Page:Plays by Anton Tchekoff (1916).djvu/135

ACT III

. If we are going to have an explanation every day, doctor, we shall neither of us have the strength to stand it.

. Will you be good enough to hear me?

. I have heard all you have told me every day, and have failed to discover yet what you want me to do.

. I have always spoken plainly enough, and only an utterly heartless and cruel man could fail to understand me.

. I know that my wife is dying; I know that I have sinned irreparably; I know that you are an honest man. What more can you tell me?

. The sight of human cruelty maddens me. The woman is dying and she has a mother and father whom she loves, and longs to see once more before she dies. They know that she is dying and that she loves them still, but with diabolical cruelty, as if to flaunt their religious zeal, they refuse to see her and forgive her. You are the man for whom she has sacrificed her home, her peace of mind, everything. Yet you unblushingly go gadding to the Lebedieffs’ every evening, for reasons that are absolutely unmistakable!

. Ah me, it is two weeks since I was there!

. [Not listening to him] To men like yourself one must speak plainly, and if you don’t want to hear what I have to say, you need not listen. I always call a spade a spade; the truth is, you want her to die so that the way may be cleared for your other schemes. Be it so; but can’t you wait? If, instead of crushing the life out of your wife by your heartless egoism, you let her die naturally, do you think you would lose Sasha and Sasha’s money? Such an absolute Tartuffe as you are could turn the girl’s head and get her money a year from now as easily as you can to-day. Why are you in such a hurry? Why do you want your wife to die now, instead of in a month’s time, or a year’s?