nt a rest. I am tired.

TUZENBACH. [Smiling] When you come home from your work you seem so
young, and so unfortunate.... [Pause.]

IRINA. I am tired. No, I don't like the telegraph office, I don't like
it.

MASHA. You've grown thinner.... [Whistles a little] And you look
younger, and your face has become like a boy's.

TUZENBACH. That's the way she does her hair.

IRINA. I must find another job, this one won't do for me. What I wanted,
what I hoped to get, just that is lacking here. Labour without poetry,
without ideas.... [A knock on the floor] The doctor is knocking. [To
TUZENBACH] Will you knock, dear. I can't... I'm tired.... [TUZENBACH
knocks] He'll come in a minute. Something ought to be done. Yesterday
the doctor and Andrey played cards at the club and lost money. Andrey
seems to have lost 200 roubles.

MASHA. [With indifference] What can we do now?

IRINA. He lost money a fortnight ago, he lost money in December. Perhaps
if he lost everything we should go away from this town. Oh, my God, I
dream of Moscow every night. I'm just like a lunatic. [Laughs] We go
there in June, and before June there's still... February, March, April,
May... nearly half a year!

MASHA. Only Natasha mustn't get to know of these losses.

IRINA. I expect it will be all the same to her.

[CHEBUTIKIN, who has only just got out of bed--he was resting after
dinner--comes into the dining-room and combs his beard. He then sits by
the table and takes a newspaper from his pocket.]

MASHA. Here he is.... Has he paid his rent?

IRINA. [Laughs] No. He's been here eight months and hasn't paid a
copeck. Seems to have forgotten.

MASHA. [Laughs] What dignity in his pose! [They all laugh. A pause.]

IRINA. Why are you so silent, Alexander Ignateyevitch?

VERSHININ. I don't know. I want some tea. Half my life for a tumbler of
tea: I haven't had anything since morning.

CHEBUTIKIN. Irina Sergeyevna!

IRINA. What is it?

CHEBUTIKIN. Please come here, Venez ici. [IRINA goes and sits by the
table] I can't do without you. [IRINA begins to play patience.]

VERSHININ. Well, if we can't have any tea, let's philosophize, at any
rate.

TUZENBACH. Yes, let's. About what?

VERSHININ. About what? Let us meditate... about life as it will be after
our time; for example, in two or three hundred years.

TUZENBACH. Well? After our time people will fly about in balloons, the
cut of one's coat will change, perhaps they'll discover a sixth sense