The Chekhov Collection: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary. Anton Chekhov
Mine!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. It’s not true! I’ll prove it! I’ll send my mowers out to the Meadows this very day!
LOMOV. What?
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. My mowers will be there this very day!
LOMOV. I’ll give it to them in the neck!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. You dare!
LOMOV. [Clutches at his heart] Oxen Meadows are mine! You understand? Mine!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Please don’t shout! You can shout yourself hoarse in your own house, but here I must ask you to restrain yourself!
LOMOV. If it wasn’t, madam, for this awful, excruciating palpitation, if my whole inside wasn’t upset, I’d talk to you in a different way! [Yells] Oxen Meadows are mine!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Ours!
LOMOV. Mine!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Ours!
LOMOV. Mine!
[Enter CHUBUKOV.]
CHUBUKOV. What’s the matter? What are you shouting at?
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Papa, please tell to this gentleman who owns Oxen Meadows, we or he?
CHUBUKOV. [To LOMOV] Darling, the Meadows are ours!
LOMOV. But, please, Stepan Stepanitch, how can they be yours? Do be a reasonable man! My aunt’s grandmother gave the Meadows for the temporary and free use of your grandfather’s peasants. The peasants used the land for forty years and got as accustomed to it as if it was their own, when it happened that…
CHUBUKOV. Excuse me, my precious…. You forget just this, that the peasants didn’t pay your grandmother and all that, because the Meadows were in dispute, and so on. And now everybody knows that they’re ours. It means that you haven’t seen the plan.
LOMOV. I’ll prove to you that they’re mine!
CHUBUKOV. You won’t prove it, my darling.
LOMOV. I shall!
CHUBUKOV. Dear one, why yell like that? You won’t prove anything just by yelling. I don’t want anything of yours, and don’t intend to give up what I have. Why should I? And you know, my beloved, that if you propose to go on arguing about it, I’d much sooner give up the meadows to the peasants than to you. There!
LOMOV. I don’t understand! How have you the right to give away somebody else’s property?
CHUBUKOV. You may take it that I know whether I have the right or not. Because, young man, I’m not used to being spoken to in that tone of voice, and so on: I, young man, am twice your age, and ask you to speak to me without agitating yourself, and all that.
LOMOV. No, you just think I’m a fool and want to have me on! You call my land yours, and then you want me to talk to you calmly and politely! Good neighbours don’t behave like that, Stepan Stepanitch! You’re not a neighbour, you’re a grabber!
CHUBUKOV. What’s that? What did you say?
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Papa, send the mowers out to the Meadows at once!
CHUBUKOV. What did you say, sir?
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Oxen Meadows are ours, and I shan’t give them up, shan’t give them up, shan’t give them up!
LOMOV. We’ll see! I’ll have the matter taken to court, and then I’ll show you!
CHUBUKOV. To court? You can take it to court, and all that! You can! I know you; you’re just on the lookout for a chance to go to court, and all that…. You pettifogger! All your people were like that! All of them!
LOMOV. Never mind about my people! The Lomovs have all been honourable people, and not one has ever been tried for embezzlement, like your grandfather!
CHUBUKOV. You Lomovs have had lunacy in your family, all of you!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. All, all, all!
CHUBUKOV. Your grandfather was a drunkard, and your younger aunt, Nastasya Mihailovna, ran away with an architect, and so on.
LOMOV. And your mother was hump-backed. [Clutches at his heart] Something pulling in my side…. My head…. Help! Water!
CHUBUKOV. Your father was a guzzling gambler!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. And there haven’t been many backbiters to equal your aunt!
LOMOV. My left foot has gone to sleep…. You’re an intriguer…. Oh, my heart!… And it’s an open secret that before the last elections you bri… I can see stars…. Where’s my hat?
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. It’s low! It’s dishonest! It’s mean!
CHUBUKOV. And you’re just a malicious, double-faced intriguer! Yes!
LOMOV. Here’s my hat…. My heart!… Which way? Where’s the door? Oh!… I think I’m dying…. My foot’s quite numb…. [Goes to the door.]
CHUBUKOV. [Following him] And don’t set foot in my house again!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Take it to court! We’ll see!
[LOMOV staggers out.]
CHUBUKOV. Devil take him! [Walks about in excitement.]
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. What a rascal! What trust can one have in one’s neighbours after that!
CHUBUKOV. The villain! The scarecrow!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. The monster! First he takes our land and then he has the impudence to abuse us.
CHUBUKOV. And that blind hen, yes, that turnip-ghost has the confounded cheek to make a proposal, and so on! What? A proposal!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. What proposal?
CHUBUKOV. Why, he came here so as to propose to you.
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. To propose? To me? Why didn’t you tell me so before?
CHUBUKOV. So he dresses up in evening clothes. The stuffed sausage! The wizen-faced frump!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. To propose to me? Ah! [Falls into an easy-chair and wails] Bring him back! Back! Ah! Bring him here.
CHUBUKOV. Bring whom here?
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Quick, quick! I’m ill! Fetch him! [Hysterics.]
CHUBUKOV. What’s that? What’s the matter with you? [Clutches at his head] Oh, unhappy man that I am! I’ll shoot myself! I’ll hang myself! We’ve done for her!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. I’m dying! Fetch him!
CHUBUKOV. Tfoo! At once. Don’t yell!
[Runs out. A pause. NATALYA STEPANOVNA wails.]
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. What have they done to me! Fetch him back! Fetch him! [A pause.]
[CHUBUKOV runs in.]
CHUBUKOV. He’s coming, and so on, devil take him! Ouf! Talk to him yourself; I don’t want to….
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. [Wails] Fetch him!
CHUBUKOV. [Yells] He’s coming, I tell you. Oh, what a burden, Lord, to be the father of a grownup daughter! I’ll cut my throat! I will, indeed! We cursed him, abused him, drove him out, and it’s all you… you!
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. No, it was you!
CHUBUKOV. I tell you it’s not my fault. [LOMOV appears at the door] Now you talk to him yourself [Exit.]
[LOMOV enters, exhausted.]
LOMOV. My heart’s palpitating awfully…. My foot’s gone to sleep…. There’s something keeps pulling in my side.
NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Forgive us, Ivan Vassilevitch,