A. Chekhov. Three sisters. Heroes of the play "Three Sisters" by Chekhov: characteristics of the heroes Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Drama in four acts
Characters
Prozorov Andrey Sergeevich.
His sisters: Olga, Masha, Irina.
Kulygin Fedor Ilyich, teacher of the gymnasium, Masha's husband.
Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich, lieutenant colonel, battery commander.
Tuzenbakh Nikolay Lvovich, baron, lieutenant.
Solyony Vasily Vasilievich, staff captain.
Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich, military doctor.
Ferapont, a watchman from the zemstvo council, an old man.
Anfisa, nanny, old woman 80 years old.
Act one
In the house of the Prozorovs. Living room with columns overlooking a large hall. Noon; it's sunny and fun outside. Breakfast is served in the hall.
.................
Chebutykin(laughs). And I never really did anything. As I left the university, I didn’t strike a finger on my finger, I didn’t even read a single book, but only read newspapers ... (Takes another newspaper out of his pocket.) Here ... I know from the newspapers that there was, let’s say, Dobrolyubov, but I don’t know what he wrote there ... God knows him ...
You can hear the knocking on the floor from the lower floor.
Here ... They call me down, someone came to me. I'll be right there... wait...
(He hurriedly leaves, combing his beard.)
Irina. He made up something.
Tuzenbach. Yes. He left with a solemn face, obviously, he will bring you a gift now.
Olga. Yes, it's terrible. He always does stupid things.
Masha. By the seaside, a green oak, a golden chain on that oak ... A golden chain on that oak ... (Gets up and sings softly.)
Olga. You are sad today, Masha. (Masha, singing, puts on her hat.) Where are you going?
Masha. Home.
Irina. Weird...
Tuzenbach. Leaving the birthday!
Masha. Anyway... I'll come in the evening. Farewell my dear... (Kisses Irina.) I wish you again, be healthy, be happy. In the old days, when my father was alive, every time thirty or forty officers came to our name day, it was noisy, but today only one and a half people and it’s quiet, like in the desert ... I’ll leave ... Today I’m in merlehlyundiya I'm not happy, and you don't listen to me. (Laughing through tears.) After we'll talk, but for now goodbye, my dear, I'll go somewhere.
Irina(unhappy). Well, what are you...
Olga(with tears). I understand you Masha.
Salty. If a man philosophizes, then it will be philosophizing or there sophistry; if a woman or two women philosophize, then it will be - pull my finger.
Masha. What do you mean by that, terribly scary man?
Salty. Nothing. He did not have time to gasp, as the bear settled on him.
Pause.
Masha(to Olga, angrily). Do not Cry!
Anfisa and Ferapont enter with cake.
Anfisa. Here, my father. Come in, your feet are clean. (Irina.) From the zemstvo council, from Protopopov, Mikhail Ivanovich ... Pie.
Irina. Thank you. Thank you. (Takes the cake.)
Ferapont. What?
Irina(louder). Thank you!
Olga. Nanny, give him a pie. Ferapont, go, they'll give you a pie there.
Ferapont. What?
Anfisa. Let's go, father Ferapont Spiridonitch. Let's go to... (Exits with Ferapont.)
Masha. I do not like Protopopov, this Mikhail Potapych, or Ivanovich. He should not be invited.
Irina. I didn't invite.
Masha. And great.
Chebutykin enters, followed by a soldier with a silver samovar; a murmur of amazement and discontent.
Olga(covers face with hands). Samovar! This is terrible! (Goes into the hall to the table.)
Irina. Dear Ivan Romanych, what are you doing!
Tuzenbach (laughs). I told you.
Masha. Ivan Romanych, you simply have no shame!
Chebutykin. My dears, my good ones, you are my only ones, you are the dearest thing in the world to me. I am soon sixty, I am an old man, a lonely, insignificant old man ... There is nothing good in me, except this love for you, and if not for you, then I would not have lived in the world for a long time ... (Irina.) My dear, my child, I have known you since the day you were born... I carried you in my arms... I loved my dead mother...
Irina. But why such expensive gifts!
Chebutykin(through tears, angrily). Expensive gifts ... Well, you really! (To a batman.) Bring the samovar there... (teasing) Dear gifts...
The batman takes the samovar into the hall.
.................
Enter Kulygin in a uniform tailcoat.
Kulygin (approaches Irina). Dear sister, let me congratulate you on your angel's day and wish you sincerely, from the bottom of your heart, health and all that you can wish a girl of your age. And let me bring you this book as a gift. (Gives a book.) The history of our gymnasium for fifty years, written by me. An empty book, written from nothing to do, but you still read it. Hello gentlemen! (Vershinin.) Kulygin, a teacher at the local gymnasium. Outside Advisor. (Irina.) In this book you will find a list of all those who completed the course in our gymnasium during these fifty years. Feci quod potui, faciant meliora potentes. (Kisses Masha.)
Irina. But you already gave me such a book for Easter.
Kulygin (laughs). Can't be! In that case, give it back, or better, give it to the colonel. Take it, Colonel. Someday read out of boredom.
Vershinin. Thank you. (Goes to leave.) I'm extremely glad to have met...
.................
Three sisters
Drama in four acts
CHARACTERS
Prozorov Andrey Sergeevich .
Natalya Ivanovna, his fiancee, then wife.
Olga, Masha, Irina: his sisters.
Kulygin Fedor Ilyich, teacher of the gymnasium, Masha's husband.
Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich, lieutenant colonel, battery commander.
Tuzenbakh Nikolay Lvovich, baron, lieutenant.
Solyony Vasily Vasilievich, staff captain.
Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich, military doctor.
Fedotik Alexey Petrovich, lieutenant.
Rode Vladimir Karpovich, lieutenant.
Ferapont, a watchman from the zemstvo council, an old man.
Anfisa, nanny, old woman 80 years old.
The action takes place in the provincial town.
STEP ONE
In the house of the Prozorovs. Living room with columns overlooking a large hall. Noon; it's sunny and fun outside. Breakfast is served in the hall.
Olga, in the blue uniform of a female gymnasium teacher, corrects student notebooks all the time, standing and walking; Masha in a black dress, with a hat on her knees, sits and reads a book, Irina in a white dress is standing in thought.
Olga. Father died exactly a year ago, just on this day, May 5, on your name day, Irina. It was very cold, then it was snowing. It seemed to me that I would not survive, you lay in a swoon, as if dead. But now a year has passed, and we remember it easily, you are already in a white dress, your face is shining. (The clock strikes twelve.) And then the clock also struck.
Pause.
I remember when they carried my father, music played, they shot at the cemetery. He was a general, he commanded a brigade, meanwhile there were few people. However, it was raining then. Heavy rain and snow.
Irina. Why remember!
Behind the columns, in the hall near the table, Baron Tuzenbach, Chebutykin and Solyony appear.
Olga. It's warm today, you can keep the windows wide open, but the birch trees have not yet blossomed. My father got a brigade and left Moscow with us eleven years ago, and, I remember very well, in early May, at that time in Moscow everything was already in bloom, warm, everything was flooded with sun. Eleven years have passed, and I remember everything there, as if we left yesterday. My God! This morning I woke up, saw a lot of light, saw spring, and joy stirred in my soul, I passionately wanted to go home.
Chebutykin. Hell no!
Tuzenbach. Of course, it's nonsense.
Masha, thinking about the book, quietly whistles a song.
Olga. Don't whistle, Masha. How can you!
Pause.
Because I go to the gymnasium every day and then give lessons until evening, my head constantly hurts and I have such thoughts as if I had already grown old. And in fact, during these four years, while serving in the gymnasium, I feel how strength and youth come out of me every day, drop by drop. And only one dream grows and grows stronger ...
Irina. To go to Moscow. Sell the house, finish everything here and - to Moscow ...
Olga. Yes! More likely to Moscow.
Chebutykin and Tuzenbakh laugh.
Irina. My brother will probably be a professor, he won't live here anyway. Only here is the stop for poor Masha.
Olga. Masha will come to Moscow for the whole summer, every year.
Masha quietly whistles a song.
Irina. God willing, everything will be fine. (Looking out the window.) Nice weather today. I don't know why my heart is so light! This morning I remembered that I was a birthday girl, and suddenly I felt joy, and remembered my childhood, when my mother was still alive. And what marvelous thoughts agitated me, what thoughts!
Olga. Today you are all shining, you seem unusually beautiful. And Masha is beautiful too. Andrei would be good, only he has become very fat, this does not suit him. But I have grown old, I have lost a lot of weight, probably because I am angry at the girls in the gymnasium. Today I am free, I am at home, and my head does not hurt, I feel younger than yesterday. I am twenty-eight years old, only ... Everything is fine, everything is from God, but it seems to me that if I got married and sat at home all day, it would be better.
Pause.
I would love my husband.
Tuzenbach (to salty). You talk such nonsense, I'm tired of listening to you. (Entering the living room.) I forgot to say. Today our new battery commander Vershinin will pay a visit to you. (Sits down at the piano.)
Olga. Well! Very happy.
Irina. He is old?
Tuzenbach. No. Nothing. At the most, forty, forty-five years. (Plays softly.) Apparently a nice guy. Silly, that's for sure. Just talks a lot.
Irina. Interesting person?
Tuzenbach. Yes, wow, just a wife, mother-in-law and two girls. Moreover, he is married for the second time. He makes visits and says everywhere that he has a wife and two girls. And he will say here. The wife is kind of crazy, with a long girlish braid, she says only high-flown things, philosophizes and often attempts suicide, obviously to annoy her husband. I would have left this one a long time ago, but he endures and only complains.
Salty (Entering from the hall into the living room with Chebutykin). With one hand I lift only one and a half pounds, and with two five, even six pounds. From this I conclude that two people are not twice as strong as one, but three times, even more ...
Chebutykin (reads newspaper as he walks). For hair loss ... two spools of naphthalene per half bottle of alcohol ... dissolve and use daily ... (Writes in a book.) Let's write it down! (Salty.) So, I tell you, the cork is stuck into the bottle, and a glass tube passes through it ... Then you take a pinch of the simplest, most common alum ...
Irina. Ivan Romanovich, dear Ivan Romanovich!
Chebutykin. What, my girl, my joy?
Irina. Tell me why am I so happy today? It’s as if I’m on sails, above me is a wide blue sky and big white birds are flying. Why is this? From what?
Chebutykin (kissing her both hands, tenderly). My white bird...
Irina. When I woke up today, got up and washed my face, it suddenly seemed to me that everything in this world was clear to me, and I knew how to live. Dear Ivan Romanych, I know everything. A person must work, work hard, no matter who he is, and in this alone lies the meaning and purpose of his life, his happiness, his delights. How good it is to be a worker who gets up at dawn and beats stones in the street, or a shepherd, or a teacher who teaches children, or a train driver ... My God, not like a man, it’s better to be an ox, it’s better to be a simple horse, if only work than a young woman who gets up at twelve o'clock in the afternoon, then drinks coffee in bed, then dresses for two hours ... oh, how terrible! In hot weather, sometimes you want to drink, as I wanted to work. And if I don't get up early and work, then refuse me your friendship, Ivan Romanych.
Characters
Prozorov Andrey Sergeevich .
Natalya Ivanovna, his fiancee, then wife.
Olga
Masha his sisters.
Irina
Kulygin Fedor Ilyich, teacher of the gymnasium, Masha's husband.
Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich, lieutenant colonel, battery commander.
Tuzenbakh Nikolay Lvovich, baron, lieutenant.
Solyony Vasily Vasilievich, staff captain.
Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich, military doctor.
Fedotik Alexey Petrovich, lieutenant.
Rode Vladimir Karlovich, lieutenant.
Ferapont, a watchman from the zemstvo council, an old man.
Anfisa, nanny, old woman 80 years old.
The action takes place in the provincial town.
Act one
In the house of the Prozorovs. Living room with columns overlooking a large hall. Noon; it's sunny and fun outside. Breakfast is served in the hall. Olga in a blue uniform dress of a female gymnasium teacher, all the time correcting student notebooks, standing on the go; Masha in a black dress, with a hat on her knees, sits and reads a book; Irina in a white dress stands thoughtful.
Olga. Father died exactly a year ago, just on this day, May 5, on your name day, Irina. It was very cold, then it was snowing. It seemed to me that I would not survive, you lay in a swoon, as if dead. But now a year has passed, and we remember it easily, you are already in a white dress, your face is shining ...
The clock strikes twelve.
And then the clock also struck.
Pause.
I remember when they carried my father, music played, they shot at the cemetery. He was a general, he commanded a brigade, meanwhile there were few people. However, it was raining then. Heavy rain and snow.
Irina. Why remember!
Behind the columns, in the hall near the table, the baron Tuzenbakh, Chebutykin and Salty .
Olga. It's warm today, you can keep the windows wide open, but the birch trees have not yet blossomed. My father got a brigade and left Moscow with us eleven years ago, and, I remember very well, in early May, at this time, everything in Moscow was already in bloom, warm, everything was flooded with sun. Eleven years have passed, and I remember everything there, as if we left yesterday. My God! This morning I woke up, saw a lot of light, saw spring, and joy stirred in my soul, I passionately wanted to go home.
Chebutykin. Hell no!
Tuzenbach. Of course, it's nonsense.
Masha, thinking about the book, quietly whistles a song.
Olga. Don't whistle, Masha. How can you!
Pause.
Because I go to the gymnasium every day and then give lessons until evening, my head constantly hurts and I have such thoughts as if I had already grown old. And in fact, during these four years, while serving in the gymnasium, I feel how strength and youth come out of me every day, drop by drop. And only one dream grows and grows stronger ...
Irina. To go to Moscow. Sell the house, finish everything here and - to Moscow ...
Olga. Yes! More likely to Moscow.
Chebutykin and Tuzenbakh laugh.
Irina. My brother will probably be a professor, he won't live here anyway. Only here is the stop for poor Masha.
Olga. Masha will come to Moscow for the whole summer, every year.
Masha quietly whistles a song.
Irina. God willing, everything will be fine. (Looking out the window.) Nice weather today. I don't know why my heart is so light! This morning I remembered that I was a birthday girl, and suddenly I felt joy, and remembered my childhood, when my mother was still alive! And what marvelous thoughts agitated me, what thoughts!
Olga. Today you are all shining, you seem unusually beautiful. And Masha is beautiful too. Andrei would be good, only he has become very fat, this does not suit him. But I have grown old, I have lost a lot of weight, probably because I am angry at the girls in the gymnasium. Today I am free, I am at home, and my head does not hurt, I feel younger than yesterday. I am twenty-eight years old, only ... Everything is fine, everything is from God, but it seems to me that if I got married and sat at home all day, it would be better.
Pause.
I would love my husband.
Tuzenbach (Salty). You talk such nonsense, I'm tired of listening to you. (Entering the living room.) I forgot to say. Today our new battery commander Vershinin will pay a visit to you. (Sits down at the piano.)
Tuzenbakh Nikolay Lvovich
A.P. Chekhov
THREE SISTERS
Drama in four acts
Prozorov Andrey Sergeevich.
Natalya Ivanovna is his fiancee, then his wife.
Olga
Masha his sisters
Irina
Kulygin Fedor Ilyich is a gymnasium teacher, Masha's husband.
Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich lieutenant colonel, battery commander.
Tuzenbakh Nikolai Lvovich Baron, lieutenant.
Solyony Vasily Vasilyevich staff captain.
Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich military doctor.
Fedotik Alexey Petrovich second lieutenant.
Rode Vladimir Karpovich second lieutenant.
Ferapont is a watchman from the zemstvo council, an old man.
Anfisa is a nanny, an old woman of 80 years old.
The action takes place in the provincial town.
STEP ONE
In the house of the Prozorovs. Living room with columns overlooking a large hall. Noon; it's sunny and fun outside. Breakfast is served in the hall. Olga, in the blue uniform of a female gymnasium teacher, corrects student notebooks all the time, standing and walking; Masha in a black dress, with a hat on her knee, sits and reads a book, Irina in a white dress is standing in thought.
Chebutykin. Hell no!
Tuzenbach. Of course, it's nonsense.
Olga. ….. I would love my husband.
Tuzenbach. (Salty). You talk such nonsense, I'm tired of listening to you. (Entering the living room.) I forgot to say. Today our new battery commander Vershinin will pay a visit to you. (Sits down at the piano.)
Irina. He is old?
Tuzenbach. No. Nothing. At the most, forty, forty-five years. (Quietly playing.) Apparently, a nice fellow. Silly, that's for sure. Just talks a lot.
Irina. Interesting person?
Tuzenbach. Yes, wow, just a wife, mother-in-law and two girls. Moreover, he is married for the second time. He makes visits and says everywhere that he has a wife and two girls. And he will say here. The wife is kind of crazy, with a long girlish braid, she says only high-flown things, philosophizes and often attempts suicide, obviously to annoy her husband. I would have left this one a long time ago, but he endures and only complains.
Irina. …. I am twenty years old!
Tuzenbach. Longing for work, oh my God, how I understand it! I have never worked in my life. I was born in St. Petersburg, cold and idle, in a family that never knew work and no worries. I remember when I came home from the corps, the footman pulled off my boots, I was capricious at that time, and my mother looked at me with reverence and was surprised when others looked at me differently. I was protected from work. Only it was hardly possible to protect, hardly! The time has come, a mass is approaching all of us, a healthy, strong storm is preparing, which is coming, is already close and will soon blow away laziness, indifference, prejudice to work, rotten boredom from our society. I will work, and in some 25-30 years every person will work. Each!
Chebutykin. I will not work.
Tuzenbach. You don't count.
Irina. He made up something.
Tuzenbach. Yes. He left with a solemn face, obviously, he will bring you a gift now.
Irina. Weird...
Tuzenbach. Leaving the birthday!
Irina. ….. what are you doing!
Tuzenbach. (laughs). I told you.
Anfisa .... it's time... Lord...
Tuzenbach. Vershinin must be.
Vershinin ... how time goes by!
Tuzenbach. Alexander Ignatievich from Moscow.
Salty .... just let him philosophize.
Tuzenbach. Vasily Vasilyich, I beg you to leave me alone... (Sits down in another place.)
Irina ... this should have been written down ...
Tuzenbach. In many years, you say, life on earth will be beautiful, amazing. This is true. But in order to participate in it now, although from afar, one must prepare for it, one must work...
Vershinin ... such flowers ... (Rubs his hands.)
Tuzenbach. Yes, you need to work. You probably think: the German was deeply moved. But, honestly, I don’t even speak Russian and German. My father is Orthodox...
(Pause.)
Masha ... the whole evening with the director.
Tuzenbach. I wouldn't go if I were you... Very simple.
Salty (passing into the hall). Chick, chick, chick...
Tuzenbach. Enough, Vasily Vasilyich. Will be!
Andrew (offstage). Now. (Enters and goes to the table.)
Tuzenbach. What are you thinking about?
Irina ... just nonsense ...
Tuzenbach. He is a strange person. I feel sorry for him, and annoying, but more sorry. It seems to me that he is shy ... When we are alone with him, he is very smart and affectionate, but in society he is a rude person, a bully. Do not go, let them sit at the table for now. Let me be near you. (Pause.) How many years we have ahead of us, a long, long series of days full of my love for you ...
Irina. Nikolai Lvovich, don't talk to me about love.
Tuzenbach. (not listening). I have a passionate thirst for life, struggle, work, and this thirst in my soul has merged with love for you, Irina, and, as if on purpose, you are beautiful, and life seems so beautiful to me! What are you thinking about?
ACT TWO
Scenery of the first act. Eight o'clock in the evening. Behind the stage, the harmonica is barely audible in the street. There is no fire. Natalya Ivanovna enters in a hood, with a candle: she goes and stops at the door that leads to Andrey's room.
Masha .... talk about something else ...
(Irina and Tuzenbakh enter through the hall.)
Tuzenbach. I have a triple last name. My name is Baron Tuzenbach-Krone-Altschauer, but I am Russian, Orthodox, like you. I have little German left, except for the patience and stubbornness with which I annoy you. I accompany you every evening.
Irina. How tired I am.
Tuzenbach. And every evening I will come to the telegraph office and escort you home, I will stay for ten or twenty years until you drive away ... (Looking at Masha and Vershinin, joyfully.) Is that you? Hello.
Irina. (To Tuzenbach.) Dear, knock.
(Tuzenbach knocks on the floor.)
Vershinin... let's philosophize.
Tuzenbach. Let's. About what?
Vershinin ... in two hundred - three hundred.
Tuzenbach. Well? After us they will fly in balloons, jackets will change, perhaps they will discover the sixth sense and develop it, but life will remain the same, a difficult life, full of secrets and happy. And in a thousand years, a person will sigh in the same way: "Oh, it's hard to live!" - and at the same time, just like now, he will be afraid and not want death.
pinnacle of our existence.
(Masha laughs softly.)
Tuzenbach. What do you?
Vershinin... descendants of my descendants.
(Fedotik and Rode appear in the hall; they sit down and hum softly, playing the guitar.)
Tuzenbach. In your opinion, do not even dream of happiness! But if I'm happy!
Vershinin. No.
Tuzenbach. (clapping hands and laughing). Obviously we don't understand each other. Well, how can I convince you?
(Masha laughs softly.) (Showing her the finger.) Laugh! (To Vershinin.) Not only in two hundred or three hundred, but even in a million years, life will remain the same as it was; it does not change, it remains constant, following its own laws. Migratory birds, cranes, for example, fly and fly, and whatever philosophers may wind up among them; and let them philosophize as they like, as long as they fly...
Masha. Still makes sense?
Tuzenbach. Meaning... It's snowing. What's the point?
Vershinin. Still, it's a pity that youth has passed ...
Tuzenbach. And I will say: is it difficult to argue with you, gentlemen? Well, you are completely...
(Pause) The die is cast. You know, Maria Sergeevna, I have resigned.
Masha. I heard.
Tuzenbach. (Gets up) What kind of soldier am I? Well, it doesn't matter, however ... I will work. At least one day in my life to work so as to come home in the evening, in exhaustion, fall into bed and fall asleep immediately. (Going into the hall.) The workers must be fast asleep!
Natasha .... these are your words.
Tuzenbach. (holding back laughter). Give me... give me... There seems to be cognac...
Natasha ... him, forgive him ... (Leaves.)
Tuzenbach. (goes to Solyony, holding a decanter of cognac). All of you are sitting alone, thinking about something - and you won’t understand what. Well, let's make peace. Let's drink cognac.
(Drink.)
Today I have to play the piano all night, probably play all sorts of nonsense...
Salty. Why reconcile? I didn't quarrel with you.
Tuzenbach. You always make me feel like something happened between us. You have a strange personality, I must admit.
Salty. very many.
Tuzenbach. I often get angry with you, you constantly find fault with me when we are in society, but for some reason I like you. No matter what, I'll get drunk today. Let's drink!
Salty... as they say...
Tuzenbach. I'm resigning. Basta! Five years all pondered and finally decided. Will work.
Salty... forget your dreams...
(While they are talking, Andrei enters quietly with a book and sits by the candle.)
Tuzenbach. Will work. When will the mummers come?
Irina. Promised by nine; means now.
Tuzenbach. (hugs Andrew) Oh, you canopy, my canopy, my new canopy...
Chebutykin (dancing). Trellised-e! (Laugh.)
Tuzenbach. (kisses Andrew) Damn it, let's have a drink. Andryusha, let's drink on you. And I'm with you, Andryusha, to Moscow, to the university.
Salty. ... into another room... (Goes out of one of the doors.)
Tuzenbach. (Laughs.) Gentlemen, start, I sit down to play!
(Sits down at the piano, plays a waltz.)
Chebutykin. It's time for us to leave. Be healthy.
Tuzenbach. Goodnight. It's time to go.
Curtain
ACT THREE
Olga and Irina's room. To the left and to the right are beds, enclosed by screens. Third hour of the night. Behind the scenes, they sound the alarm on the occasion of a fire that began a long time ago. It can be seen that the house has not yet gone to bed. Masha is lying on the sofa, dressed, as usual, in a black dress. Olga and Anfisa enter.
Chebutykin ... I don’t remember anything. (Crying.)
(Irina, Vershinin and Tuzenbakh enter; Tuzenbakh is wearing a civilian dress, new and fashionable.)
Kulygin (going up to them). What time is it gentlemen?
Tuzenbach. It's already four o'clock. It's getting light.
Kulygin .... Well done!
Tuzenbach. Everyone asks me to arrange a concert in favor of the victims of the fire.
Irina. Well, who's there...
Tuzenbach. You can arrange if you want. Marya Sergeevna, for example, plays the piano wonderfully.
Irina. She already forgot. Haven't played in three years...or four.
Tuzenbach. Here in the city absolutely no one understands music, not a single soul, but I, I understand and honestly assure you, Marya Sergeevna plays superbly, almost talentedly.
Kulygin. You are right, baron. I love her very much, Masha.
Tuzenbach. To be able to play so luxuriously and at the same time be aware that no one, no one understands you?
Vershinin ... as if in Chita.
Tuzenbach. I heard too. The city will then be completely empty.
Irina. .... The Baron is sleeping! Baron!
Tuzenbach. (waking up). I'm tired, however... Brick factory... I'm not delusional, but in fact, I'll soon go to the brick factory, start working... There was already a conversation. Come with me, let's go work together!
Masha. Nikolai Lvovich, get out of here.
Tuzenbach. You have tears in your eyes. Go to bed, it's already dawn... the morning is beginning... If I were allowed to give my life for you?
Masha. Nikolai Lvovich, go away! Well that's right...
Tuzenbach. I'm leaving... (Leaves.)
Curtain
ACT FOUR
The old garden at the Prozorovs' house. Long spruce alley, at the end of which the river is visible. On the other side of the river is a forest. To the right is the terrace of the house; there are bottles and glasses on the table; It looks like they just drank champagne. Twelve o'clock. Passers-by occasionally walk from the street to the river through the garden; five soldiers pass quickly. Chebutykin, in a benevolent mood that does not leave him during the whole act, sits in an armchair, waits in the garden to be called; he is wearing a cap and with a stick. Irina, Kulygin with an order around his neck, without a mustache, and Tuzenbakh, standing on the terrace, see off Fedotik and Rode, who go down; Both officers are in marching uniform.
Tuzenbach. (kisses with Fedotik). You are good, we lived so friendly. (Kissing Rode.) Once again... Farewell, my dear!
FEDOTIK (with annoyance). Wait!
Tuzenbach. God willing, see you. Write to us. Be sure to write.
Fedotik .... and tranquility.
Tuzenbach. And terrible boredom.
Kulygin. ...near the theater...
Tuzenbach. Stop it! Well, that's right ... (Waves his hand and goes into the house.)
Ferapont. That's what the papers are for to sign them. (Goes offstage.)
(Irina and Tuzenbakh enter in a straw hat, Kulygin passes through the stage, shouting: "Ay, Masha, ay!")
Tuzenbach. This seems to be the only person in the city who is glad that the military is leaving. Honey, I'll be right there.
Irina. Where are you going?
Tuzenbach. I need to go to the city, then... see my comrades off.
Irina. …. near the theatre?
Tuzenbach. (impatient movement). I'll be back in an hour and be with you again. (He kisses her hands.) My beloved... (Looks into her face.) It's been five years since I love you, and I still can't get used to it, and you seem to me more and more beautiful. What lovely, wonderful hair! What eyes! I will take you away tomorrow, we will work, we will be rich, my dreams will come to life. You will be happy. Only one thing, only one thing: you don't love me!
Irina .... restless look.
Tuzenbach. I didn't sleep all night. There is nothing so terrible in my life that could frighten me, and only this lost key torments my soul, does not let me sleep. Tell me something.
Irina. What? What to say? What?
Tuzenbach. Something.
Irina. Full! Full!
(Pause.)
Tuzenbach. What trifles, what stupid trifles sometimes acquire significance in life, all of a sudden for no reason at all. You still laugh at them, consider them trifles, and yet you go and feel that you have no strength to stop. Oh, let's not talk about it! I'm having fun. For the first time in my life I see these firs, maples, birches, and everyone looks at me with curiosity and waits. What beautiful trees and, in fact, what a beautiful life must be around them!
(Scream: "Aw! Hop-hop!")
We have to go, it's time to go... Now the tree has withered, but still it, along with others, sways from the wind. So, it seems to me that even if I die, I will still participate in life in one way or another. Farewell, my dear... (Kissing her hands.) Your papers that you gave me are on my desk, under the calendar.
Irina. And I will go with you.
Tuzenbach. (anxious). No no! (Walks quickly, stops in the alley.) Irina!
Irina. What?
Tuzenbach. (not knowing what to say). I didn't drink coffee today. Tell me to cook ... (Quickly leaves.)
Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich in the play "Three Sisters" - lieutenant colonel, battery commander. He studied in Moscow and began his service there, served as an officer in the same brigade as the father of the Prozorov sisters. At that time he visited the Prozorovs and was teased as a "major in love". Appearing again, Vershinin immediately captures everyone's attention, uttering sublime pathetic monologues, through most of which the motive of a brighter future runs through. He calls it "philosophizing." Expressing dissatisfaction with his real life, the hero says that if he could start over, he would live differently. One of his main themes is his wife, who from time to time tries to commit suicide, and two daughters, whom he is afraid to entrust to her. In the second act, he is in love with Masha Prozorova, who reciprocates his feelings. At the end of the play "Three Sisters", the hero leaves with the regiment.
Irina (Prozorova Irina Sergeevna) Andrey Prozorov's sister. In the first act, her name day is celebrated: she is twenty years old, she feels happy, full of hope and enthusiasm. She thinks she knows how to live. She delivers an impassioned, inspirational monologue about the need for work. She is tormented by longing for work.
In the second act, she is already serving as a telegraph operator, returning home tired and dissatisfied. Then Irina serves in the city government and, according to her, hates, despises everything that they let her do. Four years have passed since her name day in the first act, life does not bring her satisfaction, she worries that she is getting old and is moving further and further away from the “real wonderful life”, and the dream of Moscow does not come true. Despite the fact that she does not love Tuzenbakh, Irina Sergeevna agrees to marry him, after the wedding they should immediately go with him to the brick factory, where he got a job and where she, having passed the exam for a teacher, is going to work at school. These plans are not destined to come true, since Tuzenbakh, on the eve of the wedding, dies in a duel with Solyony, who is also in love with Irina.
Kulygin Fedor Ilyich - Gymnasium teacher, husband of Masha Prozorova, whom she loves very much. He is the author of a book where he describes the history of the local gymnasium for fifty years. Kulygin gives it to Irina Prozorova for her name day, forgetting that he has already done it once. If Irina and Tuzenbakh constantly dream of work, then this hero of Chekhov's play Three Sisters, as it were, personifies this idea of socially useful labor ("I worked yesterday from morning to eleven o'clock in the evening, I'm tired and today I feel happy"). However, at the same time, he gives the impression of a contented, narrow-minded and uninteresting person.
Masha (Prozorova) - Prozorov's sister, wife of Fyodor Ilyich Kulygin. She got married when she was eighteen years old, then she was afraid of her husband, because he was a teacher and seemed to her "terribly learned, smart and important", but now she is disappointed in him, weighed down by the company of teachers, her husband's comrades, who seem to her rude and uninteresting. She says words that are important for Chekhov, that "a person must be a believer or must seek faith, otherwise his life is empty, empty ...". Masha falls in love with Vershinin.
She goes through the whole play “Three Sisters” with verses from Pushkin’s “Ruslan and Lyudmila”: “At Lukomorye there is a green oak; a golden chain on that oak .. A golden chain on that oak .. "- which become the leitmotif of her image. This quote speaks of the inner concentration of the heroine, the constant desire to understand herself, to understand how to live, to rise above everyday life. At the same time, the textbook essay, from which the quote is taken, exactly appeals to the gymnasium environment, where her husband rotates and to which Masha Prozorova is forced to be closest.
Natalya Ivanovna - the bride of Andrei Prozorov, then his wife. A tasteless, vulgar and selfish lady, in conversations fixated on her children, harsh and rude to the servants (the nanny Anfisa, who has been living with the Prozorovs for thirty years, wants to be sent to the village, because she can no longer work). She has an affair with Protopopov, the chairman of the zemstvo council. Masha Prozorova calls her a "philistine". A type of predator, Natalya Ivanovna not only completely subjugates her husband, making him an obedient executor of her unbending will, but also methodically expands the space occupied by her family - first for Bobik, as she calls her first child, and then for Sofochka, the second child (not it is possible that from Protopopov), displacing other inhabitants of the house - first from the rooms, then from the floor. In the end, due to huge debts made in cards, Andrei mortgages the house, although it belongs not only to him, but also to his sisters, and Natalya Ivanovna takes the money.
Olga (Prozorova Olga Sergeevna) - Sister Prozorov, daughter of a general, teacher. She is 28 years old. At the beginning of the play, she remembers Moscow, where their family left eleven years ago. The heroine feels tired, the gymnasium and lessons in the evenings, according to her, take away her strength and youth, and only one dream warms her - "rather to Moscow." In the second and third acts, she acts as the head of the gymnasium, constantly complains of fatigue and dreams of a different life. In the last act, Olga is the head of the gymnasium.
Prozorov Andrey Sergeevich - son of a general, secretary of the zemstvo council. As the sisters say about him, “he is both a scientist and plays the violin, and cuts out various things, in a word, a jack of all trades.” In the first act he is in love with a local young lady Natalya Ivanovna, in the second he is her husband. Prozorov is dissatisfied with his service, he, according to him, dreams that he is "a professor at Moscow University, a famous scientist who is proud of the Russian land!" The hero admits that his wife does not understand him, and he is afraid of his sisters, afraid that they will laugh at him, shame him. He feels like a stranger and alone in his own home.
In family life, this hero of the play "Three Sisters" by Chekhov is disappointed, he plays cards and loses rather big sums. Then it becomes known that he mortgaged the house, which belongs not only to him, but also to his sisters, and his wife took the money. In the end, he no longer dreams of a university, but is proud that he became a member of the zemstvo council, the chairman of which Protopopov is his wife's lover, which the whole city knows about and which he alone does not want to see (or pretends to). The hero himself feels his worthlessness and asks the question, characteristic of the Chekhovian artistic world, “Why do we, having barely begun to live, become boring, gray, uninteresting, lazy, indifferent, useless, unhappy? ..” He again dreams of a future in which he sees freedom - "from idleness, from a goose with cabbage, from sleep after dinner, from mean parasitism ...". However, it is clear that dreams, given his spinelessness, will remain dreams. In the last act, he, having grown fat, carries a carriage with his daughter Sofochka.
Solyony Vasily Vasilievich - staff captain. He often takes a bottle of perfume out of his pocket and sprays his chest, his hands - this is his most characteristic gesture, with which he wants to show that his hands are stained with blood ("They smell like a corpse to me," Solyony says). He is shy, but wants to appear as a romantic, demonic figure, when in fact he is ridiculous in his vulgar theatricality. He says about himself that he has the character of Lermontov, he wants to be like him. He constantly teases Tuzenbach, saying in a thin voice "chick, chick, chick ...". Tuzenbach calls him a strange person: when Solyony is left alone with him, he is smart and affectionate, while in society he is rude and builds a bullshit. Solyony is in love with Irina Prozorova and in the second act declares his love for her. She responds to her coldness with a threat: he should not have happy rivals. On the eve of Irina's wedding with Tuzenbakh, the hero finds fault with the baron and, having challenged him to a duel, kills him.
Tuzenbakh Nikolay Lvovich - Baron, lieutenant. In the first act of the play "Three Sisters" he is under thirty. He is passionate about Irina Prozorova and shares her longing for "work." Recalling Petersburg childhood and youth, when he knew no worries, and his boots were pulled off by a footman, Tuzenbach condemns idleness. He constantly explains, as if justifying himself, that he is Russian and Orthodox, and there is very little German left in him. Tuzenbach leaves military service to work. Olga Prozorova says that when he first came to them in a jacket, he seemed so ugly that she even cried. The hero gets a job at a brick factory, where he intends to go, having married Irina, but dies in a duel with Solyony
Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich - military doctor. He is 60 years old. He says about himself that after the university he did nothing, he didn’t even read a single book, but only read newspapers. He writes out various useful information from newspapers. According to him, the Prozorov sisters are the most precious thing in the world for him. He was in love with their mother, who was already married, and therefore did not marry himself. In the third act, out of dissatisfaction with himself and life in general, he starts drinking heavily, one of the reasons for which is that he blames himself for the death of his patient. He passes through the play with the proverb “Ta-ra-ra-bumbia ... I am sitting on the pedestal”, expressing the boredom of life that his soul languishes.