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The Three Sisters / Три сестры
The three sisters
Characters
Andrey Sergeyevitch Prosorov
Natalia Ivanovna (Natasha), his fiancee, later his wife (28)
Feodor Ilitch Kuligin, high school teacher, married to Masha (20)
Alexander Ignateyevitch Vershinin, lieutenant-colonel in charge of a battery (42)
Nicolai Lvovitch Tuzenbach, baron, lieutenant in the army (30)
Vassili Vassilevitch Soleni, captain
Ivan Romanovitch Chebutikin, army doctor (60)
Alexey Petrovitch Fedotik, sub-lieutenant
Vladimir Carlovitch Rode, sub-lieutenant
Ferapont, door-keeper at local council offices, an old man
Anfisa, nurse (80)
The action takes place in a provincial town.
[Ages are stated in brackets.]
ACT I
[In Prosorov’s house. A sitting-room with pillars; behind is seen a large dining-room. It is midday, the sun is shining brightly outside. In the dining-room the table is being laid for lunch.]
[Olga, in the regulation blue dress of a teacher at a girl’s high school, is walking about correcting exercise books; Masha, in a black dress, with a hat on her knees, sits and reads a book; Irina, in white, stands about, with a thoughtful expression.]
O l g a. It’s just a year since father died last May the fifth, on your name-day, Irina. It was very cold then, and snowing. I thought I would never survive it, and you were in a dead faint. And now a year has gone by and we are already thinking about it without pain, and you are wearing a white dress and your face is happy. [Clock strikes twelve] And the clock struck just the same way then. [Pause] I remember that there was music at the funeral, and they fired a volley in the cemetery. He was a general in command of a brigade but there were few people present. Of course, it was raining then, raining hard, and snowing.
I r i n a. Why think about it!
[Baron Tuzenbach, Chebutikin and Soleni appear by the table in the dining-room, behind the pillars.]
O l g a. It’s so warm today that we can keep the windows open, though the birches are not yet in flower. Father was put in command of a brigade, and he rode out of Moscow with us eleven years ago. I remember perfectly that it was early in May and that everything in Moscow was flowering then. It was warm too, everything was bathed in sunshine. Eleven years have gone, and I remember everything as if we rode out only yesterday. Oh, God! When I awoke this morning and saw all the light and the spring, joy entered my heart, and I longed passionately to go home.
C h e b u t i k i n. Will you take a bet on it?
T u z e n b a c h. Oh, nonsense.
[Masha, lost in a reverie over her book, whistles softly.]
O l g a. Don’t whistle, Masha. How can you! [Pause] I’m always having headaches from having to go to the High School every day and then teach till evening. Strange thoughts come to me, as if I were already an old woman. And really, during these four years that I have been working here, I have been feeling as if every day my strength and youth have been squeezed out of me, drop by drop. And only one desire grows and gains in strength …