Page:Plays by Anton Tchekoff (1916).djvu/177

ACT I

. You hurt his feelings.

. But he told me himself that this was all in fun, so I treated his play as if it were a comedy.

. Nevertheless

. Now it appears that he has produced a masterpiece, if you please! I suppose it was not meant to amuse us at all, but that he arranged the performance and fumigated us with sulphur to demonstrate to us how plays should be written, and what is worth acting. I am tired of him. No one could stand his constant thrusts and sallies. He is a wilful, egotistic boy.

. He had hoped to give you pleasure.

. Is that so? I notice, though, that he did not choose an ordinary play, but forced his decadent trash on us. I am willing to listen to any raving, so long as it is not meant seriously, but in showing us this, he pretended to be introducing us to a new form of art, and inaugurating a new era. In my opinion, there was nothing new about it, it was simply an exhibition of bad temper.

. Everybody must write as he feels, and as best he may.

. Let him write as he feels and can, but let him spare me his nonsense.

. Thou art angry, O Jove!

. I am a woman, not Jove. [She lights a cigarette] And I am not angry, I am only sorry to see a young man foolishly wasting his time. I did not mean to hurt him.

. No one has any ground for separating life from matter, as the spirit may well consist of the union of material atoms. [Excitedly, to ] Some day you should write a play, and put on the stage the life of a schoolmaster. It is a hard, hard life.

. I agree with you, but do not let us talk about