves with fire-
wood and building their barns out of timber.
ASTROV: You could burn peat in your stove and build your barn
out of stone. And even if, I grant you, people are going to cut
down what they need, how does that excuse the wholesale de-
struction of forests? Russian forests are splintering under the axe,
millions of trees are dying right now, the animals and birds are
disappearing, rivers are growing shallower or drying up com-
pletely, beautiful landscapes vanish forever, and all because
man is too lazy to bend down and pick up his fuel from the
ground, (to Yelena) Isn't that the truth, ma'am? You'd have to be
a reckless barbarian to burn this kind of beauty in a stove, to de-
stroy something that cannot be recreated. Man is blessed with
intellect and creative powers, so that he might enhance that
which he is given. But he doesn't create, he only destroys.
Forests become smaller and smaller, rivers run dry, wildlife pop-
ulations leave, the climate is ruined, and with each day the
earth becomes poorer and more horrible, (to Voinitsky) I can see
that ironic look in your eyes, you aren't taking any of this seri-
ously . . . and maybe it is all nonsense. But when I pass one of
my peasants' forests that I've saved from the axe, or when I lis-
ten to the wind in the leaves of my young trees, trees I planted
with my own hands, I know that the climate is in my control, at
least that tiny fraction. And if man is happy in a thousand years,
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 UNCLE VANYA UNCLE VANYA

then maybe I will be responsible for a little bit of that happiness. You don't have any sympathy for the forests, or for birds, or for
W h e n I plant a birch, then see it grow green and move in the women, or for one another. . . .
wind, my soul fills with pride, and I . . . (Yefim reenters, bringing
VOINITSKY: I don't like all of this "philosophy"! (pause)
a glass of vodka) Well, (he drinks) I must be off. It's all nonsense,
everything I've been saying. If you don't mind, I'll take my leave YELENA: That doctor has an exhausted, nervous look about him.
of you now. (heads toward the house) An interesting look. Sonya obviously likes him, she's in love
with him, I can understand that. He's been here three times,
SONYA (taking his arm and going with him): When will we see you
and each time I get shy and can't say a word to him, I can't even
again?
bring myself to be nice to him. He thinks I'm wicked. Really,
ASTROV: Don't know Vanya, that's why we're such good friends, you and I —we're
both such boring, tiresome people. Boring! Don't look at me
SONYA: Will it be another whole month?
like that, I don't like it.
(Astrov and Sonya exit into the house. Marya Vassilevna and Tele-
VOINITSKY: How can I look at you any other way, if I love you?
gin remain near the table. Yelena and Voinitsky move to the terrace.)
You are my happiness, my life, my youth! I know my chances
YELENA: You've behaving very badly again, Vanya. Was it really nec- with you are next to nothing, you'll never return my love. But I
essary to irritate your mother like that, talking about perpetual- don't want anything in return, just let m e look at you, hear your
motion machines! And today at breakfast, you picked another voice. . . .
fight with Alexander. How petty!
YELENA: Quiet, someone will hear you! (starts to go into the house)
VOINITSKY: I only did it because I hate him.
VOINITSKY (following her): Just let me tell you of my love. Just
YELENA: You have no reason to hate my husband, he's no worse don't drive me away; that will be my greatest h a p p i n e s s . . . .
than any of the others. No worse than you.
YELENA: This is excruciating, (both exit into the house)
VOINITSKY: I wish you could see your face, your movements. . . .
(Telegin strums the strings and plays a polka. Marya Vassilevna
You lead such an idle existence! So beautifully idle!
makes a note in her pamphlet.)
YELENA: Yes, so idle, and so bored! Everyone abuses my husband,
(curtain)
and they all look at me with such pity—"poor thing, her hus-
band is so old!" All of this pity—oh, I understand exactly how
my husband feels! Didn't that doctor just say, just now, that peo-
ple recklessly cut down forests, and soon there won't be any-
thing left on earth? Well, men like you recklessly destroy people
the same way, and pretty soon, thanks to you, there won't be any
faithfulness left on earth, or purity, or self-sacrifice. Why do men
refuse to see a woman's indifference, especially when she be-
longs to another man? Because —and that doctor was right
about this—the devil of destruction lives in every one of you.

100 101

i

A C T II
The dining room of the Serebryakov house. Night. The sound of the
nightwatchman tapping his stick is heard.
Serebryakov is sitting in an armchair next to the open window,
dozing. Yelena sits by his side, also asleep.
SEREBRYAKOV (waking): Who's there? Sonya, is that you?
YELENA: It's me.
SEREBRYAKOV: Oh, Yelena, the pain is unbearable!
YELENA: Your blanket fell off. (covering his legs) I'm going to close
the window, Alexander.
SEREBRYAKOV: No, don't, it's too stuffy in here. I was dozing just
now, and I dreamed that my left leg belonged to somebody else.
T h e n that excruciating pain woke me. No, it can't be gout, it
must be rheumatism. What time is it? ^
YELENA: Twenty till one.
SEREBRYAKOV: Would you look for that volume by Batushkov in
the library tomorrow morning? I think we have it.
YELENA: What?
SEREBRYAKOV: Look for Batushkov. In the morning. I remember
seeing it. Why is it so hard for me to breathe?
YELENA: You're tired. You haven't slept for two nights.
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UNCLE VANYA
SEREBRYAKOV: I've heard that Turgenev developed angina pec-
toris from his gout. I'm afraid that's what's happened to me.
Damned, disgusting old age. D a m n it all to hell. I am disgusting
to myself, the older I get. Yes, disgusting to all of you, it must be
disgusting to even look at me.
YELENA: You take that tone, like it's our fault that you're old. You
blame us all whenever you talk about it.
SEREBRYAKOV: I disgust you most of all.
(Yelena gets up and moves away)
SEREBRYAKOV: Of course, I do. I'm not stupid. I understand.
Young, beautiful, you want to live, and here you are stuck with
an old corpse. What? You don't think I understand? It's ridicu-
lous that I've lived this long. Just you wait, you'll all be rid of me
soon enough. I won't last very much longer.
YELENA: I'm exhausted. Please, for God's sake, be quiet.
SEREBRYAKOV: It's because of me that you're exhausted, bored,
your youth destroyed. Only I have it easy, I'm so happy! Oh, yes!
YELENA: S h u t u p ! Stop tormenting me!
SEREBRYAKOV: Oh yes, I'm tormenting everyone.
YELENA: I can't take any more! What do you want from me?
SEREBRYAKOV: Nothing.
YELENA: Then be quiet. Please.
SEREBRYAKOV: Funny how when Vanya starts to talk, or that old
idiot, his mother, everyone pays attention, not a problem. But I
say one word, and everybody starts to feel depressed. Even the
sound of my voice is disgusting. Let us agree then, that I am dis-
gusting, that I am an egoist, that I am a despot! Haven't I earned
the right to be an egoist in my old age? Haven't I paid my dues?
I'm asking you, haven't I the right to peace in my old age, to
some attention? From someone?
103
 UNCLE VANYA
YELENA: No one's denying you your rights, (the shutter bangs in
the wind) T h e wind has picked up, I'm closing the window, (she
does) It's going to rain. No one is denying you your rights.
(Pause. The watchman is heard, tapping and singing a song.)
SEREBRYAKOV: I've worked in academia my entire life. I'm used to
my office, my lecture hall, to my colleagues. My esteemed col-
leagues. Suddenly, it's all gone. And I find myself in this burial
vault. Every day confronted by the same stupid people, listening
to the same drivel over and over. . . . I still want to live, I want
my success, my reputation, I want it all back! But here I am. In
exile. Every minute seems to stretch on endlessly from the one
before it. I only hear about other people's successes. I'm afraid
to die. . . . I can't take it! I don't have the strength! And I won't
beg your forgiveness for being old!
YELENA: Wait. Be patient. In five or six years, I'll be old, too.
(Sonya enters)
SONYA: Papa, you asked us to send for Dr. Astrov, and now you
won't see him. He's here. It's not right. You bothered him for no
reason at all. . . .
SEREBRYAKOV: What do I care about your Astrov? He knows as
much about medicine as I do about astronomy.
SONYA: We can't bring the entire medical school here for your
gout.
SEREBRYAKOV: I will not speak to that simpleton, not for one
minute!
SONYA: It's your decision, (she sits) 1 don't care.
SEREBRYAKOV: What time is it?
YELENA: One.
SEREBRYAKOV: It's stuffy. . . . Sonya, give me my drops from the
table.
SONYA: Just a minute, (gives him the drops)
104
UNCLE VANYA
SEREBRYAKOV: No, no, not these! I didn't ask you for these!
SONYA: Please. Stop acting like a child. Maybe other people don't
care, but spare me, please. I don't like it one bit. And I shouldn't
even be awake. I have to get up early tomorrow, it's haymaking
time.
(enter Voinitsky in his dressing gown, with a candle)
VOINITSKY: There's a storm coming up. (lightning) Helene and
Sonya, off to bed, I have come to relieve you.
SEREBRYAKOV: No, please, don't leave me with him! No! He'll
talk me to death!
VOINITSKY: Give them a little peace! They haven't slept again
tonight.
SEREBRYAKOV: Let them sleep, but you go, too. Many thanks. I
beg you. In the name of what was once our friendship, don't ob-
ject. We'll talk later.
VOINITSKY (laughs): What was once our friendship? What was
once... .
SONYA: Quiet, Uncle Vanya.
SEREBRYAKOV (to Yelena): My dear, please don't leave me with
him. He will surely kill me with all of his blather.
VOINITSKY: This is becoming quite amusing.
(enter Marina with a candle)
SONYA: You should be in bed, nanny. It's late.
MARINA: No one cleared the tea things from the table. How could
I be in bed?
SEREBRYAKOV: Everyone's awake, everyone's worn out, except for
me. I am so utterly blissful.
MARINA (going to Serebryakov, tenderly): What's wrong, dear
heart? Does it hurt? My legs throb all night, just throb, (fixing
105
 UNCLE VANYA
his blanket) You've had this a long time. I can remember how
Sonya's mother, God rest her soul, worried over you when it
came on, didn't sleep nights. She loved you so very much.
(pause) Old people are like babies, they only want someone to
comfort them. But nobody ever does, (kisses his shoulder) Come
now, dear heart, let's go to bed. . . . Lefs go, my dear. . . . I'll
make some linden tea for you, and we'll warm up your legs. . . .
I'll say a little prayer for you. . . .
SEREBRYAKOV (calmed): Let's go, nanny.
MARINA: My legs just throb and throb all night, (leading him off
with Sonya's help) Dear Miss Vera used to worry so about you,
cry all night. . . . You were too little to remember this, Sonya.
. . . Lefs go, dear heart, (they exit)
YELENA: He's killing me. I can hardly stand.
VOINITSKY: He's killing you, and I'm killing myself. I haven't slept
for three nights.
YELENA: Something's wrong in this house. Your mother hates
everything, except her pamphlets and my husband. My hus-
band is angry, he mistrusts me, he's scared of you. Sonya's angry
with her father, angry with me, too; she hasn't spoken to me in
two weeks. You hate my husband and openly despise your
mother. And I've been so upset today that I nearly burst into
tears twenty times. Something is very wrong in this house.
VOINITSKY: Enough philosophy already!
YELENA: Vanya, you're an educated, intelligent man. You should
understand that the world will end, not because of war, or dis-
asters, but because of hate. Because of hatred for our fellow
man, and all the petty, little violences we inflict on each other.
It should be your duty to make peace with everyone, and not in-
cite them to more hate.
VOINITSKY: Make peace with me first! My love! (he falls to his
knees and grabs her hand)
ioi
UNCLE VANYA
YELENA: Stop! (pulling her hand away) Go awayl
VOINITSKY: T h e rain is coming down. Everything in nature will be
washed clean. Will breathe easily again. Only I won't I
freshed by this storm. Day and night, right here in this h k-J^^/^A^-
my own thoughts smother me. Thoughts of my wasted I ^
have no past. My past was stupidly consumed in a millio (\ fOJhr
significant ways. T h e present is even more frightening bee
it's all so meaningless. So, there is my life, and here is my
What am I to do with that? Tell me. This feeling dies as so(
it leaves my lips, because you won't listen, it's like sun
falling into a dark hole. It's killing me, too. tOb-lfi
YELENA: W h e n you tell <me how much you love me, I jus
numb. I don't know what to say. Forgive me. I can't say anytl
to you. (begins to leave) Good night. U
VOINITSKY (blocking her way): If only you could conceive, that
while I am suffering and dying, another life is also being de-
stroyed in this very house. Yours! What are you waiting for? That
damnable philosophy of yours is getting in the way. Take a
chance, go on, take it!
YELENA: You're drunkl
VOINITSKY: Maybe I am. So what?
YELENA: Where's the doctor?
VOINITSKY: In there. . . . he's sleeping in my room. Maybe I am.
Anything is possible!
YELENA: Why did you get drunk tonight?
VOINITSKY: Because it feels just a little bit like being alive. . . .
Don't lecture me, Helene!
YELENA: You never used to drink. You never used to talk so much,
either. G o to bed! I've had enough of you.
VOINITSKY (falling once again on his knees and taking her hand):
My love! You are a miracle!
107
 I T
UNCLE VANYA UNCLE VANYA

YELENA: Get off! You disgust me! (she exits) VOINITSKY: Who the hell knows?
t
VOINITSKY (alone): Gone. . . . (pause) Ten years ago 1 would say ASTROV: I thought I heard Yelena's voice.
hello to her at my sister's. She was seventeen, I was thirty-seven.
Why didn't I fall in love with her then? Why didn't I ask her to VOINITSKY: She was just here.
marry me? It would have been so easy! She would have been my
ASTROV: A luxurious woman, (seeing the bottles on the table) Med-
wife now . . . yes . . . We could be asleep, together, right now, and
icine. Where doesn't he get it—from Karkhov, from Moscow,
the storm would wake her, and I would hold her and whisper,
ooh, here's one from Minsk. Every one of these towns must be
"Don't be afraid, I'm here." Funny, how beautiful that sounds.
fed up with his gout! Is he sick, or is he pretending?
But, my God, it's also terrifying. Why have I grown so old? Why
won't she understand me? Her rhetoric, her simpleminded VOINITSKY: Sick, (pause)
morality, these stupid things she said about the end of the world,
it's repugnant, (pause) Oh, how I have been deceived. That sorry ASTROV: Why are you so sad today? Sorry for the professor?
old professor, that rheumatic old fool, I worshipped him! I VOINITSKY: Leave me alone.
worked like an ox for him! Sonya and I squeezed every drop out
of this estate, we were his servants, we traded the vegetable oil, ASTROV: Or are you in love with the lady professor?
peas, cottage cheese, and we never kept anything for ourselves.
VOINITSKY: She's my friend.
All so we could scrape and save and then send him a thousand
rubles. I was proud of him and his work, I lived, I breathed for ASTROV: Already?
i• him! Everything he ever wrote, everything he ever said, I
thought it was g e n i u s . . . . Good God, look at him now. Now that VOINITSKY: What does that mean?
he's retired, what is the sum total of his life? No one reads a page
ASTROV: A man only becomes "friends" with a woman after the
of his work, he's completely unknown, he's nothing! He's a soap
following sequence of events: they are acquaintances first, lovers
bubble! And I've been deceived, idiot! I can see it all, now.
second, and friends third.

(Enter Astrov in his frock coat, but without his vest and tie. He is a VOINITSKY: That's a vulgar notion.
little bit "happy." Telegin follows him with a guitar.)
h ASTROV: Is it now? I must admit that I have become a vulgar man.
ASTROV: Play! '' Look, I'm even drunk. Usually I'm only this drunk once a
month. But when I am in this state, I become impudent and in-
TELEGIN: They're asleep!
solent in the extreme. Who knows what I'll do! I'll perform the
ASTROV: Play! most difficult operation and pull it off flawlessly. I will draw up
far-reaching plans for the future. When I'm in this state, I forget
(Telegin begins to play, quietly)
I'm a crackpot, so I begin to believe that I have a great respon-
ASTROV: What, you all by yourself in here? No ladies? (sings) "The sibility for all mankind. A great responsibility! And when I am
hut walks away, the stove walks away, the master has nowhere his in this state, my philosophical framework, it becomes crystal
body to lay . . ." T h e storm woke me up. Some rain, huh? What clear, and you, oh my brothers, begin to look to me like little in-
time is it now? sects, . . . like microbes. Waffles, play!

108 109
 T
UNCLE VANYA
TELEGIN: My dear friend, I would be happy to do anything for you
with my entire heart, but you must understand, the household
is asleep.
ASTROV: Play!
(Telegin plays softly)
ASTROV: I need a drink. Let's go back to your room, I think there's
still a bottle of cognac left. And at sunrise we'll go back to my
place. Let's go. You know, I have this one assistant, and he says
sometimes "Lezzgo," instead of "Let's go." Complete
scoundrel. So, what do you say, lezzgo. (Sonya enters, Astrov
sees her) Excuse me, I'm not wearing my tie. (he exits quickly;
Telegin follows)
SONYA: I see you and the doctor are drunk again, Uncle Vanya.
You're a fine old pair of roosters. It's always the same old story,
but just why have you gone and done it this time? At your age,
it isn't pretty.
VOINITSKY: Age has nothing to do with it. W h e n you don't have a
real life, you must live your mirages. It's better than nothing.
SONYA: T h e hay's been cut, and it's been raining every day since.
Now the hay is rotting. And you talk about living in a mirage!
You've stopped working completely, while I'm worn out from
working alone. . . . (startled) Uncle, are you crying?
VOINITSKY: Me, crying? It's nothing . . . silly You looked^at me
just now like your dear departed mother used to. My sweet. . .
(kissing her hands and face) my sister . . . my sweet sister. Where
> J is she now? If she only knew. Ah, if only she knew!
SONYA: What? Uncle, knew what?
VOINITSKY: T h e sadness, it's not good. . . . Nothing . . . After. . .
Nothing . . . I'm going. . . . (he exits)
SONYA (knocking on the door to Vanya's room): Doctor! You're not
asleep, are you? C o m e here a minute!
no
1
UNCLE VANYA
ASTROV (from behind the door): Coming! (a little later he enters, in
his tie and vest) What can I do for you?
SONYA: You yourself may drink, if it doesn't bother you, but I'm
asking you not to let my uncle drink. It's very bad for him.
ASTROV: Good. No more drinking for us. (pause) I'm going back
to my place. A decision has been made and approved. It'll be
sunrise before they get me saddled.
SONYA: It's raining. Wait until the morning.
ASTROV: We only caught the edge of that storm, it's passed u:
I'm going. And please, don't ask me to come here to exan
your father any more. I tell him, "It's gout," and he says,
rheumatism." I say, "Lie down," and he says, "I'm sitting
And this evening he wouldn't even talk to me.
SONYA: He's spoiled, (looking in the sideboard) Like somethir
eat?
ASTROV: Yes, please.
SONYA: I love eating late at night. There seems to be a little some-
thing in the sideboard. He had great success with women, so I'm
told, and they all spoiled him rotten. Here, take some cheese.
ASTROV: I've eaten nothing all day, just drank. Your father is a dif-
ficult man. (take a bottle from the sideboard) May I? (takes a
shot) No one's around, so we can really talk. You know, I don't
think I could live in this house for even a month without chok-
ing on the very air. Your father running around with his books
and his gout, your uncle with his depression, your grandmother,
and then there's your stepmother. . . .
SONYA: What about her?
ASTROV: Everything about a person should be beautiful. Face,
clothes, soul, thoughts. She's beautiful, no question, b u t . . . She
just eats, sleeps, walks around, dazzles us with her beauty, and
nothing else. She doesn't do anything! Everybody does things
for her. Right? A life of luxury cannot be pure, (pause) Well,
in
 UNCLE VANYA
maybe I'm being a little hard on her. I'm unsatisfied with my
own life, like your Uncle Vanya, so we've both started to turn
into cranky old men.
SONYA: You're not happy with life?
ASTROV: I love "life," generally speaking. But our life, this provin-
cial, Russian, small-minded existence is what I can't stand. It's
what I despise with all my heart and soul. As for me personally,
my personal life, well, good God, there's decidedly nothing
good about it. You know how you can be walking down a dark
path in the forest, and if there's just one tiny little fire flickering
in the distance, you don't notice how tired you are, or how dark
it is, or even the branches scratching your face. You know how
I work, harder than anybody in the county, life knocks me
around constantly. There are times when I suffer so much. Yet,
there is simply no light for me at the end of that dark path. I
don't expect anything out of life anymore, don't love anyone.
Haven't loved anyone for a long time.
SONYA: No one?
ASTROV: No one. I have a soft spot for your old nanny. For old
times' sake. T h e peasants are all the same, uneducated, living in
filth. And the "intelligentsia" are just as hard to take. They're ex-
hausting. All our good friends think only as much as necessary,
feel only as much as necessary, they can't see farther than their
own noses. To put it bluntly, they're just plain stupid. And if any
of them are even the least bit intelligent or broad-minded,
they're the ones who are also hysterical, eaten up with self-
analysis, and psychology. They just twist and slander, walk up
from behind you, look at you sideways and decide, "Oh, he's a
psychopath," or "He's a poseur!" And if they can't find a label to
stick on my forehead, they say, "He's a strange man, very
strange." I love forests, and that's strange! I don't eat m e a t -
strange! A spontaneous, pure, honest relationship with nature
and people is impossible. Simply impossible, (picks up the bot-
tle to pour another)
112
UNCLE VANYA
SONYA (stopping him): Don't. Please, don't drink any more.
ASTROV: What for?
SONYA: It's not like you! You're so elegant, you have that nice, soft
voice. More than that even, more than anybody else I know,
you're refined. Why would you want to be like ordinary people,
drinking and gambling? Don't do it, I'm begging you. You al-
ways talk about how people don't create, they only destroy the
beautiful things that they've been given. Why you would you
want to destroy yourself? Don't, don't, please, I'm begging you,
on my knees.
ASTROV (taking her hand): I won't drink ever again.
SONYA: Give me your word.
ASTROV: My word of honor.
SONYA (squeezing his hand): Thank you so much.
ASTROV: Basta! I have sobered up. You see, I am already com-
pletely sober and will remain so to the end of my days, (looks at
his watch) And so, we shall go on. I'll tell you, though, it's too
late for me, my time has passed. Old, worked out, vulgar, dull,
emotionless. I can't get close to anyone, it seems. I love no one
and wouldn't know how to fall in love. I can still recognize
beauty. I'm not immune to beauty. I imagine that Yelena could
turn my head if she got the idea one day. But that's not love, it's
not even closeness, (rubs his eyes and shudders)
SONYA: What's wrong?
'*"
ASTROV: J u s t . . . During Lent, one of my patients died on me un-
der chloroform. /
SONYA: You should forget about that, (pause) Tell me, Doctor . . .
if I had a friend, or a younger sister, and you found out that she
. . . well, let's say she loves you, how would that make you feel?
ASTROV (shrugs): I don't know. I'd probably feel nothing. I'd let
her know that I'm incapable of falling in love. . . . I don't even
113
 UNCLE VANYA
think about it. In any case, I better be going. It's time. Say good-
bye, my Iamb, or we'll be here till morning, (shakes her hand)
Lr
I'm going out through the living room, if you don't mind, or I'm
afraid your uncle will hold me up. (exits)
SONYA: He didn't say anything to me. He didn't tell me a thing, but
I feel so happy! Why? (laughs) I told him: you're so elegant, so
cultured, you have a nice voice . . . that came out all wrong! His
voice strokes you, comforts you. It's like he's still in the air. But
when I asked him about the little sister, he didn't understand.
Oh, it's awful. That I'm not beautiful. Just awful! I know I'm not,
I know, I just know. Last Sunday, when we were coming out of
church, I heard how they were talking about me. O n e woman
said, "She's so sweet, so good-hearted. It's a shame she's so un-
attractive." So . . . unattractive. . , ,
(enter Yelena)
YELENA (opening the window): Storm's passed. M m m , fresh air!
(pause) Where's the doctor?
SONYA: Gone, (pause)
YELENA: Sonya!
SONYA: What?
YELENA: How long are you going to treat me like this? We haven't
done anything to each other. Why are we enemies? Come,
come.
SONYA: I wanted to . . . (they hug) Enough being angry.
YELENA: That's wonderful.
SONYA: Is papa in bed?
YELENA: No, sitting in his study. We don't talk for a week at a time,
God knows why. (sees the sideboard open) What's this?
SONYA: The doctor had some supper.
YELENA: There's wine! . . . Let's drink a toast to us.
114
1
UNCLE VANYA
SONYA: Lefs.
YELENA: From the same glass, (she pours) Ifs better that way. Well,
so, you first?
SONYA: You. (they drink and kiss) I wanted to make up for a long
time, but I honestly didn't know h o w . . . . (she starts to cry)
YELENA: Why are you crying?
SONYA: No reason, I'm just like this.
YELENA: Well, it happens, (she cries) You silly goose, now you've
made me start, (pause) You've always been angry with me be-
cause you think I married your father for his money. If you be-
lieve in oaths, then I swear to you —I married him becau
loved him. I was attracted to him, he was so educated and '
t A V
known. My love wasn't genuine, it was fake, really, but I
lieved it at the time. It felt like real love. Ifs not my fault. E
at our wedding, I felt you accusing me with your smart, wa
ful eyes.
SONYA: Truce! Please! Please just forget it.
YELENA: It's bad to look at someone that way. It makes you u
We have to trust, or it becomes impossible to live, (pause)
SONYA: You can trust m e now, now that we're friends. Are ;
happy?
YELENA: No.
SONYA: I thought so. Another question. Tell me honestly, wouldn't
you rather have had a young husband?
YELENA: You're like a little girl. Of course I would. Yes. (laughs)
Well, ask away, anything. . . .
SONYA: Do you like the doctor?
YELENA: Yes, very much.
SONYA (laughs): I must look ridiculous . . . do I? He already left,
but I can still hear his voice, his footsteps. I feel like I could see
"5
 m
UNCLE VANYA UNCLE VANYA

his face in the dark glass in the window there. Come on, I'll tell (in the garden, the watchman is heard, tapping)
you everything. Oh, but I should be quiet, I'm embarrassed.
Lefs go to my room, we can talk there. Do I seem stupid to you? XELENA: I haven't played in years. I'm going to play and cry, cry
Confess! Tell me something about him. like an idiot, (at the window) Is that you on patrol, Yefim?
YEFIM: Yes!
YELENA: Like what?
SONYA: He's smart. He knows everything, can do anything. He YELENA: Please just stop the knocking, the master's sick.
heals people, and he plants forests. YEFIM: I'll go right now. (whistles to the dog) Here Zhuchka, good
YELENA: T h e trees and the medicine aren't even the issue. My boy! Zhuchka!
dear, believe me, that man has a gift! Do you know what I mean (Pause. Sonya returns.)
by that? He's fearless, he's a free thinker, he does things on a
grand scale. He plants little trees, and he already knows what SONYA: We're not allowed.
will happen with them in a thousand years, he sees the future (curtain)
happiness of humanity. People like him are rare, they must be
loved. He drinks, and he can be quite crude. But what does that
matter? A talented Russian man cannot remain pure. Imagine
how hard his life is! Impassible mud roads. Freezing cold. Sleet.
Huge distances. T h e people are rough, wild, everywhere you
look is poverty, disease. W h o could work in those circum- 10
stances, day in and day out, fighting the whole way, and remain
clean and sober past forty, (kisses Sonya) From the bottom of my
heart, I hope you'll be happy, (stands) But me, I'm boring, a mi-
nor character in the final act. To tell you the truth, Sonya, if I
think about it, I am very, very unhappy. I don't have a single
happiness on this earth. No! Why are you laughing?

SONYA (laughs, covers her face): Because I'm so happy! Happy!

YELENA: I want to play . . . yes, I am going to play something, right
now.
SONYA (hugging her): Yes, play something. I can't sleep! Play some-
thing!
YELENA: In a minute. Your father isn't asleep yet. W h e n he's sick,
music upsets him. Go ask. If he doesn't mind if I play some-
thing. Go on.
SONYA: I'll be right back, (exits)

116 117

A C T III
The living room of the Serebryakov house. There are three doors into
the room: left, right, and near the center. It is day. Voinitsky and
Sonya are seated in the room. Yelena paces, thinking.
VOINITSKY: Herr professor has expressed his wish that we all
gather in this room at one o'clock sharp, (looks at his watch)
Quarter to one. He wants to inform the world of something.
YELENA: Certainly, something very important.
VOINITSKY: He has nothing important to say. His writing is so
much garbage, he only has his sputterings and his jealosy left,
nothing more.
SONYA: Uncle!
VOINITSKY: Guilty, guilty, (pointing out Yelena) You seem to have
V taken to wandering, floating around the place out of boredom.
It's very charming. Charming!
f YELENA: And you sit there, droning on all day, every day. How
i could I help being bored? I'm dying of boredom, I don't know
what to do.
SONYA (shrugging her shoulders): Don't have enough to do? We
can find you something, if you want.
YELENA: Like what?
118
UNCLE VANYA
SONYA: Help with the housekeeping, teach the local children,
nurse them. That should be enough, yes? When it was just me
and Uncle Vanya, we took our own flour to market.
YELENA: I don't know how to do that. And I'm not interested. Peo-
ple only teach and nurse peasant children in novels. What
could I teach? How would I learn to nurse anyone?
SONYA: I just don't understand why you don't go and teach? If you
tried it, you might learn to like it. (hugging her) Don't be bored,
sweetheart You just haven't foundyour place here yet, but your
boredom and idleness are catching. Look. Uncle Vanya doesn't
do anything except follow you around like a shadow. I've
stopped working and sit with you, talking. I've gotten lazy,
there's nothing to be done. T h e doctor rarely used to come here,
maybe once a month, you could barely drag him here. But now
he comes every day, he's abandoned his forests, his patients.
You're a witch, you must be.
VOINITSKY: Why do you let yourself waste away like this? My dar-
ling, you beauty, wise up! You have a siren's blood in your veins,
so be a siren! For once in your life, let yourself be free! Fall in
love with a passing sailor, anything, fall head over heels! Dive
into that whirlpool headfirst, and leave herr professor and all the [U
rest of us waving our arms helplessly as we watch!
YELENA: Leave me in peace! This is just cruel! (starts to leave)
VOINITSKY (stopping her): All right, all right, my darling, forgive
m e . . . . I beg your pardon, (kisses her hand) Peace.
YELENA: An angel from heaven would lose patience with you,
really.
VOINITSKY: As a token of peace and harmony, I'll go and bring you
a bouquet of roses which I picked for you this morning. Autumn
roses. Beautiful, sad roses, (exits)
SONYA: Autumn roses. Beautiful, sad roses.
(they both look out the window)
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 UNCLE VANYA
YELENA: Ifs already September. How will we ever survive winter!
(pause) Where's the doctor?
SONYA: Uncle Vanya's room. Writing something. I'm glad Uncle
Vanya's gone, I need to talk to you.
YELENA: About what?
SONYA: About what? (lays her head on Yelena's shoulder)
YELENA: O h , there, there. . . . (strokes her hair) There, there.
SONYA: I'm not beautiful.
YELENA: You have beautiful hair.
SONYA: No! (looking at herself in the mirror) No! When a women
is ugly, people say to her, "You have beautiful eyes, your hair is
lovely. . . . " I have loved him for six years, loved him more than
I loved my own mother. I hear his voice all the time, I feel his
hand in mine. I watch the door, expecting him to walk through
it. And then you arrive, and I open up to you, just so that I can
have someone to talk to about him! Now he comes here every
day, not to look at me, not to see. . . . Ifs so painful! I have no
hope, none, none! O h , God give me strength. I pray all night
long. I go up to him all the time, rambling on about something,
looking into his eyes. . . . I have no pride left, I can't control my-
self. I couldn't control myself last night, so I told Uncle Vanya
that I l o v e . . . . All the servants know, too. Everyone knows.
YELENA: And him?
SONYA: No. He doesn't notice me.
r that I had a siren's blood in my veins. "For once in your life, let
YELENA (thinks): He's so strange. You know what we'll do? I'll talk
to him. Carefully, of course, I'll drop some hints, (pause) Ifs
true, you've been living in the dark . . . will you let me talk to
him? (Sonya nods her head) Good. Does he love you, or not,
that shouldn't be too hard to find out. Don't worry, poor dove,
don't fret, I'll be very diplomatic, he won't even notice. We just
need to know, yes or no. (pause) If no, then he should probably
stop coming here. Right? (Sonya nods her head) It's easier if you
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UNCLE VANYA
don't have to see him. Let's not waste any time, we'll ask him
right now. He was getting ready to show me some maps. G o and
tell him I want to see him.
SONYA: You'll tell me the truth?
YELENA: Yes, of course. I always think the truth, whatever it is, is
less terrifying than the unknown. Leave it to me, sweetheart.
SONYA: Yes, yes. I'll tell him that you want to see his maps, (starts
to exit, stops at the door) No, ifs better not to know. There's still
hope.
YELENA: What's wrong?
SONYA: Nothing, (she exits)
YELENA: There's nothing worse than knowing somebody's secret
and having no way to help them. He isn't in love with her, I can
see that, but why shouldn't he marry her? She's not beautiful,
but he's a country doctor, and at his age she'd make him a fine
wife. She's smart, she's so sweet, she's clean. . . . No, that's not
it, is it. (pause) I understand her, poor thing. Surrounded by this
desperate boredom, all the same people around here all the
time, and they seem to blur into these grey blotches, rambling
on about the same petty things, and all they do is eat, drink, and
sleep! Then he comes around sometimes, and he's so different,
handsome, interesting, attractive. Ifs like seeing the full moon
come out on a dark night. Of course you give in to the charms
of a man like that, you forget yourself. . . seems I'm a little at-
tracted to him, too. Yes. Bored without him. I start to smile
whenever I think about him. That one, Uncle Vanya just said
yourself be free!" Why not? Maybe ifs just what I need. Fly far
away from all of you like a bird, from your sleepy faces, from
your boring conversations, forget that any of you ever existed!
But I'm too much of a coward. Too scared. My conscience
wouldn't let me forget. He comes here every day, though, and I
can guess why. I already feel guilty. I feel like throwing myself at
Sonya's feet and begging her forgiveness. . . .
A
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 UNCLE VANYA
ASTROV (entering with maps): Good day. (shakes her hand) You
wanted to see my work?
YELENA: Last evening, you promised to show me. Are you busy?
ASTROV: No, of course not. (pulls over a card table, spreads out his
maps and begins to affix them with pushpins) Where were you
born?
YELENA (helping him): Petersburg.
ASTROV: And where did you study?
YELENA: T h e conservatory.
ASTROV: This may not interest you.
YELENA: Why? Ifs true I don't know the countryside, but I've read
a great deal about it.
ASTROV: I have my own work table set up for when I come here.
In Vanya's room. Whenever I feel completely exhausted, worn
down and worn out, then I toss everything aside and hurry here.
So I can forget, distract myself for an hour or two with these. . . .
Vanya and Sonya work on their accounts, and I sit with them, at
my table and scribble and scratch with my paints. Ifs warm,
quiet, you can hear the crickets. Of course, I don't allow myself
these indulgences too often, once a month or so, (showing his
maps) Now, look here. This is a map of our district, as it was fifty
years ago. T h e dark and light green areas indicate forests—over
half of the area is covered with them. Where the red grid^ap-
pears, that indicates the presence of elk and wild goats—I've in-
dicated both flora and fauna. O n this lake, here, you see great
flocks of swans, geese, ducks, and, according to the old-timers,
birds of every kind. Enormous numbers of them, hovering like
great clouds. And here you notice the population centers, not
only around the villages, but in these far-flung settlements,
homesteads and the like, secluded monastaries, these grain
mills. Cattle and horses everywhere—they're indicated in blue.
You can see, for example, how dense the blue areas are in our
district alone. Whole herds roamed the region, each estate had
122
L.t.
UNCLE VANYA
at least three horses, (pause) Now, moving on. This is the region
as it was twenty-five years ago. You can see the forests only cover
one-third of the total area. T h e wild goats have disappeared, al-
though the elk remain. T h e green and blue areas are much
lighter. And so on, and so forth. Lefs move on to the third map,
our district as it appears today. You see the green areas here and
there, but not dense sections, mere blotches. T h e elk are gone,
as are the swans, as well as the wood grouse. There isn't even a
trace of the settlements, the farmsteads, the monastaries, or the
mills. In general, the map shows that gradually, yet undoubtedly
the whole region moves into decline which will be irreversible
within ten to fifteen years. You could argue that these are mod-
ern forces of civilization which will naturally replace our old life
with something better. Yes, I could understand that, if these pre-
cious forests were being destroyed to make way for roads, train
tracks, if there were industry, factories, schools in their place. If
the people were richer, better educated, healthier. But there's
nothing of the kind! T h e district is filled with swamps, mosqui-
toes, inadequate roads, poverty, typhus, dyptheria, fires.... I can
see that this decline comes from the terrible struggle people have
with everyday life in this country. Ifs the result of the stagnation,
the ignorance, the complete lack of self-awareness that the com-
mon man cannot rise above because he is cold, hungry, and sick.
He's simply looking to make it through life, to protect his chil-
dren, instinctively, so he takes whatever he can without thinking.
He'll destroy everything just to stop the hunger and keep himself
warm for a while. He cannot think about tomorrow. He's de-
stroyed almost everything and created nothing to take its place.
(cooly) I can see this is of no interest to you.
YELENA: I just don't understand much of it all. . . .
ASTROV: There's nothing to understand, ifs just not interesting.
YELENA: I have to be honest with you, my mind is somewhere else.
Please, I have several questions to ask you. I'm embarrassed, I
don't really know where to begin.
ASTROV: Questions?
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 UNCLE VANYA
YELENA: Yes, nothing too serious, b u t . . . lefs sit down, (they sit)
T h e matter concerns a young woman I know. O n e young
woman in particular. Look, lefs talk honestly, and directly, like
friends. We'll talk about it, then we'll forget about it, all right?
ASTROV: All right.
YELENA: T h e matter concerns my stepdaughter, Sonya. Do you
like her?
ASTROV: Yes, I have a great deal of respect for her.
YELENA: I mean, do you like her, as a woman?
ASTROV (not immediately): No.
YELENA: Just one more thing, then I'll be done. You haven't no-
ticed anything with her?
ASTROV: Nothing.
YELENA (takes his hand): You don't love her, I can see it in your
eyes. . . . She's suffering. . . . You must understand, you have to
stop coming here.
ASTROV: I'm too old. . . . And I never . . . (shrugs) When could I?
(he is embarrassed)
YELENA: Oh, it's such an unpleasant subject! I was so nervous, it
was weighing so heavily on me. Well, thank goodness that's over.
Lefs forget about it, lefs pretend we never mentioned i t , . . . and
you can go. You're an intelligent man, you must understand.
(pause) This whole thing is still making me blush. > YELENA: I swear to you . . .
ASTROV: If you'd said something last month, or the month before,
I would have considered it. But now. (shrugs) Of course, if she's
suffering , . . There's just one thing I don't understand: why did
it have to be you who asked all those questions? (looking into her
eyes and wagging his finger) You'revery sneaky!
YELENA: What does that mean?
ASTROV (laughing): Yes, sneaky! Lefs suppose that Sonya is suf-
fering, I'll give you that as a possibility, but why are you so in-
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UNCLE VANYA
terested? (interrupts her, quickly) Please, don't give me that sur-
prised look, you know very well why I've been here every single
day. Why I'm here and who I come for, you know very well! My
sweet little fox, you don't need to look at me like that, I'm an old
hand at this.
YELENA: Fox? I don't understand you at all.
ASTROV: You beautiful, fluffy little minx. You need some prey, a
victim! I haven't done a thing for a whole month, tossed it all
aside, hungrily searching for you, and you loved every second of
it. So what are you waiting for? I'm yours, your victim, you
should have known that without those ridiculous questions.
(holds out his arms and tilts his head back, exposing his neck) I
submit. G o on, devour me!
YELENA: You've lost your mind!
ASTROV (laughs): Don't hold back!
YELENA: Oh, I am better than you think! I would never stoop so
low! I swear! (she tries to exit)
ASTROV (stands in her way): I'll leave today, this very day, I'll never
return, but . . . (takes her hand, looks around) Where can we
meet? Tell me, quickly, where? I'll go there, now, just tell me!
(passionately) You are so wonderous, so beautiful. O n e kiss. Just
let me kiss your sweet-smelling hair.
:i
ASTROV: What do you swear? You don't need to swear a thing. N o
need for words. God, you are so beautiful! Your hands are beau-
tiful! (kisses her hands)
YELENA: That's enough, please. Please go. (pulls her hands away)
You're forgetting yourself.
ASTROV: Tell me, tell me please, where can we meet tomorrow?
(grabbing her by the waist) You see how it is, we can't escape our
fate, we must see each other.
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 UNCLE VANYA
(he kisses her as Voinitsky enters with a bouquet of roses and stands
in the doorway, unseen)
YELENA: Have pity . . . let me go. (rests her head on Astrov's chest)
No! (tries to get away)
ASTROV (holds on to her waist): Come to me tomorrow in the for-
est. Around two. Yes? Yes? Will you come?
YELENA (seeing Voinitsky): Let me go! (pushes herself away and
goes to the window) This is horrible.
VOINITSKY (throws the flowers on the table, wipes his face and
his forehead with his handkercheif shaken): Ifs nothing. Yes.
Nothing.
ASTROV: Today, my dear Vanya, the air is fresher. This morning it
was overcast, looked like rain, and now the sun is out. I've heard
it said that this will be an outstanding autumn. And a mild win-
ter, (he rolls his maps into their tube) Here's the only thing—the
days are definitely getting shorter, (exits)
YELENA (quickly moving to Voinitsky): I want you to try, no I want
you to use all of your powers of persuasion to see to it that my
husband and I leave here today! Do you hear? Today!
VOINITSKY (wiping his face): Huh? Well, yes. Fine. I . . . Helene,
I saw everything, everything.
YELENA: Do you hear me? I must leave here today!
U VOINITSKY: You can drop that tone. Lefs get down to business.
(enter Serebryakov, Sonya, Telegin, and Marina)
TELEGIN: I, myself, your honor, have not been entirely well.
Something in my head. . . .
SEREBRYAKOV: Where are the rest of them? I hate this house. Ifs
like a labyrinth. Twenty-six enormous rooms, thrown together
this way and that, and you can never find anybody, (rings)
Would you ask maman and Yelena to come here?
YELENA: I'm here.
126
UNCLE VANYA
SEREBRYAKOV: Please, ladies and gentlemen, take a seat.
SONYA (going to Yelena, impatiently): What did he say?
YELENA: Later.
SONYA: You're shaking? You're upset? (looking intently at her face) I
see. He said he won't be coming here anymore, right? Yes or no?
(Yelena nods her head)
SEREBRYAKOV (to Telegin): When one is not well, one can come
to terms with being unable to go anywhere, but I simply cannot
come to terms with the way in which country life is structured.
I have the strangest feeling that I have been deposited here from
another planet. Please, everyone, I've asked you to take your
seats. Sonya! (Sonya doesn't hear him but stands with her head
bowed sadly) Sonya! (pause) She won't listen, (to Marina)
Please, nanny, have a seat. (Marina sits, winding yam) Please,
ladies and gendemen. If you would be so kind as to hang your
ears on the nail of attention, as they say. (laughs)
VOINITSKY: Perhaps I'm not needed? May I go?
SEREBRYAKOV: No, I need you more than anyone else.
VOINITSKY: What do you want from me?
SEREBRYAKOV: From you . . . What are you so angry about?
(pause) If I have offended you in any way, then please, forgive
me.
What do you want?
(enter Marya Vassilevna)
SEREBRYAKOV: Here is maman. Let me begin, ladies and gentle-
men, (pause) I have called you together to inform you that the
government inspector is on his way. Just a little humor to break
the tension. Now, on to serious matters. Ladies and gentlemen,
I've brought you together to ask your aid and counsel, and as I
am aware of your customary courtesy, I hope I can count on you
127
 UNCLE VANYA
now. I've always been a man of letters, books, and am unfamil-
iar with the practical aspects of life. I cannot get through life
without my trusted counselors, and I ask you, my dear Vanya,
and of course, you, Ilya Ilych, and you, maman, for . . . The
thing is, that "manet omnes una nox,* and we are all under
God's watchful eye." I am a sick, old man and therefore must
see to it in short order that my wordly affairs are properly
arranged, especially where it concerns my family. My life is
over, I no longer think of myself, but I do have a young wife and
a daughter who is only a girl, (pause) I simply cannot go on liv-
ing in the country. We are not made for country life. We do not
have the means to furnish ourselves in the city, since what we
receive from the estate is insufficient to do so. If we sold, for ex-
ample, the forest property, then that would be an extraordindary
measure, not something we could do every year. We must
search for measures which would guarantee us a more or less
continual, discreet sum as income. I have arrived at one such
measure and have the honor to propose it to you for your con-
sideration. Glossing over the details, I shall endeavor to com-
municate to you the broad strokes of the idea. O u r estate
delivers no more than two percent return on investment in the
mean. I propose to sell it. If the proceeds were then invested in
interest-bearing securities and stocks, we would receive between
four and five percent return. In addition, I believe there would
be a surplus of several thousand, with which we might purchase
a small cottage in Finland.
VOINITSKY: Stop. I think I must have misheard you. Repeat what
you just said.
SEREBRYAKOV: We can invest the proceeds in interest-bearing se-
curities, and with the remainder we can purchase a small cot-
tage in Finland.
VOINITSKY: Not Finland. That other thing you said.
SEREBRYAKOV: I am proposing that we sell the estate.
""One night awaits us all," a quotation from Horace.
128
UNCLE VANYA
VOINITSKY: That's the one. You sell the estate. Outstanding! What
a rich idea! And what are your orders concerning my fate and
that of my elderly mother, and let's not forget Sonya, too?
SEREBRYAKOV: We will discuss all of that all in good time. Not
right now.
VOINITSKY: Stop. Obviously, up to this very moment I have not
had one drop of good sense. Till now I was idiot enough to think
that the estate belonged to Sonya. My sainted father bought this
estate for my sister's dowry. Until this moment I was naive
enough to imagine that we were not living under Turkish law
and that the property passed from my sister to Sonya.
SEREBRYAKOV: Yes, the estate belongs to Sonya. Who's disputing
that point? Without Sonya's consent, I will not proceed with any
sale. Ifs for Sonya's own good that I'm proposing this at all.
VOINITSKY: This is sheer nonsense, nonsense! Either I am losing
my mind, o r . . . o r . . .
MARYA VASSILEVNA: Jean, don't contradict Alexander. Ifs true, he
knows better than we do what is right, and what is wrong.
VOINITSKY: No, give me some water, (drinks) Talk, go on, say
whatever you like.
SEREBRYAKOV: I simply don't see why you're so upset. I am not
saying that my plan is ideal. If you find it unacceptable, I cer-
tainly won't insist on it. (pause)
TELEGIN: You see, your excellency, I have always held scholarship
not only in the highest regard, but also very close to home. My
brother Grigory Ilych's wife's brother, you may actually know
him, Konstantine Trofimovich Lakedemov, he was a magistrate,
and . . .
VOINITSKY: Shut up, Waffles, can't you see we're busy. Later, after
. . . (to Serebryakov, indicating Waffles) You ask him, the estate
was bought from his uncle.
SEREBRYAKOV: Why would I need to ask? For what reason?
129
 UNCLE VANYA
VOINITSKY: It was bought at the time for ninety-five thousand. Fa-
ther paid seventy thousand outright, and he took out a loan for
the remaining twenty-five. Now listen. This estate could never
have been purchased if I had not handed over my share of my
inheritance for the use of my sister. Moreover, I worked for ten
years like a slave to pay off that debt. . . .
SEREBRYAKOV: I am sorry that I ever broached the subject.
VOINITSKY: T h e estate is now free of debt and running smoothly
because of my own hard work! And now, now that I've gotten
old, you want to ,toss me out on my ear!
SEREBRYAKOV: I fail to see the point of all of this!
VOINITSKY: For twenty-five years I have managed this estate,
worked, sent you money, like a conscientious servant, and in all
that time you have never once said thank you. All that time,
when I was a young man, to this very day, I've only ever received
the pitiful sum of fifty rubles a year! A lousy pittance! And it
never occurred to you to add even one ruble!
SEREBRYAKOV: Vanya, how could I have known? I'm not a practi-
cal man. I don't understand these sorts of things. You could have
added to your salary as you saw fit.
VOINITSKY: Are you saying I should have just stolen it? T h e way
that you have despised me, looked down on m e all these years,
why didn't I steal from you? It would only have been fair, then
I wouldn't have ended up a beggar, which is all that I am now!
MARYA VASSILEVNA (sternly): Jean!
2 TELEGIN: Vanya, my friend, don't, please, I'm shaking. Why ruin
our good relations? (kisses him) Please don't.
VOINITSKY: For twenty-five years I have been sitting here with my
mother, like some sort of a mole, trapped behind these walls.
Our every thought, our every feeling was only for you. During
the day we talked about you, your work, how proud we were of
you, prounouced your name with reverence. And by night we
130
UNCLE VANYA
would kill ourselves to read all these papers and books, the same
things that now fill me with such disgust.
TELEGIN: Please don't, Vanya. Please. I can't take it.
SEREBRYAKOV: What do you want from me?
VOINITSKY: You were like a being from another world to us. We
knew your articles by heart. Of course, now, my eyes are open!
Now I see it all! You write about art, but you know nothing
about art! Your work, which I adored, isn't worth a thing! You
have fooled us all!
SEREBRYAKOV: Ladies and gentlemen! Somebody calm him
down! I've had enough!
YELENA: Vanya! I demand that you be quiet! Do you hear me?
VOINITSKY: No, I won't be quiet! (blocking Serebryakov's way) I'm
not finished! You have destroyed my life! I have never, ever
lived! Everything was for you, and now ifs all gone, all of the
best years of my life, wasted! You are my worst enemy!
TELEGIN: I can't take it. I can't. I'm leaving, (he exits)
SEREBRYAKOV: What do you want from me? And what right do
you have to talk to me like this? You nonentity! If ifs your estate,
go ahead, take it.
YELENA: I'm leaving right now, getting away from this hell! I can't
stand it any longer!
VOINITSKY: My life is gone! I was talented, intelligent, bold . . . if
only I had lived like a normal man, I could have been another
Schoepenhauer, another Dostoevsky. I'm babbling! I'm losing
my mind! Mamma, I'm lost! Mamma!
MARYA VASSILEVNA: Listen to Alexander!
SONYA (holding on to Marina's knees): Nanny! Nanny!
VOINITSKY: Mamma! What should I do? No, don't, don't say any-
thing! I know what I must do! (to Serebryakov) You will not for-
get me! (exits, Marya Vassilevna follows)
!3i
 UNCLE VANYA UNCLE VANYA

SEREBRYAKOV: Well, what was that all about? Keep that lunatic
away from me, do you hear? I cannot live with him under the
same roof! His room is right there, next to me. Let him move
into the old house, the other end of the estate. Or else I will
move there. But I will not live with him in the same house!
(There is a shot heard offstage. Yelena screams. Sonya jumps up.)
MARINA: O h , what now?!
SEREBRYAKOV (runs on): Restrain him! Someone restrain him!
He's out of his mind!

YELENA: We're leaving today! We have to get things organized this (Yelena and Voinitsky struggle in the doorway)
very minute. YELENA (frying to take the revolver): Give me that! Give it to me,
SEREBRYAKOV: Insignificant little man! I'm telling you!

SONYA (on her knees, through tears): Have pity, papa! Uncle Vanya VOINITSKY: Let me go, Helene! Let me go! (frees himself, runs on,
and I are so unhappy! Please have some pity! Remember, when looking for Serebryakov) Where is he? There he is! (shoots)
you were younger, how Uncle Vanya and grandma stayed up all Bang! (pause) You're not dead? Missed again? Damn, damn,
night long translating those books for you, copying your articles. damn you to hell.
All night, all night! Uncle Vanya and I have worked without rest-
(Voinitsky throws the revolver down and sinks into a chair. Sere-
ing, afraid to waste a single kopeck on ourselves so we could
bryakov is stunned. Yelena is pressed against the wall, faint)
send everything to you. Sometimes we sacrificed food, every-
thing! I'm not saying this right, it's coming out all wrong, but try YELENA: Take me away from here! Take me away, kill me, any-
to understand, papa! Try to have some pity! thing, but I cannot stay here! I can't!
YELENA: Alexander, go make up with him. Please. VOINITSKY: What am I doing? What am I doing?
SEREBRYAKOV: All right, I'll make up with him. I'm not blaming SONYA (softly): Nanny! Nanny!
him, and I'm not angry, but you must agree, his behavior has
(curtain)
been very strange, to say the least. Excuse me, I will go and find
him. (exits)
YELENA: Be sweet to him, calm him down. . . .
SONYA (hugging Marina): Nanny! Nanny!

III' MARINA: Ifs nothing, baby! T h e geese all squawk, and then they
stop. They squawk and then they stop.
SONYA: Nanny!
MARINA: You're shivering, are you cold? Don't worry, child, God is
merciful. I'll make you some linden tea, or some nice raspberry
tea, it'll pass. Don't be sad, child. They will all go away soon
enough, these silly geese.

J
132 33

A C T IV
Uncle Vanya's room. On one side of the room a bed has been set up,
while the other side is laid out as a study. A large table sits near the
window, with account books and all kinds of papers, a writing table,
an old bookcase, some scales. A smaller table for Astrov, which is
covered with drawings and paints and has a portfolio of papers lean-
ing nearby. A small cage with two starlings. On the wall is a map of
Africa, which, obviously, is of no use to anyone. A huge sofa, badly
upholstered. To the left, a door leading to another chamber; to the
right, a door leading to the outside, covered by an awning. Near this
door is a large floor mat, so that the workmen will not track mud into
the room. Autumn evening. Silence.
Telegin and Marina sit opposite each other, winding a ball of yarn.
TELEGIN: Wind faster, nanny, ifs almost time to say goodbye.
They've already ordered the horses to be brought around.
MARINA (trying to wind faster): There's plenty of time.
TELEGIN: They're going to Kharkov. To live.
MARINA: Better for them.
TELEGIN: They were really afraid o f . . . Miss Yelena kept saying,
"I won't live here one more hour! We're leaving, yes, leaving,"
she says. ''We'll go live in Kharkov, we'll go there and get settled,
then we'll send for all of our things," she says. They're going
empty-handed. You know, nanny, they just weren't made to live
here. Not cut out for it. Ifs fate.
*34
• S.i
UNCLE VANYA
MARINA: Better for them. Such carrying on, shooting off guns and
all. Ifs a shame!
TELEGIN: Yes, the subject is worthy of an Avizovsky painting.
MARINA: I wish my eyes had never seen such things, (pause) We
can live like we ought to again. Drink tea in the morning at
eight, lunch at one, and sit down to a proper supper in the
evenings. Everything as it should be, like good Christian people
everywhere, (sighs) I haven't had a good, plain soup in forever,
like a sinner.
TELEGIN: Yes, well, no one has fixed soup in a while, (pause) For
quite a while. . . . This morning, nanny, I was walking along in
the village, and this shopkeeper I know said to me, "Hey, you,
are you still leeching off of those people?" It made me quite an-
gry, actually.
MARINA: Don't pay them any mind, dear heart. We are all beggars
where God is concerned. Look at you, and Sonya, and Vanya,
you all have things to do, nobody just sits around. All of you . . .
where is Sonya?
TELEGIN: In the yard. Everyone is going around with the doctor,
searching for Vanya. They're all afraid he's going to try and kill
himself.
MARINA: Where's his pistol?
TELEGIN (whispers): I hid it in the cellar!
MARINA (laughs): Sinners!
(Voinitsky and Astrov come in from the yard outside)
VOINITSKY: Go away, (to Marina and Telegin) Get out of here,
leave me alone for one hour, can't you? I can't stand being
watched like this!
TELEGIN: Right away, Vanya. (he exits quickly)
MARINA: Quack, quack, quack, silly goose! (she collects her yarn
and exits)
135
 UNCLE VANYA
VOINITSKY: Go away!
ASTROV: I would have left a long time ago. With great pleasure.
But I repeat, I will not leave until you return what you took from
me.
VOINITSKY: I didn't take a thing from you.
ASTROV: I mean it, you're holding out on me. I needed to leave a
long time ago.
VOINITSKY: I didn't take a thing from you.
ASTROV: Really? Well, I can wait a little longer, but then you'll
have to pardon me, but I am going to use force. Tie you up and
search you. I'm saying this in all seriousness.
VOINITSKY: Whatever you want, (pause) I have perfected the role
of the fool, haven't I? Shot twice and missed both times! I can
never forgive myself for that.
ASTROV: If you felt like going hunting, why didn't you just put the
gun to your forehead?
VOINITSKY (shrugs): Ifs strange. I set out to murder someone, but
nobody tries to arrest me, nobody tries to punish me. That must
; mean that they think I'm insane, (laughs wickedly) I'm insane,
t:
but none of you are insane! No, not the man who hides behind
the title "professor" the fact that he is talentless, stupid, and ut-
terly heartless. No, ifs not insane when you get married to an
i"
old man and then deceive him in front of everyone. I saw, saw!
You were holding her!
if ASTROV: Yes, sir, I was holding her, sir. What's it to you? (thumbs
his nose at Voinitsky)
VOINITSKY (watching the door): No, the whole world is insane,
putting up with people like you.
ASTROV: That's just dumb.
VOINITSKY: So what, I'm insane, reckless, I get to say stupid things.
136
UNCLE VANYA
ASTROV: And that's a tired old song. You're not insane, just another
eccentric. A laughingstock. I used to think eccentrics were sick,
abnormal, and now I am of the opinion that eccentricity is the
normal state of human affairs. You're utterly normal.
VOINITSKY (covering his face with his hands): I'm so ashamed. If
you only knew, this feeling of complete shame. This sharp feel-
ing of shame is worse than any pain. I can't take it! What can I
do? What can I do?
ASTROV: Nothing.
VOINITSKY: Give me something for it! For God's sake . . . I am
forty-seven years old! Lefs say I live to be sixty, then I have an-
other thirteen years. Ifs so long! How can I live for another
thirteen years? What can I do, how can I fill up all that time?
Can't you understand, (squeezes Astrov's hand) please, can't
you understand that it must be possible to live the rest of your
life in some new kind of way. If you could wake up some clear,
quiet morning and feel as if you had started all over again.
That your past had been forgotten, blown away like smoke, (he
cries) Tell me, how do you do that . . . start a new life, what
makes it start. . .
ASTROV (angrily): That's enough! What kind of new life is there?
O u r situation, yours and mine, is hopeless.
VOINITSKY: It is?
ASTROV: I'm sure of it.
VOINITSKY: Give me something. . . . (points to his heart) It burns,
here.
ASTROV (yelling): Stop it! People who are born in a hundred, two
hundred years, who will look back on us with contempt for the
tasteless, idiotic way in which we live our lives—maybe those
people will find a way to be happy. As for us. You and me, we
only have one hope left to us. That is the hope that when we go
to our final rest, we will have pleasant dreams, (sighs) Yes,
brother. In the whole county there were only two upstanding,
*37
 UNCLE VANYA
intelligent men, you and me. But sometime in the last ten years,
this narrow-minded, filthy life has dragged us down. T h e putre-
faction has gotten into our blood, and we've become despicable
like all the rest of them, (lively) However, that's beside the point.
Give back what you took from me.
VOINITSKY: I didn't take anything from you.
ASTROV: You took a bottle of morphine from my traveling case.
(pause) Listen, if you think you can't take it and you want to
kill yourself, then go into the forest and shoot yourself. Just
give back the morphine, otherwise there will be talk, and
everyone will say I gave it to you. Ifs enough that I'm going to
have to conduct the autopsy, slice you open after you're dead,
to verify how you managed it. You think I find that interesting?
(Sonya enters)
VOINITSKY: Go away.
ASTROV (to Sonya): Sonya, your uncle has stolen a bottle of mor-
phine from my bag and won't hand it over. Tell him that this is
. . . unintelligent in the end. Yes, and that I must go. I don't have
time for this.
SONYA: Uncle Vanya, did you take the morphine? (pause)
ASTROV: He took it. I'm quite certain.
• l:
SONYA: Give it back. Why are you frightening us like this? (ten-
derly) Give it back, Uncle Vanya. I think I'm just as unhappy as
you are, but I'm not acting desperate. I have survived, and I'm
going to survive until the end of my life, the natural end. You
can survive, too. (pause) Give it back! (kissing his hands) My
dear, sainted uncle, my sweet, give it back! (she cries) You are a
good man, be good to us and give it back. You can stand it, un-
cle. You will survive!
VOINITSKY (retrieves the bottle from his desk and gives it to Astrov):
Take it. (to Sonya) But we better get back to work, quickly, we
must do something or I c a n ' t . . . I simply c a n ' t . . .
138
UNCLE VANYA
SONYA: Yes, yes, lefs get back to work. We'll just say goodbye and
sit down to work. . . . (nervously fussing with the papers on the
table) Ifs a mess in here.
ASTROV (putting the bottle in his case and closing it): Now I can be
on. my way.
YELENA (entering): Vanya, are you in here? G o see Alexander, he'd
like to say something to you.
SONYA: Go, Uncle Vanya. (taking Voinitsky by the arm) Lefs go to-
gether. You and papa have to make up. You have to.
(Sonya and Voinitsky exit)
YELENA: I'm leaving, (offers Astrov her hand)
ASTROV: So soon?
YELENA: They're bringing the horses around.
ASTROV: Farewell.
YELENA: This morning you promised me that you would leave
here.
ASTROV: I remember. I'm leaving now. (pause) Did I frighten you?
(taking her hand) Is this all so frightening?
YELENA: Yes. .
ASTROV: Won't you stay anyway? Huh? Tommorrow, in the tree
nursery...
YELENA: No. It's already decided. Ifs because we've decided to
leave that I can look at you like this. I just have one request.
Think well of me. I would like you to respect me.
ASTROV: Aahh! (impatiently) Stay, I'm begging you. Don't you un-
derstand, you have nothing left in this world, your life is worth-
less, nothing to occupy your time, and sooner or later you are
going to give in to your desires—ifs inescapable. Better that it
happens here than in Kharkov, or somewhere like Kursk. Here
you can do it in the arms of nature. Ifs poetical, at least, even
139
 UNCLE VANYA
the autumn is beautiful. Here in the tree nursery, young trees,
and tumbling-down outbuildings, ifs like something from a
Turgenev story... .
YELENA: You're funny. I'm still angry with you, but all the same . . .
I will always think of you fondly. You're an interesting, original
man. We will never see each other again, so why should I hide
this from you. I have been a little bit attracted to you. Well, lefs
shake hands and part friends. Remember me kindly.
ASTROV (shaking hands): Yes, you're leaving. . . . You should be a
good, sincere person, but there's something very strange about
your existence. See, you come h e r e w i t h your husband, and
everybody here is working, busy as bees, creating something.
But we're forced to throw it all aside all summer long and wait
on you, hand and foot. Both of you, you and him, you've in-
fected us with your idleness. I've been drawn here all month,
I've done nothing, even though people have been sick, and the
peasants have been grazing their cattle in my young forests. . . .
Wherever the two of you go, you and your husband, destruction
follows. I'm joking, of course. Anyway, ifs strange. If you were to
stay, I'm certain I would be completely destroyed. I would die,
and you, you would . . . it wouldn't be good. So, leave. Finita la
n comedia!
YELENA (taking a pencil from his workbench): I'll take this pencil
I as a souvenir of you.
ASTROV: Very strange. We've gotten to know each other, and now
we'll never see each other again. T h e way of the world. While
we're alone, before Uncle Vanya stumbles in here with a bunch
of flowers, won't you let me . . . just kiss you, just once. To say
farewell. Yes? (kisses her cheek) Well, there you are. Very nice.
YELENA: Good luck with everything, (looks around) Just once in
my life, (they embrace passionately and then move away from
each other quickly) I must leave.
ASTROV: Leave. Now. T h e horses are coming around, be on your
way.
140
UNCLE VANYA
YELENA: T h e / r e coining, I think, (they listen)
ASTROV: Finita!
(Serebryakov, Voinitsky, Marya Vassilevna with a book, Telegin and
Sonya enter)
SEREBRYAKOV (to Voinitsky): I think that people are only remem-
bered fondly at their funerals. So much has happened, I feel like
I've relived my life in the last several hours and I've rethought
so many things. I feel as if I could compose a treatise for the ed-
ification of generations to come on how to live, really live life. I
accept your apology' gladly, and offer you mine in return.
Farewell! (kisses Voinitsky three times)
VOINITSKY: You will continue to receive exactly the same amount
every month that you have always received. Everything will be
as it has always been.
(Yelena embraces Sonya)
SEREBRYAKOV (kisses Marya Vassilevna's hand): Maman . . .
MARYA VASSILEVNA (kisses him): Alexander, have your picture
taken again and send it to me. You know how much you mean
to me.
TELEGIN: Farewell, your honor! Don't forget about us!
SEREBRYAKOV (kisses his daughter): Goodbye . . . farewell, every-
one! (offering his hand to Astrov) Thank you for the pleasure of
your company. . . . I respect your way of thinking, all of you,
your passions, your noble impulses. But allow an old man to
make one parting observation: you must get down to business,
ladies and gentlemen! Time to roll up your sleeves and work! All
of our best wishes to you! (he leaves, Marya Vassilevna and
Sonya follow)
VOINITSKY (kisses Yelena's hand for a long time): Farewell.... For-
give me. . . . We'll never see each other again.
YELENA: Farewell, my dear, (kisses his head and exits)
141
 UNCLE VANYA
ASTROV (to Telegin): Waffles, tell them to bring around my horses
right away as well.
TELEGIN: Of course, my friend, (leaves)
(Astrov and Voinitsky remain alone)
ASTROV (clearing paints from his table and placing them in a suit-
case): How come you're not going to see them off?
VOINITSKY: Let them go. Me . . . I can't. I'm worn out. T h e sooner
I get to work, the better. To work, to work! (begins poring over pa-
pers on his desk)
(Pause. Carriage bells are heard.)
ASTROV: They're gone. The professor is happy, I'd say. You
couldn't drag him back here in chains.
MARINA (enters): They're gone, (sits in the armchair and winds her
yarn)
SONYA (enters): They're gone, (wipes her eyes) May God keep
them. Well, Uncle Vanya, lefs get something done.
VOINITSKY: To work, to work. . . .
SONYA: Ifs been so long since we sat at this table together, (lights
a lamp on the table) T h e ink is all dried up. . . . (takes the
inkwell, goes to the shelf, pours in more ink) I'm sad now that
they're gone.
MARYA VASSILEVNA (enters slowly): They're gone, (sits and be-
comes engrossed in her reading)
SONYA: (sitting at the table, leafing through an account book): We
have to pay the bills first, Uncle Vanya. Everything is so far be-
hind. They've sent another notice today. Here. You do one, I'll
.A do another.
VOINITSKY (writes): "On account to Mister . . ." (both write
silently)
MARINA (yawns): Time for a nap.
142
UNCLE VANYA
ASTROV: So peaceful. Pens scratching, crickets chirping. Warm,
cozy. I don't want to go anywhere, (hears bells) They're bringing
my horses around. All that's left is to say goodbye to you all, my
friends, say goodbye to my little table, and—we're off! (puts his
maps into his portfolio)
MARINA: What's the rush? You should sit with us.
ASTROV: I mustn't.
VOINITSKY (writes): ". . . in arrears to the amount of two seventy-
five . . . "
(Yefim enters)
YEFIM: Dr. Astrov, they've brought your horses.
ASTROV: I heard. Here, take these. Be careful with the maps.
(hands him the portfolio, his suitcase, and his medicine bag)
YEFIM: Yes, sir. (leaves)
ASTROV: Well, then . . .
SONYA: W h e n will we see you again?
ASTROV: Not before summer, I would imagine. Winter, ifs hard to
. . . Of course, if someone needs me, let me know and I'll come.
(shakes her hand) Thank you for your hospitality, all of your
kindness, in a word, everything, (goes to Marina and kisses her
on the head) Goodbye, old lady.
MARINA: You're leaving without having any tea?
ASTROV: Don't feel like it, nanny.
MARINA: A little vodka, maybe?
ASTROV: All right. . . .
(Marina exits. Pause.)
ASTROV: My trace horse seems to have gone lame. I noticed it yes-
terday when Yefim brought him around to water him.
VOINITSKY: Have him reshoed.
M3
 UNCLE VANYA
ASTROV: I'd have to go all the way into the village, to that black-
smith. No way to get around it. (goes to the map of Africa and
looks at it) It must be very hot in Africa right now—hot as hell!
VOINITSKY: Yes, must be.
MARINA (returns with a shot of vodka and a piece of bread): Here.
(Astrov drinks the vodka)
MARINA: Ifs not good for you, dear heart, unless you have a bite of
bread.
ASTROV: No, I'm fine. . . . So, good luck, everyone! (to Marina)
Don't see me out, nanny, it isn't necessary.
(He leaves. Sonya follows him with a candle to see him out. Marina
sits in the armchair.)
VOINITSKY (writes): "Second of February, linseed oil, twenty
pounds. Sixteenth of February, linseed oil, twenty pounds.
Buckwheat is . . ."
(Pause. Bells are heard.)
MARINA: He's gone.
(pause)
SONYA (returns and places the candle on the table): He's gone.
VOINITSKY (calculates totals and records them): And so, fifty,
twenty-five... *
(Sonya sits and writes)
MARINA (yawns): O h , you sinner.
(Telegin enters quietly, sits near the door, and strums the guitar)
VOINITSKY (to Sonya, gently stroking her hair): Child, I'm worn
out! O h , if you only knew, there's nothing left for me.
SONYA: What can you do, you just have to live! (pause) We'll go on
living, Uncle Vanya. We'll live through a long, long row of days,
144
UNCLE VANYA
and endless nights. We'll bear whatever comes our way. We'll
keep on working for other people, not just now but in our old
age, and we'll never know peace. When ifs our time, we'll just
go . . . quietly. And in the next world, we'll say that we suffered,
and we cried, and that we had a hard life. And God will pity us,
you and me, uncle. Dear, sweet uncle. That's when we'll see a
new life, bright and shining and elegant. We'll be so happy, and
we'll look back on all these troubles here, now . . . as sweet, and
we'll smile. And we'll rest I believe it, with all my heart I believe
it. (kneels in front of him, with her head in his hands) We'll rest.
(Telegin plays the guitar)
SONYA: We will rest! We'll listen to the angels, and we'll see the
heavens spread out before us like a field of diamonds, and we'll
look back at all of the evil on the earth, all of our suffering, and
we'll sink into God's sweet mercy, which fills the whole uni-
verse. Our lives will become peaceful, soft and sweet, like a ca-
ress. I believe it, I do. (wiping away his tears with her dress) Poor,
poor Uncle Vanya, you're crying, (through her tears) You've
never known happiness in your whole life, but hold on, Uncle
Vanya, just wait. We will r e s t . . . . (embraces him) We will rest!
(The watchman taps his stick. Telegin plays softly. Marya Vas-
silevna writes something in the margin of her pamphlet. Marina
winds her yarn.)
SONYA: We will rest!
(the curtain falls slowly)
H5