Page:Plays by Anton Tchekoff (1916).djvu/77

ACT IV . Why don’t you go to see them off?

. Let them go! I—I can’t go out there. I feel too sad. I must go to work on something at once. To work! To work!

''He rummages through his papers on the table. A pause. The tinkling of bells is heard as the horses trot away''.

. They have gone! The professor, I suppose, is glad to go. He couldn’t be tempted back now by a fortune.

comes in.

. They have gone.

[She sits down in an arm-chair and knits her stocking.

comes in wiping her eyes.

. They have gone. God be with them. [To her uncle] And now, Uncle Vanya, let us do something!

. To work! To work!

. It is long, long, since you and I have sat together at this table. [She lights a lamp on the table] No ink! [She takes the inkstand to the cupboard and fills it from an ink-bottle] How sad it is to see them go!

comes slowly in.

. They have gone.

She sits down and at once becomes absorbed in her book. sits down at the table and looks through an account book.

. First, Uncle Vanya, let us write up the accounts. They are in a dreadful state. Come, begin. You take one and I will take the other.

. In account with

. [Yawning] The sand-man has come.

. How still it is. Their pens scratch, the cricket sings; it is so warm and comfortable. I hate to go.

[The tinkling of bells is heard.

. My carriage has come. There now remains but