FullReads

TATIANA ALEXEYEVNA.
Oh, yes, the anniversary! I congratulate you, gentlemen. I wish you…. So it means that to-day’s the day of the meeting, the dinner…. That’s good. And do you remember that beautiful address which you spent such a long time composing for the shareholders? Will it be read to-day?

[KHIRIN coughs angrily.]

SHIPUCHIN.
[Confused]

My dear, we don’t talk about these things. You’d really better go home.

TATIANA ALEXEYEVNA.
In a minute, in a minute. I’ll tell you everything in one minute and go. I’ll tell you from the very beginning. Well…. When you were seeing me off, you remember I was sitting next to that stout lady, and I began to read. I don’t like to talk in the train. I read for three stations and didn’t say a word to anyone…. Well, then the evening set in, and I felt so mournful, you know, with such sad thoughts! A young man was sitting opposite me–not a bad-looking fellow, a brunette…. Well, we fell into conversation…. A sailor came along then, then some student or other….

[Laughs]
I told them that I wasn’t married… and they did look after me! We chattered till midnight, the brunette kept on telling the most awfully funny stories, and the sailor kept on singing. My chest began to ache from laughing. And when the sailor–oh, those sailors!–when he got to know my name was TATIANA, you know what he sang?

[Sings in a bass voice] “Onegin don’t let me conceal it, I love Tatiana madly!” [Note: From the Opera Evgeni Onegin–words by Pushkin.]
[Roars with laughter.]

[KHIRIN coughs angrily.]

SHIPUCHIN.
Tania, dear, you’re disturbing Kusma Nicolaievitch. Go home, dear…. Later on….

TATIANA ALEXEYEVNA.
No, no, let him hear if he wants to, it’s awfully interesting. I’ll end in a minute. Serezha came to meet me at the station. Some young man or other turns up, an inspector of taxes, I think… quite handsome, especially his eyes…. Serezha introduced me, and the three of us rode off together…. It was lovely weather….

[Voices behind the stage: “You can’t, you can’t! What do you want?” Enter MERCHUTKINA, waving her arms about.]

MERCHUTKINA.
What are you dragging at me for. What else! I want him himself!

[To SHIPUCHIN]
I have the honour, your excellency… I am the wife of a civil servant, Nastasya Fyodorovna Merchutkina.

SHIPUCHIN.
What do you want?

MERCHUTKINA.
Well, you see, your excellency, my husband has been ill for five months, and while he was at home, getting better, he was suddenly dismissed for no reason, your excellency, and when I went to get his salary, they, you see, deducted 24 roubles 36 copecks from it. What for? I ask. They said, “Well, he drew it from the employees’ account, and the others had to make it up.” How can that be? How could he draw anything without my permission? No, your excellency! I’m a poor woman… my lodgers are all I have to live on…. I’m weak and defenceless…. Everybody does me some harm, and nobody has a kind word for me.

SHIPUCHIN.
Excuse me.

[Takes a petition from her and reads it standing.]

TATIANA ALEXEYEVNA.
[To KHIRIN]

Yes, but first we…. Last week I suddenly received a letter from my mother. She writes that a certain Grendilevsky has proposed to my sister Katya. A nice, modest, young man, but with no means of his own, and no assured position. And, unfortunately, just think of it, Katya is absolutely gone on him. What’s to be done? Mamma writes telling me to come at once and influence Katya….

KHIRIN.
[Angrily]

Excuse me, you’ve made me lose my place! You go talking about your mamma and Katya, and I understand nothing; and I’ve lost my place.