SWAN SONG

by Anton Checkov

Plays By Anton Tchekoff

Translated From The Russian, With An Introduction By Marian Fell

CONTENTS Introduction Chronological List of Works The Swan Song

INTRODUCTION

ANTON TCHEKOFF

THE last years of the nineteenth century were for Russia tinged withdoubt and gloom. The high-tide of vitality that had risen during theTurkish war ebbed in the early eighties, leaving behind it a deadlevel of apathy which lasted until life was again quickened by the highinterests of the Revolution. During these grey years the lonely countryand stagnant provincial towns of Russia buried a peasantry whichwas enslaved by want and toil, and an educated upper class which wasenslaved by idleness and tedium. Most of the "Intellectuals, " with nooutlet for their energies, were content to forget their ennui invodka and card-playing; only the more idealistic gasped for air in thestifling atmosphere, crying out in despair against life as they saw it, and looking forward with a pathetic hope to happiness for humanity in"two or three hundred years. " It is the inevitable tragedy of theirexistence, and the pitiful humour of their surroundings, that areportrayed with such insight and sympathy by Anton Tchekoff who is, perhaps, of modern writers, the dearest to the Russian people. 

Anton Tchekoff was born in the old Black Sea port of Taganrog onJanuary 17, 1860. His grandfather had been a serf; his father marrieda merchant's daughter and settled in Taganrog, where, during Anton'sboyhood, he carried on a small and unsuccessful trade in provisions. The young Tchekoff was soon impressed into the services of the large, poverty-stricken family, and he spoke regretfully in after years of hishard-worked childhood. But he was obedient and good-natured, and workedcheerfully in his father's shop, closely observing the idlers thatassembled there, and gathering the drollest stories, which he wouldafterward whisper in class to his laughing schoolfellows. Many were thepunishments which he incurred by this habit, which was incorrigible. 

His grandfather had now become manager of an estate near Taganrog, inthe wild steppe country of the Don Cossacks, and here the boy spent hissummers, fishing in the river, and roving about the countryside as brownas a gipsy, sowing the seeds of that love for nature which he retainedall his life. His evenings he liked best to spend in the kitchen of themaster's house among the work people and peasants who gathered there, taking part in their games, and setting them all laughing by his wittyand telling observations. 

When Tchekoff was about fourteen, his father moved the family to Moscow, leaving Anton in Taganrog, and now, relieved of work in the shop, hisprogress at school became remarkable. At seventeen he wrote a longtragedy, which was afterward destroyed, and he already showed flashes ofthe wit that was soon to blaze into genius. 

He graduated from the high school at Taganrog with every honour, enteredthe University of Moscow as a student of medicine, and threw himselfheadlong into a double life of student and author, in the attempt tohelp his struggling family. 

His first story appeared in a Moscow paper in 1880, and after somedifficulty he secured a position connected with several of the smallerperiodicals, for which, during his student years, he poured forth asuccession of short stories and sketches of Russian life with incrediblerapidity. He wrote, he tells us, during every spare minute, in crowdedrooms where there was "no light and less air, " and never spent morethan a day on any one story. He also wrote at this time a very stirringblood-and-thunder play which was suppressed by the censor, and the fateof which is not known. 

His audience demanded laughter above all things, and, with his deepsense of the ridiculous, Tchekoff asked nothing better. His stories, though often based on themes profoundly tragic, are penetrated by thelight and subtle satire that has won him his reputation as a greathumourist. But though there was always a smile on his lips, it was atender one, and his sympathy with suffering often brought his laughternear to tears. 

This delicate and original genius was at first subjected to harshcriticism, which Tchekoff felt keenly, and Trigorin's description in"The Sea-Gull" of the trials of a young author is a cry from Tchekoff'sown soul. A passionate enemy of all lies and oppression, he alreadyforeshadows in these early writings the protest against conventions andrules, which he afterward put into Treplieff's reply to Sorin in "TheSea-Gull": "Let us have new forms, or else nothing at all. "

In 1884 he took his degree as doctor of medicine, and decided topractise, although his writing had by now taken on a professionalcharacter. He always gave his calling a high place, and the doctors inhis works are drawn with affection and understanding. If any one spokeslightingly of doctors in his presence, he would exclaim: "Stop! Youdon't know what country doctors do for the people!"

Tchekoff fully realised later the influence which his profession hadexercised on his literary work, and sometimes regretted the too vividinsight it gave him, but, on the other hand, he was able to write: "Onlya doctor can know what value my knowledge of science has been to me, "and "It seems to me that as a doctor I have described the sicknesses ofthe soul correctly. " For instance, Trigorin's analysis in "The Sea-Gull"of the state of mind of an author has well been called "artisticdiagnosis. "

The young doctor-writer is described at this time as modest and grave, with flashes of brilliant gaiety. A son of the people, there was in hisface an expression that recalled the simple-hearted village lad; hiseyes were blue, his glance full of intelligence and kindness, and hismanners unaffected and simple. He was an untiring worker, and betweenhis patients and his desk he led a life of ceaseless activity. Hisrestless mind was dominated by a passion of energy and he thoughtcontinually and vividly. Often, while jesting and talking, he would seemsuddenly to plunge into himself, and his look would grow fixed and deep, as if he were contemplating something important and strange. Then hewould ask some unexpected question, which showed how far his mind hadroamed. 

Success was now rapidly overtaking the young author; his firstcollection of stories appeared in 1887, another one in the same year hadimmediate success, and both went through many editions; but, at the sametime, the shadows that darkened his later works began to creep over hislight-hearted humour. 

His impressionable mind began to take on the grey tinge of his time, butmuch of his sadness may also be attributed to his ever-increasing illhealth. 

Weary and with an obstinate cough, he went south in 1888, took a littlecottage on the banks of a little river "abounding in fish and crabs, "and surrendered himself to his touching love for nature, happy in hispassion for fishing, in the quiet of the country, and in the music andgaiety of the peasants. "One would gladly sell one's soul, " he writes, "for the pleasure of seeing the warm evening sky, and the streams andpools reflecting the darkly mournful sunset. " He described visits tohis country neighbours and long drives in gay company, during which, hesays, "we ate every half hour, and laughed to the verge of colic. "

His health, however, did not improve. In 1889 he began to have attacksof heart trouble, and the sensitive artist's nature appears in a remarkwhich he made after one of them. "I walked quickly across the terraceon which the guests were assembled, " he said, "with one idea in mymind, how awkward it would be to fall down and die in the presence ofstrangers. "

It was during this transition period of his life, when his youthfulspirits were failing him, that the stage, for which he had always felt afascination, tempted him to write "Ivanoff, " and also a dramatic sketchin one act entitled "The Swan Song, " though he often declared that hehad no ambition to become a dramatist. "The Novel, " he wrote, "is alawful wife, but the Stage is a noisy, flashy, and insolent mistress. "He has put his opinion of the stage of his day in the mouth ofTreplieff, in "The Sea-Gull, " and he often refers to it in his lettersas "an evil disease of the towns" and "the gallows on which dramatistsare hanged. "

He wrote "Ivanoff" at white-heat in two and a half weeks, as a protestagainst a play he had seen at one of the Moscow theatres. Ivanoff (fromIvan, the commonest of Russian names) was by no means meant to bea hero, but a most ordinary, weak man oppressed by the "immortalcommonplaces of life, " with his heart and soul aching in the grip ofcircumstance, one of the many "useless people" of Russia for whosesorrow Tchekoff felt such overwhelming pity. He saw nothing in theirlives that could not be explained and pardoned, and he returns to hisill-fated, "useless people" again and again, not to preach any doctrineof pessimism, but simply because he thought that the world was thebetter for a certain fragile beauty of their natures and their touchingfaith in the ultimate salvation of humanity. 

Both the writing and staging of "Ivanoff" gave Tchekoff greatdifficulty. The characters all being of almost equal importance, hefound it hard to get enough good actors to take the parts, but itfinally appeared in Moscow in 1889, a decided failure! The author hadtouched sharply several sensitive spots of Russian life--for instance, in his warning not to marry a Jewess or a blue-stocking--and the playwas also marred by faults of inexperience, which, however, he latercorrected. The critics were divided in condemning a certain noveltyin it and in praising its freshness and originality. The character ofIvanoff was not understood, and the weakness of the man blinded many tothe lifelike portrait. Tchekoff himself was far from pleased with whathe called his "literary abortion, " and rewrote it before it was producedagain in St. Petersburg. Here it was received with the wildest applause, and the morning after its performance the papers burst into unanimouspraise. The author was enthusiastically feted, but the burden of hisgrowing fame was beginning to be very irksome to him, and he wrotewearily at this time that he longed to be in the country, fishing in thelake, or lying in the hay. 

His next play to appear was a farce entitled "The Boor, " which he wrotein a single evening and which had a great success. This was followed by"The Demon, " a failure, rewritten ten years later as "Uncle Vanya. "

All Russia now combined in urging Tchekoff to write some important work, and this, too, was the writer's dream; but his only long story is "TheSteppe, " which is, after all, but a series of sketches, exquisitelydrawn, and strung together on the slenderest connecting thread. Tchekoff's delicate and elusive descriptive power did not lend itselfto painting on a large canvas, and his strange little tragicomedies ofRussian life, his "Tedious Tales, " as he called them, were always toremain his masterpieces. 

In 1890 Tchekoff made a journey to the Island of Saghalien, after whichhis health definitely failed, and the consumption, with which he hadlong been threatened, finally declared itself. His illness exiled him tothe Crimea, and he spent his last ten years there, making frequent tripsto Moscow to superintend the production of his four important plays, written during this period of his life. 

"The Sea-Gull" appeared in 1896, and, after a failure in St. Petersburg, won instant success as soon as it was given on the stage of the Artists'Theatre in Moscow. Of all Tchekoff's plays, this one conforms mostnearly to our Western conventions, and is therefore most easilyappreciated here. In Trigorin the author gives us one of the rareglimpses of his own mind, for Tchekoff seldom put his own personalityinto the pictures of the life in which he took such immense interest. 

In "The Sea-Gull" we see clearly the increase of Tchekoff's power ofanalysis, which is remarkable in his next play, "The Three Sisters, "gloomiest of all his dramas. 

"The Three Sisters, " produced in 1901, depends, even more than most ofTchekoff's plays, on its interpretation, and it is almost essential toits appreciation that it should be seen rather than read. The atmosphereof gloom with which it is pervaded is a thousand times more intense whenit comes to us across the foot-lights. In it Tchekoff probes the depthsof human life with so sure a touch, and lights them with an insight sopiercing, that the play made a deep impression when it appeared. Thiswas also partly owing to the masterly way in which it was acted at theArtists' Theatre in Moscow. The theme is, as usual, the greyness ofprovincial life, and the night is lit for his little group of charactersby a flash of passion so intense that the darkness which succeeds itseems well-nigh intolerable. 

"Uncle Vanya" followed "The Three Sisters, " and the poignant truth ofthe picture, together with the tender beauty of the last scene, touchedhis audience profoundly, both on the stage and when the play wasafterward published. 

"The Cherry Orchard" appeared in 1904 and was Tchekoff's last play. Atits production, just before his death, the author was feted as one ofRussia's greatest dramatists. Here it is not only country life thatTchekoff shows us, but Russian life and character in general, in whichthe old order is giving place to the new, and we see the practical, modern spirit invading the vague, aimless existence so dear to theowners of the cherry orchard. A new epoch was beginning, and at its dawnthe singer of old, dim Russia was silenced. 

In the year that saw the production of "The Cherry Orchard, " Tchekoff, the favourite of the Russian people, whom Tolstoi declared to becomparable as a writer of stories only to Maupassant, died suddenly ina little village of the Black Forest, whither he had gone a few weeksbefore in the hope of recovering his lost health. 

Tchekoff, with an art peculiar to himself, in scattered scenes, inhaphazard glimpses into the lives of his characters, in seeminglytrivial conversations, has succeeded in so concentrating the atmosphereof the Russia of his day that we feel it in every line we read, oppressive as the mists that hang over a lake at dawn, and, like thosemists, made visible to us by the light of an approaching day. 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF ANTON TCHEKOFF

 PLAYS

 "The Swan Song" 1889 "The Proposal" 1889 "Ivanoff" 1889 "The Boor" 1890 "The Sea-Gull" 1896 "The Tragedian in Spite of Himself" 1899 "The Three Sisters" 1901 "Uncle Vanya" 1902 "The Cherry Orchard" 1904

 NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES

 "Humorous Folk" 1887 "Twilight, and Other Stories" 1887 "Morose Folk" 1890 "Variegated Tales" 1894 "Old Wives of Russia" 1894 "The Duel" 1895 "The Chestnut Tree" 1895 "Ward Number Six" 1897

 MISCELLANEOUS SKETCHES

 "The Island of Saghalien" 1895 "Peasants" 1898 "Life in the Provinces" 1898 "Children" 1899

THE SWAN SONG

CHARACTERS

VASILI SVIETLOVIDOFF, a comedian, 68 years old

NIKITA IVANITCH, a prompter, an old man

The Swan Song

The scene is laid on the stage of a country theatre, at night, afterthe play. To the right a row of rough, unpainted doors leading intothe dressing-rooms. To the left and in the background the stage isencumbered with all sorts of rubbish. In the middle of the stage is anoverturned stool. 

SVIETLOVIDOFF. [With a candle in his hand, comes out of a dressing-roomand laughs] Well, well, this is funny! Here's a good joke! I fell asleepin my dressing-room when the play was over, and there I was calmlysnoring after everybody else had left the theatre. Ah! I'm a foolishold man, a poor old dodderer! I have been drinking again, and so I fellasleep in there, sitting up. That was clever! Good for you, old boy![Calls] Yegorka! Petrushka! Where the devil are you? Petrushka! Thescoundrels must be asleep, and an earthquake wouldn't wake them now!Yegorka! [Picks up the stool, sits down, and puts the candle on thefloor] Not a sound! Only echos answer me. I gave Yegorka and Petrushkaeach a tip to-day, and now they have disappeared without leaving a tracebehind them. The rascals have gone off and have probably locked up thetheatre. [Turns his head about] I'm drunk! Ugh! The play to-night wasfor my benefit, and it is disgusting to think how much beer and wine Ihave poured down my throat in honour of the occasion. Gracious! My bodyis burning all over, and I feel as if I had twenty tongues in my mouth. It is horrid! Idiotic! This poor old sinner is drunk again, and doesn'teven know what he has been celebrating! Ugh! My head is splitting, I amshivering all over, and I feel as dark and cold inside as a cellar! Evenif I don't mind ruining my health, I ought at least to remember my age, old idiot that I am! Yes, my old age! It's no use! I can play the fool, and brag, and pretend to be young, but my life is really over now, Ikiss my hand to the sixty-eight years that have gone by; I'll never seethem again! I have drained the bottle, only a few little drops are leftat the bottom, nothing but the dregs. Yes, yes, that's the case, Vasili, old boy. The time has come for you to rehearse the part of a mummy, whether you like it or not. Death is on its way to you. [Stares aheadof him] It is strange, though, that I have been on the stage now forforty-five years, and this is the first time I have seen a theatre atnight, after the lights have been put out. The first time. [Walks upto the foot-lights] How dark it is! I can't see a thing. Oh, yes, I canjust make out the prompter's box, and his desk; the rest is in pitchdarkness, a black, bottomless pit, like a grave, in which death itselfmight be hiding. .. . Brr. .. . How cold it is! The wind blows out of theempty theatre as though out of a stone flue. What a place for ghosts!The shivers are running up and down my back. [Calls] Yegorka! Petrushka!Where are you both? What on earth makes me think of such gruesomethings here? I must give up drinking; I'm an old man, I shan't live muchlonger. At sixty-eight people go to church and prepare for death, buthere I am--heavens! A profane old drunkard in this fool's dress--I'msimply not fit to look at. I must go and change it at once. .. . This isa dreadful place, I should die of fright sitting here all night. [Goestoward his dressing-room; at the same time NIKITA IVANITCH in a longwhite coat comes out of the dressing-room at the farthest end of thestage. SVIETLOVIDOFF sees IVANITCH--shrieks with terror and steps back]Who are you? What? What do you want? [Stamps his foot] Who are you?

IVANITCH. It is I, sir. 

SVIETLOVIDOFF. Who are you?

IVANITCH. [Comes slowly toward him] It is I, sir, the prompter, NikitaIvanitch. It is I, master, it is I!

SVIETLOVIDOFF. [Sinks helplessly onto the stool, breathes heavilyand trembles violently] Heavens! Who are you? It is you . . . YouNikitushka? What . . . What are you doing here?

IVANITCH. I spend my nights here in the dressing-rooms. Only please begood enough not to tell Alexi Fomitch, sir. I have nowhere else to spendthe night; indeed, I haven't. 

SVIETLOVIDOFF. Ah! It is you, Nikitushka, is it? Just think, theaudience called me out sixteen times; they brought me three wreathes andlots of other things, too; they were all wild with enthusiasm, and yetnot a soul came when it was all over to wake the poor, drunken old manand take him home. And I am an old man, Nikitushka! I am sixty-eightyears old, and I am ill. I haven't the heart left to go on. [Fallson IVANITCH'S neck and weeps] Don't go away, Nikitushka; I am old andhelpless, and I feel it is time for me to die. Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful!

IVANITCH. [Tenderly and respectfully] Dear master! it is time for you togo home, sir!

SVIETLOVIDOFF. I won't go home; I have no home--none! none!--none!

IVANITCH. Oh, dear! Have you forgotten where you live?

SVIETLOVIDOFF. I won't go there. I won't! I am all alone there. I havenobody, Nikitushka! No wife--no children. I am like the wind blowingacross the lonely fields. I shall die, and no one will remember me. Itis awful to be alone--no one to cheer me, no one to caress me, no one tohelp me to bed when I am drunk. Whom do I belong to? Who needs me? Wholoves me? Not a soul, Nikitushka. 

IVANITCH. [Weeping] Your audience loves you, master. 

SVIETLOVIDOFF. My audience has gone home. They are all asleep, and haveforgotten their old clown. No, nobody needs me, nobody loves me; I haveno wife, no children. 

IVANITCH. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Don't be so unhappy about it. 

SVIETLOVIDOFF. But I am a man, I am still alive. Warm, red blood istingling in my veins, the blood of noble ancestors. I am an aristocrat, Nikitushka; I served in the army, in the artillery, before I fell aslow as this, and what a fine young chap I was! Handsome, daring, eager!Where has it all gone? What has become of those old days? There's thepit that has swallowed them all! I remember it all now. Forty-five yearsof my life lie buried there, and what a life, Nikitushka! I can see itas clearly as I see your face: the ecstasy of youth, faith, passion, thelove of women--women, Nikitushka!

IVANITCH. It is time you went to sleep, sir. 

SVIETLOVIDOFF. When I first went on the stage, in the first glow ofpassionate youth, I remember a woman loved me for my acting. She wasbeautiful, graceful as a poplar, young, innocent, pure, and radiant as asummer dawn. Her smile could charm away the darkest night. I remember, I stood before her once, as I am now standing before you. She had neverseemed so lovely to me as she did then, and she spoke to me so with hereyes--such a look! I shall never forget it, no, not even in thegrave; so tender, so soft, so deep, so bright and young! Enraptured, intoxicated, I fell on my knees before her, I begged for my happiness, and she said: "Give up the stage!" Give up the stage! Do you understand?She could love an actor, but marry him--never! I was acting that day, Iremember--I had a foolish, clown's part, and as I acted, I felt my eyesbeing opened; I saw that the worship of the art I had held so sacred wasa delusion and an empty dream; that I was a slave, a fool, the playthingof the idleness of strangers. I understood my audience at last, andsince that day I have not believed in their applause, or in theirwreathes, or in their enthusiasm. Yes, Nikitushka! The people applaudme, they buy my photograph, but I am a stranger to them. They don't knowme, I am as the dirt beneath their feet. They are willing enough tomeet me . . . But allow a daughter or a sister to marry me, an outcast, never! I have no faith in them, [sinks onto the stool] no faith in them. 

IVANITCH. Oh, sir! you look dreadfully pale, you frighten me to death!Come, go home, have mercy on me!

SVIETLOVIDOFF. I saw through it all that day, and the knowledge wasdearly bought. Nikitushka! After that . . . When that girl . . . Well, Ibegan to wander aimlessly about, living from day to day without lookingahead. I took the parts of buffoons and low comedians, letting my mindgo to wreck. Ah! but I was a great artist once, till little by little Ithrew away my talents, played the motley fool, lost my looks, lost thepower of expressing myself, and became in the end a Merry Andrew insteadof a man. I have been swallowed up in that great black pit. I never feltit before, but to-night, when I woke up, I looked back, and there behindme lay sixty-eight years. I have just found out what it is to be old! Itis all over . . . [sobs] . . . All over. 

IVANITCH. There, there, dear master! Be quiet . . . Gracious! [Calls]Petrushka! Yegorka!

SVIETLOVIDOFF. But what a genius I was! You cannot imagine what powerI had, what eloquence; how graceful I was, how tender; how many strings[beats his breast] quivered in this breast! It chokes me to think of it!Listen now, wait, let me catch my breath, there; now listen to this:

 "The shade of bloody Ivan now returning Fans through my lips rebellion to a flame, I am the dead Dimitri! In the burning Boris shall perish on the throne I claim. Enough! The heir of Czars shall not be seen Kneeling to yonder haughty Polish Queen!"*

 *From "Boris Godunoff, " by Pushkin. [translator's note]

Is that bad, eh? [Quickly] Wait, now, here's something from KingLear. The sky is black, see? Rain is pouring down, thunder roars, lightning--zzz zzz zzz--splits the whole sky, and then, listen:

 "Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous thought-executing fires Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts Singe my white head! And thou, all shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! Crack nature's moulds, all germons spill at once That make ungrateful man!"

[Impatiently] Now, the part of the fool. [Stamps his foot] Come take thefool's part! Be quick, I can't wait!

IVANITCH. [Takes the part of the fool]

"O, Nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than thisrain-water out o' door. Good Nuncle, in; ask thy daughter's blessing:here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools. "

SVIETLOVIDOFF. 

 "Rumble thy bellyful! spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters; I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children. "

Ah! there is strength, there is talent for you! I'm a great artist! Now, then, here's something else of the same kind, to bring back my youth tome. For instance, take this, from Hamlet, I'll begin . . . Let me see, how does it go? Oh, yes, this is it. [Takes the part of Hamlet]

"O! the recorders, let me see one. --To withdraw with you. Why do you goabout to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?"

IVANITCH. "O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is toounmannerly. "

SVIETLOVIDOFF. "I do not well understand that. Will you play upon thispipe?"

IVANITCH. "My lord, I cannot. "

SVIETLOVIDOFF. "I pray you. "

IVANITCH. "Believe me, I cannot. "

SVIETLOVIDOFF. "I do beseech you. "

IVANITCH. "I know no touch of it, my lord. "

SVIETLOVIDOFF. "'Tis as easy as lying: govern these vantages with yourfinger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discoursemost eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. "

IVANITCH. "But these I cannot command to any utterance of harmony: Ihave not the skill. "

SVIETLOVIDOFF. "Why, look you, how unworthy a thing you make of me. Youwould play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck outthe heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to thetop of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in thislittle organ, yet cannot you make it speak. S'blood! Do you think I ameasier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me!" [laughs and clasps]Bravo! Encore! Bravo! Where the devil is there any old age in that? I'mnot old, that is all nonsense, a torrent of strength rushes over me;this is life, freshness, youth! Old age and genius can't exist together. You seem to be struck dumb, Nikitushka. Wait a second, let me come tomy senses again. Oh! Good Lord! Now then, listen! Did you ever hear suchtenderness, such music? Sh! Softly;

 "The moon had set. There was not any light, Save of the lonely legion'd watch-stars pale In outer air, and what by fits made bright Hot oleanders in a rosy vale Searched by the lamping fly, whose little spark Went in and out, like passion's bashful hope. "

[The noise of opening doors is heard] What's that?

IVANITCH. There are Petrushka and Yegorka coming back. Yes, you havegenius, genius, my master. 

SVIETLOVIDOFF. [Calls, turning toward the noise] Come here to me, boys! [To IVANITCH] Let us go and get dressed. I'm not old! All that isfoolishness, nonsense! [laughs gaily] What are you crying for? You poorold granny, you, what's the matter now? This won't do! There, there, this won't do at all! Come, come, old man, don't stare so! What makesyou stare like that? There, there! [Embraces him in tears] Don't cry!Where there is art and genius there can never be such things as old ageor loneliness or sickness . . . And death itself is half . . . [Weeps]No, no, Nikitushka! It is all over for us now! What sort of a genius amI? I'm like a squeezed lemon, a cracked bottle, and you--you are the oldrat of the theatre . . . A prompter! Come on! [They go] I'm no genius, I'm only fit to be in the suite of Fortinbras, and even for that Iam too old. .. . Yes. .. . Do you remember those lines from Othello, Nikitushka?

 "Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content! Farewell the plumed troops and the big wars That make ambition virtue! O farewell! Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!"

IVANITCH. Oh! You're a genius, a genius!

SVIETLOVIDOFF. And again this:

 "Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon, Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even: Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon, And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven. "

They go out together, the curtain falls slowly.