Page:Plays by Anton Tchekoff (1916).djvu/138

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have not slept for nights. I am going now, but first tell me that you are well.

. No, I am not well. I am a torment to myself, and every one torments me without end. I cant stand it? And now you come here. How morbid and unnatural it all is, Sasha. I am terribly guilty.

. What dreadful, pitiful speeches you make! So you are guilty, are you? Tell me, then, what is it you have done?

. I don’t know; I don’t know!

. That is no answer. Every sinner should know what he is guilty of. Perhaps you have been forging money?

. That is stupid.

. Or are you guilty because you no longer love your wife? Perhaps you are, but no one is master of his feelings, and you did not mean to stop loving her. Do you feel guilty because she saw me telling you that I love you? No, that cannot be, because you did not want her to see it

. [Interrupting her] And so on, and so on! First you say I love, and then you say I don’t; that I am not master of my feelings. All these are commonplace, worn-out sentiments, with which you cannot help me.

. It is impossible to talk to you. [She looks at a picture on the wall] How well those dogs are drawn! Were they done from life?

. Yes, from life. And this whole romance of ours is a tedious old story; a man loses heart and begins to go down in the world; a girl appears, brave and strong of heart, and gives him a hand to help him to rise again. Such situations are pretty, but they are only found in novels and not in real life.

. No, they are found in real life too.

. Now I see how well you understand real life!