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: Yes. [Laughs] How strange everything
really is! [Pause] When the fire broke out, I hurried
off home; when I get there I see the house is whole, uninjured,
and in no danger, but my two girls are standing by the door in
just their underclothes, their mother isn't there, the crowd
is excited, horses and dogs are running about, and the girl's
faces are so agitated, terrified, beseeching, and I don't know
what else. My heart hurt me, when I saw those faces. My God,
I thought, what these girls will have to put up with if they
live long! I caught them up and ran, and still kept on thinking
the one thing: what they will have to live through in this world!
[Pause] I come here and find their mother shouting and
angry. And when my girls were standing by the door in just their
underclothes, and the street was red from the fire, there was
a dreadful noise, and I thought that something of the sort used
to happen many years ago when an enemy made a sudden attack,
and looted, and burned . . . And at the same time what a difference
there really is between the present and the past! And when a
little more time has gone by, in two or three hundred years perhaps,
people will look at our present life with just the same fear,
and the same contempt, and the whole past will seem clumsy and
dull, and very uncomfortable, and strange. Oh, indeed, what a
life there will be, what a life. [Laughs.] Forgive me,
I've dropped into philosophy again. Please let me continue. I
do long to philosophize, I'm in just that sort of mood. [Pause]
As if they are all asleep. As I was saying: what a life there
will be! Only just imagine . . . There are only three persons
like yourselves in the town just now, but in future generations
there will be more and more, and still more, and the time will
come when everything will change and become as you would have
it, people will live as you do, and then you, too, will go out
of date; people will be born who are better than you . . . [Laughs]
Yes, to-day, I am in a most peculiar mood. I am devilishly keen
on living . . . [Sings] "The power of love is known
to all the world, Great good grows out of it--" [Laughs]
MORE
MONOLOGUES BY ANTON CHEKHOV |
