Page:Plays by Anton Tchekoff (1916).djvu/61

ACT III

. [In great agitation] Do you hear me? I must leave here this very day!

,, , and come in.

. I am not very well myself, your Excellency. I have been limping for two days, and my head

. Where are the others? I hate this house. It is a regular labyrinth. Every one is always scattered through the twenty-six enormous rooms; one never can find a soul. [Rings] Ask my wife and Madame Voitskaya to come here!

. I am here already.

. Please, all of you, sit down.

. [Goes up to and asks anxiously] What did he say?

. I’ll tell you later.

. You are moved. [Looking quickly and inquiringly into her face] I understand; he said he would not come here any more. [A pause] Tell me, did he?

nods.

. [To ] One can, after all, become reconciled to being an invalid, but not to this country life, The ways of it stick in my throat and I feel exactly as if I had been whirled off the earth and landed on a strange planet. Please be seated, ladies and gentlemen. Sonia! [ ''does not hear. She is standing with her head bowed sadly forward on her breast''] Sonia! [A pause] She does not hear me. [To ] Sit down too, nurse. [ sits down and begins to knit her stocking] I crave your indulgence, ladies and gentlemen; hang your ears, if I may say so, on the peg of attention.

[He laughs.

. [Agitated] Perhaps you do not need me—may I be excused?

. No, you are needed now more than any one.