Page:Plays by Anton Tchekoff (1916).djvu/92

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answer me with a laugh. When I laugh, they shake their heads sadly and say, “The old man has gone mad.” But oftenest of all I am unheard and unnoticed by every one.

. [Quietly] Screaming again.

. Who is screaming?

. The owl. It screams every evening.

. Let it scream. Things are as bad as they can be already. [Stretches himself] Alas, my dear Sarah! If I could only win a thousand or two roubles, I should soon show you what I could do. I wish you could see me! I should get away out of this hole, and leave the bread of charity, and should not show my nose here again until the last judgment day.

. What would you do if you were to win so much money?

. [Thoughtfully] First I would go to Moscow to hear the Gipsies play, and then—then I should fly to Paris and take an apartment and go to the Russian Church.

. And what else?

. I would go and sit on my wife’s grave for days and days and think. I would sit there until I died. My wife is buried in Paris.

[A pause.

. How terribly dull this is! Shall we play a duet?

. As you like. Go and get the music ready.

[ goes out

and appear in one of the paths.

. My dear friend, you left college last year, and you are still young and brave. Being thirty-five years old, I have the right to advise you. Don’t marry a Jewess or a bluestocking or a woman who is queer in any way. Choose some nice, common-place girl without any strange and startling points in her character. Plan your life for quiet; the greyer and more monotonous you can make the back-