The Chekhov Collection: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary. Anton Chekhov
dimpled, I like her! I’m almost ready to let the debt go… and I’m not angry any longer…. Wonderful woman!
[Enter POPOVA with pistols.]
POPOVA. Here are the pistols…. But before we fight you must show me how to fire. I’ve never held a pistol in my hands before.
LUKA. Oh, Lord, have mercy and save her…. I’ll go and find the coachman and the gardener…. Why has this infliction come on us…. [Exit.]
SMIRNOV. [Examining the pistols] You see, there are several sorts of pistols…. There are Mortimer pistols, specially made for duels, they fire a percussion-cap. These are Smith and Wesson revolvers, triple action, with extractors…. These are excellent pistols. They can’t cost less than ninety roubles the pair…. You must hold the revolver like this…. [Aside] Her eyes, her eyes! What an inspiring woman!
POPOVA. Like this?
SMIRNOV. Yes, like this…. Then you cock the trigger, and take aim like this…. Put your head back a little! Hold your arm out properly…. Like that…. Then you press this thing with your finger — and that’s all. The great thing is to keep cool and aim steadily…. Try not to jerk your arm.
POPOVA. Very well…. It’s inconvenient to shoot in a room, let’s go into the garden.
SMIRNOV. Come along then. But I warn you, I’m going to fire in the air.
POPOVA. That’s the last straw! Why?
SMIRNOV. Because… because… it’s my affair.
POPOVA. Are you afraid? Yes? Ah! No, sir, you don’t get out of it! You come with me! I shan’t have any peace until I’ve made a hole in your forehead… that forehead which I hate so much! Are you afraid?
SMIRNOV. Yes, I am afraid.
POPOVA. You lie! Why won’t you fight?
SMIRNOV. Because… because you… because I like you.
POPOVA. [Laughs] He likes me! He dares to say that he likes me! [Points to the door] That’s the way.
SMIRNOV. [Loads the revolver in silence, takes his cap and goes to the door. There he stops for half a minute, while they look at each other in silence, then he hesitatingly approaches POPOVA] Listen…. Are you still angry? I’m devilishly annoyed, too… but, do you understand… how can I express myself?… The fact is, you see, it’s like this, so to speak…. [Shouts] Well, is it my fault that I like you? [He snatches at the back of a chair; the chair creaks and breaks] Devil take it, how I’m smashing up your furniture! I like you! Do you understand? I… I almost love you!
POPOVA. Get away from me — I hate you!
SMIRNOV. God, what a woman! I’ve never in my life seen one like her! I’m lost! Done for! Fallen into a mousetrap, like a mouse!
POPOVA. Stand back, or I’ll fire!
SMIRNOV. Fire, then! You can’t understand what happiness it would be to die before those beautiful eyes, to be shot by a revolver held in that little, velvet hand…. I’m out of my senses! Think, and make up your mind at once, because if I go out we shall never see each other again! Decide now…. I am a landowner, of respectable character, have an income of ten thousand a year. I can put a bullet through a coin tossed into the air as it comes down…. I own some fine horses…. Will you be my wife?
POPOVA. [Indignantly shakes her revolver] Let’s fight! Let’s go out!
SMIRNOV. I’m mad…. I understand nothing. [Yells] Waiter, water!
POPOVA. [Yells] Let’s go out and fight!
SMIRNOV. I’m off my head, I’m in love like a boy, like a fool! [Snatches her hand, she screams with pain] I love you! [Kneels] I love you as I’ve never loved before! I’ve refused twelve women, nine have refused me, but I never loved one of them as I love you…. I’m weak, I’m wax, I’ve melted…. I’m on my knees like a fool, offering you my hand…. Shame, shame! I haven’t been in love for five years, I’d taken a vow, and now all of a sudden I’m in love, like a fish out of water! I offer you my hand. Yes or no? You don’t want me? Very well! [Gets up and quickly goes to the door.]
POPOVA. Stop.
SMIRNOV. [Stops] Well?
POPOVA. Nothing, go away…. No, stop…. No, go away, go away! I hate you! Or no…. Don’t go away! Oh, if you knew how angry I am, how angry I am! [Throws her revolver on the table] My fingers have swollen because of all this…. [Tears her handkerchief in temper] What are you waiting for? Get out!
SMIRNOV. Goodbye.
POPOVA. Yes, yes, go away!… [Yells] Where are you going? Stop…. No, go away. Oh, how angry I am! Don’t come near me, don’t come near me!
SMIRNOV. [Approaching her] How angry I am with myself! I’m in love like a student, I’ve been on my knees…. [Rudely] I love you! What do I want to fall in love with you for? Tomorrow I’ve got to pay the interest, and begin mowing, and here you…. [Puts his arms around her] I shall never forgive myself for this….
POPOVA. Get away from me! Take your hands away! I hate you! Let’s go and fight!
[A prolonged kiss. Enter LUKA with an axe, the GARDENER with a rake, the COACHMAN with a pitchfork, and WORKMEN with poles.]
LUKA. [Catches sight of the pair kissing] Little fathers! [Pause.]
POPOVA. [Lowering her eyes] Luka, tell them in the stables that Toby isn’t to have any oats at all to-day.
Curtain.
THE BOOR (trans. by B. Roland Lewis)
ANTON TCHEKOV
Anton Tchekov, considered the foremost of contemporary Russian dramatists, was born in 1860 at Taganrog, Russia. In 1880 he was graduated from the Medical School of the University of Moscow. Ill health soon compelled him to abandon his practice of medicine, and in 1887 he sought the south. In 1904, the year of the successful appearance of his Cherry Orchard, he died in a village of the Black Forest in Germany.
As a dramatist, Tchekov has with deliberate intent cast off much of the conventionalities of dramatic technic. In his longer plays especially, like The Sea Gull, Uncle Vanya, and Cherry Orchard, he somewhat avoids obvious struggles, time-worn commonplaces, well-prepared climaxes, and seeks rather to spread out a panoramic canvas for our contemplation. His chief aim is to show us humanity as he sees it. It is his interest in humanity that gives him so high rank as a dramatist.
His one-act plays, a form of drama unusually apt for certain intimate aspects of Russian peasant life, are more regular in their technic than his longer plays. Among the five or six shorter plays that Tchekov wrote, The Boor and A Marriage Proposal are his best. In these plays he shows the lighter side of Russian country life, infusing some of the spirit of the great Gogol into his broad and somewhat farcical character portrayals. With rare good grace, in these plays he appears to be asking us to throw aside our restraint and laugh with him at the stupidity and naïveté, as well as good-heartedness, of the Russian people he knew so well.
The Boor is a remarkably well-constructed one-act play, and is probably the finest one-act play of the Russian school of drama.
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
Helena Ivanovna Popov, a young widow, mistress of a country estate
Grigori Stepanovitch Smirnov, proprietor of a country estate
Luka, servant of Mrs. Popov
A gardener. A coachman. Several workmen.
THE BOOR
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