THE THREE SISTERS
A monologue from the
play by Anton
Chekhov
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Moscow Arts Theatre Series of Plays. Ed. Oliver
M. Sayler. New York: Brentanos, 1922. |
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VERSHININ: Well, I say! [Laughs] You know a
great deal too much! I don't think there can really be a town
so dull and stupid as to have no room for a clever, cultured
person. Let us suppose even that among the hundred thousand inhabitants
of this backward and crude town, there are only three persons
like yourself. It stands to reason that you won't be able to
conquer that dark mob around you; little by little as you grow
older you will be bound to give way and lose yourselves in this
crowd of a hundred thousand human beings; their life will suck
you under, but still, you won't disappear without having influenced
anybody; 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 life on this earth
will be gorgeously beautiful and glorious. Mankind needs such
a life, and if it is not ours to-day then we must look forward
to 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.
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MONOLOGUES BY ANTON CHEKHOV |
