ACT I

A country house on a terrace. In front of it a garden. In an avenue of
trees, under an old poplar, stands a table set for tea, with a samovar,
etc. Some benches and chairs stand near the table. On one of them is
lying a guitar. A hammock is swung near the table. It is three o'clock
in the afternoon of a cloudy day.

MARINA, a quiet, grey-haired, little old woman, is sitting at the table
knitting a stocking.

ASTROFF is walking up and down near her.

MARINA. [Pouring some tea into a glass] Take a little tea, my son.

ASTROFF. [Takes the glass from her unwillingly] Somehow, I don't seem to
want any.

MARINA. Then will you have a little vodka instead?

ASTROFF. No, I don't drink vodka every day, and besides, it is too hot
now. [A pause] Tell me, nurse, how long have we known each other?

MARINA. [Thoughtfully] Let me see, how long is it? Lord--help me to
remember. You first came here, into our parts--let me think--when was
it? Sonia's mother was still alive--it was two winters before she died;
that was eleven years ago--[thoughtfully] perhaps more.

ASTROFF. Have I changed much since then?

MARINA. Oh, yes. You were handsome and young then, and now you are an
old man and not handsome any more. You drink, too.

ASTROFF. Yes, ten years have made me another man. And why? Because I am
overworked. Nurse, I am on my feet from dawn till dusk. I know no rest;
at night I tremble under my blankets for fear of being dragged out to
visit some one who is sick; I have toiled without repose or a day's
freedom since I have known you; could I help growing old? And then,
existence is tedious, anyway; it is a senseless, dirty business, this
life, and goes heavily. Every one about here is silly, and after
living with them for two or three years one grows silly oneself. It is
inevitable. [Twisting his moustache] See what a long moustache I have
grown. A foolish, long moustache. Yes, I am as silly as the rest, nurse,
but not as stupid; no, I have not grown stupid. Thank God, my brain is
not addled yet, though my feelings have grown numb. I ask nothing, I
need nothing, I love no one, unless it is yourself alone. [He kisses her
head] I had a nurse just like you when I was a child.

MARINA. Don't you want a bite of something to eat?

ASTROFF. No. During the third week of Lent I went to the epidemic at
Malitskoi. It was eruptive typhoid. The peasants were all lying side by
side in their huts, and the calves and pigs were running about the floor
among the sick. Such dirt there was, and smoke! Unspeakable! I slaved
among those people all day, not a crumb passed my lips, but when I got
home there was still no rest for me; a switchman was carried in from the
railroad; I laid him on the operating table and he went and died in
my arms under chloroform, and then my feelings that should have been
deadened awoke again, my conscience tortured me as if I had killed the
man. I sat down and closed my eyes--like this--and thought: will our
descendants two hundred years from now, for whom we are breaking the
road, remember to give us a kind word? No, nurse, they will forget.

MARINA. Man is forgetful, but God remembers.

ASTROFF. Thank you for that. You have spoken the truth.

Enter VOITSKI from the house. He has been asleep after dinner and
looks rather dishevelled. He sits down on the bench and straightens his
collar.

VOITSKI. H'm. Yes. [A pause] Yes.

ASTROFF. Have you been asleep?

VOITSKI. Yes, very much so. [He yawns] Ever since the Professor and his
wife have come, our daily life seems to have jumped the track. I sleep
at the wrong time, drink wine, and eat all sorts of messes for luncheon
and dinner. It isn't wholesome. Sonia and I used to work together and
never had an idle moment, but now Sonia works alone and I only eat and
drink and sleep. Something is wrong.

MARINA. [Shaking her head] Such a confusion in the house! The Professor
gets up at twelve, the samovar is kept boiling all the morning, and
everything has to wait for him. Before they came we used to have dinner
at one o'clock, like everybody else, but now we have it at seven. The
Professor sits up all night writing and reading, and suddenly, at two
o'clock, there goes the bell! Heavens, what is that? The Professor wants
some tea! Wake the servants, light the samovar! Lord, what disorder!

ASTROFF. Will they be here long?

VOITSKI. A hundred years! The Professor has decided to make his home
here.

MARINA. Look at this now! The samovar has been on the table for two
hours, and they are all out walking!

VOITSKI. All right, don't get excited; here they come.

Voices are heard approaching. SEREBRAKOFF, HELENA, SONIA, and TELEGIN
come in from the depths of the garden, returning from their walk.

SEREBRAKOFF. Superb! Superb! What beautiful views!

TELEGIN. They are wonderful, your Excellency.

SONIA. To-morrow we shall go into the woods, shall we, papa?

VOITSKI. Ladies and gentlemen, tea is ready.

SEREBRAKOFF. Won't you please be good enough to send my tea into the
library? I still have some work to finish.

SONIA. I am sure you will love the woods.

HELENA, SEREBRAKOFF, and SONIA go into the house. TELEGIN sits down at
the table beside MARINA.

VOITSKI. There goes our learned scholar on a hot, sultry day like this,
in his overcoat and goloshes and carrying an umbrella!

ASTROFF. He is trying to take good care of his health.

VOITSKI. How lovely she is! How lovely! I have never in my life seen a
more beautiful woman.

TELEGIN. Do you know, Marina, that as I walk in the fields or in
the shady garden, as I look at this table here, my heart swells with
unbounded happiness. The weather is enchanting, the birds are singing,
we are all living in peace and contentment--what more could the soul
desire? [Takes a glass of tea.]

VOITSKI. [Dreaming] Such eyes--a glorious woman!

ASTROFF. Come, Ivan, tell us something.

VOITSKI. [Indolently] What shall I tell you?

ASTROFF. Haven't you any news for us?

VOITSKI. No, it is all stale. I am just the same as usual, or perhaps
worse, because I have become lazy. I don't do anything now but croak
like an old raven. My mother, the old magpie, is still chattering about
the emancipation of woman, with one eye on her grave and the other on
her learned books, in which she is always looking for the dawn of a new
life.

ASTROFF. And the Professor?

VOITSKI. The Professor sits in his library from morning till night, as
usual--

   "Straining the mind, wrinkling the brow,
    We write, write, write,
    Without respite
    Or hope of praise in the future or now."

Poor paper! He ought to write his autobiography; he would make a
really splendid subject for a book! Imagine it, the life of a retired
professor, as stale as a piece of hardtack, tortured by gout, headaches,
and rheumatism, his liver bursting with jealousy and envy, living on the
estate of his first wife, although he hates it, because he can't afford
to live in town. He is everlastingly whining about his hard lot, though,
as a matter of fact, he is extraordinarily lucky. He is the son of
a common deacon and has attained the professor's chair, become the
son-in-law of a senator, is called "your Excellency," and so on. But
I'll tell you something; the man has been writing on art for twenty-five
years, and he doesn't know the very first thing about it. For
twenty-five years he has been chewing on other men's thoughts about
realism, naturalism, and all such foolishness; for twenty-five years he
has been reading and writing things that clever men have long known and
stupid ones are not interested in; for twenty-five years he has been
making his imaginary mountains out of molehills. And just think of the
man's self-conceit and presumption all this time! For twenty-five years
he has been masquerading in false clothes and has now retired absolutely
unknown to any living soul; and yet see him! stalking across the earth
like a demi-god!

ASTROFF. I believe you envy him.

VOITSKI. Yes, I do. Look at the success he has had with women! Don Juan
himself was not more favoured. His first wife, who was my sister, was
a beautiful, gentle being, as pure as the blue heaven there above us,
noble, great-hearted, with more admirers than he has pupils, and she
loved him as only beings of angelic purity can love those who are as
pure and beautiful as themselves. His mother-in-law, my mother, adores
him to this day, and he still inspires a sort of worshipful awe in her.
His second wife is, as you see, a brilliant beauty; she married him in
his old age and has surrendered all the glory of her beauty and freedom
to him. Why? What for?

ASTROFF. Is she faithful to him?

VOITSKI. Yes, unfortunately she is.

ASTROFF. Why unfortunately?

VOITSKI. Because such fidelity is false and unnatural, root and branch.
It sounds well, but there is no logic in it. It is thought immoral for a
woman to deceive an old husband whom she hates, but quite moral for her
to strangle her poor youth in her breast and banish every vital desire
from her heart.

TELEGIN. [In a tearful voice] Vanya, I don't like to hear you talk so.
Listen, Vanya; every one who betrays husband or wife is faithless, and
could also betray his country.

VOITSKI. [Crossly] Turn off the tap, Waffles.

TELEGIN. No, allow me, Vanya. My wife ran away with a lover on the day
after our wedding, because my exterior was unprepossessing. I have never
failed in my duty since then. I love her and am true to her to this day.
I help her all I can and have given my fortune to educate the daughter
of herself and her lover. I have forfeited my happiness, but I have kept
my pride. And she? Her youth has fled, her beauty has faded according to
the laws of nature, and her lover is dead. What has she kept?

HELENA and SONIA come in; after them comes MME. VOITSKAYA carrying a
book. She sits down and begins to read. Some one hands her a glass of
tea which she drinks without looking up.

SONIA. [Hurriedly, to the nurse] There are some peasants waiting out
there. Go and see what they want. I shall pour the tea. [Pours out some
glasses of tea.]

MARINA goes out. HELENA takes a glass and sits drinking in the hammock.

ASTROFF. I have come to see your husband. You wrote me that he had
rheumatism and I know not what else, and that he was very ill, but he
appears to be as lively as a cricket.

HELENA. He had a fit of the blues yesterday evening and complained of
pains in his legs, but he seems all right again to-day.

ASTROFF. And I galloped over here twenty miles at break-neck speed! No
matter, though, it is not the first time. Once here, however, I am going
to stay until to-morrow, and at any rate sleep _quantum satis._

SONIA. Oh, splendid! You so seldom spend the night with us. Have you had
dinner yet?

ASTROFF. No.

SONIA. Good. So you will have it with us. We dine at seven now. [Drinks
her tea] This tea is cold!

TELEGIN. Yes, the samovar has grown cold.

HELENA. Don't mind, Monsieur Ivan, we will drink cold tea, then.

TELEGIN. I beg your pardon, my name is not Ivan, but Ilia, ma'am--Ilia
Telegin, or Waffles, as I am sometimes called on account of my
pock-marked face. I am Sonia's godfather, and his Excellency, your
husband, knows me very well. I now live with you, ma'am, on this estate,
and perhaps you will be so good as to notice that I dine with you every
day.

SONIA. He is our great help, our right-hand man. [Tenderly] Dear
godfather, let me pour you some tea.

MME. VOITSKAYA. Oh! Oh!

SONIA. What is it, grandmother?

MME. VOITSKAYA. I forgot to tell Alexander--I have lost my memory--I
received a letter to-day from Paul Alexevitch in Kharkoff. He has sent
me a new pamphlet.

ASTROFF. Is it interesting?

MME. VOITSKAYA. Yes, but strange. He refutes the very theories which he
defended seven years ago. It is appalling!

VOITSKI. There is nothing appalling about it. Drink your tea, mamma.

MME. VOITSKAYA. It seems you never want to listen to what I have to say.
Pardon me, Jean, but you have changed so in the last year that I
hardly know you. You used to be a man of settled convictions and had an
illuminating personality----

VOITSKI. Oh, yes. I had an illuminating personality, which illuminated
no one. [A pause] I had an illuminating personality! You couldn't say
anything more biting. I am forty-seven years old. Until last year I
endeavoured, as you do now, to blind my eyes by your pedantry to the
truths of life. But now--Oh, if you only knew! If you knew how I lie
awake at night, heartsick and angry, to think how stupidly I have wasted
my time when I might have been winning from life everything which my old
age now forbids.

SONIA. Uncle Vanya, how dreary!

MME. VOITSKAYA. [To her son] You speak as if your former convictions
were somehow to blame, but you yourself, not they, were at fault. You
have forgotten that a conviction, in itself, is nothing but a dead
letter. You should have done something.

VOITSKI. Done something! Not every man is capable of being a writer
_perpetuum mobile_ like your Herr Professor.

MME. VOITSKAYA. What do you mean by that?

SONIA. [Imploringly] Mother! Uncle Vanya! I entreat you!

VOITSKI. I am silent. I apologise and am silent. [A pause.]

HELENA. What a fine day! Not too hot. [A pause.]

VOITSKI. A fine day to hang oneself.

TELEGIN tunes the guitar. MARINA appears near the house, calling the
chickens.

MARINA. Chick, chick, chick!

SONIA. What did the peasants want, nurse?

MARINA. The same old thing, the same old nonsense. Chick, chick, chick!

SONIA. Why are you calling the chickens?

MARINA. The speckled hen has disappeared with her chicks. I am afraid
the crows have got her.

TELEGIN plays a polka. All listen in silence. Enter WORKMAN.

WORKMAN. Is the doctor here? [To ASTROFF] Excuse me, sir, but I have
been sent to fetch you.

ASTROFF. Where are you from?

WORKMAN. The factory.

ASTROFF. [Annoyed] Thank you. There is nothing for it, then, but to go.
[Looking around him for his cap] Damn it, this is annoying!

SONIA. Yes, it is too bad, really. You must come back to dinner from the
factory.

ASTROFF. No, I won't be able to do that. It will be too late. Now where,
where--[To the WORKMAN] Look here, my man, get me a glass of vodka, will
you? [The WORKMAN goes out] Where--where--[Finds his cap] One of the
characters in Ostroff's plays is a man with a long moustache and short
wits, like me. However, let me bid you good-bye, ladies and gentlemen.
[To HELENA] I should be really delighted if you would come to see me
some day with Miss Sonia. My estate is small, but if you are interested
in such things I should like to show you a nursery and seed-bed whose
like you will not find within a thousand miles of here. My place is
surrounded by government forests. The forester is old and always ailing,
so I superintend almost all the work myself.

HELENA. I have always heard that you were very fond of the woods. Of
course one can do a great deal of good by helping to preserve them, but
does not that work interfere with your real calling?

ASTROFF. God alone knows what a man's real calling is.

HELENA. And do you find it interesting?

ASTROFF. Yes, very.

VOITSKI. [Sarcastically] Oh, extremely!

HELENA. You are still young, not over thirty-six or seven, I should say,
and I suspect that the woods do not interest you as much as you say they
do. I should think you would find them monotonous.

SONIA. No, the work is thrilling. Dr. Astroff watches over the old woods
and sets out new plantations every year, and he has already received a
diploma and a bronze medal. If you will listen to what he can tell you,
you will agree with him entirely. He says that forests are the ornaments
of the earth, that they teach mankind to understand beauty and attune
his mind to lofty sentiments. Forests temper a stern climate, and in
countries where the climate is milder, less strength is wasted in the
battle with nature, and the people are kind and gentle. The inhabitants
of such countries are handsome, tractable, sensitive, graceful in speech
and gesture. Their philosophy is joyous, art and science blossom among
them, their treatment of women is full of exquisite nobility----

VOITSKI. [Laughing] Bravo! Bravo! All that is very pretty, but it is
also unconvincing. So, my friend [To ASTROFF] you must let me go on
burning firewood in my stoves and building my sheds of planks.

ASTROFF. You can burn peat in your stoves and build your sheds of stone.
Oh, I don't object, of course, to cutting wood from necessity, but why
destroy the forests? The woods of Russia are trembling under the blows
of the axe. Millions of trees have perished. The homes of the wild
animals and birds have been desolated; the rivers are shrinking, and
many beautiful landscapes are gone forever. And why? Because men are too
lazy and stupid to stoop down and pick up their fuel from the ground.
[To HELENA] Am I not right, Madame? Who but a stupid barbarian could
burn so much beauty in his stove and destroy that which he cannot make?
Man is endowed with reason and the power to create, so that he may
increase that which has been given him, but until now he has not
created, but demolished. The forests are disappearing, the rivers are
running dry, the game is exterminated, the climate is spoiled, and the
earth becomes poorer and uglier every day. [To VOITSKI] I read irony in
your eye; you do not take what I am saying seriously, and--and--after
all, it may very well be nonsense. But when I pass peasant-forests
that I have preserved from the axe, or hear the rustling of the young
plantations set out with my own hands, I feel as if I had had some small
share in improving the climate, and that if mankind is happy a thousand
years from now I will have been a little bit responsible for their
happiness. When I plant a little birch tree and then see it budding
into young green and swaying in the wind, my heart swells with pride and
I--[Sees the WORKMAN, who is bringing him a glass of vodka on a tray]
however--[He drinks] I must be off. Probably it is all nonsense, anyway.
Good-bye.

He goes toward the house. SONIA takes his arm and goes with him.

SONIA. When are you coming to see us again?

ASTROFF. I can't say.

SONIA. In a month?

ASTROFF and SONIA go into the house. HELENA and VOITSKI walk over to the
terrace.

HELENA. You have behaved shockingly again. Ivan, what sense was there
in teasing your mother and talking about _perpetuum mobile?_ And at
breakfast you quarreled with Alexander again. Really, your behaviour is
too petty.

VOITSKI. But if I hate him?

HELENA. You hate Alexander without reason; he is like every one else,
and no worse than you are.

VOITSKI. If you could only see your face, your gestures! Oh, how tedious
your life must be.

HELENA. It is tedious, yes, and dreary! You all abuse my husband and
look on me with compassion; you think, "Poor woman, she is married to
an old man." How well I understand your compassion! As Astroff said just
now, see how you thoughtlessly destroy the forests, so that there will
soon be none left. So you also destroy mankind, and soon fidelity and
purity and self-sacrifice will have vanished with the woods. Why cannot
you look calmly at a woman unless she is yours? Because, the doctor
was right, you are all possessed by a devil of destruction; you have no
mercy on the woods or the birds or on women or on one another.

VOITSKI. I don't like your philosophy.

HELENA. That doctor has a sensitive, weary face--an interesting face.
Sonia evidently likes him, and she is in love with him, and I can
understand it. This is the third time he has been here since I have
come, and I have not had a real talk with him yet or made much of him.
He thinks I am disagreeable. Do you know, Ivan, the reason you and I are
such friends? I think it is because we are both lonely and unfortunate.
Yes, unfortunate. Don't look at me in that way, I don't like it.

VOITSKI. How can I look at you otherwise when I love you? You are my
joy, my life, and my youth. I know that my chances of being loved in
return are infinitely small, do not exist, but I ask nothing of you.
Only let me look at you, listen to your voice--

HELENA. Hush, some one will overhear you.

[They go toward the house.]

VOITSKI. [Following her] Let me speak to you of my love, do not drive me
away, and this alone will be my greatest happiness!

HELENA. Ah! This is agony!

TELEGIN strikes the strings of his guitar and plays a polka. MME.
VOITSKAYA writes something on the leaves of her pamphlet.

The curtain falls.

The scene is a garden with a country house in the distance. It is mid-afternoon. Marina, an elderly woman, is knitting. Michael Astrov, a doctor, approaches her. Marina asks if he would like a drink, and Astrov declines. She reminisces about when he first came to these parts, and comments that he looks much older now. Astrov sighs that he is overworked and surrounded by the oddest people, which makes one turn odd themselves. He feels that he still has his wits, but he rues that he cares for nothing and no one. He does kiss her head, though, and smiles that he is fond of her. Astrov continues to talk about what he's seen, particularly a typhus epidemic and how, when he got home, a railwayman was brought in and died right on his table. The weight of guilt at not being able to save the man crushes him; he laments that, when he and everyone else is gone hundreds of years from now, people will not remember them. Marina comforts him by saying that God will remember. Voynitsky , looking disheveled and sleepy after a nap, joins them. He complains that since the professor and his wife arrived, the house has been turned upside down. Sonya works and he does nothing, but the schedule is completely different. Marina adds her complaints about the professor's whims and how she has to put the samovar on at random hours. Astrov asks how long they are staying; Vanya jokes wryly that they will be there for a hundred years. The professor, Serebryakov, his young and lovely second wife Helen, his daughter Sonya from his first marriage , and Telegin, an elderly landowner and Sonya's godfather, come down into the garden and join them. Serebryakov compliments the scenery and then asks for tea to be sent to the study. He, his wife, and his daughter retire into the house. Vanya mocks the professor's excessive clothing on this warm day, but he gushes over Helen's beauty. Astrov tries to get Vanya to talk about what is going on in the house now, and Vanya only grumbles that he is lazy and that his mother complains all day and gets her head in a tizzy about women's rights. As for the professor, he suffers from a myriad of ailments but spends his time writing and living off his first wife's estate. He knows nothing about the art he writes about, and he seems to get too many lucky breaks. Vanya adds that his brother-in-law simply writes about things that all smart people already know--"in other words he's spent twenty-five years chasing his own shadow" . Astrov comments that perhaps Vanya is jealous, and Vanya laughs blackly that of course he is. He doesn't understand Serebryakov's success with women: he married Vanya's sister; his mother still likes him; and now he is married to the beautiful Helen. Astrov asks if Helen is faithful to Serebryakov, and remarks that it seems incredibly ridiculous. Telegin whines that Vanya shouldn't criticize someone who is faithful to a spouse because being unfaithful could lead to being unfaithful to one's country. Vanya, irritated, tells him to be quiet. Telegin tearfully tells them of his own wife's unfaithfulness. Now, however, she has lost her looks and her lover is dead: she has nothing, while he still has his pride. Sonya and Helen return along with Mrs. Voynitsky, and Sonya hurriedly asks Marina if she can see what new visitors to the house want. Astrov tells Helen that he's come to see her husband but she says that he is fine now. Astrov decides to stay the night; Sonya tells him she is glad, and that he can eat with them. Telegin volunteers that the samovar is cold now, and Helen, referring to him as "Mr. Galetin," tells him not to worry. He corrects her, and Sonya tells Helen that Telegin is a great help to them here. Mrs. Voynitsky speaks up to tell her son about a pamphlet from Kharkov, and how it is odd because the man reversed his opinions. Vanya rolls his eyes and says they ought to stop talking about pamphlets. Mrs. Voynitsky is offended by her son's behavior, but Vanya does not care. He is forty-seven and no longer feels like he knows what to do with himself, and he cannot sleep at night because he is angry and frustrated with his wasted life. His mother chides him that he is the only one to blame and that if he wanted to do something, he should have done it. Vanya scoffs that they aren't all "non-stop writing machines like the learned professor" . Sonya begs them to stop bickering, and they fall silent. Helen comments that it is a perfect day. Vanya retorts that it is a perfect day to hang oneself. When Marina returns, she tells Sonya that the village people wanted to talk about the wasted land. A laborer comes up to them asking for the doctor because there is an issue at the factory. Grumbling, Astrov gets up to leave. He addresses Sonya and Helen, telling them that there is a government forest reserve next to his estate and that it is somewhat of a showpiece. If they want to come, he says, he will show them around. Helen smiles that she has heard of his fondness for forestry work, and asks if it interferes with his "real business" . Astrov wryly asks what life's real business really is, but comments that forestry is interesting work. Helen is surprised someone as young as he is so interested in something as dull as trees. Sonya interjects and says that it is very interesting, and that Astrov is trying to save the forest from destruction. She explains that Astrov always says, "forest are the glory of our earth, that they teach man to appreciate beauty and give him a sense of grandeur" . Vanya laughs and says he'll keep burning his logs and building wooden barns. Astrov responds that, yes, he can cut timber, but why ruin all the forests? Russia is losing millions of trees and the scenery has changed. Man is not a creator but merely a destroyer: he ruins forests and rivers, wildlife is destroyed, the climate is changing, and everything grows uglier. Astrov is proud of what he has saved. Sonya walks him out, asking when he will return. Helen and Vanya start walking and she chastises him for his rudeness and for the way he treats her husband. He comments that he hates him, and then he muses that she seems to move as if she were bored and life were too much. She admits that she is bored but that men always feel sorry for women because they have a demon of destruction in them and feel upset when they see a woman who doesn't belong to them. She pauses and comments that Sonya is obviously in love with the doctor and that, although he is high-strung, he is attractive. He does not seem to like her, she muses, but she and Vanya get along so well because they are both "abysmal bores" . Vanya feverishly proclaims his love for her, but she shushes him and tells him that he is simply too much. Telegin plays the guitar in the background.

Chekhov's Uncle Vanya is comprised of four acts. Although the subtitle of the play suggests it will concern "scenes of country life," that's only partially accurate. The play is indeed set on a country estate at the end of the 19th century, but there are few scenes that provide any insight into what the lived experience of people in the Russian countryside might be. Instead, the play is mostly concerned with the squabbles, complaints, and thwarted dreams of the middle-class characters. By the end of the play, little to nothing has happened; everything returns to the status quo. Even a dramatic attempted murder ends with the proverbial whimper rather than a bang. For theatergoers at the time of its staging, this was remarkably aberrant. As scholar Ronald Hingley notes in his introduction to an edition of Chekhov's plays, "we shall do better to look neither for tragedy nor comedy, but to realize that we have entered a strange anti-climactic, anti-romantic, anti-dramatic world such has never existed on the stage before Chekhov, a world with its own laws, its own dimensions, its own brand of humor." Rosamund Bartlett described it as a "play about a group of unremarkable individuals who seemingly randomly enter and leave, after holding desultory conversations which invariably degenerate into arguments" and "is neither tragedy nor farce." What, then, is Uncle Vanya about? Despite its lack of a traditional plot structure, the play does establish a few points of contention. In Act I, we meet Astrov, a country doctor who is bitterly aware of the intellectual limitations of his job. He expresses derision of the people whom he treats and wonders if anyone will ever remember the work he did. However, unlike Vanya, he manages to exhibit some feeling, telling Marina about a man he could not save and how "I felt guilty as if I'd murdered the man" . Astrov also extols the merits of his forestry reserve, offering an impassioned account of how Russians do not create but only destroy, and how this destruction results in both devastation of the environment and the Russian character. Astrov's labors are noble, but he does not succeed in convincing anyone else  that his work invites emulation. If the title didn't already suggest it, it becomes clear that the play really belongs to Voynitsky, or Vanya. Vanya struggles with both his life as a whole and with the particular dynamic that results from Serebryakov and Helen being at the estate in person; their presence provokes and exacerbates his general feelings of unhappiness, lack of fulfillment, and exhaustion. Although Vanya normally works hard on the estate, being face-to-face with his brother-in-law and Helen renders him only able to "sleep, eat, and drink" . He is bitterly jealous of Serebryakov--not only for the women he attracts, but also for the fact that Serebryakov has been successful as a writer and scholar while he, Vanya, has not done anything of note. Vanya excoriates the lack of originality in Serebryakov's ideas and claims that he is "totally obscure" and " spent twenty-five years chasing his own shadow" . Ironically, one of the things that Vanya has in common with Serebryakov is his fixation on his age. Vanya bemoans the fact that he is almost fifty, whining "I can't sleep at night for frustration and anger at the stupid way I've wasted time when I might have had everything I can't have now because I'm too old" . Towards the end of the play, he even claims that he could have been a Dostoevsky or Schopenhauer if not for Serebryakov's diversion of his talents. In response to the first statement, Vanya's mother rightfully chastises him" "You're forgetting that principles on their own don't mean anything. You should have done something" . Mrs. Voynitsky's advice could be applied to nearly all the characters, as they are prone to blaming others for their problems without taking into account their own behavior. Chekhov isn't entirely dismissive of them, though, and renders them both critically and sympathetically. They are prisoners of societal expectations, their own characteristics and viewpoints, and the vapidity of parochial existence.

Act I opens on a muggy autumn afternoon in the garden of Professor Serebryakov's estate. Marina, an old nanny, sits knitting by a samovar as Astrov, the country doctor, paces back and forth. Astrov reminisces about the time when he first came to the region, a time when Vera Petrovna--Serebryakov's first wife and mother to his daughter Sonya--was still alive. Marina notes that since then Astrov has lost his good looks, started to show signs of age, and taken to drinking. Astrov then goes into an extended speech about his "boring, stupid, sordid" life, a life in which he is overworked and surrounded by "eccentric people". As a result, his feelings are "dead to the world": Astrov needs nothing, wants nothing, and loves no one. Refusing Marina's offer of food, Astrov then recounts how he went to Malitskoe over Lent to treat an epidemic of spotted typhus. One of his patients died while under chloroform, and he is plagued with guilt. Astrov also laments that future generations will not bother to remember those living in the present. Marina comforts him: God will remember. Voynitsky , Serebryakov's brother-in-law by his marriage to Vera Petrovna and caretaker of the estate, then enters yawning. He complains that the professor and his wife, having recently relocated to the estate from the city, have thrown the estate out of kilter, drawing everyone into sleep, boredom, and lethargy. Marina concurs, bemoaning the disruption of their dining schedule. Suddenly Serebryakov,--ridiculously over-dressed in an overcoat, a pair of galoshes, and a pair of gloves--his current young wife Yelena, Sonya, and Telegin, an impoverished landowner dubbed "Waffles" for his pockmarked face, return from a stroll. Speaking of plans to visit a forest preserve, the party enters the house; Telegin joins the group in the garden. Dreamily Voynitsky sighs about Yelena's beauty. When Astrov reproaches him for not joining the conversation, Voynitsky replies listlessly that he has nothing to say, that he has grown old and lazy. Bitterly, he goes on to caricaturize the other members of the household. His mother, Maria, is a "lazy old crow" who has "one eye fastened on the grave" and the other fixed on her pamphlets "for the dawn of a new life." The professor is an "old, dried up biscuit, a learned, smoke-cured fish", a pompous charlatan of an art historian who knows nothing about art and has already faded into obscurity. Indeed, Serebryakov has spent his life "pouring from one empty pot into the next"--the empty pot of this joke referring to the vacant bodies of his mind, ideas, works, and students. When Astrov remarks that Voynitsky seems to envy Serebryakov, he readily concurs. In particular, Voynitsky envies Serebryakov's success with women: the examples he adduces are his angelic late sister, his mother , and the beautiful Yelena. He then points out the illogic of Yelena's fidelity to her dottering, decrepit husband. He questiones how it can be moral to deny one's vitality and youth while immoral to deceive a husband one despises. Voynitsky's remarks almost reduce Telegin to tears. Apparently his wife deserted him the day after their wedding because of his "unprepossessing appearance." "Waffles" has remained faithful, however, supporting the children she has had by her lover. Though miserable, he has retained his pride, while his wife has grown old, and her lover has died.

As one might have noticed, most of the characters of Uncle Vanya are consumed with lethargy, boredom, and regret over their disappointing lives, mourning years they have wasted in drudgery and the ways in which their fates might have been different. To recall Voynitsky's description of his mother, the characters here are half-dead with bitterness and hopeless seek the renewal of their lives. Their malaise is reflected in the mugginess of the afternoon; indeed, Voynitsky will remark in the following scene that in such "lovely weather" one could hang oneself. Astrov introduces this theme of the wasted life in two extended speeches. Notably Astrov describes being surrounded by "eccentric people" and then, in the course of his disappointing life, becoming "strange" himself. This motif of estrangement--referring to a sense of alienation from not only those around you but from yourself as well--will recur in relation to the aging doctor. Astrov's becoming strange to himself over the years is materialized here by his "colossal" and "asinine" moustache--a moustache utterly foreign to his own self-concept. One might also note that the motif of self-estrangement describes Astrov's constant introspection as well. To some extent, the self-reflection he undertakes requires that he "make himself strange", that he distance himself from what is conventionally considered the most familiar--one's inner life. This self-estrangement is matched by the distance Astrov takes from the world around him when brooding. Though ostensibly addressed to Marina, his speeches seem to proceed entirely without their manifest listener in mind. Note how Astrov suddenly remembers that Marina is next to him at the end of his first speech  and then rambles off into a memory of his childhood nanny. Also of interest is Astrov's story of the patient who dies while anesthetized. A few lines above, Astrov relates how his feelings have become dead to the world, how he no longer needs, wants, or loves. This numbness is tantamount to a kind of anesthesia: thus we can consider the dead patient Astrov's double, and, indeed, Astrov himself might be aware of this doubling. Tellingly, his "feelings  back again" when the patient dies. As he confesses: "I was tortured so much by my conscience I felt that I'd deliberately killed him. " One could argue then that Astrov "kills"--albeit accidentally--the anesthetized patient, which doubles for ending his own anesthetizing in order to feel again, even if that feeing is one of guilt. Speeches such as Astrov's will recur throughout Uncle Vanya, the inner life of the characters constantly standing to release a torrent of unhappy introspection. In reading these artificially long speeches, however, we should keep in mind that they burst through the surface of a realistic, everyday context--indeed, a dialogue, action, and setting defined by banality and petty detail. Recall, for example, the anecdote of the dining schedule or Voynitsky's famous understated entrance: " Yes Yes" One might also recall here that the name "Vanya" is as common as "Jack" or "John" in English. Such use of banality helps to compose the very particular malaise described above, the misery in passing through the course of the everyday. Indeed, as we will see, everyday routine will ultimately subsume the changes in the characters' lives that their speeches might seem to foreshadow. Chekhov's petty details lend themselves to comedy as well: the humor in Voynitsky's entrance is clear. Thus we cannot close this discussion without noting how the tragedy of these first scenes is interlaced with comic elements . There are a number of obvious examples of humor here: the "unprepossessing" Telegin or "Waffles" is held up for ridicule. Voynitsky's caricatures of his mother and the professor are hilarious, posing him as a sort of bitterly comic misanthrope, the character who explicitly and insightfully points out the miserable nature of those around him.There also appears some subtle moments of humor. For example, when Marina offers Astrov something to eat after his first speech, she perhaps both ironizes his endless oratory and reveals herself as oblivious to these ruminations in her blind religious faith. Such an ironic interpretation of dialogue would find new voices in Chekhov's text alongside its manifestly tragic content: in this case, voices that criticize an indulgence in introspection as well as a simple-minded religiosity. In blending the tragic and comic, Uncle Vanya allows for endless flights of fancy along these lines.


ACT II

The dining-room of SEREBRAKOFF'S house. It is night. The tapping of the
WATCHMAN'S rattle is heard in the garden. SEREBRAKOFF is dozing in an
arm-chair by an open window and HELENA is sitting beside him, also half
asleep.

SEREBRAKOFF. [Rousing himself] Who is here? Is it you, Sonia?

HELENA. It is I.

SEREBRAKOFF. Oh, it is you, Nelly. This pain is intolerable.

HELENA. Your shawl has slipped down. [She wraps up his legs in the
shawl] Let me shut the window.

SEREBRAKOFF. No, leave it open; I am suffocating. I dreamt just now that
my left leg belonged to some one else, and it hurt so that I woke. I
don't believe this is gout, it is more like rheumatism. What time is it?

HELENA. Half past twelve. [A pause.]

SEREBRAKOFF. I want you to look for Batushka's works in the library
to-morrow. I think we have him.

HELENA. What is that?

SEREBRAKOFF. Look for Batushka to-morrow morning; we used to have him, I
remember. Why do I find it so hard to breathe?

HELENA. You are tired; this is the second night you have had no sleep.

SEREBRAKOFF. They say that Turgenieff got angina of the heart from gout.
I am afraid I am getting angina too. Oh, damn this horrible, accursed
old age! Ever since I have been old I have been hateful to myself, and I
am sure, hateful to you all as well.

HELENA. You speak as if we were to blame for your being old.

SEREBRAKOFF. I am more hateful to you than to any one.

HELENA gets up and walks away from him, sitting down at a distance.

SEREBRAKOFF. You are quite right, of course. I am not an idiot; I can
understand you. You are young and healthy and beautiful, and longing for
life, and I am an old dotard, almost a dead man already. Don't I know
it? Of course I see that it is foolish for me to live so long, but wait!
I shall soon set you all free. My life cannot drag on much longer.

HELENA. You are overtaxing my powers of endurance. Be quiet, for God's
sake!

SEREBRAKOFF. It appears that, thanks to me, everybody's power of
endurance is being overtaxed; everybody is miserable, only I am
blissfully triumphant. Oh, yes, of course!

HELENA. Be quiet! You are torturing me.

SEREBRAKOFF. I torture everybody. Of course.

HELENA. [Weeping] This is unbearable! Tell me, what is it you want me to
do?

SEREBRAKOFF. Nothing.

HELENA. Then be quiet, please.

SEREBRAKOFF. It is funny that everybody listens to Ivan and his old
idiot of a mother, but the moment I open my lips you all begin to feel
ill-treated. You can't even stand the sound of my voice. Even if I am
hateful, even if I am a selfish tyrant, haven't I the right to be one
at my age? Haven't I deserved it? Haven't I, I ask you, the right to be
respected, now that I am old?

HELENA. No one is disputing your rights. [The window slams in the wind]
The wind is rising, I must shut the window. [She shuts it] We shall have
rain in a moment. Your rights have never been questioned by anybody.

The WATCHMAN in the garden sounds his rattle.

SEREBRAKOFF. I have spent my life working in the interests of learning.
I am used to my library and the lecture hall and to the esteem and
admiration of my colleagues. Now I suddenly find myself plunged in this
wilderness, condemned to see the same stupid people from morning till
night and listen to their futile conversation. I want to live; I long
for success and fame and the stir of the world, and here I am in exile!
Oh, it is dreadful to spend every moment grieving for the lost past, to
see the success of others and sit here with nothing to do but to fear
death. I cannot stand it! It is more than I can bear. And you will not
even forgive me for being old!

HELENA. Wait, have patience; I shall be old myself in four or five
years.

SONIA comes in.

SONIA. Father, you sent for Dr. Astroff, and now when he comes you
refuse to see him. It is not nice to give a man so much trouble for
nothing.

SEREBRAKOFF. What do I care about your Astroff? He understands medicine
about as well as I understand astronomy.

SONIA. We can't send for the whole medical faculty, can we, to treat
your gout?

SEREBRAKOFF. I won't talk to that madman!

SONIA. Do as you please. It's all the same to me. [She sits down.]

SEREBRAKOFF. What time is it?

HELENA. One o'clock.

SEREBRAKOFF. It is stifling in here. Sonia, hand me that bottle on the
table.

SONIA. Here it is. [She hands him a bottle of medicine.]

SEREBRAKOFF. [Crossly] No, not that one! Can't you understand me? Can't
I ask you to do a thing?

SONIA. Please don't be captious with me. Some people may like it, but
you must spare me, if you please, because I don't. Besides, I haven't
the time; we are cutting the hay to-morrow and I must get up early.

VOITSKI comes in dressed in a long gown and carrying a candle.

VOITSKI. A thunderstorm is coming up. [The lightning flashes] There it
is! Go to bed, Helena and Sonia. I have come to take your place.

SEREBRAKOFF. [Frightened] No, n-o, no! Don't leave me alone with him!
Oh, don't. He will begin to lecture me.

VOITSKI. But you must give them a little rest. They have not slept for
two nights.

SEREBRAKOFF. Then let them go to bed, but you go away too! Thank you. I
implore you to go. For the sake of our former friendship do not protest
against going. We will talk some other time----

VOITSKI. Our former friendship! Our former----

SONIA. Hush, Uncle Vanya!

SEREBRAKOFF. [To his wife] My darling, don't leave me alone with him. He
will begin to lecture me.

VOITSKI. This is ridiculous.

MARINA comes in carrying a candle.

SONIA. You must go to bed, nurse, it is late.

MARINA. I haven't cleared away the tea things. Can't go to bed yet.

SEREBRAKOFF. No one can go to bed. They are all worn out, only I enjoy
perfect happiness.

MARINA. [Goes up to SEREBRAKOFF and speaks tenderly] What's the
matter, master? Does it hurt? My own legs are aching too, oh, so badly.
[Arranges his shawl about his legs] You have had this illness such a
long time. Sonia's dead mother used to stay awake with you too, and wear
herself out for you. She loved you dearly. [A pause] Old people want to
be pitied as much as young ones, but nobody cares about them somehow.
[She kisses SEREBRAKOFF'S shoulder] Come, master, let me give you some
linden-tea and warm your poor feet for you. I shall pray to God for you.

SEREBRAKOFF. [Touched] Let us go, Marina.

MARINA. My own feet are aching so badly, oh, so badly! [She and SONIA
lead SEREBRAKOFF out] Sonia's mother used to wear herself out with
sorrow and weeping. You were still little and foolish then, Sonia. Come,
come, master.

SEREBRAKOFF, SONIA and MARINA go out.

HELENA. I am absolutely exhausted by him, and can hardly stand.

VOITSKI. You are exhausted by him, and I am exhausted by my own self. I
have not slept for three nights.

HELENA. Something is wrong in this house. Your mother hates everything
but her pamphlets and the professor; the professor is vexed, he won't
trust me, and fears you; Sonia is angry with her father, and with me,
and hasn't spoken to me for two weeks; I am at the end of my strength,
and have come near bursting into tears at least twenty times to-day.
Something is wrong in this house.

VOITSKI. Leave speculating alone.

HELENA. You are cultured and intelligent, Ivan, and you surely
understand that the world is not destroyed by villains and
conflagrations, but by hate and malice and all this spiteful tattling.
It is your duty to make peace, and not to growl at everything.

VOITSKI. Help me first to make peace with myself. My darling! [Seizes
her hand.]

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

VOITSKI. 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 for ever. 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.

HELENA. 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!

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

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

VOITSKI. Perhaps. Perhaps.

HELENA. Where is the doctor?

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

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

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

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

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

HELENA. [Angrily] Leave me alone! Really, this has become too
disagreeable.

HELENA goes out. A pause.

VOITSKI [Alone] She is gone! I met her first ten years ago, at her
sister's house, when she was seventeen and I was thirty-seven. Why did I
not fall in love with her then and propose to her? It would have been so
easy! And now she would have been my wife. Yes, we would both have been
waked to-night by the thunderstorm, and she would have been frightened,
but I would have held her in my arms and whispered: "Don't be afraid!
I am here." Oh, enchanting dream, so sweet that I laugh to think of it.
[He laughs] But my God! My head reels! Why am I so old? Why won't
she understand me? I hate all that rhetoric of hers, that morality of
indolence, that absurd talk about the destruction of the world----[A
pause] Oh, how I have been deceived! For years I have worshipped that
miserable gout-ridden professor. Sonia and I have squeezed this estate
dry for his sake. We have bartered our butter and curds and peas like
misers, and have never kept a morsel for ourselves, so that we could
scrape enough pennies together to send to him. I was proud of him and
of his learning; I received all his words and writings as inspired, and
now? Now he has retired, and what is the total of his life? A blank! He
is absolutely unknown, and his fame has burst like a soap-bubble. I have
been deceived; I see that now, basely deceived.

ASTROFF comes in. He has his coat on, but is without his waistcoat or
collar, and is slightly drunk. TELEGIN follows him, carrying a guitar.

ASTROFF. Play!

TELEGIN. But every one is asleep.

ASTROFF. Play!

TELEGIN begins to play softly.

ASTROFF. Are you alone here? No women about? [Sings with his arms
akimbo.]

   "The hut is cold, the fire is dead;
    Where shall the master lay his head?"

The thunderstorm woke me. It was a heavy shower. What time is it?

VOITSKI. The devil only knows.

ASTROFF. I thought I heard Helena's voice.

VOITSKI. She was here a moment ago.

ASTROFF. What a beautiful woman! [Looking at the medicine bottles on
the table] Medicine, is it? What a variety we have; prescriptions from
Moscow, from Kharkoff, from Tula! Why, he has been pestering all the
towns of Russia with his gout! Is he ill, or simply shamming?

VOITSKI. He is really ill.

ASTROFF. What is the matter with you to-night? You seem sad. Is it
because you are sorry for the professor?

VOITSKI. Leave me alone.

ASTROFF. Or in love with the professor's wife?

VOITSKI. She is my friend.

ASTROFF. Already?

VOITSKI. What do you mean by "already"?

ASTROFF. A woman can only become a man's friend after having first been
his acquaintance and then his beloved--then she becomes his friend.

VOITSKI. What vulgar philosophy!

ASTROFF. What do you mean? Yes, I must confess I am getting vulgar, but
then, you see, I am drunk. I usually only drink like this once a month.
At such times my audacity and temerity know no bounds. I feel capable
of anything. I attempt the most difficult operations and do them
magnificently. The most brilliant plans for the future take shape in
my head. I am no longer a poor fool of a doctor, but mankind's greatest
benefactor. I evolve my own system of philosophy and all of you seem to
crawl at my feet like so many insects or microbes. [To TELEGIN] Play,
Waffles!

TELEGIN. My dear boy, I would with all my heart, but do listen to
reason; everybody in the house is asleep.

ASTROFF. Play!

TELEGIN plays softly.

ASTROFF. I want a drink. Come, we still have some brandy left. And then,
as soon as it is day, you will come home with me. [He sees SONIA, who
comes in at that moment.]

ASTROFF. I beg your pardon, I have no collar on.

[He goes out quickly, followed by TELEGIN.]

SONIA. Uncle Vanya, you and the doctor have been drinking! The good
fellows have been getting together! It is all very well for him, he has
always done it, but why do you follow his example? It looks dreadfully
at your age.

VOITSKI. Age has nothing to do with it. When real life is wanting one
must create an illusion. It is better than nothing.

SONIA. Our hay is all cut and rotting in these daily rains, and here you
are busy creating illusions! You have given up the farm altogether.
I have done all the work alone until I am at the end of my
strength--[Frightened] Uncle! Your eyes are full of tears!

VOITSKI. Tears? Nonsense, there are no tears in my eyes. You looked at
me then just as your dead mother used to, my darling--[He eagerly kisses
her face and hands] My sister, my dearest sister, where are you now? Ah,
if you only knew, if you only knew!

SONIA. If she only knew what, Uncle?

VOITSKI. My heart is bursting. It is awful. No matter, though. I must
go. [He goes out.]

SONIA. [Knocks at the door] Dr. Astroff! Are you awake? Please come here
for a minute.

ASTROFF. [Behind the door] In a moment.

He appears in a few seconds. He has put on his collar and waistcoat.

ASTROFF. What do you want?

SONIA. Drink as much as you please yourself if you don't find it
revolting, but I implore you not to let my uncle do it. It is bad for
him.

ASTROFF. Very well; we won't drink any more. I am going home at once.
That is settled. It will be dawn by the time the horses are harnessed.

SONIA. It is still raining; wait till morning.

ASTROFF. The storm is blowing over. This is only the edge of it. I must
go. And please don't ask me to come and see your father any more. I tell
him he has gout, and he says it is rheumatism. I tell him to lie down,
and he sits up. To-day he refused to see me at all.

SONIA. He has been spoilt. [She looks in the sideboard] Won't you have a
bite to eat?

ASTROFF. Yes, please. I believe I will.

SONIA. I love to eat at night. I am sure we shall find something in
here. They say that he has made a great many conquests in his life, and
that the women have spoiled him. Here is some cheese for you.

[They stand eating by the sideboard.]

ASTROFF. I haven't eaten anything to-day. Your father has a very
difficult nature. [He takes a bottle out of the sideboard] May I? [He
pours himself a glass of vodka] We are alone here, and I can speak
frankly. Do you know, I could not stand living in this house for even a
month? This atmosphere would stifle me. There is your father, entirely
absorbed in his books, and his gout; there is your Uncle Vanya with his
hypochondria, your grandmother, and finally, your step-mother--

SONIA. What about her?

ASTROFF. A human being should be entirely beautiful: the face, the
clothes, the mind, the thoughts. Your step-mother is, of course,
beautiful to look at, but don't you see? She does nothing but sleep
and eat and walk and bewitch us, and that is all. She has no
responsibilities, everything is done for her--am I not right? And an
idle life can never be a pure one. [A pause] However, I may be judging
her too severely. Like your Uncle Vanya, I am discontented, and so we
are both grumblers.

SONIA. Aren't you satisfied with life?

ASTROFF. I like life as life, but I hate and despise it in a little
Russian country village, and as far as my own personal life goes, by
heaven! there is absolutely no redeeming feature about it. Haven't you
noticed if you are riding through a dark wood at night and see a little
light shining ahead, how you forget your fatigue and the darkness and
the sharp twigs that whip your face? I work, that you know--as no one
else in the country works. Fate beats me on without rest; at times I
suffer unendurably and I see no light ahead. I have no hope; I do not
like people. It is long since I have loved any one.

SONIA. You love no one?

ASTROFF. Not a soul. I only feel a sort of tenderness for your old nurse
for old-times' sake. The peasants are all alike; they are stupid and
live in dirt, and the educated people are hard to get along with. One
gets tired of them. All our good friends are petty and shallow and see
no farther than their own noses; in one word, they are dull. Those that
have brains are hysterical, devoured with a mania for self-analysis.
They whine, they hate, they pick faults everywhere with unhealthy
sharpness. They sneak up to me sideways, look at me out of a corner of
the eye, and say: "That man is a lunatic," "That man is a wind-bag." Or,
if they don't know what else to label me with, they say I am strange. I
like the woods; that is strange. I don't eat meat; that is strange, too.
Simple, natural relations between man and man or man and nature do not
exist. [He tries to go out; SONIA prevents him.]

SONIA. I beg you, I implore you, not to drink any more!

ASTROFF. Why not?

SONIA. It is so unworthy of you. You are well-bred, your voice is sweet,
you are even--more than any one I know--handsome. Why do you want to
resemble the common people that drink and play cards? Oh, don't, I beg
you! You always say that people do not create anything, but only destroy
what heaven has given them. Why, oh, why, do you destroy yourself? Oh,
don't, I implore you not to! I entreat you!

ASTROFF. [Gives her his hand] I won't drink any more.

SONIA. Promise me.

ASTROFF. I give you my word of honour.

SONIA. [Squeezing his hand] Thank you.

ASTROFF. I have done with it. You see, I am perfectly sober again, and
so I shall stay till the end of my life. [He looks his watch] But, as
I was saying, life holds nothing for me; my race is run. I am old, I
am tired, I am trivial; my sensibilities are dead. I could never attach
myself to any one again. I love no one, and never shall! Beauty alone
has the power to touch me still. I am deeply moved by it. Helena could
turn my head in a day if she wanted to, but that is not love, that is
not affection--

[He shudders and covers his face with his hands.]

SONIA. What is it?

ASTROFF. Nothing. During Lent one of my patients died under chloroform.

SONIA. It is time to forget that. [A pause] Tell me, doctor, if I had a
friend or a younger sister, and if you knew that she, well--loved you,
what would you do?

ASTROFF. [Shrugging his shoulders] I don't know. I don't think I should
do anything. I should make her understand that I could not return her
love--however, my mind is not bothered about those things now. I must
start at once if I am ever to get off. Good-bye, my dear girl. At this
rate we shall stand here talking till morning. [He shakes hands with
her] I shall go out through the sitting-room, because I am afraid your
uncle might detain me. [He goes out.]

SONIA. [Alone] Not a word! His heart and soul are still locked from me,
and yet for some reason I am strangely happy. I wonder why? [She laughs
with pleasure] I told him that he was well-bred and handsome and that
his voice was sweet. Was that a mistake? I can still feel his voice
vibrating in the air; it caresses me. [Wringing her hands] Oh! how
terrible it is to be plain! I am plain, I know it. As I came out of
church last Sunday I overheard a woman say, "She is a dear, noble girl,
but what a pity she is so ugly!" So ugly!

HELENA comes in and throws open the window.

HELENA. The storm is over. What delicious air! [A pause] Where is the
doctor?

SONIA. He has gone. [A pause.]

HELENA. Sonia!

SONIA. Yes?

HELENA. How much longer are you going to sulk at me? We have not hurt
each other. Why not be friends? We have had enough of this.

SONIA. I myself--[She embraces HELENA] Let us make peace.

HELENA. With all my heart. [They are both moved.]

SONIA. Has papa gone to bed?

HELENA. No, he is sitting up in the drawing-room. Heaven knows what
reason you and I had for not speaking to each other for weeks. [Sees the
open sideboard] Who left the sideboard open?

SONIA. Dr. Astroff has just had supper.

HELENA. There is some wine. Let us seal our friendship.

SONIA. Yes, let us.

HELENA. Out of one glass. [She fills a wine-glass] So, we are friends,
are we?

SONIA. Yes. [They drink and kiss each other] I have long wanted to make
friends, but somehow, I was ashamed to. [She weeps.]

HELENA. Why are you crying?

SONIA. I don't know. It is nothing.

HELENA. There, there, don't cry. [She weeps] Silly! Now I am crying
too. [A pause] You are angry with me because I seem to have married your
father for his money, but don't believe the gossip you hear. I swear to
you I married him for love. I was fascinated by his fame and learning. I
know now that it was not real love, but it seemed real at the time. I
am innocent, and yet your clever, suspicious eyes have been punishing me
for an imaginary crime ever since my marriage.

SONIA. Peace, peace! Let us forget the past.

HELENA. You must not look so at people. It is not becoming to you. You
must trust people, or life becomes impossible.

SONIA. Tell me truly, as a friend, are you happy?

HELENA. Truly, no.

SONIA. I knew it. One more question: do you wish your husband were
young?

HELENA. What a child you are! Of course I do. Go on, ask something else.

SONIA. Do you like the doctor?

HELENA. Yes, very much indeed.

SONIA. [Laughing] I have a stupid face, haven't I? He has just gone out,
and his voice is still in my ears; I hear his step; I see his face in
the dark window. Let me say all I have in my heart! But no, I cannot
speak of it so loudly. I am ashamed. Come to my room and let me tell you
there. I seem foolish to you, don't I? Talk to me of him.

HELENA. What can I say?

SONIA. He is clever. He can do everything. He can cure the sick, and
plant woods.

HELENA. It is not a question of medicine and woods, my dear, he is a man
of genius. Do you know what that means? It means he is brave, profound,
and of clear insight. He plants a tree and his mind travels a thousand
years into the future, and he sees visions of the happiness of the human
race. People like him are rare and should be loved. What if he does
drink and act roughly at times? A man of genius cannot be a saint in
Russia. There he lives, cut off from the world by cold and storm and
endless roads of bottomless mud, surrounded by a rough people who are
crushed by poverty and disease, his life one continuous struggle, with
never a day's respite; how can a man live like that for forty years and
keep himself sober and unspotted? [Kissing SONIA] I wish you happiness
with all my heart; you deserve it. [She gets up] As for me, I am a
worthless, futile woman. I have always been futile; in music, in love,
in my husband's house--in a word, in everything. When you come to think
of it, Sonia, I am really very, very unhappy. [Walks excitedly up and
down] Happiness can never exist for me in this world. Never. Why do you
laugh?

SONIA. [Laughing and covering her face with her hands] I am so happy, so
happy!

HELENA. I want to hear music. I might play a little.

SONIA. Oh, do, do! [She embraces her] I could not possibly go to sleep
now. Do play!

HELENA. Yes, I will. Your father is still awake. Music irritates him
when he is ill, but if he says I may, then I shall play a little. Go,
Sonia, and ask him.

SONIA. Very well.

[She goes out. The WATCHMAN'S rattle is heard in the garden.]

HELENA. It is long since I have heard music. And now, I shall sit and
play, and weep like a fool. [Speaking out of the window] Is that you
rattling out there, Ephim?

VOICE OF THE WATCHMAN. It is I.

HELENA. Don't make such a noise. Your master is ill.

VOICE OF THE WATCHMAN. I am going away this minute. [Whistles a tune.]

SONIA. [Comes back] He says, no.

The curtain falls.

Serebryakov and Helen doze in the dining room that evening. Serebryakov wakes with a start and grumbles that he feels excruciating pain in his left leg; he thinks that it's probably rheumatism, not gout. He laments the repulsiveness of old age and how no one can stand the sight of him. Helen sighs that his old age is not their fault. He responds bitterly that she is a young and beautiful woman and he is an old man; he says that he clearly understands that she is just waiting for him to free her by dying. Helen responds that she feels faint and asks him to stop talking, which he finds amusing since he is the old one. Helen tears up and asks what he wants from her, and he responds that he does not want anything. He adds that if it were Vanya Voynitsky or his mother talking everyone would listen, but people think that he is boring and disgusting. Helen gets up and shuts the window because it looks like there will be rain. Serebryakov continues to complain about giving his life to scholarship only to end up exiled here, "watching others succeed and going in fear of death" . Helen simply says that in a few years she will be old too. Sonya enters, chiding her father for not seeing Astrov. Serebryakov is unrepentant and calls the doctor a crackpot. Sonya sits down. She explains that she does not like him acting like a child and treating her poorly. Vanya enters and comments on the storm. He announces that he is here to relieve the women, and Serebryakov bursts out that he does not want to be left alone with Vanya because the man will talk his head off. He urges Vanya to leave as well--they can talk about their past friendship another time. Vanya scoffs at this. Marina enters and Sonya tells her she ought to get some rest. The old woman lovingly helps Serebryakov up and out of bed. Sonya joins them. Helen says to Vanya that she cannot stand her husband, and Vanya agrees that the old man is wearying. He thinks that Helen and her husband have disrupted the whole house, but she advises him that he is the one who must step in and make peace. He bends to kiss her hand and bemoans his sorry, wasted life. Helen pulls her hand away. Vanya asks her angrily what she is waiting for, but she accuses him of just being drunk. She becomes annoyed and leaves. Alone, Vanya muses that he should have pursued her ten years ago when she was 17 and he was 37, but now he is too old and a fool. He should have never idolized the professor and worked to keep the estate for him; the professor once seemed like a god, but now his work is revealed for what it actually is: meaningless. Astrov enters with Telegin, the latter carrying a guitar. Astrov, a bit tipsy, tells Telegin to play. Telegin strums the instrument. Astrov meanders about, asking where the ladies are, complimenting Helen's beauty, and asking wryly if Vanya loves her. When Vanya says that she is a friend, Astrov laughs that a woman can only be a man's friend once she passes through the roles of acquaintance and mistress. When Vanya disagrees, Astrov laughs about his own bumptiousness and impudence and how he feels in this moment that he can actually do something and change things for the better. When Sonya enters, Astrov and Telegin leave to get more to drink. Sonya chastises her uncle for drinking so much and focusing more on illusions than actual work. She sees the tears in his eyes, though, and becomes concerned when he starts to lament the loss of his dear sister. He departs sadly. Sonya goes to Astrov and tells him to stop encouraging her uncle to drink. Astrov agrees, and then says he is getting ready to depart tomorrow once the rain is gone. Sonya asks if he wants something to eat, and he admits he does. Astrov complains about the difficulty of being in this house with these people, and that even the beautiful Helen is vexing because she has no responsibilities and is too idle. Sonya asks if he is satisfied with life; he responds that he generally is, but that provincial and parochial Russian life is stultifying and his private life is dull. Sonya wonders if he cares for anyone and he states that he does not, for the peasants are all the same and all these friends of theirs are stupid and petty even though they are educated. He reaches for a drink, and Sonya softly asks him not to. He gives her his word that he will not: he will remain sober until the end of his days. Astrov tells Sonya that he does not think he could grow fond of anyone anymore, but even as he starts to think about Helen he shudders, remembering a patient who died under chloroform. Sonya haltingly asks him how he would respond if she had a friend or younger sister who loved him. He shrugs and says he'd make it clear he couldn't love her; then he bids Sonya goodbye and leaves. Alone, Sonya feels a thrill of happiness even though she does not know his true feelings. She is upset that she is not beautiful, but she still has hope. Helen enters and opens the windows to let the fresh air in. She asks Sonya if they can be friends, not enemies, and Sonya happily complies. They embrace. Sonya cries a bit, and Helen is moved to do so as well. She explains to Sonya that she did marry Serebryakov for love and because he was an attractive and public figure, but that clearly it was not real love. She apologizes to Sonya, but Sonya just asks if Helen wishes she were married to someone younger. Helen laughs and says of course. She then asks Sonya about the doctor, and when Sonya confesses, Helen compliments the doctor's vision and brilliance. She wises Sonya happiness and says sadly that, as for herself, she is inconsequential and unhappy. Sonya is happy now and tears up with joy. She asks Helen to play something on the piano and Helen is excited to do so; Sonya runs out to ask her father if this can happen, and he reports back that he said no.

In Act II, Chekhov provides a window into Serebryakov and Helen's stultifying marriage and how each of their particular issues makes them feel alone within that union. Serebryakov is old and unwell--but, as he rejects the doctor's attention, he is partially blameworthy for the latter. He knows the others dislike him and comments, "I've only to open my mouth and everyone starts feeling miserable. Even my voice disgusts you. All right, I'm disgusting, I'm selfish, I'm a tyrant" . He also knows that he is old and " every moment regretting  past" . Helen offers no solace because she doesn't love him, and her youth and beauty continually remind him of what he does not possess. On the other hand, he claims "I'm the only person who's happy and enjoys life" ; he also lives in a bubble of sorts that precludes him from understanding the suffering of others . As for Helen, it is certainly possible to feel sympathy for her. She confides in Sonya that she did marry Serebryakov for love but that it was not real love and now she is deeply unhappy. As a woman, she has no real place except the home, and she is valued primarily for her looks, not her intellect. She seeks human connection but rarely achieves it. The only thing that brings any light to her eyes is music, but when she asks Soya to ask Serebryakov if it is okay for her to play the piano, Serebryakov says no. She wants to believe in art again, but her marriage makes this impossible. Critic Jane Anderson writes of this moment, " are offered the possibility of art, but this opportunity is repeatedly devalued." Ultimately, though, Helen indulges in her boredom, desire for flattery and attention, and complaining. She quickly becomes flustered and dismissive, and puts her own needs above everyone else's. It is no wonder that she has no interest in Astrov's maps depicting the loss of forests and the concomitant deleterious effects on the Russian people: she does not see beyond herself. Chekov makes Astrov the most nuanced character, especially in this act. First, he vacillates between hope and despair, and between the problems of the short-term and the hope of the long-term. He delights in planting a tree, obsesses over losing a patient, complains about peasants and educated people alike, and commits himself to his profession even though it often wears him down. He does not seem to believe in an afterlife but he "continues to behave in a manner that takes into account future generations" and "retains his faith in the idea of creating a better future for humanity," as critic Geoffrey Borny writes. When Astrov speaks about forestry in Act I and Act III, he does so in a passionate, irony-free manner. He is often honest when other characters constantly lie to themselves and others. He mocks Vanya but also tries to comfort him. He is gentle with Marina and kind to Sonya, especially after he finds out she has feelings for him. His behavior towards Helen is a bit more problematic, but we will discuss that in the next analysis. In this second act, Chekhov reaffirms that his play is essentially about nothing--or, rather, lots of little nothings. There are big emotions here, but they are cloaked in trivialities and self-obsession. Critic Ronald Hingley notes that it is easier to say what Chekhov's plays are not about than what they are about. While Chekhov's drama has a notably new depiction of mankind, "to him--or so he appears to imply--human affairs were flatter, duller, less eventful, less heroic than they were to earlier playwrights." Uncle Vanya is not a grand tragedy or a harmonious comedy because "human existence is more pointless, more frustrating, less heroic, less satisfying than members of his audience may privately conceive." However, the plays were phenomenally popular with turn-of-the-century theatergoers because they delighted in the "real" world onstage and the recognizable dynamics between characters.

Act II begins at night with the professor and Yelena asleep and sitting next to each other in the dining room. A night watchman can be heard tapping in the garden. The two awaken, Serebryakov complains of his gout and rheumatism. He damns old age, declaring that he has become detestable to himself and those around him. He accuses Yelena in particular of hating him; how could such a young beauty not resent the corpse to which she is attached? Claiming weariness, Yelena begs him to be quiet. Serebryakov sarcastically replies that it seems he has worn everyone out; he, on the other hand, is having a great time. Continuing his lament, Serebryakov complains that while everyone listens to Voynitsky and Maria, they find his own voice abhorrent. In his old age, he has a right to egoism, and people must attend to him. He has spent his life in scholarship and suddenly finds himself in a "tomb," plagued by the "good-for-nothing talk, talk, talk" of fools. Serebryakov feels as if in "exile" and spends his days yearning for the past and fearing death. With deep resignation, Yelena consoles him: soon she too will be old. Sonya then enters and reproaches her father for abusing Dr. Astrov--apparently Serebryakov holds him in nothing but contempt. Voynitsky then enters, noting the storm brewing outside. He has come to relieve Yelena and Sonya of their night watch over the professor; the professor reacts in terror--"He'll talk my head off!" he exclaims. Marina then enters and, speaking of her own aches, tenderly takes Serebryakov to bed. She recalls the years when his first wife, Vera Petrovna, slaved away to care for him; deeply moved, the professor exits the dining room with Sonya and Marina, leaving Yelena and Voynitsky alone. Complaining of yet another sleepless night with the professor, Yelena cries that the house is "going to rack and ruin" and enjoins Voynitsky to help bring its members together. Much to her dismay, he bends to kiss her hand. When Yelena recoils, Voynitsky once again laments the many wasted years, during which he has had nothing to do with his life and love. Whereas the storm will renew nature, it will not help Voynitsky. His thoughts will haunt him like an "evil spirit." "My feelings are wasting away in vain," he cries, "like a ray of sunlight failing into a pit, and I too am wasting away." Yelena is numb to his entreaty. When Voynitsky persists, she accuses him of being a drunken bore; Voynitsky rejoins that at least drink makes one feel alive. Yelena leaves, and Voynitsky makes a soliloquy that mourns what might have been had he married Yelena when they first met ten years ago. He also reveals that he once worshipped the professor and has worked the estate to provide him with an income, the summation of his wasted life. Some disconcerting comic relief ensues. A tipsy Astrov--philosopher and visionary no longer--enters with a guitar-playing Telegin. As Telegin continually warns that everyone is sleeping, one could speculate that this scene is spoken in a whisper. Astrov sings a folk song about the master of the house having no place to go to bed. Asking Voynitsky about Yelena, he coarsely suggests that Voynitsky is in love with her and has perhaps already been her lover. Upon being reproached, he admits to being arrogant and shameless when drunk. Only then does he feel "monumental" rather than "eccentric," able to effect his great plans for the future.

Act II begins with two parallel night watches: that of the tapping guard outside and the vigil the members of the household keep for the aging professor within. In turn-of-the-century provincial Russia, the night watchman would tap the grounds with his stick to signal that all was well and warn potential trespassers that the residents were home. As we will discuss in detail, we find the opposite case with the night watch inside: nothing is well in this household "gone to rack and ruin" and no one feels quite at home. We can best chart this ruin and sense of dislocation with the dialogue between the professor and Yelena. Here we find the telltale motif of estrangement discussed earlier. The egotistical, almost infantile Serebryakov describes a sense of alienation in his body becoming detestable and foreign with age. Indeed, he even dreams that his left leg belongs to someone else. His sense of estrangement, however, does not only refer to the body but to place as well: retirement has sent him into "exile." Unwelcome and unwanted, he is not at home at his own estate, disrupting its routine with his arrival. Here we might thus recall Astrov's folk song, which ends with the phrase: "There's no place for the master to go to bed" Serebryakov also describes himself as having been consigned to a "tomb"; notably, the motif of death appears throughout this scene. To recall Voynitsky's accusation from Act I, it appears that living takes too much effort for Yelena. She appears "dead" to the world, numb to the laments of her husband and of Voynitsky. Voynitsky, haunted by the "evil spirit" of his thoughts, drinks to feel alive and finds himself wasting away. We might wonder then--particularly in light of the brewing storm--if the sound from the night watchman outside is more ominous than reassuring, something akin to death's knock on the door. Along with these dying characters, the scene conjures the memory of a ghost--that of Serebryakov's first wife, Vera Petrovna . In this scene, the memory of Vera causes a marked shift in the dialogue's tone: Marina conjures the years past, and the sardonic Serebryakov is moved to near-silence. As Vera is never discussed in detail, however, her significance remains elusive. To some extent, the opening dialogue in Act I marks the time before Astrov's ruin as the time when Vera still lived. On his own part, Voynitsky is haunted by memories of Vera: in the exchange with Sonya in the following scene, he will grow teary when he sees Vera's look in hers. Moreover, his envy of the professor's success with women--a success he describes in reference to his angelic sister above all--points to an almost incestuous obsession with her ghost. In this play about time past, the dead woman comes to emblematize the unrecoverable losses that each character seems to harbor.