The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov

       THE BOOR (trans. by B. Roland Lewis)

       Table of Contents

      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

      TIME: The present.

      SCENE: A well-furnished reception-room in Mrs. Popov's home. Mrs. Popov is discovered in deep mourning, sitting upon a sofa, gazing steadfastly at a photograph. Luka is also present.

      LUKA. It isn't right, ma'am. You're wearing yourself out! The maid and the cook have gone looking for berries; everything that breathes is enjoying life; even the cat knows how to be happy—slips about the courtyard and catches birds—but you hide yourself here in the house as though you were in a cloister. Yes, truly, by actual reckoning you haven't left this house for a whole year.

      MRS. POPOV. And I shall never leave it—why should I? My life is over. He lies in his grave, and I have buried myself within these four walls. We are both dead.

      LUKA. There you are again! It's too awful to listen to, so it is! Nikolai Michailovitch is dead; it was the will of the Lord, and the Lord has given him eternal peace. You have grieved over it and that ought to be enough. Now it's time to stop. One can't weep and wear mourning forever! My wife died a few years ago. I grieved for her. I wept a whole month—and then it was over. Must one be forever singing lamentations? That would be more than your husband was worth! [He sighs.] You have forgotten all your neighbors. You don't go out and you receive no one. We live—you'll pardon me—like the spiders, and the good light of day we never see. All the livery is eaten by the mice—as though there weren't any more nice people in the world! But the whole neighborhood is full of gentlefolk. The regiment is stationed in Riblov—officers—simply beautiful! One can't see enough of them! Every Friday a ball, and military music every day. Oh, my dear, dear ma'am, young and pretty as you are, if you'd only let your spirits live—! Beauty can't last forever. When ten short years are over, you'll be glad enough to go out a bit and meet the officers—and then it'll be too late.

      MRS. POPOV. [Resolutely.] Please don't speak of these things again. You know very well that since the death of Nikolai Michailovitch my life is absolutely nothing to me. You think I live, but it only seems so. Do you understand? Oh, that his departed soul may see how I love him! I know, it's no secret to you; he was often unjust toward me, cruel, and—he wasn't faithful, but I shall be faithful to the grave and prove to him how I can love. There, in the Beyond, he'll find me the same as I was until his death.

      LUKA. What is the use of all these words, when you'd so much rather go walking in the garden or order Tobby or Welikan harnessed to the trap, and visit the neighbors?

      MRS. POPOV. [Weeping.] Oh!

      LUKA. Madam, dear madam, what is it? In Heaven's name!

      MRS. POPOV. He loved Tobby so! He always drove him to the Kortschagins or the Vlassovs. What a wonderful horse-man he was! How fine he looked when he pulled at the reins with all his might! Tobby, Tobby—give him an extra measure of oats to-day!

      LUKA. Yes, ma'am.

      [A bell rings loudly.

      MRS. POPOV. [Shudders.] What's that? I am at home to no one.

      LUKA. Yes, ma'am. [He goes out, centre.

      MRS. POPOV. [Gazing at the photograph.] You shall see, Nikolai, how I can love and forgive! My love will die only with me—when my poor heart stops beating. [She smiles through her tears.] And aren't you ashamed? I have been a good, true wife; I have imprisoned myself and I shall remain true until death, and you—you—you're not ashamed of yourself, my dear monster! You quarrelled with me, left me alone for weeks——

      [Luka enters in great excitement.

      LUKA. Oh, ma'am, some one is asking for you, insists on seeing you——

      MRS. POPOV. You told him that since my husband's death I receive no one?

      LUKA. I said so, but he won't listen; he says it is a pressing matter.

      MRS. POPOV. I receive no one!

      LUKA.