Page:Plays by Antov Tchekoff (Scribner's, 1912).djvu/50

ACT II. Let go! [She drags her hand away] Go away!

. Soon the rain will be over, and all nature will sigh and awake refreshed. Only I am not refreshed by the storm. Day and night the thought haunts me like a fiend, that my life is lost forever. My past does not count, because I frittered it away on trifles; and the present has so terribly miscarried! What shall I do with my life and my love? What is to become of them? This wonderful feeling of mine will be wasted and lost as a ray of sunlight is lost that falls into a dark chasm, and my life will go with it.

. I am as it were benumbed when you speak to me of your love, and I don’t know how to answer you. Forgive me, I have nothing to say to you. [She tries to go out] Good-night!

. [Barring the way] If you only knew how I am tortured by the thought that beside me in this house is an other life that is being lost forever—it is yours! What are you waiting for? What accursed philosophy stands in your way? Oh, understand, understand——

. [Looking at him intently] Ivan, you are drunk!

. Perhaps. Perhaps.

. Where is the doctor?

. In there, spending the night with me. Perhaps I am drunk, perhaps I am; nothing is impossible.

. Have you just been drinking together? Why do you do that?

. Because in that way I get a taste of life. Let me do it, Helena!

. You never used to drink, and you never used to talk so much. Go to bed, I am tired of you.

. [Falling on his knees before her] My sweetheart, my beautiful one——