Five Comic One-Act Plays by Anton Chekhov

Author:Anton Chekhov
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486112060
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

THE BEAR

A JEST IN ONE ACT

Characters in the Play

YELENA IVANOVNA POPOV (a widow with dimples in her cheeks, owner of an estate in the country)

GRIGORY STEPANITCH SMIRNOV (a middle-aged landowner)

LUKA. (MADAME POPOV’s old manservant)

The action takes place in a drawing-room in MADAME POPOV’s house.

MADAME POPOV (in deep mourning, keeps her eyes fixed on a photograph ) and LUKA.

LUKA. It’s not right, madam.... You are simply killing yourself. . . . The cook and the housemaid have gone to the wood to pick strawberries, every breathing thing rejoices, the very cat, even she knows how to enjoy herself and walks about the yard catching birds, while you sit all day indoors as though you were in a nunnery and have no pleasure in anything. Yes, indeed! If you come to think of it, it’s nearly a year since you’ve been out of the house!

MADAME POPOV. And I shall never go out.... Why should I? My life is over. He lies in his grave; I have buried myself within four walls.

... We are both dead.

LUKA. Well, there it is! I don’t like to hear it. Nikolay Mihailitch is dead, so it had to be, it is God’s will. The kingdom of heaven be his!

... You have grieved, and that’s enough; you must know when to stop. You can’t weep and wear mourning all your life. I buried my old woman, too, in my time.... Well, I was grieved and cried for a month or so, and that was enough for her; but if I had been doleful all my life, it is more than the old woman herself was worth. [Sighs] You have forgotten all your neighbours.... You don’t go out yourself or receive visitors. We live like spiders, if I may say so—we don’t see the light of day. The mice have eaten my livery.... It’s not as though you had no nice people about you: the district is full of gentry.... There’s a regiment at Ryblovo—the officers are perfect sugar-plums, a sight for sore eyes! And in the camp there is a ball every Friday, and the band plays almost every day. . . .Ah! madam, my dear, you are young and lovely, blooming like a rose—you have only to live and enjoy yourself.... Beauty won’t last all your life, you know. In another ten years you may want to be as gay as a peacock and dazzle the officers, but then it will be too late....

MADAME POPOV [resolutely]. I beg you never to speak like that to me! You know that ever since Nikolay Mihailitch died life has lost all value for me. It appears to you that I am alive, but it is only an appearance! I have taken a vow not to put off this mourning, nor to look upon the world outside as long as I live.... Do you hear? May his shade see how I love him! ... Yes, I know it was no secret to you: he was often unjust to me, cruel and .

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