fe will suck you up in itself,
but still, you won't disappear having influenced nobody; later on,
others like you will come, perhaps six of them, then twelve, and so on,
until at last your sort will be in the majority. In two or three hundred
years' time life on this earth will be unimaginably beautiful and
wonderful. Mankind needs such a life, and if it is not ours to-day then
we must look ahead for it, wait, think, prepare for it. We must see and
know more than our fathers and grandfathers saw and knew. [Laughs] And
you complain that you know too much.

MASHA. [Takes off her hat] I'll stay to lunch.

IRINA. [Sighs] Yes, all that ought to be written down.

[ANDREY has gone out quietly.]

TUZENBACH. You say that many years later on, life on this earth will
be beautiful and wonderful. That's true. But to share in it now, even
though at a distance, we must prepare by work....

VERSHININ. [Gets up] Yes. What a lot of flowers you have. [Looks round]
It's a beautiful flat. I envy you! I've spent my whole life in rooms
with two chairs, one sofa, and fires which always smoke. I've never had
flowers like these in my life.... [Rubs his hands] Well, well!

TUZENBACH. Yes, we must work. You are probably thinking to yourself:
the German lets himself go. But I assure you I'm a Russian, I can't even
speak German. My father belonged to the Orthodox Church.... [Pause.]

VERSHININ. [Walks about the stage] I often wonder: suppose we could
begin life over again, knowing what we were doing? Suppose we could use
one life, already ended, as a sort of rough draft for another? I think
that every one of us would try, more than anything else, not to repeat
himself, at the very least he would rearrange his manner of life, he
would make sure of rooms like these, with flowers and light... I have
a wife and two daughters, my wife's health is delicate and so on and so
on, and if I had to begin life all over again I would not marry.... No,
no!

[Enter KULIGIN in a regulation jacket.]

KULIGIN. [Going up to IRINA] Dear sister, allow me to congratulate you
on the day sacred to your good angel and to wish you, sincerely and from
the bottom of my heart, good health and all that one can wish for a girl
of your years. And then let me offer you this book as a present. [Gives
it to her] It is the history of our High School during the last fifty
years, written by myself. The book is worthless, and written because I
had nothing to do, but read it all