Woe from Wit: A Verse Comedy in Four Acts 9780231548519

Citation preview

WOE FROM WIT

RU S S I A N L I BR A RY

The Russian Library at Columbia University Press publishes an expansive selection of Russian literature in English translation, concentrating on works previously unavailable in English and those ripe for new translations. Works of premodern, modern, and contemporary literature are featured, including recent writing. The series seeks to demonstrate the breadth, surprising variety, and global importance of the Russian literary tradition and includes not only novels but also short stories, plays, poetry, memoirs, creative nonfiction, and works of mixed or fluid genre. Editorial Board: Vsevolod Bagno Dmitry Bak Rosamund Bartlett Caryl Emerson Peter B. Kaufman Mark Lipovetsky Oliver Ready Stephanie Sandler

ɷɸɷ For a list of books in the series, see page 153

R F E O W

T I W M O

in dy s e t m Co r Ac e ers Fou AV

AL

EX

d ate l s n y T ra Bets by lick Hu

AN DE R GR IB OE DO V

Columbia University Press New York

Columbia University Press New York

Published with the support of Read Russia, Inc., and the Institute of Literary Translation, Russia Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Translation copyright © 2020 Elizabeth C. Hulick All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Griboyedov, Aleksandr Sergeyevich, 1795–1829, author. | Translation copyright Hulick, Elizabeth C. Title: Woe from wit : a verse comedy in four acts / Alexander Griboedov ; translated by Betsy Hulick. Other titles: Gore ot uma. English Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2020] | Series: Russian library | “Published with the support of Read Russia, Inc., and the Institute of Literary Translation, Russia.” Identifiers: LCCN 2019020284 (print) | LCCN 2019981490 (e-book) | ISBN 9780231189781 (cloth) | ISBN 9780231189798 (paperback) | ISBN 9780231548519 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Griboyedov, Aleksandr Sergeyevich, 1795–1829. Gore ot uma—Translations into English. | Man-woman relationships— Russia—Drama. | Social classes—Russia—Drama. | Russian drama (Comedy)—19th century—Translations into English. Classification: LCC PG3337.G7 G613 2020 (print) | LCC PG3337.G7 (e-book) | DDC 891.72/3–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019020284 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981490

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover design: Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich Book design: Lisa Hamm

In Memoriam: For Lia Brodsky, who encouraged me from the start.

•

Fate’s a mischief-making tease. That’s her character: in brief, a fool is blissfully at his ease. A man of spirit comes to grief.

CONTENTS

Introduction by Angela Brintlinger Translator’s Note

xxxv

Dramatis Personae

Woe from Wit 1

xxxix

xi

INTRODUCTION ANGEL A BRINTLINGER

A

lexander Griboedov was born at the end of one world and on the cusp of another. This change had been building throughout the eighteenth century. Revisions to the law, the growth of a scientific community, and changed social standards transformed the country during the so-called Age of Empresses. Literary life, too, changed in the eighteenth century under the empresses Elizabeth and Catherine II (“the Great”). Russian court life encouraged celebratory odes—on the ascension to the throne of the empresses, on the birth of various heirs, on battles won and lands conquered. Enlightenment genres such as the satirical ode, which encouraged moral and ethical behavior on the part of royalty and nobility alike, and the didactic play or dialogue, which featured more or less comedy depending on its audience, were practiced alongside translations and imitations of foreign works, primarily French, German, and (generally, via these) Latin and Greek. Even the very language Russians used was changing by the time Catherine II died in 1796. Writers and others worked to create a modern Russian to better capture Russia’s new circumstances, leaving behind an older language that had lumbered with the vocabulary of Church Slavonic and creaked clumsily due to convoluted syntax.

xii \

Introduction

Catherine’s successor, her son, Paul I, did his best to overturn his mother’s legacy—including instituting male primogeniture for the royal family to ensure there would be no more matriarchs on the throne—but lasted fewer than five years himself before his violent murder brought his own son, Alexander I, to power. Alexander famously pronounced that “everything under me will be as it was under Grandmother.” Russia’s true “Golden Age” was about to begin. This was the world in which Griboedov grew up, although we don’t know with absolute certainty just when he was born. The place was eighteenth-century Moscow, and the date was January 4 (according to the old Julian calendar used in Russia until 1918), but scholars are still squabbling over the year. Even during Griboedov’s lifetime there was ambiguity: 1795, 1793, 1792  .  .  . some argue for 1790, a birth year that would have made him older than his sister, Maria (1792–1856), and predated his parents’ marriage. Probably— says the latest biographical work by scholar Sergei Fomichev—the year was 1794. His family was part of the Russian elite, and we know he summered on his uncle’s estate near Smolensk when he was young. Estate life also had changed during the eighteenth century, and Griboedov was surely witness to the effects. Some owners undertook vast projects to turn sites of agricultural production into more lavish places designed to express the cultural aspirations of the nobility. Such estates might include serf theaters and orchestras, as well as gardens, landscapes, and pleasure grounds on a European model. Other estate owners instituted scientific agricultural reforms and founded small manufacturing enterprises, such as textile and brick factories, tanneries, and processing plants. Griboedov’s uncle’s

estate, Khmelita, not far from the city of Smolensk, is now a museum devoted to the memory of Griboedov, but it also stands as a monument to eighteenth-century noble life. Alexander Griboedov himself was an extraordinary person, graced with intellectual, literary, linguistic, and musical talent; filled with ambition, pride, and love for his country; and remarkably witty to boot. Taught first at home and then at Moscow University, Griboedov studied the major European languages as well as Latin and received a degree in 1808 in literary studies. Given his immediate family’s relative lack of wealth, his future seemed to lie in the law or some form of government service. Expectations for the nobility had been shifting in these years as well. In the eighteenth century, noble boys were enrolled in the military by their parents and understood that their role was to serve their country: either on the battlefield or in state positions in the various ministries that had been invented by Peter I (these were known as the collegia—foreign affairs, war, justice, state revenues, commerce, etc.). They also might take up other positions in local governments or the state Senate. But by the nineteenth century, with new freedoms granted by the Charter of the Nobility, the desire to serve in state institutions had begun to wane. Many noblemen still worked and strived for the promotions that would increase their social prestige, but others retired early or avoided service altogether. Life on a country estate like Khmelita could feel isolated, but at least it was inexpensive, whereas in the cities, the nobility found themselves spending their fortunes on their social lives—on clothing, furnishings, and entertainment such as balls or other gatherings. Some traveled or sent their sons abroad to study, and others continued to follow long-standing traditions: churchgoing Introduction

\ xiii

xiv \

Introduction

and religious holidays, family get-togethers, chatter and gossip, music and storytelling. This sense of tradition was often stifling: Moscow in particular was known for its tight web of nepotism—uncles aided nephews, grand dames found matches for poor relations, and favors were exchanged to facilitate career building (oddly, not unlike today’s Moscow). But for a young man without extensive means, military or government service was still the default option. Some sources report that Griboedov received a degree in law; others suggest that his studies were only moving in that direction. Either way, his education came to an abrupt end in 1812 when European events intervened. Just two days after Napoleon and his French armies attacked Russia in 1812, Griboedov joined a hussar regiment in Moscow. He served under General Kologrivov in the cavalry reserves, where he met Stepan Begichev, who was to become an important influence and Griboedov’s best friend and correspondent throughout the rest of his life. (Indeed, much of what we know about that life comes from those letters, along with the extensive travel notes Griboedov later maintained to share with Begichev.) There is evidence of some youthful shenanigans during the war (one anecdote describes him riding a horse up to the second floor of a home in Brest, where he served, while a ball was taking place) but not much in the way of brave service. Griboedov spent much of 1813 on sick leave, so he was really on active duty only in the year 1814, at the end of which he suffered a fall from a horse and was sent to St. Petersburg to consult medical specialists. Not surprisingly, Griboedov’s petition to be promoted upon retirement from the regiment—a customary practice—was denied, and upon his discharge in 1816, he retained

the rank with which he had entered the service, a modest tenth in the fourteen-rank table of ranks. In St. Petersburg, with a military career (however undistinguished) behind him, Griboedov joined the social whirl of friends and comrades, many of whom served in the bureaucracy by day and gathered at the theater in the evenings. Griboedov immersed himself in the life of the stage. When he finally took up a position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the summer of 1817, it was with the hope of continuing his social and literary pursuits in the capital. Curiously, he began his service on the very same day as did Pushkin. That he was drawn to the theater is significant and perhaps not surprising. In the first third of the nineteenth century in St. Petersburg, the theater was the main venue for literary experimentation, with translated or imitative light comedies serving up plots, characters, and new forms of speech. The Russian language had shaken off its stilted, archaic forms and had absorbed just enough from neighboring European languages to enrich its lexicon and smooth its syntax. As the literary language matured, Russian writers took advantage of its grammatical and structural flexibility to bring together vivid folk semantics with elegant verbal discourse and pointed epigrams. All of this could be played with on the stage. Griboedov’s destiny, however—perhaps thanks to his linguistic skills—lay in diplomacy, and his days of desultory service in St. Petersburg were numbered. In March 1818, the Ministry that employed him informed Griboedov that he would be traveling to Persia as secretary to the diplomatic emissary. Argue though he might that, as a poet and musician, he needed to remain in the Russian capital, Griboedov found that his fate was sealed and that he Introduction

\ xv

xvi \

Introduction

would be tied for the rest of his life to the tsarist state’s military and diplomatic expansionism. Why was Griboedov sent off to the periphery of the Russian empire? Perhaps, scholars have suggested, as a consequence of his role in a fatal duel that had taken place the previous November. What, in late 1817, had seemed a friendly obligation or, indeed, a lark—agreeing to help resolve a quarrel between Vasily Sheremetev and Alexander Zavadovsky over the former’s mistress—turned into a double duel that also drew in the seconds, Alexander Yakubovich and Griboedov, although the latter match had to be postponed when Zavadovsky killed Sheremetev. Griboedov swore to the officials who investigated that he had had nothing to do with the scandalous and tragic events. His punishment, covert, as  was often the case in imperial Russia, took the form of exile from the capital. He and Yakubovich finally met to finish their portion of the duel in April 1819, in faraway Georgia, where Griboedov was then living. The men apparently approached the duel as a duty they owed to Sheremetev, and although they chatted like friends up to the moment it began, they did not hesitate to go through with the contest. Yakubovich shot first and wounded Griboedov in the hand. Yakubovich’s second marveled that Griboedov chose not to approach the barrier, which he had the right to do, but instead shot from a distance and missed his opponent entirely. A talented composer and pianist, Griboedov never played as well again—his little finger was forever crippled. For an aspiring playwright and author, reassignment to the Caucasus region was its own form of tragedy. Instead of indulging in the hospitality of friends in Moscow or theatrical and literary life

in St. Petersburg—or even enduring slow, dull days on his uncle’s estate at Khmelita, where he might at least have had some access to a serf theater and actors—Griboedov spent most of the rest of his life in motion between Russia and Tehran. No fixed home, no private life, no quiet evenings spent reading in the library or composing pieces at the piano. Instead, Griboedov became a military diplomat, tied to one or another general (Ermolov, Paskevich) and negotiating treaties and conditions with various foreign dignitaries, including the Shah of Persia himself. He was constantly in transit. Griboedov complained bitterly in letters to his friends back home. “Let me tell you about my life,” he wrote in February 1820 to Pavel Katenin, who resided in St. Petersburg. “It has been a year and several days since I got on a horse and began my travels from Tiflis to Iran, the secretary of a wandering mission. Since that time I cannot find myself. What is it like? A man rides 70 versts a day, it goes without saying every day, and he rides for two months in a row: under the sultry Persian sky, through the snows of the Caucasus, with maybe two or maximum three weeks in between to rest in one place!” Despite the hardships of travel and military life, there were some bright spots. For one thing, Griboedov would spend several months at a time in Tiflis, an urbane spot featuring vast noble families, many of whom were tied to the area by heritage or by affiliation with the Russian imperial government or military. Local Georgian noblemen became his companions, and Russian friends and comrades— including the future Decembrist, Wilhelm Küchelbeker—also passed through. Griboedov even had the opportunity to mix with English and Scottish travelers who were on their way to Persia or were surveying the Caucasus region. Introduction

\ xvii

xviii \

Introduction

During several trips to Tabriz and Tehran in 1819 and 1820, Griboedov fulfilled diplomatic functions, including helping to return Russian prisoners of war (and escaped serfs) to their homeland. It was in Tabriz, as Griboedov wrote in a letter to an unknown female correspondent, that he had the dream that was to serve as the basis for the plot of Woe from Wit. Griboedov began to compose his play while working for General Alexei Ermolov—sometimes known as the “butcher of the Caucasus”—whom he had met in Chechnya in 1819 and whose head of chancery he became in 1821. Finally, in February 1823, Griboedov was permitted to go back to Russia for what turned out to be a two-year leave—his first extended period at home since his St. Petersburg days. In Moscow, Griboedov devoted the spring season to balls and social events, announcing to friends who were surprised at his frivolous pursuits: “Don’t worry! I’m not wasting my time.” Indeed, that summer at Begichev’s estate near Tula, Griboedov was quite productive. He wrote and published a poem about a poet-activist, entitled “David,” and composed a light opera with his friend Pyotr Vyazemsky called Who’s the Brother, Who’s the Sister, or Deceit after Deceit, featuring music by A. N. Verstovsky. And he used his observations of the Moscow social scene to put the finishing touches on his play Woe from Wit. Griboedov left Moscow in summer 1824 for the capital. Of St.  Petersburg, Griboedov complained that it was “deadly boring,” writing to a friend: “have you noticed that throughout Rus the pernicious air of a cemetery is spreading?” Nonetheless, he found friends and comrades there—writers, actors, fellow military and service people—and began to read Woe from Wit in salons and living rooms across the city. Rumor of the comedy spread, and it  was

received with delight, curiosity, and enthusiasm. In October, Griboedov learned that the censor would not grant permission to publish his play, and although excerpts appeared in December 1824 in the theater almanac Russian Thalia, the following May an attempt to stage Woe from Wit at the Theater School failed. In fact, that initial censorship may well have helped the reputation of Woe from Wit. The play was read aloud and copied by hand hundreds of times starting in 1824. Given the popularity of handwritten literature in the 1820s, Woe from Wit thus may have reached more people and circulated more widely than if it had been produced on stage or even printed in the author’s lifetime. Although its initial publication in 1833 was subjected to censorship, it was finally issued without any cuts in 1862. These eventful two years of Griboedov’s life saw his literary fame begin to build. At this time, too, many of his compatriots were engaged in conversations about how Russia might benefit from a more liberal state. Meeting in secret societies, the reform-minded or even revolutionary young men were plotting to overthrow the government, and when Alexander I died in late 1825, they saw their moment. What came to be called the Decembrist revolt took advantage of a brief interregnum after Alexander’s death and was quickly routed by forces loyal to the government. Severe reprisals followed: several thousand Russians were arrested and interrogated, dozens were punished with prison and exile, and five of the ringleaders were hung. Although Griboedov was suspected, no evidence was found linking him to the conspirators. But Griboedov’s play— about a disaffected youth whose speeches get him labeled a rebel, a troublemaker, and even mad—did come to be associated with the era’s reformist youth. (Seen even in the nineteenth century as Introduction

\ xix

xx \

Introduction

a Decembrist and thus anti-tsarist work, Woe from Wit was quickly adopted by the Soviet regime in the twentieth century.) Griboedov spent the first half of 1826 under investigation, but ultimately escaped with his life and reputation intact. Indeed, upon his release, he received a promotion to the seventh rank with the title of Court Councilor, and in this he was more fortunate than some of his former comrades, including both Yakubovich and Küchelbeker, who were exiled to Siberia in the wake of the revolt. Nevertheless, Griboedov’s leave was over, and he was forced to return to his “wandering life” of travel between St. Petersburg, Tiflis, and Persia for the duration of the latest Russo-Persia conflict (1826–28). At the war’s conclusion, he helped to negotiate the so-called Turkmenchai Peace Treaty—an accord that was so punitive it has entered the lexicon of the Iranians, who still exclaim, when they feel they are being tricked, “Ai, ai, Turkmenchai!” Griboedov brought the treaty to St. Petersburg to be signed and was sent back to Persia yet again to make sure its conditions were fulfilled. Promotions accompanied this work, but Griboedov was nonetheless frustrated with his professional life. Attempting, perhaps, to leave diplomatic work behind, Griboedov used his stay in St.  Petersburg in 1828 to present to the tsar’s advisers a plan for a trading company, the Russian Transcaucasian Company, designed on the model of the British East India Company and the Russian American Company. Nothing came of his proposal, though, and on his way back to Persia, Griboedov stopped in Georgia to marry a young girl with whose family he had long been close. With his new bride, the 16-year-old Nina Chavchavadze, he traveled on to Tabriz. From there Griboedov went on to the Russian mission in Tehran, but his negotiations with government representatives failed, the

building was stormed, and in an international incident that still resonates in Russo-Iranian relations, Griboedov was massacred, along with almost three dozen colleagues. And thus Griboedov’s efforts in literature, diplomacy, economic development, and even family life with his pregnant bride came to an abrupt, if spectacular, end. Regardless of when he was born, Griboedov died before he was 40. ɷɸɷ Some Russians continue to think of Griboedov as the author of only one work, Woe from Wit. That isn’t quite fair. He did publish some poems, essays, and reviews. And he was, if briefly, part of a circle of playwrights, actors, and others who formed a vibrant theatrical community in St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg theatrical scene brought to Russia a form of European neoclassicism, using especially French models, even as playwrights experimented with finding their own voices for the stage. Working alongside comrades Alexander Shakhovskoy, Pavel Katenin, Andrei Zhandr, and Wilhelm Küchelbeker, Griboedov translated and adapted foreign plays while writing original works as well. Some of the characters he created in the former and certainly the language he favored—clever, pointed, and conversational—would bear further fruit. One of Griboedov’s more successful efforts was his Our Own Clan, or the Married Bride, written with Nikolai Khmelnitsky from an idea by Shakhovskoy. The play was created to benefit the actress Mаria Valberkhova, who performed the role of the married bride, Natasha, at its premiere. The timing of such benefits was one of the reasons many plays of the era were co-written; with a Introduction

\ xxi

xxii \

Introduction

deadline looming, a writer would enlist his friends to help. Our Own Clan was well received in performance and earned praise for its clever lines and unusual rhymes. Considering his own scenes to be relatively successful, Griboedov published them separately in the journal The  Son of the Fatherland in 1817 as an extended dramatic poem. Even if written for specific occasions and performers, these dramatic works had considerable staying power and often jumped to stages in Moscow and beyond. Griboedov’s one-act comedy The  Young Couple, for instance, played in St. Petersburg almost without interruption from 1816 to 1836 and also was performed in Moscow almost every year from 1816 through 1830. In 1818, Feigned Infidelities was presented as a benefit on two different occasions for two different actresses, Ekaterina Semyonova and Elena Vorobyova-Sosnitskaya, in the two capitals, and ran repeatedly in both cities in subsequent years. More significant, perhaps, these comedies became popular outside official venues. They were produced by amateurs in the domestic theaters of noble homes and by serf actors at theaters on noble estates, and evidence of their success can be found in letters, memoirs, and even in subsequent plays that quote and refer to them. In fact, one could argue that Griboedov’s influence on Russian letters started with the now forgotten Feigned Infidelities. The name Lensky—hero of Feigned Infidelities, so dubbed after the Siberian river Lena—would reappear in Russian literature in Alexander Pushkin’s verse novel Eugene Onegin in a chapter penned in 1823: Pushkin’s Vladimir Lensky is a young Romantic poet who returns from his studies in Germany to befriend the main protagonist. The name Onegin, incidentally, also follows this tradition and is derived

from the river Onega in the Archangelsk region. One might even argue that the tragic plot element in Eugene Onegin—its fatal duel, precipitated by Eugene’s gratuitous flirting with Lensky’s fianceé, Olga—was motivated by a kind of feigned infidelity, which also may have been inspired by Griboedov’s work. Although Griboedov’s legacy in print and on stage, in Russian and in translation, deserves more attention than it has traditionally received, his output was significantly smaller than that of even those contemporaries, such as Pushkin and Lermontov, whose lives were also tragically cut short, and at a younger age. Without question, Woe from Wit is Griboedov’s most enduring legacy. Influential in its own time and in every era since, it is one of the most quotable plays in the Russian canon. Many of its lines have entered Russian speech, spawning aphorisms and comical non sequiturs that constitute a running commentary on social and political life across two centuries. That is all the more remarkable because, at one level, the play is so rooted in the specifics of its time and place. Life after the Napoleonic wars was characterized by a generational conflict. Expanded educational opportunities, travel, and encounters with Europeans—particularly during the war—meant that younger Russians had a new vision of society and their place in it. Longing for social and governmental reforms, the men of the 1810s and 1820s no longer understood or even respected their elders. This generational gap is the story captured in Woe from Wit. A four-act play, Woe from Wit follows a neoclassical structure, with unity of time, space, and action scrupulously observed. The time is the present, probably the early 1820s—considerably after the 1812 Moscow fire but before the Decembrist revolt of 1825. Introduction

\ xxiii

xxiv \

Introduction

The location is Moscow, in the house of a certain Pavel Afanasievich Famusov, a widower with an attractive, marriageable daughter named Sophia. The hero, Alexander Andreevich Chatsky, has just returned from a three-year tour of foreign lands. He arrives, as Pushkin rephrases it, “from the ship straight to a ball.” This phrase, used to describe Onegin’s return to St. Petersburg in the final chapter of the novel Eugene Onegin, has become common usage. And it is just one of the many instances in which we can see evidence of Griboedov—the poet, the diplomat, the tragic hero—and his legacy in Pushkin’s work. Both Woe from Wit and Griboedov as a historical figure captured that writer’s imagination and feature in Pushkin’s letters and even in his fiction. The play’s plot is fairly simple: the young Chatsky returns to Moscow to find it changed, or maybe the hero himself has changed while he was away. Chatsky tries to rekindle his romance with an old flame, Sophia, and finds himself woefully out of touch, unable to communicate with her or with his other former acquaintances or understand their ways of interacting. As is to be expected, comedic hijinks ensue—but these are mostly of a philosophical and linguistic nature. The social critique inherent in the play also should not be ignored: the parade of guests to the Famusov house represents a cross-section of high-society Moscow, and each turns out to be reprehensible in his or her own way. In his absence, Sophia, Chatsky’s childhood sweetheart, has fallen for another man for whom he has no respect at all. The contrast between the outspoken Chatsky and his rival, Molchalin, could not be greater. The name Molchalin is etymologically revealing: the “Silent One” strikes Chatsky as a complete lickspittle, and Molchalin’s trusted position in the household and the respect he is paid by

those around him are clear signs of the nature of the society to which Chatsky has returned. He quips:

А впрочем, он дойдет до степеней известных, ведь нынче любят бессловесных  . . . He’ll go far. Tight-lipped men are much in vogue today. Indeed, Molchalin makes it a policy to maintain his own counsel:

В мои лета не должно сметь свое суждение иметь I’d rather not express my views. . . I’d never dare. I’m far too young. . . His employer is Famusov, whose name suggests that it is fame and status that interest him most. Famusov enjoys the reputation of a hospitable man, and at his home, guests gather in the evening to chat, gossip, play cards, and even dance. The guests offer a chance for the host to meet with his daughter’s potential suitors. In the words of Sophia’s maid, Liza:

Как все московские, ваш батюшка таков: желал бы зятя он с звездами да с чинами  Like all the [Moscow] gentlemen hereabouts, your father’s set his sights on decorations and high rank. Introduction

\ xxv

xxvi \

Introduction

Indeed, Moscow society is obsessed with rank, and Famusov caters to one of his military guests, Colonel Skalozub, whose name implies that he “bares his teeth” (perhaps a reference to his awkwardness in social situations). Such an obsequious attitude toward men in uniform—military or civil—was the norm in Russia at the time, one the play satirizes as a significant social ill. But there are sympathetic military figures as well. Another officer, Platon Mikhailich, who visits the house with his wife, vocally expresses to Chatsky how much he misses the camaraderie he felt during the Napoleonic campaign. Now he has been reduced to the role of browbeaten husband, and the play highlights the misery of his marriage. In the wake of the Napoleonic wars, national pride swells, and women, according to the play, love a man in uniform:

К военным людям так и льнут А потому что патриотки. They cling to uniforms, for love of land and tsar. Griboedov makes light of such patriotism, though, as in this tonguein-cheek description of Moscow women’s affected reactions to the Russian victory:

Кричали женщины: ура! И в воздух чепчики бросали! Hurrah! hurrah! the women cried and tossed their bonnets in the air.

Chatsky admits to having missed his homeland while away. In an oft-quoted line (really a Latin saying, quoted also in a 1798 poem by Gavrila Derzhavin entitled “The Harp”), he states:

И дым Отечества нам сладок и приятен! the very smoke of home is sweet and pleasant to the hearts of men. Given the fact that Moscow was burned in September 1812, likely by the Russians themselves to keep it out of Napoleon’s hands, this line takes on new meaning. Chatsky also teases Sophia about the lack of change in Moscow since that event: На съездах, на больших, по праздникам приходским Господствует еще смешенье языков: Французского с нижегородским? But tell me, what’s the drill at social functions? The same old din of intermingled tongues: provincial Russian and Parisian French? The linguistic cacophony of the capital arose in part from a Napoleonic-era effort to drop the French language, but here Griboedov also hints at the exposure that Muscovites fleeing the capital received to the provinces and to provincial accents. Having sat out the war in Nizhny Novgorod and other Volga cities, Moscow denizens brought those ways of speaking back with them. Trying

Introduction

\ xxvii

xxviii \

Introduction

to speak Russian, they produced a macaronic mixture instead, and although they wanted to be patriotic, French continued to be the native tongue of many in the upper class. A play featuring a supple and elegant conversational Russian language could not fail to take note of this. Any changes in Moscow, the play implies, are only external. When Colonel Skalozub awkwardly asserts that the fire vastly improved the city’s looks, Chatsky adds with heavy irony:

Дома новы, но предрассудки стары. Порадуйтесь, не истребят Ни годы их, ни моды, ни пожары. New houses, but old prejudices linger. Rest assured, not fashion’s iron decree, nor time nor fire can prize them utterly from those among whom they have taken root. In this conversation with Skalozub, Famusov particularly frustrates Chatsky, as he had earlier when he suggested the young man should seek a position in the civil service. Chatsky had flatly dismissed this option:

Служить бы рад, прислуживаться тошно Service, not servility: There I draw the line. Chatsky does not see a role for himself in the bureaucracy. And now Famusov wilfully presents Chatsky as a talented but misguided youth, one who fails to fit into Moscow society and

misunderstands its mores, and thus maligns him to the colonel, provoking Chatsky to explode with a monologue that has become a famous indictment of Russian society. His opening line is among those quoted still by Russians: “Who are the judges?” (А судьи кто?). The speech continues for another 56 lines. One particularly venomous passage reads:

Где, укажите нам, отечества отцы, Которых мы должны принять за образцы? Не эти ли, грабительством богаты? Защиту от суда в друзьях нашли, в родстве, Великолепные соорудя палаты, Где разливаются в пирах и мотовстве И где не воскресят клиенты-иностранцы Прошедшего житья подлейшие черты. Да и кому в Москве не зажимали рты  Обеды, ужины и танцы? Show us these great men, where do they keep state, these fathers of our country we’re to emulate? Are these the robber barons, profiteers, and crooks protected from the law by friend and relative, whose money flows like water through a sieve to furnish palaces, import French cooks, worshipped by their clientele in exile, who hope to see, never mind how vile, the old regime restored? Can any man remain in Moscow without softening of the brain, incessantly attending suppers, dinners, balls? Introduction

\ xxix

xxx \

Introduction

In short, Chatsky finds Russian society—with its corruption, dishonesty, and vices funded by the inhumane practices of serfdom (which he indicts later in this speech)—to be utterly worthy of scorn, and he pulls no punches, so to speak. Famusov, recognizing this tirade as politically alarming, excuses himself from the room. Chatsky’s social downfall is predicted by two characters, Sophia’s maid, Liza, and Molchalin. In the opening scene of the play, while trying to protect her mistress from getting caught after a night of illicit cooing and music making with her beloved, Liza reprimands her with a folksy saying:

Грех не беда, молва нехороша. It doesn’t matter if the wrong you’ve done is buried in oblivion: As long as you sneak around in secret, Liza implies, everything is fine, but as soon as society “outs” you, you had better be concerned for your reputation and your future. Molchalin, who is generally more careful than his boss’s daughter, has a similar thought at the end of Act II:

Злые языки страшнее пистолета. An idle tongue’s more deadly than a firearm. When Sophia wants to take revenge on Chatsky for his criticism of her beau, she spreads a rumor that he is mad, and her father’s guests quickly take up the refrain. As we have seen, Famusov was already

inclined to see Chatsky—a man who refused to serve, to bow and scrape and thereby make a proper career for himself—as a dangerous element. From dangerous to insane turned out to be a short leap. Later critics saw Chatsky as a man caught between generations, unable to find his place in military or civil service and unwilling to participate in Moscow society on its terms. Pushkin questioned Chatsky’s intelligence (or perhaps, through Chatsky, Griboedov’s own), writing to Bestuzhev in 1825 that “Everything he says is quite smart. But to whom does he speak? The first sign of an intelligent man is to know from first glance with whom he is dealing, and not to cast pearls before Repetilov [one of Sophia’s repellent, reptilian, and repetitive suitors] and his like.” However, Chatsky speaks not to Famusov and his guests but to the audience. In the monologue that brings Act III to a close, he champions an old Russia, accusing Moscow society of worshiping the French as personified by the “little Frenchman from Bordeaux” holding court in the next room. Chatsky maintains that anyone who has “five or six thoughts in his head” has no place in this society. “Behold,” he declares as the scene ends. All around him the guests are waltzing energetically, and the older folks are headed to the card tables. Frivolity personified—but his recognition of this fact leaves Chatsky alone and isolated. Pushkin followed Griboedov’s work closely, writing to a friend from Odessa in 1823 to ask, “What’s up with Griboedov? I hear he wrote a comedy [making fun of] Chedaev?” Griboedov had indeed drawn inspiration from Pyotr Chaadaev, whom he had known since his Moscow University days and whom Pushkin also revered for his clever mind and personal dignity. Griboedov tweaked his character’s name slightly, but “Chatsky” did not fool anyone. In Eugene Onegin, Pushkin celebrated Chaadaev for a different reputation—as a dandy, Introduction

\ xxxi

xxxii \

Introduction

an Anglophile, and a stickler for proper etiquette: “My Eugene, Chaadaev’s double,” Pushkin would write to characterize his hero’s sartorial habits. But the influential critic Vissarion Belinsky referred to Griboedov’s hero in an 1839 essay as a “new Don Quixote,” seeing in Chatsky a dreamer, a madman willing to fight against the norms of society in the name of something higher, in the name of freedom and liberty, justice and honor. Not just a fop, but an inspiration for future young reform-minded Russian noblemen. When, in 1836—seven years after Griboedov’s demise and only a year before Pushkin’s own death by duel—Chaadaev was placed under house arrest by Nikolai I and “diagnosed” as insane for his pro-Western views, the connection between Woe from Wit and the true woes of Russian noblemen became clear. The fictional Chatsky became a harbinger of the historical Chaadaev’s fate—and although he may have been the first to be declared mad for not fitting into Russian society, he would certainly not be the last. ɷɸɷ “A sharp critique of Russian values. Half of the lines are destined to become aphorisms.” With these words in an 1825 letter to a friend, Russian poet Alexander Pushkin predicted the fate of his colleague Alexander Griboedov’s verse comedy Woe from Wit. “And you know who the most clever character of the play is?” he asked. “Griboedov himself.” Filled with the characters, scenes, and conflicts of Russia’s Golden Age, the play has been treasured by generations of Russian theatergoers as a masterpiece of the Russian stage. Woe from Wit also remains contemporary in Russia in part because of its quotability,

and we explored many of those beloved lines earlier. There are many more, though, and Russian speakers are not always aware of the source. Faced with bureaucracy, a Russian sighs dramatically: “What’s signed is signed, and off my back.” Another needs a favor and gets a positive response: “What could make more sense than helping a relation?” A third wanders into a meeting or a theater and meets an old friend: “Aha! Familiar faces all!” These lines, and more, spring from Griboedov’s play. Although Woe from Wit has seen a number of English translations, unlike other works of the era—including Pushkin’s verse novel Eugene Onegin—Griboedov’s “immortal comedy” has not enjoyed an international spotlight, and that’s a shame. Native English speakers who are learning Russian are more likely to meet with Griboedov’s fame inadvertently, discovering, to their surprise, that his play is ever present even in modern Russian. I still recall my puzzled reaction the first time someone in Russia responded to my question, “What time is it?” by replying, “I’m happy.” This reference to the young lovers in Act I of Woe from Wit—who are unaware of the passing of hours because they are distracted by their amorous games—had to be glossed for me, the foreigner. “Oh, we always say ‘I’m happy’ when we’re not wearing a watch,” my acquaintance explained. I remained confused until I finally read the play, where Sophie carelessly exclaims, “no one happy minds the clock.” Now, thanks to Betsy Hulick’s sparkling translation and this splendid edition, Woe from Wit will reach beyond the borders of Russia to amuse and enlighten English readers as well.

Introduction

\ xxxiii

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

W

hat to do about the title? There are many variants; among others, Chatsky, favored by the British (the play’s protagonist is Alexander Chatsky), The Misery of Having a Mind, Wit Works Woe, The Woes of Wit, Distress from Cleverness, and The Mischief of Being Clever. Vladimir Nabokov, as usual departing from the herd, suggested Brains Hurt. I have opted for the traditional title on which others have rung changes, Woe from Wit, as it is the most easily recognized and has, by now, become synonymous with the play itself, at least for those who are already familiar with it. It is also closest to the literal meaning of the title in Russian, Gore at Uma; Gore (pronounced gór-ye) presents no particular difficulty; it means “grief ” or “misery,” plain and simple. But the word um (pronounced oom, or oo-má in its inflected version) is more inclusive than its English equivalent, “mind,” and is closer to the French esprit, embracing notions of mind, sense, intelligence, wit, and understanding. The main point is that Chatsky is a man of spirit, and he is accordingly punished. The play is written in iambic lines ranging from one and two to six stresses; alexandrines are preponderant, forming more than half

xxxvi \

Translator’s Note

the lines. I have followed the same scheme, using a variable iambic line but without matching line length or stress to the original. Griboedov rhymes aabb, abba, and abab throughout. The lines are end-stopped, and the rhymes are exact, alternating masculine and feminine endings. I have had to be much looser, especially in dialogue between the longer speeches, and have not been able to avoid enjambment; but only rarely have I carried any line beyond the one that follows. English, unlike Russian, which is highly inflected, is not a rhymeready language. Another major difference in the languages is that, regardless of the number of syllables, Russian words have only one stress, whereas English words have a secondary stress. This means that a primary stress can be rhymed with a secondary stress (her, interpreter/diligent/event), as well as a stressed with an unstressed syllable (pin/Molchalin/drum, tedium), one of the ways I have tried to make up for the deficiency in true rhyme possibilities in English. Also, I have tried—not always successfully—never to let more than four lines intervene between two rhymes: that is, abbcca, although this situation does not occur frequently. In the longer speeches and tirades, the verse is more strict. The many lines that have become embedded in the Russian psyche as proverbs—an outcome Pushkin predicted—present a special problem. For example, let me cite, “No one happy minds the clock,” and “Where’s it better?” “Where we are not.” Generally speaking, these are lost; I cannot set wings to new English proverbs. But I have stuck to the Russian as closely as I can, seeking in all instances to reflect the tone and intention of the dialogue; and, of course, the restraints of writing verse may require the substitution of equivalents, as well as the elimination or addition of a minor detail.

In such cases, the benefits to fluency have outweighed the need for a literal faithfulness. Anna Akhmatova compared verse translation to eating her brains. I know what she means, but in this instance, I prefer Paul Valéry’s definition: “dancing in chains.” My aim has been to make the chains invisible, in the hope of creating a text that can be read enjoyably and spoken on stage without sounding unnatural or stilted.

Translator’s Note

\ xxxvii

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Pável Afanásyevich Fámusov, head of a government office Sоphía (Sophie) Pávlovna, his daughter Liza (Lízanka), her maid Alekséi Stepánovich Molchálin, Famusov’s secretary, living in his house

Alexánder Andréyevich Chátsky Colonel Skalozúb, Sergéi Sergéyevich Natálya Dmítrievna Górich, a young woman Platón Mikháilovich Górich, her husband Prince and Princess Túgo-úkhovsky, with their six daughters Grandmother Countess Khryúmina Grandaughter Countess Khryúmina Antón Antónovich Zagorétsky Anfísa Nílovna Khlyóstova, Famusov’s sister-in-law, an old lady

Mr. N Mr. D Repetílov

xl \

Dramatis Personae

Pyotr (Petrúshka), plus several other servants, some with speaking parts Numerous guests of all kinds, with their footmen The action takes place in Moscow, in Famusov’s house, in the early nineteenth century.

WOE FROM WIT

ACT I

A

drawing room. Grandfather clock. To the right SOPHIE’S bedroom, from where a piano and flute can be heard. The music stops. liza is asleep, half falling out of an armchair in the middle of the room. Day is breaking.

LIZA (waking suddenly, gets up and looks around) It’s dawn! The night has slipped away. I asked to go to bed, but nothing doing. “Our friend is coming. Someone has to stay awake and watch.” “Someone” meaning me, of course. I must have drifted off. So much the worse. It’s light out, time her visitor was going. (knocks on SOPHIE’S door) Miss Sophie! Hurry up! Come out! You’ve talked the night away. Enough! Have both of you gone deaf, or what!? A lot they care if they get caught.

2\

ACT I

(walks away from the door)

What can they be thinking of? Suppose her father, Mister Famusov— God help the maid whose mistress is in love! (back at the door)

Come on! The sun is up. Break it off!

SOPHIE’S VOICE What time is it?

LIZA Everyone’s been up for ages!

SOPHIE’S VOICE What time is it?

LIZA Seven at least; no, more like eightish.

SOPHIE’S VOICE Liar!

LIZA Damn you, meddling Cupid! She thinks it’s smart to act as if she’s stupid. I know what. I’ll get the clock to play; then they’ll listen. There’ll be hell to pay, but in my place, you can’t be popular and useful too.

(She climbs on a chair, sets the hands; the clock strikes and plays a tune. Enter FAMUSOV.)

The master!

FAMUSOV Right you are! So you’re the one who’s up to mischief. I couldn’t imagine what was going on. I heard a flute, and then I could have sworn a piano too. It can’t be that your mistress is practicing her instruments at dawn.

LIZA No sir. It was an accident. You see . . .

FAMUSOV An accident! I like that! Of course it was deliberate. Admit it, then. You can’t fool me. (He squeezes her playfully.)

Up to nothing good!

LIZA I’d say that’s what you are!

FAMUSOV She may seem modest as a nun, but underneath, she’s full of fun.

ACT I

\3

4\

ACT I

LIZA Let go of me. You go too far. At your age, it’s ridiculous.

FAMUSOV I’m not so old, you can’t be nice to me.

LIZA But someone may come in on us.

FAMUSOV Who? Sophie’s sleeping, isn’t she?

LIZA She just this minute went to bed.

FAMUSOV Just this minute! What’d she do all night?

LIZA Locked herself inside and read.

FAMUSOV Good heavens! Why on earth do that?

LIZA A book in French! Aloud.

FAMUSOV She must be mad. You’d better warn her she can lose her sight. What good is there in books? The French ones keep you up, the Russian make you sleep.

LIZA First chance I get, I’ll let her know. But, sir, you’d really better go before you wake her up.

FAMUSOV Me wake her up? That’s good. The way the clock was blaring symphonies, you could have waked the neighborhood.

LIZA (at the top of her voice)

That’s enough, sir. Please.

FAMUSOV (He claps his hand over her mouth.)

Stop shouting. Have you lost your mind?

LIZA Then listen to me.

FAMUSOV All right. ACT I

\5

6\

ACT I

LIZA You know a young girl’s sleep is light. A shutter rattling in the wind, a creaking hinge, a sneeze, a whisper, the slightest noise will wake her like a shot.

FAMUSOV Stuff and lies.

SOPHIE’S VOICE Liza! Liza!

FAMUSOV Shhhhhhhhh. It’s her. (FAMUSOV tiptoes out.)

LIZA He’s gone. And none too soon. Best beware the gentry. They’re a tricky lot. I don’t know which is more a pain to bear: the master blowing cold or blowing hot. (SOPHIE enters with a candle. MOLCHALIN follows.)

SOPHIE Liza, what’s got into you? What on earth is going on?

LIZA Is parting such a hardship then? You lock yourselves in there till dawn and still you’ve got to bill and coo.

SOPHIE It’s true. The sun’s on the horizon. How fast night went.

LIZA Spare me your regrets. Your father came. He gave me such a scare, I jumped through hoops, turned pirouettes to get him off the scent. For heaven’s sake, hurry up! Sir, say goodbye now, take your aching heart elsewhere. Aren’t you aware what time it is? Half the neighborhood’s astir! Be off with you. If you get caught with her, it’s my head on the chopping block.

SOPHIE No one happy minds the clock.

LIZA Suit yourself. It’s none of my affair— but I’m the one who answers for you.

ACT I

\7

8\

ACT I

SOPHIE (to MOLCHALIN) Go now. Another endless day in store.

LIZA Come on. Let go your hands, you two. (She separates them. MOLCHALIN collides with

FAMUSOV at the door.) FAMUSOV Hullo. What’s this? Molchalin? You?

MOLCHALIN Yes, sir.

FAMUSOV What brings you here? And at this hour? And Sophie too. Good morning, Miss. I’d like to know just what it is you’ve left your bed so early for, and what explains this rendezvous.

SOPHIE He just came in.

MOLCHALIN From walking.

FAMUSOV Oh? Indeed? Another time, do me a favor: take your walks in some less likely quarter. As for you, young lady, such behavior— scarcely up! and with a man! and one who’s young!— is scandalous in an unmarried daughter. Here’s where reading all night long can lead! If well-bred girls can’t get along without the French, from what they wear to how they crimp and tease their hair, then something’s seriously gone wrong. They rule your hearts and empty out your pockets. When will heaven put an end to this infernal foreign trend of cake shops, bookshops, hats and pins and lockets?

SOPHIE Papa, please. My thoughts are in a muddle. You gave me such a fright, the way you pounced on us, I can’t think straight.

FAMUSOV So I’m the trouble. Of course! I came in unannounced. How awkward for you! How unfair! In future, I must exercise more care. Sophie, girl, my own thoughts are confused: The pressures on a man in my position! ACT I

\9

10 \

ACT I

I’m pestered with petition on petition— which to grant, which to be refused— All day long, I’m hard at work, and then come home, to find I am deceived.

SOPHIE (in tears) Deceived? By whom?

FAMUSOV Now, don’t say I exaggerate to scold. Stop crying. Pay attention. All my life I’ve taken care of you. I lost my wife, your mother, when you weren’t but one year old, and hired to raise you as a surrogate, the irreproachable Madame Rosier. Her virtues I need not enumerate. Her only fault? She left for higher pay. But never mind Madame, when in her place my own example stares you in the face. Without the risk of boasting, I may say such fathers don’t come calling every day: in excellent health, mature, considerate, temperate in my habits, celibate—

LIZA Excuse me, sir, but . . .

FAMUSOV You there, hold your tongue. I can’t make out the present generation. In my day, there was more consideration. Their elders were respected by the young. And what it takes to educate a daughter! These foreign ways are sheer contamination. The tutors we engage, so she can dance and sing, and cast a practiced glance at some poor fool, God knows what tricks they’ve taught her as if for marriage with a fairground mountebank. And tell me, sir, is this the way you thank the man who took you in when you were penniless and gave you livelihood and gave you rank? Without the help of my good offices you’d still be drudging in the provinces.

SOPHIE I don’t see what you’re angry at. After all, he lives here with us, Father. He chanced on one room, headed for another. What is there objectionable in that?

FAMUSOV Chanced, or by deliberation rather. That mere coincidence brings you two together is something I’m inclined to doubt.

ACT I

\ 11

12 \

ACT I

SOPHIE It was! You were making so much noise, I ran to see what it was all about.

FAMUSOV I see. The fault is mine again, it seems— inopportunely troubled by my voice!

SOPHIE A trifle shakes you when you have bad dreams. A dream like mine would get you out of bed.

FAMUSOV How’s this?

SOPHIE Shall I tell it to you?

FAMUSOV Go ahead. (He sits.)

SOPHIE Well . . . it started in a grassy meadow where I’d gone looking for—I can’t remember now— an herb, I think, meant for medicine— and then I found myself with a companion— one with whom I felt so perfectly akin, I might have known him all my life: kind modest, shy, of humble origin—

FAMUSOV Not quite the man I have in mind for you, my dear . . .

SOPHIE then the picture shifted to a room as black as pitch, and even stranger, from a fissure in the floor you emerged: your face was pale, your hair stood up on end; the doors flung wide admitting creatures never seen before, part man, part beast, who, then and there, began tormenting the companion at my side, this man I held so dear . . . I ran to help him; you took hold of me and dragged me back, while all the room resounded with the yelping, shrieking, hissing of the fiendish pack. He cried aloud, and I awoke, and hearing voices, ran in here to find you two.

FAMUSOV A nightmare, yes. And that’s no joke. There’s nothing’s missing: love, fear, nature, demons—if it’s not a ruse. Now you, sir, what is your excuse?

ACT I

\ 13

14 \

ACT I

MOLCHALIN I heard your voice.

FAMUSOV My charming voice again. Oh, dear: It vibrates like a tocsin in the ear to gather half my household here at dawn. Speak up! What errand did it bring you on?

MOLCHALIN To show you papers, sir.

FAMUSOV Well that beats all. A sudden demonstration of his zeal for paperwork. Who’d have guessed you were so diligent? (He stands.) Sophie, dear, I’ve heard enough. I’ll leave you to your rest. If dreams are sometimes rather queer, the waking world is queerer still. You went out looking for an herb, and found a man to love instead. The thing is patently absurd. As well see water run uphill. You’d best forget it and go back to bed (to MOLCHALIN)

Let’s see those papers.

MOLCHALIN I only thought, sir, they need your eye before I send them out. There’re several things I’m still unsure about: A calculation seems in error, and aren’t there two c’s in “occur”?

FAMUSOV There’s only one thing I can’t stomach: Backlogged paperwork. There’d be no end to it, if it were up to you, my friend. What’s signed is signed, and off my back. (He shows MOLCHALIN out ahead of himself.)

LIZA Well, wasn’t that a barrel of fun! No, seriously, what if he’d found out? It doesn’t matter if the wrong you’ve done is buried in oblivion: It only matters if it’s talked about.

SOPHIE Let them talk. It’s all the same to me. But Papa’s different. He’s so easily upset, flies off the handle, judges hastily. You know how heated he can get!

ACT I

\ 15

16 \

ACT I

LIZA First hand, at that. I certainly do Suppose he puts you under lock and key, all well and good if I’m locked in with you, but what if I’m kicked out, and your Molchalin too?!

SOPHIE The hands fate deals are so uneven. Those much guiltier get off scot-free. There we were, without a worry under heaven, unaware of time, lost in music’s spell, secure and blameless in our happy state when all at once, as if just lying in wait from out of nowhere, the blow fell.

LIZA Well, if you’d listen—no, not you! I’ve warned you time and time again: this love of yours will never do, not now or ever! Like all the gentlemen hereabouts, your father’s set his sights on decorations and high rank; but medals don’t put money in the bank, and that’s no joke. After all, it isn’t cheap to give a ball. Take Colonel Skalozub, he’s rich, all right and aims to be a general—

SOPHIE Oh, wonderful! Maps, logistics, trenches, bombardiers day in day out, ringing in my ears! His conversation’s numbing it’s so dull. Marry him? I’d rather drown.

LIZA Yes, miss, he’s not the sharpest tack in town. But listen! in uniform, or a civilian, who’s a more delightful and amusing man than Alexander Chatsky? Tell me that. It’s wrong to bring him up, I know, what’s past is past, but even so, remember how . . .

SOPHIE Remember what? He had a sharp, inventive wit that never failed to hit the target. I laughed as much as anyone. Who wouldn’t have joined in with the fun?

LIZA As if that’s all—his eyes filled up with tears the day he left—How can I forget what his reply was, when I said, “Don’t let it get you down, sir, lighten up”—“Liza, dear, ACT I

\ 17

18 \

ACT I

it’s not for nothing tears are in my eyes . . . Who knows what I shall find when I return. Suppose my absence loses me a prize.” Poor man, as if he’d known in three short years . . .

SOPHIE Stop! It’s none of your concern! Suppose I’m changeable . . . I admit it. but I never broke a promise or a vow. Betrayal is a charge I do not merit. We used to be inseparable, I know. As children, we would often play together. But then when we were older, whether seeking greener pastures, or just weary of our company, he threw us over and seldom came to visit us. And then, what! He deigns to reappear in the colors of a lover! Demanding and impetuous, he has a penetrating wit, admiring friends who value it, and as his self-opinion grows, he’s seized by wanderlust, and—off he goes . . . Now really, am I to believe a man is serious when he takes his leave intent on broadening his mind? If that’s called love, it’s a sorry kind.

LIZA I wonder where he is right now—a health resort, according to the last report, but it wouldn’t have been to take the cure: boredom must have brought him there.

SOPHIE This much is sure: as long as he can show his brilliance off by laughing at the world, he’s happy anywhere. But my Alexei’s cut from different cloth. He’s modest, self-effacing. Say who else would sit with me till daylight while time unnoticed slipped away? How do you suppose we spent the night?

LIZA Mercy, Miss. It’s not for me to say!

SOPHIE He took my hand and looked into my eyes and now and then broke out in heartfelt sighs; no word escaped him that could give offense, but all was courtesy and diffidence; and so we sat there with our hands entwined till sunrise. (LIZA bursts out laughing.) Pray tell me what it is you find so funny? ACT I

\ 19

20 \

ACT I

LIZA Nothing, Miss. I’m sorry. It’s just I was reminded of that story about your aunt. When her French boy ran away, she wasn’t up to hiding her dismay and clean forgot to dye her hair: in three days’ time, she went from black to gray. (She tries and fails to suppress her laughter.)

SOPHIE (chagrined) Someday they’ll talk of me that way.

LIZA Forgive me, Miss. I misspoke. It’s only that I hoped a joke would cheer you up, I swear. (A servant enters, followed by ALEXANDER CHATSKY.)

SERVANT Alexander Chatsky.

CHATSKY It’s daybreak, and you’re up! I’m at your feet. (ardently kisses her hand)

You didn’t expect me, did you? Come, a kiss.

Pleased to see me? No? Why don’t you speak? Surprised? That’s all? What a way to meet! As if we’d parted just last week. As if we bored each other stiff. Love! Not worth a farthing. And to think! These forty hours, I haven’t slept a wink. The miles I’ve covered, driving through a blizzard at breakneck speed, pitching into drifts, frozen to the bone, and this is my reward.

SOPHIE Oh, Chatsky, no. Really, I am glad.

CHATSKY You are? Well, that’s a blessing. Still, if this is how you show it, it’s too bad I cursed the men and lashed the team until the horses dropped, just to get here . . .

LIZA Oh, sir! We were wondering where you were not minutes since. If you had been behind the door there, listening in, you’d have heard us talking of you. Ask Miss Sophie.

ACT I

\ 21

22 \

ACT I

SOPHIE Not just now—often—it’s unfair of you to act as if I didn’t care. With every traveler who was passing through— a chance acquaintance or expected guest, even, once, a mariner, if truth be told— we’d ask if he had news of you.

CHATSKY Let’s say it’s so. . . . Belief is blessed: it serves to make the world less cold. Oh, God! It’s true! I’m back in Moscow, back with you—are you the girl I used to know? What innocents we were! Remember how we used to tear about—Madame Rosier would sit there with your father at piquet while all around them, we played hide and seek; remember how you tripped and stubbed your toe? And how we jumped to hear the floorboards creak!

SOPHIE Children!

CHATSKY Yes, and now you’re seventeen and beautiful, and well you know it, too. Else why this shuttered gaze, those lowered eyes, as if you were uncertain what I mean. Are you in love? Yes or no? Don’t temporize.

SOPHIE How am I to answer you? It’s unsettling, how you stare.

CHATSKY What else can Moscow show as fair? Am I to find a comparable delight attending balls night after night, a mismatch here, there, a marriage, the same old gossip on the tongue, the same old verses on the page?

SOPHIE I see. Moscow isn’t worth a song. That’s what comes from traveling such a lot. If everything with us is wrong, where’s it right?

CHATSKY Where we are not. Tell me, how’s your Papa? Does he still frequent the English Club, day in day out? And did that uncle stricken with the gout die and leave you money in his will? And whatsisname, a Greek he was, or Turk— everywhere you went, you’d find him there, leaning on the mantel, offering you a chair, resembling on his stilt-like legs, a stork. And then that trio of the Boulevard; ACT I

\ 23

24 \

ACT I

some magic made their wrinkles disappear as fifty counted backwards year by year. They boasted of relations by the yard, and in-laws, with their sisters’ ready help, in half the capitals of Europe. And what of our Mycaenas of the arts? His amateur theatricals, his masquerades and scenic walls, his layers of fat, his chins and warts. Once we went exploring at a ball and found in a secluded room—remember? that songster warbling up and down the scale full-throated as a nightingale, translating May into December; and then that fellow with the hacking cough (wasn’t he your distant cousin?) who hated books and lettered men like poison, and when appointed to the Board of Education, sounded off, threatening to outlaw the printed word. Now fate decrees I see the lot again. Dullards all. But what can I expect: no one living is without defect. When travels become wearisome, sweet and pleasant to the hearts of men is the very smoke of home.

SOPHIE Why not get together with my aunt and catalog the whole of our acquaintance?

CHATSKY Your aunt? Good god! She’s still extant? That period piece from eighteenth-century France? Pugs and orphans underneath her wing? Education! there’s another thing: the system’s holding up? Private tutors hired in battalions as before? The greatest number for the scantest pay? Not that learning is their forte. With us, whoever blows hot air can count on a department chair. Do you recall our tutor’s cap and gown, and index finger smudged with ink? How he cowed us, how he dressed us down, and claimed but for the Germans we’d all sink! And Guillaumet, that arrant Gallic fop— has he got married yet?

SOPHIE To whom?

CHATSKY Some rich widow, swanning at the top.

ACT I

\ 25

26 \

ACT I

SOPHIE The dancing master? Oh, come on.

CHATSKY Why not?—we need land and titles to secure a bride, he just needs a chevalier’s allure. But tell me, what’s the drill at social functions? The same old din of intermingled tongues: provincial Russian and Parisian French?

SOPHIE Intermingled tongues—

CHATSKY Yes, two at once.

SOPHIE I’d say you did all right with one.

CHATSKY But that’s what seeing you has done. I’m all wound up. Impressions run away with me. It’s hard to stop the flow. At least I don’t promote myself with cant. Why can’t I sometimes let my judgment go, and be as brainless as that sycophant, Molchalin? Where is he, by the way? Lips still locked and sealed? How he used to badger us, whenever he’d got news

of some new songbook that was popular. Please, can it be copied, sir? He’ll go far. Tight-lipped men are much in vogue today.

SOPHIE (aside) It’s not a man. It’s a snake. (aloud, somewhat forced)

Tell me, have you ever, in a gracious mood, or even by mistake, said something kind about another person? Well? If not now, then long ago in childhood?

CHATSKY When I was still too young to know my mind? But why not now?—talk about unkind! The sleigh bells ringing in a waste of snow, night and day hell-bent on getting here, and when I do, what’s this I find? Yourself as distant as you once were near. I’ve borne your coldness half an hour now, Miss Holier than Thou! And yet I love you madly even so. (a moment of silence)

Listen, if you think my words are cruel and meant to wound, mind and heart are not in sync, but leagues apart. It’s only when I see what’s foolish, fool ACT I

\ 27

28 \

ACT I

I laugh and then forget about it. I’d go through fire for you!

SOPHIE But would you burn? I doubt it. (Enter FAMUSOV.)

FAMUSOV Not another!

SOPHIE Papa! My dream come true! (She leaves with LIZA.)

FAMUSOV (looking after her, in an undertone)

Dream be damned. (to CHATSKY, looking at the door she left through)

Well, I ask you! Three years without a line, and then, Presto! Here you are again. (They embrace.)

Welcome back! You’re looking well. I bet you have a hundred tales to tell. Come, sit down. I must hear everything. (They sit down.)

CHATSKY (distractedly)

How pretty Sophie is—enchanting!

FAMUSOV Young men! That’s all you have in mind: pretty girls. She drops a hint, hope takes wing, and off you go, imagining.

CHATSKY I’ve no illusions of that kind.

FAMUSOV “My dream come true,” she whispered in my ear. You thought—

CHATSKY that she meant me? No sir!

FAMUSOV If not, to whom did it refer?

CHATSKY You’re asking me? I’m no interpreter of dreams. I stick to what I see and hear.

FAMUSOV Never mind. It’s nonsense anyway.

ACT I

\ 29

30 \

ACT I

CHATSKY But one thing I’m prepared to say: I’ve never seen a girl who’s prettier.

FAMUSOV Still harping on one string. But come, tell me where you’ve been and what you’ve done.

CHATSKY Later. First, I’m due at home. I only saw the smallest part of all I’d meant to see. (gets up quickly)

I’ve come straight on without a change of clothes. I promise I’ll be back before the morning’s gone, and you, sir—cross my heart— shall be the first to hear, and pass it on. (at the door)

What a lovely girl she is! (He leaves.)

FAMUSOV Now which one is it of the two? She certainly said, “my dream come true,” and certainly meant for me to hear. Well, evidently, I’ve been wrong. I thought Molchalin all along,

but now this one’s turned up, it’s clear . . . Now, here’s an endless lot of bother: one’s a pauper, one a lightweight! What a charge from the Creator to be a grown-up daughter’s father! (He leaves.)

ACT I

\ 31

ACT II

FAMUSOV As a fussy dresser, make a note, Pyotr: That elbow’s torn. Let’s have the Almanac. Now read to me, don’t mumble or lose track but keep the sentences in proper order, enunciating clearly, with deliberation. No, wait! First, let’s make my schedule out. For Tuesday next put down an invitation from Parasceva to eat trout!

How wondrously the world is made! Conundrums twist you inside out: you fast for Lent, then dine out, sit three hours at table, and get paid with three days nursing indigestion. Then write for that same day: A funeral service. No. That’s wrong. Put it down for Thursday. O, human nature! As if one could forget it! In the end, we all must come to rest in a narrow box, where one can’t stand or sit.

34 \

ACT II

But if one hopes to leave behind a name for living well, who would have a better claim than the deceased—a chamberlain at court, who groomed his son to fill his shoes, rich himself and married rich, keen to choose, for sons and grandsons, wives as suitable. In short, a man whose passing everyone will mourn: Kuzma Petrovich, may he rest in peace. To think that such grandees as these live and die in Moscow! On Thursday too— if it’s not one thing, it’s another— put down: A christening party—the mother is the doctor’s widow—the baby’s not yet born, so it could be the following day if not the next—it’s hard to say, but by my count, that birth is overdue. (Enter CHATSKY.)

Alexander Chatsky—well, hello! Have a seat.

CHATSKY Are you busy?

FAMUSOV (to PYOTR) You may go. Just filling in my social calendar. My memory’s not the best, you know.

CHATSKY You’re not looking very cheerful—are you not expecting me? Is this visit badly timed? What is it? Is Sophie sick? Your face is long; you look flustered. Is something wrong?

FAMUSOV At my age, “cheerful” isn’t how one feels. You’ll hardly find me kicking up my heels.

CHATSKY No one wants you to. The only thing I’m asking: Is your daughter well or not?

FAMUSOV God above! Always harping on one string! First, it’s, “Look how pretty she has got!” And now it’s, “Is she sick?” Are you in love? You’ve seen the world, you’ve had your fill of novelty. Is marriage what you’re thinking of?

CHATSKY What makes you ask?

FAMUSOV I don’t suppose you’d think I had some say in it. I’m still

ACT II

\ 35

36 \

ACT II

my daughter’s father, am I not? At any rate, that’s how we’re said by others to relate.

CHATSKY Then tell me: were I to propose, what would your position be?

FAMUSOV First, I’d say: practice more civility. And mind your property; it’s been neglected. And join the civil service: get connected.

CHATSKY Service, not servility: there I draw the line.

FAMUSOV Isn’t that just like you! Proud as Lucifer! You need to emulate your elders, sir. Myself, for one, or take a relative of mine: Maxim Petrovich—oh! the late Maxim Petrovich!—He ate from plate of gold. A hundred servants oversaw his household. His coachman drove a hand-picked six-horse team. A decorated man who never spared expense, he spent his life at court: unlike our own, the Empress Catherine’s was a brilliant one. Her courtiers carried weight, in every sense. You’d bow, a cold air blew and left you colder, and all the more so with an officeholder.

They weren’t formed in any common die. And Uncle! Who’d prefer a prince? a count? Next to him, such worthies didn’t count. How haughty his demeanor, stern his eye, And if the need arose to bow and scrape, he’d gladly bend himself to any shape. Once he stumbled, bowing at a levee, and falling, struck his head against the floor. When he began to groan, Her Majesty, who’d smiled at first, laughed heartily; so up he gets and starts to bow once more, but falls again, to duplicate his gaffe. That brings an even bigger laugh! And then, a third time manages the trick! I call that clever, no? He fell down sick and rose up well. So guess who heads the list of invitations from the court for whist, and who’s the apple of a certain eye? Maxim Petrovich. Who has the esteem of Catherine’s entourage? Maxim Petrovich. To whom must one apply for pensions and promotions? Uncle Max. Seriously: you young ones missed the boat.

CHATSKY And so the modern world’s gone off the tracks, while that you mourn is not yet so remote, the stories that survive from it still weigh with you, though hard to credit; ACT II

\ 37

38 \

ACT II

that he who had the most resilient back was most admired at court; that not in war but peacetime, he was pleased to risk his neck by falling flat against the floor. Trample those beneath whom you despise. Flatter those above you adulate— an age of servile urges, in the guise of zeal to serve the sovereign and the state. Not to call your uncle to the bar. I’d not disturb his dust. But nowadays, however keen to fawn upon the tsar, who would risk a shattered bone to raise a storm of laughter? Only some poor clown left over from another era, might go nattering on, in brittle-boned delight: “If only such a caper’d been my own.”

True, grovelers are always lurking near, but now, thank God, they’re bridled by the fear of ridicule: the sense of shame kicks in. No wonder they get pittance from the sovereign!

FAMUSOV God preserve us! A subversive!

CHATSKY There’s progress now, albeit slow—

FAMUSOV A dangerous man to know!

CHATSKY One breathes a freer air for once: there’s no stampede to fill the list of dunces—

FAMUSOV The way he talks! If doesn’t write!

CHATSKY —who dance attendance on a patron, stare at walls in silence, overlook a slight, retrieve a handkerchief, move up a chair.

FAMUSOV A flaming liberal firebrand!

CHATSKY It’s good to travel to a distant land—

FAMUSOV He disrespects authority!

CHATSKY —or live on one’s estate, with work its own reward, not kowtowing to the powers that be.

ACT II

\ 39

40 \

ACT II

FAMUSOV Anarchists! I’d ban the lot; exile them, on pain of being shot.

CHATSKY There now, I’m done. I’ve had my say.

FAMUSOV It’s past belief! Forgive him, Lord!

CHATSKY I’ve pilloried your era without mercy. It’s your turn now. Say if men today behave in ways as bad or worse. I’ll take it without flinching. Wait and see.

FAMUSOV I won’t listen. It’s sheer perversity.

CHATSKY I’m all talked out.

FAMSOV My ears are shut.

CHATSKY My words are not insulting. Why?

FAMUSOV (rapid fire delivery)

The man takes off, goes gallivanting round, hither, yon, remembering by and by he has a home—can minds like his be sound?!

CHATSKY I’m through. I’ve said my piece.

FAMUSOV No more of your opinions, please.

CHATSKY I have no wish to quarrel with you.

FAMUSOV Oh, for just a moment’s peace!

SERVANT (coming in)

Colonel Skalozub!

FAMUSOV (He sees and hears nothing.)

You’ll be hauled before a judge, make no mistake!

CHATSKY You have a visitor. ACT II

\ 41

42 \

ACT II

FAMUSOV The law will speak, you’ll see!

CHATSKY Your man expects an answer, sir!

FAMUSOV Can’t hear! The law! The law!

CHATSKY Turn around! For him, not me!

FAMUSOV (turning)

What! Rebellion! Sodom! Help! It’s here!

SERVANT Colonel Skalozub. Shall I admit him, sir?

FAMUSOV (standing)

Ass! Of course. Why can’t I make it clear he’s welcome, that receiving him’s an honor, pleasure, privilege, joy! Hurry! Go! Now my boy, mind your p’s and q’s, and don’t alarm us with your crackpot views. This man is someone whom it pays to know; he’s enviably advanced in his career with several medals to his credit

despite his youth, and clearly headed for a general’s bars, so mind you, do not steer the conversation on the shoals. It won’t do. He often calls on us; indeed, all visitors are welcome in this house, though it’s not true as rumor has it, that he comes to woo my daughter. Rubbish. If that were his intention, I’d call it an unwarranted pretension. I’m not about to give my child away. Besides, who could second-guess that heart of hers? The gods alone can understand the girl. That’s as it is. Now, no more diatribes to make the toes of Jesuits curl. But where’s the man? What’s keeping him? He must have stepped into the other room. (He goes out.)

CHATSKY What a big to-do! Trotting the red carpet out. And Sophie? Can it be she has a fiancé? If she’s avoiding me, is that the reason why? As if to say: “What do you want here?” And where’s she disappeared to, by the way? And who’s this Skalozub her father raves about? What if she’s as smitten too? Oh, dear, three years out of sight—kiss love goodbye.

ACT II

\ 43

44 \

ACT II

FAMUSOV (returning with SKALOZUB ) Sergei Sergeich, please come in; I hope you haven’t caught a chill. We can’t afford to have you ill. You’ll be much warmer in a minute. Let me just stoke up the stove.

SKALOZUB (in a deep bass)

Get down from there at once, sir! As a military officer, I can’t, for honor’s sake, approve.

FAMUSOV It’s the least that one can do for such good friends as you. But please, take off your hat, remove your sword, be seated, here, on the settee.

SKALOZUB Anywhere you say: It’s all the same to me, so long as I can sit. (All three sit, CHATSKY off to the side.)

FAMUSOV By the way, let me ask you while I think of it, aren’t we two related—distantly, of course—

there’s no inheritance in play— but somewhere, if you trace it to the source, a lost connection’s definite. Of course, you knew of it no more than I, but speaking with your cousin only yesterday, Nastasya Nikolayevna was named. She seems to be a family tie on your uncle’s side that’s gone unclaimed.

SKALOZUB I’m sorry, really, I can’t say. No one of that name has ever served with us.

FAMUSOV Oh, my good man! You can’t be serious! I’d scour the earth, spare no expense, to find a relative. To some degree, almost all of my dependents and employees are kin to me, my sister’s children or my in-laws; Molchalin’s the exception; that’s because he’s proved to be so diligent. But what could make more sense, in the event, of posts or honors up for nomination, than recommending a relation? Didn’t my friend, your cousin, to name one, say you helped him through the ranks?

ACT II

\ 45

46 \

ACT II

SKALOZUB In 1813, in the Muscovite Hussars, we both received our sovereign’s thanks.∗

FAMUSOV There you are!. A lucky mother to have such a son! But didn’t I hear about a sash or ribbon—

SKALOZUB On August third, the Anna was conferred on me. My cousin was distinguished for his bravery.

FAMUSOV A splendid fellow, utterly first-rate.

SKALOZUB But just when coming due for a promotion, moved by who knows what newfangled notion, he went tearing off to his estate to read and rusticate.

FAMUSOV Youth! Always reading! Nothing sets them straight! But you are cut from different cloth! So young, and now a colonel—and so able. ∗ The date of a truce between the Austrians and Russians and an occasion on which many honorary medals and decorations were awarded.

SKALOZUB With comrades to cooperate, vacancies became available: Some were ready to retire; others managed to get shot and die.

FAMUSOV Whom God approves, he raises high.

SKALOZUB Our brigadier was raised much higher.

FAMUSOV Mercy. Don’t tell me you’re dissatisfied.

SKALOZUB No, no. I cannot say I’ve been denied my just deserts; but still and all, it took two years to get my regiment.

FAMUSOV Two years to reach the rank of colonel? But never mind. It shows you’re patient. Moreover, you’ll be first in line next time; no one else will stand a chance.

SKALOZUB Wrong. Others have priority. I joined the corps in eighteen-nine, ACT II

\ 47

48 \

ACT II

But channels other than seniority can serve to bring about advancement. I’m philosophical. In the event, a general’s bars would suit me fine.

FAMUSOV Just so. God grant you health and a long life But if a general, you must entertain thoughts of marriage and a general’s wife.

SKALOZUB Marriage? It doesn’t go against the grain.

FAMUSOV A sister, niece, or daughter, if you will, is waiting even now to fit the bill. Moscow brides are not in short supply; from year to year, they multiply. Admit it—such a capital you will not find world over.

SKALOZUB Bearing distances in mind.

FAMUSOV We’re known for our good manners far and wide, for tactfulness, and rules of thumb that guide our conduct—take, for instance, the long-held tradition

that holds a son is heir to the position of his father: He may be a sorry sort, but with two thousand serfs, he’ll find a bride, whereas a man, by wide report spirited, but eaten up by pride, isn’t of our ilk, as one might say. We value gentle birth and, add to that, hospitality: the welcome mat is always out, no one’s turned away; the uninvited, too, especially foreign visitors—scoundrels, honest men, who cares: the table’s set for everyone. A Muscovite’s not hard to recognize: we bear a special stamp. Take youth, our sons and grandsons: how we rail against them: then, surprise! They turn fifteen, and teach their teachers. And take our elders, how worked up they get when they critique their fellow creatures, men of ancient lineage, men in debt to no one, and when judging the administration, God forbid that anyone should eavesdrop! Not that they are keen on innovation! Horrors, no! They rage until they’re fit to drop, discuss, debate, then close up shop and home they go to dinner. Men like these could run the country, sir, their brilliance strikes you dumb! And mark my words, the time will come when we shall need their expertise.

ACT II

\ 49

50 \

ACT II

As for the ladies—try to hold them down. They lay down laws that they themselves ignore. A game of cards erupts into a war. I know. I had a wife once of my own. She could have strategized the French retreat or occupied a Senate seat. Irena Vlasevna! Lukerya Alexevna! Tatiana Yurevna! Pulcheria Andrevna! As for their daughters! How they turn one’s head! The King of Prussia, on a visit, was astounded! Because they’re pretty? No. Because they’re so well bred. And really! Where can girls to equal them be found? They know the art of dressing to a T, wear yards of velvet, silk, and organdy. They’ll sing you French romances, hit with ease the topmost notes in all the melodies; short on words, how eloquent their faces are. They cling to uniforms, for love of land and tsar. No, there can be no surer fact than this: Moscow is a city that is—sui generis.

SKALOZUB We owe the fire, in my view, a city greatly beautified.

FAMUSOV Don’t remind me—such a pity! Sidewalks, streets, and houses—everything is new.

CHATSKY New houses, but old prejudices linger. Rest assured, not fashion’s iron decree, nor time nor fire can prize them utterly from those they’ve taken root among.

FAMUSOV Look here! Tie a string around your finger! You only had to hold your tongue! (to SKALOZUB)

Sir, let me introduce to you Alexander Chatsky, Andrei Ilyich’s son: he doesn’t care to join the civil service— he says he sees in it no useful purpose. Such a waste! He’s not just anyone: he’d do it credit if he only wanted to. He has a head on him, can turn a phrase, write and translate. It’s a pity, too, a man with such abilities.

CHATSY Take your pity elsewhere, please, and spare me the vexatious praise.

FAMUSOV It’s not just me. Everyone agrees.

ACT II

\ 51

52 \

ACT II

CHATSKY And who is “everyone”? I ask you. Decrepit brains, deplorable antiquities. The enemies of free expression, unearthing their ideas from an old stock of faded headlines: Surrender of Ochakov, Crimea pacified—the past is their obsession. The composite Grumbler, hoarsely and off-key, singing one tune only: How it used to be, failing to observe about himself, that he is old and sitting on the shelf. Show us these great men, where do they keep state, these fathers of our country we’re to emulate? Are these the robber barons, profiteers, and crooks protected from the law by friend and relative, whose money flows like water through a sieve to furnish palaces, import French cooks, worshipped by their clientele in exile, who hope to see, never mind how vile, the old regime restored? Can any man remain in Moscow without softening of the brain, incessantly attending suppers, dinners, balls? Or that old reprobate you dragged me off to see, who knows why, when I was barely three, rescued countless times from drunken brawls by servants so devoted they didn’t fail to save his life—and pray, to what avail? He swapped them for three greyhounds one fine day!

Or do you mean the fellow with the serf ballet, so bent on staging winged cupidons he wrested from their parents, daughters, sons. All of Moscow raved about their grace until his creditors said: “Ring the curtain down!” and cupidons were sold off one by one. These are the men no others can replace! These are the men we’re told we must revere! These are our judges and our arbiters! But just suppose a young man should appear who has no use for rank, or office, who prefers to study, to engage with men long dead, to learn the best of what’s been thought and said, or, more, is urged by promptings of the heart to the creation of enduring art, they raise the hue and cry: Help! Fire! He’s a dreamer, dreams are dangerous! Uniforms! That’s what they admire! How many used to hide, behind their epaulettes and braid, a vacant mind! Is that the path cut out for us? Our women love a uniform as well, and I am no exception to the spell. Not so long ago I felt the same, but I’ve been cured, exempted in the name of sanity. Yet who could have denied himself a secret thrill of pride, when that detachment of the palace guards

ACT II

\ 53

54 \

ACT II

on horseback, with their gloves and swords paraded through the city’s central square? Hurrah! hurrah! the women cried and tossed their bonnets in the air.

FAMUSOV (aside)

Give me somewhere I can hide. (aloud)

I have to leave. Sergei Sergeich, I’ll be waiting in my study for you.

SKALOZUB I can appreciate your sketch of Moscow’s prejudicial view of its favorite troops, the Household Guards. Gold braid and frogging dazzle so. But what’s the matter, I would like to know, with the First Army? Aren’t we just as well turned out with uniforms, slim waists, and shiny swords? And officers who speak French, too. (Enter SOPHIE, followed by LIZA. SOPHIE runs to the window.)

SOPHIE Oh, God! He’s fallen. He’s been killed! (She faints.)

CHATSKY Who? Who’s fallen?

SKALOZUB What’s she so upset about?

CHATSKY She’s gone half dead with terror. SKALOZUB Who fell down? Fell down where?

CHATSKY Fell downstairs, hit the banister?

SKALOZUB The old man fell? Is that what scared her?

LIZA (fussing over her mistress)

No matter what, Fate will catch you out. Molchalin mounted, had just put the stirrup leather to his foot, when all at once his horse reared up. He pitched into a flower tub.

ACT II

\ 55

56 \

ACT II

SKALOZUB He must have jerked the reins. The man can’t ride. (leaving)

I wonder how he fell—backwards?—on his side?

CHATSKY What can I do!

LIZA Fetch water. (CHATSKY runs out and comes back with water. Until she regains consciousness, they speak in an undertone.)

Pour a glass for me.

CHATSKY Here. Gently there, go gently. Sprinkle some across her face. Undo her laces, loose her stays. Rub vinegar across her brow. Her breath is coming easier now. Have you a fan?

LIZA Here.

CHATSKY (at the window)

Look out the window, Liza!

Molchalin’s on his feet. He’s quite all right. She passed out cold for no good reason.

LIZA Yes, sir. Her nature’s delicate. It’s no wonder she got so upset. You can’t watch someone pitch into the ground and not be shaken by the sight.

CHATSKY More water. There. She’s coming ʼround.

SOPHIE (with a deep sigh)

It’s like a dream. Who’s here with me? (fast and loud)

What’s happened to him? Tell me! Where is he?

CHATSKY He could have brained himself, for all I care. The fellow scared you half to death.

SOPHIE You here? Go away! I can’t bear to look at you or hear your voice. You freeze the heart with every breath.

CHATSKY The man’s alive, so I am to rejoice? ACT II

\ 57

58 \

ACT II

SOPHIE Run below. Try to be of use.

CHATSKY What? Leave you here alone? Certainly not.

SOPHIE I’m fine. It’s true—as if I had forgot— with you, another’s mishap serves but to amuse. If your own father died, you’d not turn a hair. (to LIZA)

We’re wasting time. Let’s go.

LIZA (taking her aside)

Easy, Miss. He’s fine. Come look out the window. There he is. No worse for wear and tear. (SOPHIE leans out the window.)

CHATSKY Confusion, fainting, anger, haste, and fear— such symptoms tell an all-too-common tale: the loss of one held dear.

SOPHIE They’re coming in. His arm is hurt. He’s pale.

CHATSKY I wouldn’t be sorry to be “killed” like him.

LIZA To keep him company?

SOPHIE Spare me such a tandem. (Enter SKALOZUB with MOLCHALIN, whose arm is in a sling.)

SKALOZUB Alive and well. A minor injury to his arm, that’s all it was. A false alarm!

MOLCHALIN Indeed, I’m truly sorry if I gave you cause for worry. Please forgive me.

SKALOZUB It took our breath away, such consternation, dashing in that way and fainting—over nothing but a harmless fall!

SOPHIE (avoiding eye contact)

I know. It wasn’t serious at all, but I’m still shaken. ACT II

\ 59

60 \

ACT II

CHATSKY (to himself)

Not a single word to greet Molchalin.

SOPHIE (the same)

Don’t take me for a coward. If a carriage overturns, I’ll jump back in, give myself a shake, and all is right. But if it’s someone else who’s under threat, even if the danger’s slight, even if we’re not acquainted, I tend to get unusually upset.

CHATSKY (to himself)

She wants him to forgive her having fainted.

SKALOZUB That reminds me! There’s a widow new to town, a Princess Lasova, who’s keen to ride, but has no cavalier to call her own. Recently, out riding, her horse shied, and pitched her forward. She fell down before her groom, whose mind was off somewhere, could catch her—never mind her horsemanship is said to be uneven—now she’s short a rib, and wants a husband’s tender care.

SOPHIE (to CHATSKY) Now here’s an opportunity it would pay you not to overlook. Call on her, offer her your sympathy: replace your cold indifference with concern.

CHATSKY I see. That’s the thanks I earn for all the pains I took, not minutes since, and in this very room! Rubbing, chafing, sprinkling with cold water your cheeks and temples, all in order to bring you back to life—God knows for whom! (He takes his hat and leaves.)

SOPHIE (to SKALOZUB ) Don’t forget, sir, later we’re expecting you. You will join us?

SKALOZUB When?

SOPHIE Early evening. Please do. It’s just a few close family friends, that’s all.

ACT II

\ 61

62 \

ACT II

We’ll be dancing to the pianoforte; We’re still in mourning, so we can’t receive on any larger scale; it’s not a formal ball.

SKALOZUB Good. Now I’ll take my leave. I’ll stop to see your father on my way.

SOPHIE Goodbye.

SKALOZUB (He shakes hands with MOLCHALIN.) Your servant.

SOPHIE Molchalin! You gave me such a fright, I almost went insane. That life of yours means all the world to me. You mustn’t play with it so heedlessly. How’s your arm? Are you in pain? Shall I call the doctor in? Get you medicine? You ought to rest.

MOLCHALIN It’s stopped hurting now that it’s been dressed.

LIZA Stuff and nonsense. He wears it in a sling to make himself look interesting. You can’t so easily dismiss the grist to gossip’s mill, owing to your fainting fit. Take Alexander Chatsky—he’ll dine out on it, and so will Skalozub, who’s never missed a chance to work a story up for fun— in fairness though, no more than anyone.

SOPHIE So what! I couldn’t care less! If I choose, I’ll love, if I choose, I’ll tell. My self-restraint was admirable, don’t you think, Molchalin? Remember how, when you walked in, I hid my feelings? Who would guess: no word, no look, no inquiry betrayed how much you mean to me.

MOLCHALIN Miss Sophie, no. Your conduct was unwise.

SOPHIE I couldn’t have acted otherwise. My heart was in my mouth; it beat so hard I almost threw myself into the courtyard; let the gossips bandy it about.

ACT II

\ 63

64 \

ACT II

They’ll think it funny? Let them be amused. They’ll be reproachful? Let me stand accused.

MOLCHALIN But what if indiscretion brings us harm?

SOPHIE Are you afraid you’ll be called out?

MOLCHALIN An idle tongue’s more deadly than a firearm.

LIZA They’re sitting with your father in his study. Put on a happy face, slip inside, they’ll be surprised and gratified. Smile at Chatsky. Pass the time of day. Remind him of the games you used to play. A few kind words will turn a lover into putty.

MOLCHALIN I dare not offer you advice. (He kisses her hand.)

SOPHIE You think I should? Go sit with them, be nice— never mind how sore my heart?

All right, I will, if not with any confidence that I can carry off the part. Damn Chatsky—turning up like some bad penny! (She leaves.)

MOLCHALIN (He tries to put his arms around LIZA.)

You’re so delightful, so enticing . . .

LIZA Three’s a crowd. Let me go!

MOLCHALIN the sweetest little nicest thing. Liza, I do love you so—

LIZA And my lady?

MOLCHALIN She’s for duty, whereas you are for—

LIZA not having better things to do? Please, take your hands off me. I have to go.

ACT II

\ 65

66 \

ACT II

MOLCHALIN I have three trinkets for you, look! A pincushion, worked with beaded seams; a hand-embroidered needle book; an abalone toilet set with vials of jasmine, mignonette, a comb, lip salve, and facial creams.

LIZA Gifts won’t buy me; but with all respect, how is it, with the mistress, you’re so circumspect and with the maid so free?

MOLCHALIN I’m not feeling well. I’ll keep the sling. Come ʼround to me at dinnertime. I’ll tell you all there is to tell. (He leaves by one door, SOPHIE comes in at another.)

SOPHIE I can’t seem to find them anywhere. They’ve all gone off. No one’s there. I’ll beg off dinner. I’m not feeling well. If you see Molchalin, send him ʼround to me. (She leaves for her room.)

LIZA A kettle of fish that’s made to order. She’s sweet on him, he’s sweet on me: love’s danger and uncertainty; but how could I resist the footman, Pyotr?!

ACT II

\ 67

ACT III

Scene l: The same. Later in the day.

CHATSKY I’ll wait for her and get her to confess: Molchalin? Skalozub? Which one has her heart? Back then we thought Molchalin a pathetic specimen: can he have lost his shallowness and turned into a man of parts? That other one—a diamond in the rough? That throttled voice—a hoarse bassoon’s? The dazzle of mazurkas and dragoons!? What’s love indeed? A game of blind man’s bluff, while I . . . (Enter SOPHIE.) Oh good. You’re who I’d hoped to see.

SOPHIE (to herself) You’re who I hoped had left.

70 \

ACT III

CHATSKY You weren’t expecting me,

SOPHIE No. I wasn’t.

CHATSKY Perhaps my question is malapropos and awkward for you; even so: Can’t you tell me who you love?

SOPHIE I don’t know. Everyone, of course.

CHATSKY But who especially?

SOPHIE My father, family . . .

CHATSKY More than you do me?

SOPHIE Some, yes. Naturally.

CHATSKY The more fool I, since everything’s been settled. Why,

no doubt she’ll find it entertaining if I put my head into a noose.

SOPHIE You want the plain, unvarnished truth? You’ll target with your wit, despite the pain in it, whatever oddity, however slight, you find in others, while you yourself—

CHATSKY You mean I myself am just as odd?

SOPHIE That’s right. It cries aloud in your demeanor. That piercing eye, that cutting tone— There’s no end in you to what’s peculiar: a looking glass might show you what you are.

CHATSKY An oddball, then, but one alone— The fools are legion, take Molchalin.

SOPHIE You repeat yourself. It’s clear to all. you’re primed to spill your bile on everyone. I leave you to it.

ACT III

\ 71

72 \

ACT III

(She starts to leave.)

CHATSKY (holding her back)

Wait! (to himself)

This once I shall equivocate. (aloud)

We’re speaking at cross-purposes. Let’s have done. Forgive me for Molchalin. I was wrong, I know. He may not be the man he was three years ago. There’s nothing that’s not subject to reversal: opinion, climate, custom, government. Men taken once for fools who occupy high place, army men, one who wrote bad verse, one I dare not name—are found intelligent by all the world—at least nowadays, that’s the case. Let’s grant Molchalin a keen wit and a sharp mind, but does he have an overriding passion, an ardent temperament condemned to find the world without you empty, flat, and ashen, that teaches every thought and deed to serve you, that quickens every heartbeat with his love? Words can’t express this feeling that I have: it tears at me, maddens and unnerves me, a torment I’d not wish on my worst enemy; while he? He holds his tongue and drops his eyes. Meekness in such types is no surprise: they’re known for it; they dote on secrecy.

Indeed, you’ve managed to endow the man with qualities he never had and never thought of having. It’s too bad: there’s little partiality will not allow— qualities that are your own, of course. He’s not to blame. You are. That makes it worse. No, wait. Suppose he’s cultivated, smart, and getting more so day by day: does he deserve your heart? If I’m to mix indifference with dismay, answer that; as the playmate you once had in childhood, as a brother, as a friend, convince me that he does, and there’s an end. Then I can keep myself from going mad, betake myself elsewhere, swallow my regret, cool off, grow cold: the world is rich in those distractions that can help a man forget.

SOPHIE (to herself)

That I should bring him to such fever pitch! He’s mad. (aloud)

Why work yourself into a lather? Molchalin might have had a serious fall, lost his arm, broken bones; would you rather I had been indifferent, standing by, an inadvertent witness? Can you deny that my concern for him may be quite natural? ACT III

\ 73

74 \

ACT III

I owe the same regard to everyone. But still, I may deserve your harsh opinion: I admit I was too quick to take his part. But tell me, please—mincing words apart— why can’t you put a bridle on your tongue? Why so open with contempt? Not even the defenseless are exempt! A name comes up, and zing! He’s stung! Some pointed epigram has skewered him. A never-empty quiver! It’s inhuman.

CHATSKY Good heavens! Am I to stand accused as one who only seeks to be amused? When funny people cross my path it tickles me; I want to laugh; more often, though, they bore me stiff.

SOPHIE Let’s drop it, please. If you got to know Molchalin better, though, he’d never bore you.

CHATSKY A big if. (heatedly)

How’d you come to know the man so well?

SOPHIE There really isn’t much to tell. I never tried to. Providence, I guess. He’s lived three years with us as Papa’s secretary, and proved as good at friendship as at business. You know how Papa’s temper tends to flare, and unprovoked, he’ll suddenly lash out? Well, he disarms him, taking no offense and meets his every reprimand with silence. Another thing, he doesn’t gad about looking for amusements, shuns frivolity. He stays at home to keep our old ones company— and then, he’s always in demand at cards, to take the missing hand, and sits all day, wanting to or not, untempted by our merriment or gaiety.

CHATSKY Silent when abused? Sits at cards all day? (aside)

She can’t respect him.

SOPHIE Of course he hasn’t got the kind of mind that revels in display but leaves behind distaste; that some find brilliant, others hateful, that seeks attention ridiculing manners and convention. Are happy families likely, given such a mind? ACT III

\ 75

76 \

ACT III

CHATSKY Moralizing? Satire? Where’s this going? (aside)

She thinks he’s worthless.

SOPHIE He’s wonderful, in fact unassuming, quiet, never moved to act in anger or in haste: patient, steady-going, worry lines aren’t etched into his cheeks. His voice is calm, his conscience clear. He isn’t hurtful when he speaks! And that is why I hold him dear.

CHATSKY (aside)

She’s joking. It can’t be him. (aloud)

You’ve drawn Molchalin’s portrait with a finished pen. But Skalozub!—a man who towers among men. The kind of rock an army’s built upon: upright, solid, with the voice and look of a hero in the making.

SOPHIE Not in my book.

CHATSKY No? Still I’m left with guesses? (Enter LIZA, in a whisper.)

LIZA Alexei Stepanich is behind me, Miss. He’s on his way to you.

SOPHIE I’m late.

CHATSKY For what?

SOPHIE To have my hair done.

CHATSKY Let it wait.

SOPHIE And have the curling irons grow cold?

CHATSKY Let them.

SOPHIE You forget. This evening guests are due. ACT III

\ 77

78 \

ACT III

CHATSKY You’re leaving me without a clue: it’s still a riddle that I can’t unfold. But listen, can’t I see your room again? Let me slip inside for just a minute, recapture how it feels when I am in it, refresh my heart with pictures from back when? And after, why not this: I’ll go and dine across town at my club, order a fine wine, and in between the oysters and the soup I’ll toast Molchalin’s mind, the soul of Skalozub? (She shrugs and goes into her room, locking the door.

LIZA goes with her.) O Sophie! Not Molchalin! Well, why not? For making children, can it matter what kind of character you’ve got? How on earth did he get at her? His quiet manner? Rosy cheeks? The deferential way he speaks? Here he comes, tightlipped, on tiptoe. (Enter MOLCHALIN.)

Alexei Stepanich, well, hello. I haven’t spoken to you yet, but now it happens that we’ve met, how’s life treating you? Badly? Well? Troubles? Sorrows? Lots to tell?

MOLCHALIN Much the same as ever, sir.

CHATSKY And how is that?

MOLCHALIN One day following another.

CHATSKY From cards to inkwell, inkwell back to cards? Sure and steady as you go? Time even in its ebb and flow?

MOLCHALIN Since I was first transferred to Records, I’ve been rewarded for my diligence with three citations . . .

CHATSKY You aspire to high awards?

MOLCHALIN To each his aptitudes and talents.

CHATSKY What are yours?

ACT III

\ 79

80 \

ACT III

MOLCHALIN Accuracy and moderation.

CHATSKY A priceless combination!

MOLCHALIN You weren’t promoted in the service, sir?

CHATSKY Promotions come from men; men are known to err.

MOLCHALIN How surprised we were!

CHATSKY What’s it to you?

MOLCHALIN And sorry.

CHATSKY Whatever for?

MOLCHALIN We heard the story from Tatiana Yurevna on her return from Petersburg. It seems the minister in favor, did an unexpected turnaround.

CHATSKY Of what concern is it to her?

MOLCHALIN Tatiana Yurevna!

CHATSKY She’s not someone I know.

MOLCHALIN Not know Tatiana Yurevna?

CHATSKY No, unless it was a great long time ago. I’ve been told she’s rather silly.

MOLCHALIN Never met Tatiana Yurevna!? Really! She’s a well-known hostess; even more, she counts among her friends and family ties men of highest rank and enterprise. If I were you, I’d call on her.

CHATSKY What for?

MOLCHALIN There’s no one who can pull more strings. ACT III

\ 81

82 \

ACT III

CHATSKY I call on ladies, but for other things.

MOLCHALIN But hospitality’s her element. The balls she gives—from Christmastide to Lent, imagine even, what the cost! Her country house is open all July and August. Why not stay in Moscow, find a post that offers prospects of advancement, and settle down to parties, picnics, fetes?

CHATSKY Work is one thing, quite another’s leisure. Those who have the knack, mix business with pleasure, but I prefer to keep them separate.

MOLCHALIN Sorry, but I don’t see the objection. Take Foma Fomich—Do you know him?

CHATSKY Well?

MOLCHALIN As First Director of his section, three ministers have found him indispensable, and now he’s been transferred to us.

CHATSKY Wonderful! A total ignoramus.

MOLCHALIN No, really, I cannot agree. His writing style’s exemplary. You haven’t read him, then?

CHATSKY I don’t read trash, especially trash that is exemplary, even when in fashion.

MOLCHALIN No, I admire him. He writing has such force: I wish I had so eloquent a pen. Of course, I don’t compose myself.

CHATSKY Of course.

MOLCHALIN I’d rather not express my views.

CHATSKY Why is that? What’s to lose?

MOLCHALIN I’d never dare. I’m far too young.

ACT III

\ 83

84 \

ACT III

CHATSKY Look here: we’re not in nursery school! Why not find and use your tongue?

MOLCHALIN It’s better practice, nine times out of ten, deferring to the views of other men.

CHATSKY Why so?

MOLCHALIN I know my place. I’m not a fool.

CHATSKY (almost aloud)

And I’m expected to believe she loves a man with such a soul? What colossal folderol! She must be laughing up her sleeve! Scene 2. Evening. All doors stand open, excepting SOPHIE’s. A series of well-lit rooms is seen receding in the distance. Servants are bustling about.)

MAJORDOMO. Filka! Fomka! Step on it. Look lively! Set out the tables, candles, chalk, and cards—

Bring the chairs in afterwards. (knocking on SOPHIE’s door)

Miss Liza! Psst! What’s going on in there? Tell your lady company’s arriving. The Goriches are here, another guest has driven up beneath the porte cochere. The party’s started, why is she not dressed? (The room clears. CHATSKY is left alone. Enter NATALYA DMITRIEVNA, a young woman.)

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA That face! Am I mistaken? Is it true? Alexander Andreich, don’t tell me that it’s you!

CHATSKY Such scrutiny! Why so intense? Can three short years make such a difference?

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA But I was told that you were somewhere far away. You’ve been back long?

CHATSKY A day.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Do you intend to stay with us?

ACT III

\ 85

86 \

ACT III

CHATSKY It depends. But who would not agree: the change in you is—well, miraculous! You’re softer, younger, frightfully pretty, your lips are smiling, eye is brighter, color good, carriage lighter—

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA I’m married.

CHATSKY Ah. You might have told me so.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA My husband is adorable, an utter dear. There he is, leaning on the windowsill. No, wait. He’s coming over here. Shall I introduce you?

CHATSKY Please.

NATALYA DMTRIEVENA You’re going to take to him, I know.

CHATSKY If he’s your husband, then of course I will.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Oh, no. I mean in his own right! You’ll appreciate his rare good qualities.

Platon Mikhailich is my darling, my delight. He was an officer before he married me, and all his former army friends agree: with his exceptional abilities, if he had never left the service, now he’d be the Commandant of Moscow. But here he is: Platon Mikhailich

CHATSKY So it is you! Imagine meeting here, like this! We got to know each other several years ago.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH Alexander Chatsky! Hello, my boy! Hello!

CHATSKY Congratulations must be due.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH Yes, my boy. As you see, it’s true. I live in town and have a wife.

CHATSKY Barracks bustle, fellowship-in-arms, all forsaken for the softer charms of an idle, tranquil life?

ACT III

\ 87

88 \

ACT III

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH It’s not as if I had no occupation. I’ve been working on a flute duet in A minor.

CHATSKY That’s dedication: weren’t you working on that piece five years ago? Habits so securely set, in a married man can only please.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH My boy, should you marry, take a warning: every day’s invariably the same.

CHATSKY What? Bored already? That’s a shame!

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA He’s restless sometimes in the morning. The activities my dear Platon used to be employed on— drills, reviews, parades with fife and drum— are over now.

CHATSKY Why consent to tedium? You’re sure of a command if you rejoin the corps.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Unfortunately, his health is poor.

CHATSKY Poor health? Since when?

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Rheumatism, headaches . . .

CHATSKY Get a horse. Start riding. Exercise is all the regimen it takes to cure the body of its aches. In summertime, the country’s paradise. .

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Platon enjoys a city’s atmosphere. Who’d prefer the sticks to Moscow?

CHATSKY Prefer the city to the country? That’s queer. You never used to be that way.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH Ah, my boy. Then was then and now is now.

ACT III

\ 89

90 \

ACT III

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA My precious lamb, it’s getting cold in here. Your waistcoat’s open. You’ll catch a chill.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH I’m not the man I was.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Mind what I say. and button up, my pet.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH I will, I will.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA It’s drafty in the doorway. You’d better step aside, my love.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH Not the man I was.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Angel mine, do move another step or two, there’s a dear.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH (eyes to the ceiling)

Oh, Lord!

CHATSKY Bless you, friend, you are an altered man, and in so short a time; late last year when last I saw you in the corps, you’d be out of bed by sunup, in the saddle, spurring your Arabian, wind gusting at your back, to a full gallop.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH (sighing)

Those were times worth living for. (Enter PRINCE and PRINCESS TUGO-UKHOVSKY , with their six daughters.)

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA (in an artificial voice)

Prince Pyotr Ilich, Princess, goodness me! Princess Zizi! Princess Mimi! (Loud kisses, afterward they sit and give each other the once-over.)

FIRST PRINCESS DAUGHTER How elegant!

SECOND PRINCESS DAUGHTER That color!

ACT III

\ 91

92 \

ACT III

FIRST PRINCESS DAUGHTER It goes with your complexion!

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA It’s called sortilege de vin.

THIRD PRINCESS DAUGHTER This écharpe’s a gift from mon cousin.

FOURTH PRINCESS DAUGHTER It’s woven silk!

FIFTH PRINCESS DAUGHTER So chic!

SIXTH PRINCESS DAUGHTER Absolute perfection!

PRINCESS Hush, girls! Who’s that man beside the door who bowed to us as we came in?

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Alexander Chatsky.

PRINCESS Where’s he been? I never noticed him before.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Abroad. He just returned

PRINCESS A ba-che-lor?

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA He’s single, yes.

PRINCESS Prince! Prince! Quick! Come here!

PRINCE (holding up ear trumpet) Uh, mmm?

PRINCESS Tell that man on Thursday we’re receiving. Natalya Dmitrievna’s acquaintance— over there, beside the door, you hear?

PRINCE Uh, mmm.

PRINCESS Now, at once! Hurry up, before he thinks of leaving. (He goes to hover around CHATSKY, coughing now and then.) ACT III

\ 93

94 \

ACT III

PRINCESS To raise six daughters is no joke, Lord knows. The balls that need attending for their benefit keep an anxious father on his toes: young men so scarce. No partners. Empty dance cards! Is he attached at court?

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA No.

PRINCESS Rich?

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Hardly.

PRINCESS Prince! Prince! Come back this minute! (Enter the COUNTESSES KHRYUMIN , grandmother and granddaughter.)

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS Ah! Grandmaman! We should have waited. I hate to be the first! (They disappear into a side room.)

PRINCESS What stupendous gall! We’re not here; we blend into the wall! Her appetite for spite is never sated. She’ll never find a husband. Never! (She returns and trains her double lorgnette on CHATSKY.)

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS Monsieur Chatsky! In Moscow? You! How’ve you been? Still the same as ever?

CHATSKY Why not?

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS You might have married!

CHATSKY Married! Who?

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS Oh, you know. A man prefers to marry among foreigners, then back he comes with a whole tribe of milliners related to his bride.

ACT III

\ 95

96 \

ACT III

CHATSKY I wonder by what right one who copies her own milliner faults a man who dares prefer the original outright. (A number of other guests come in, among them ZAGORETSKY . Men come in, click their heels, and bow; go off to the side; and drift from room to room, etc. SOPHIE comes out of her room, drawing everyone toward her.)

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS Ah! Bon soir. Vous voilà! Jamais trop diligente. Vous nous donnez toujours le plaisir de l’attente.

ZAGORETSKY Have you a theater ticket for tomorrow?

SOPHIE No.

ZAGORETSKY I got one for you; no easy matter, though. In my place, any other would have failed. Ran all over town, joined the ticket line— sold out by noon—no sweeteners availed. Applied to the director, an old friend of mine: had he any tickets? All were spoken for. Moved heaven and earth, recalled an invalid

rarely known to exit his front door, applied to him - Cough it up! He did.

SOPHIE A ticket to the theater! How nice! Thank you. And for the effort, thank you twice. (Other guests come in. ZAGORETSKY moves over to join the men.)

ZAGORETSKY Platon Mikhailich

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH Go away! Fie! Let the ladies hear you boast and lie! The truth is worse than any lies you manufacture. My friend, (turns to CHATSKY)

let me introduce you to— what euphemistic phrase will do? A worldly man?! More accurately, an inveterate swindler, knave, and cheat! Anton Antonich Zagoretsky. Be on guard! There’s no slander he will not repeat, and he’s been known to mark a card.

ZAGORETSKY A character. A crank—but not one who intends to harm. ACT III

\ 97

98 \

ACT III

CHATSKY No need to take offense. Dishonesty is not without its recompense. If unwanted here, elsewhere one finds friends.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH Wrong. With us, a man whom all detest is everywhere a welcome guest. (ZAGORETSKY mixes with the crowd. KHLYOSTOVA enters.)

KHLYOSTOVA At my age, it’s no joke to get here, Niece: it’s taken me an hour, the night’s as dark as doom. I’ve brought along, to ease the tedium, my black girl and my Pekingese. See them fixed below, and for a treat, send them down some table scraps to eat. How do, Princess. Sophyushka, my love! You have to see my little Moorish girl! Her hair’s a helmet made of matted curl. She’ll spit at me, and hunch her back, when she gets mad! Imagine people born so black! Heaven knows what God was thinking of! A little devil! Shall I send for her?

SOPHIE Not now.

MISS KHLYOSTOVA They’re exhibited like animals, you know, sold at market, like a pig or cow! in—I think some town in Turkistan. You’ll never guess, though, who I got her from: Zagoretsky! That incorrigible man! (ZAGORETSKY steps forward.)

A cardsharp, slander monger, thief! (ZAGORETSKY disappears.)

I meant to make it clear he was unwelcome— Heaven knows, he’s nasty!—but good grief! He;s so obliging, it would be a shame! He gave my sister and myself each one, said he bought ʼem, but most likely they were won at faro, or some other wicked game. But bless his heart for such a pretty present.

CHATSKY (Laughing, to PLATON MIKHAILOVICH) That kind of blessing can’t be pleasant. Even Zagoretsky thinks so. He bowed out.

KHLYOSTOVA Who’s that man? What’s he laughing at?

SOPHIE That man there? Alexander Chatsky.

ACT III

\ 99

100 \

ACT III

KHLYOSTOVA What’s so funny? What’s he got to laugh about? It’s a sin to ridicule the elderly. The two of you—now it comes to me— were always dancing. I boxed his ear. I should have boxed it harder!

FAMUSOV (in a loud voice; the prince is deaf)

You’re here!? Prince Pyotr Ilitch! Been here all along? I should have been informed. Why’d it take so long? And where’s the Colonel? Colonel Skalozub! Such a figure is a standout in a crowd!

KHLYOSTOVA Dear God, what makes your voice so loud? It’s more deafening than a tuba. ; (Enter SKALOZUB , followed by MOLCHALIN.)

FAMUSOV Sergei Sergeich! Late!—not that we could doubt you! (He introduces him to KHLYOSTOVA.)

My late wife’s sister! She’s often heard about you.

KHLYOSTOVA (sitting)

Weren’t you here before? With the Grenadiers?

SKALOZUB Of course you mean the Grand Duke’s Fusilliers.

KHLYOSTOVA Indeed, we have so many regiments, it’s hard to make out any difference.

SKALOZUB The differences are easy to discern. It’s all in how the uniforms are made, the facings and the ornamental braid. It really isn’t difficult to learn.

FAMUSOV Come along. The tables have been laid Let’s amuse ourselves at whist. Colonel! Prince! (Exits with SKALOZUB and the Prince.)

KHLYOSTOVA (to SOPHIE) An ogre ten feet high! What possessed your father! I thought I’d die. Next time, darling, ask him to desist. That’s not a man I wish to know.

ACT III

\ 101

102 \

ACT III

MOLCHALIN (He comes over and gives her a card.)

I’ve made your party up: Monsieur Lebeau, Foma Fomich and myself.

KHLYOSTOVA Thank you, dear. (She stands.)

MOLCHALIN Your dog’s adorable. Ears like silk. I tried him with a bowl of milk. He lapped it up.

MISS KHLYOSTOVA You’re the best one here. (She leaves, followed by MOLCHALIN and a host of others.)

CHATSKY The thundercloud dispersed!

SOPHIE Stop right there!

CHATSKY Because he calmed an irate guest? I only meant to praise him. Tell me where there’s harm in that.

SOPHIE You’d end it with a stinging jest!

CHATSKY If you really want to know, let me explain: old ladies like to grumble and complain. Your obliging servant in the neighborhood, by deflecting, like a lightning rod, these ill effects, contributes to the good. Because of this we must thank God for a Molchalin, who can stroke a Pekingese, organize a game of whist, and ease whatever social tensions may arise. While he’s alive, no Zagoretsky dies. Earlier, you mentioned his good qualities, but you’ve forgotten to include among them these. (He exits.)

SOPHIE (to herself)

Oh! That man! He makes me furious! He’s spiteful, proud, and envious! There’s no one, nothing, he will not attack. (Enter MR. N.)

Mr. N Something troubling you? ACT III

\ 103

104 \

ACT III

SOPHIE Chatsky, yes!

Mr. N Tell me how you find him, now he’s back?

SOPHIE He’s not in his right mind.

Mr. N You mean gone mad? Goodness!

SOPHIE (thinking it over)

Not exactly . . .

Mr. N Showing symptoms, though?

SOPHIE (looking at him fixedly)

It would seem so . . .

Mr. N Imagine! And so young!

SOPHIE Of course, I might be wrong! (to herself)

The man is ready to believe it. Now, Chatsky, sir, let’s set the balance straight. You can dish it out. Can you receive it? (She leaves.)

Mr. N Gone mad? She thinks so, at any rate. It has to have a basis of some kind. (Enter MR. D.) Have you heard?

Mr. D Heard what?

Mr. N Chatsky’s lost his mind.

Mr. D Utter rubbish.

Mr. N That’s what’s being said.

Mr. D A rumor you are pleased to spread?

ACT III

\ 105

106 \

ACT III

Mr. N. I’ll go find out. I suppose there’s someone in the house who knows. (He leaves.)

Mr. D He’s a chatterbox of the worst stripe. No doubt the story is the purest tripe. (Enter ZAGORETSKY .)

Have you heard the latest about Chatsky?

ZAGORETSKY Well?

Mr. D He’s lost his mind.

ZAGORETSKY You just got wind of that? The case was famous, after all: A scheming uncle had him certified insane. He’s in the madhouse, chained against a wall.

Mr. D But he was standing over there not minutes since, I swear.

ZAGORETSKY They must have let him off the chain.

Mr. D Who needs to read the papers with the likes of you to keep us up to date. I’ll ask about, see who else has heard; it can’t be you alone. But hush! Don’t let a word slip out. (He leaves.)

ZAGORETSKY Chatsky? Chatsky? The family name’s well known. Wasn’t there a Chatsky I once knew? (Enter GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS .)

Have you heard about him?

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS About whom?

ZAGORETSKY Chatsky. The man was in the room just minutes since.

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS I know. I spoke to him.

ZAGORETSKY Congratulations. He’s a lunatic.

ACT III

\ 107

108 \

ACT III

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS What?

ZAGORETSKY Completely off his head.

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS Exactly what I would have said. You couldn’t help noticing something didn’t click! (GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS enters.)

Ah, Grandmaman, you’ll never guess! The most extraordinary business!

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS Louder, child. My ears aren’t what they once were.∗

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS I haven’t time now!. (points to ZAGORETSKY) Please explain to her. (to GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS )

Il vous dira toute l’histoire. I’ll go inquire.

∗ Grandmother Countess, of Baltic descent, speaks fluent Russian but with a mild German accent, using b for p, f for v, t for d, sh for zhe, and so on, as indicated in some Russian editions phonetically.

(She leaves.)

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS Where? Where is there a fire?!

ZAGORETSKY It’s Chatsky. The man’s gone off the rails!

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS Jail? Jail? Chatsky going to jail?

ZAGORETSKY Caught a bullet on maneuvers: Brain fever.

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS Disproving God? An unbeliever?

ZAGORETSKY I give up. (He leaves.)

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS Anton Antonich! Oh, dear, he’s gone— and in such haste, as if he’s frightened half to death. (Enter PRINCE TUGO-UKHOVSKY .)

Prince! Prince! Poor thing. Dragged to balls, hither, yon, so close to breathing his last breath. ACT III

\ 109

110 \

ACT III

Prince, have you heard?

PRINCE Eh? Mmm?

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS Stone deaf! Have the gendarmes come for Chatsky yet?

PRINCE Eh ? Mmm?

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS What punishment is he to get?

PRINCE Eh? Mmm[?

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS Such a sad affair! Freemasons pay a heavy price.

PRINCE Uh-mmm.

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS An atheist! Corrupted by Voltaire! Dear man, use your trumpet. Deafness is a vice!

(Enter KHLYOSTOVA, SOPHIE, MOLCHALIN, PLATON

MIKHAILOVICH and NATALYA DMITRIEVNA, GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS, PRINCESS TUGOUKHOVSKY and her six daughters, ZAGORETSKY, SKALOZUB, afterwards, FAMUSOV and many others.) K H LYOSTOVA He’s lost his mind. So unexpected. Who would ever have suspected? Sophie, darling, have you heard?

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH Who was first to spread the word?

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA Why simply everyone, my dear.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH If everyone, one has to lend an ear, but still I’m doubtful.

FAMUSOV (who has just entered)

About Chatsky? Why? It hardly comes as a surprise. And mind you, I was first to realize. The wonder is, he’s still at liberty. Just allude to any institution, ACT III

\ 111

112 \

ACT III

and off he’ll go, preaching revolution. And should you bow or make a reverence to indicate respect or deference, even in the most exalted presence, he’ll censure you as if for some offense.

KHLYOSTOVA Brother-in-law, you’re not the only one. I made an innocent remark, and off he went in peals of laughter. That was his idea of fun.

MOLCHALIN He counseled me to give up my employment in Records.

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS He dared to say my milliner and I resembled one another.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA He told my husband we should move away from Moscow.

ZAGORETSKY Mad. The diagnosis fits.

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS It’s his eyes that were the giveaway.

FAMUSOV The same affliction plagued his mother. Eight times, the woman lost her wits.

KHLYOSTOVA The world is full of wonders. Just think! So young, and overnight, the man’s insane. Most likely he indulged in too much drink.

PRINCESS Of course.

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS Indeed.

KHLYOSTOVA The culprit is champagne. Glass after glass, I’ve seen the fellow drain.

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS Glasses?! Magnums!

ZAGORETSKY (with fervor)

No ma’am! Tubs! Vats!

FAMUSOV Fiddlesticks! What harm is there in overdoing drinking? ACT III

\ 113

114 \

ACT III

The plague is this incessant reading and new learning—God knows where it’s leading: the whole world’s mad: people, movements, thinking.

KHLYOSTOVA Yes, and education’s in a dreadful fix! They’ve introduced new methods out of England in our schools, gymnasiums, and lycees. It’s more than anyone can stand.

PRINCESS But it’s in Petersburg today, at the Ped-a-gog-ic Institute, where atheism’s taken root. My relative Prince Fyodor left with a degree fitting him to be apprenticed to a pharmacist, despises rank, calls himself a chemist, and shuns the company of women, even me.

SKALOZUB You’ll be glad to hear this rumor, by the way. Subjects in these schools, gymnasiums, and lycees will soon be taught with military discipline— hup! two! three!—with books reserved for surplus learning.

FAMUSOV There’s only one way to stamp out the sin: build a pyre, set it burning, and throw the books into the flames.

ZAGORETSKY I disagree. Not all books are the same. But still, were I the Censor, I would ban all fables, for the heresies they fan. Beneath the beast’s, the lion’s, or eagle’s skin, there lurks a monarch born to rule who’s targeted for ridicule.

KHLYOSTOVA Gentlemen, I do not care a pin if drink or books caused Chatsky’s ruin. I’m sorry for him, he deserves the sympathy of any Christian. He was once a clever man, the owner of three hundred serfs.

FAMUSOV Four hundred.

KHLYOSTOVA No sir, three.

FAMUSOV Four!

KHLYOSTOVA Three!

ACT III

\ 115

116 \

ACT III

FAMUSOV According to my Almanac . . .

KLYOSTOVA Your Almanac is misinformed!

FAMUSOV Four hundred even. Stop contradicting me!

KYLYOSTOVA As if I didn’t know who owns what! It’s three!

FAMUSOV Listen to me: four.

KHLYOSTOVA Three! Three! Three!

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA There he is.

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS Shh!

ALL Shh! (They all draw back to the opposite wall.)

KHLYOSTOVA Suppose he has a fit, or what if he is spoiling for a fight?

FAMUSOV Lord have mercy. (cautiously, to CHATSKY)

Dear friend, you ought to sit. You’ve traveled without sleep all night. Let me feel your pulse. No, definitely, not well.

CHATSKY Quite right. I’ve had enough. A thousand torments tell against me. My chest is aching from embraces, my heels from clicking, eyeballs from grimaces, ears from shrieks, and most of all, my head from nonstop mindless chatter. (Goes up to SOPHIE)

My heart is sore, it weighs like lead. In such a crowd, I’m not at ease. No. There’s little left in Moscow that can please.

KHLYOSTOVA You see! It’s Moscow’s that’s the matter.

FAMUSOV Don’t get too near. (signs to SOPHIE)

She doesn’t see. ACT III

\ 117

118 \

ACT III

SOPHIE (to CHATSKY) What’s happened, then, to disaffect you so?

CHATSKY A meeting with a Frenchman from Bordeaux, a pompous sort, discoursing volubly to eager listeners, gathered all around. He’d left in tears, he said, half dead with fear, for a barbaric Russia, but had found no sooner than he’d gotten here, no end of kindness; that he hadn’t heard a Russian word or seen a Russian face. He felt as much at home, observing not a trace of foreignness, as if he’d never stirred from his own hearth, or left his native soil. The ladies here converse as they do there; No difference marks their dress or style of hair. At parties, he is treated like a royal. It makes him happy. Us it leaves aghast. A moment’s silence follows this discourse, Then comes sighing, oohing, ahhing, thick and fast— the princess-sisters piping up in chorus: “France, France—no country can compare!” The lesson they’ve imbibed with mother’s milk. Spare me these princesses and their ilk. Standing to the side, I offered up a prayer low, but audible, for heaven to extirpate our slavish need to blindly imitate,

and in some honest soul to plant a seed, through his example, word, and deed, to heal this sickness of abroad. Call me retrograde, a fossil, dinosaur, but trading, for imported styles, our hallowed store of practice, usage, custom, speech equals an intention to defraud. We dress in monkey suits, tails behind, in front, a widely gaping breech, instead of stately garments of the kind we used to wear, which suit the elements, a need for comfort, and our common sense. Our graybeards’ chins are pale and bare. We’re short of wits no less than hair. If imitate we must, then why not imitate the sensible Chinese, who stand alone, and recognize no culture but their own. When will we wake up? Repudiate the rule of fashion, break its heavy yoke? We might be Germans, so dissimilar we are to our own people. “Is there a parallel between the European and our native folk?” I heard a man remark: “Can they be on a par? How translate ‘Madame’ and ‘Mademoiselle’? surely not Sudarynya? It makes no sense.” Then all began to laugh at my expense: Sudarynya ha! ha! ha! There’s a pretty word! Sudarynya ha! ha! ha! It’s patently absurd! I was entertaining a retort ACT III

\ 119

120 \

ACT III

to bring the company up short, so provoked I was, when off they go. In Moscow, Petersburg, in Russia anywhere, a gentleman arriving from Bordeaux need only open up his mouth, to so impress our princesses, they swoon in sheer delight. But if a man’s opposed to such excess, to affectation, blather, foreign blight, and has a mind condemned to hold a sound idea or two he dare express— Behold... (He looks around. Couples are waltzing energetically, the older people have dispersed to the card tables.)

ACT IV

(The entrance hall to FAMUSOV’s house. A wide staircase descends from the second floor, joined by branching stairs from the mezzanine. The exit to the porte cochere and porter’s lodge is stage right. MOLCHALIN’s room is stage left. Nighttime. The hall is dimly lit. There are footmen bustling about; others have fallen asleep waiting for their masters. Enter from above COUNTESS GRANDMOTHER and COUNTESS GRANDDAUGHTER, preceded by their footmen.)

FOOTMAN Carriage for the Countesses Khryumin!

GRANDDAUGHTER COUNTESS (as she is being wrapped up)

Call that a ball! I ask you. It was like a scene translated from the netherworld, misfits all! Not a soul to talk to, dance with! No one! So much for Famusov! (to footman)

Careful with my shawl.

122 \

ACT IV

GRANDMOTHER COUNTESS Come dear. Let’s go. I’m all done in. One day, I’ll leave a ballroom for my coffin. (Enter PLATON MIKHAILOVICH and NATALYA DMITRIEVNA; one footman fusses about them, another calls out:)

Carriage for Major Gorich!

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA My only love, my precious heart, why so sad? (kisses him on the forehead)

Come, admit what a good time we had. No one gives a ball like Famusov.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH Natashka, I could barely stay awake. I don’t enjoy balls. I do my best despite the tedium, to keep up with the rest and dance till midnight, only for your sake.

NATALYA DMITRIEVNA You’re teasing me. You don’t mean it. There’s no earthly reason to be seen as old before your time. It’s not appreciated. (She leaves with the footman.)

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH (dispassionately)

To tell the truth, I don’t object to balls. The loss of freedom, that’s what really galls. What possesses men to marry? It must be fated.

FOOTMAN (from the doorway)

Excuse me, sir, my lady wishes me to say she’s waited long enough.

PLATON MIKHAILOVICH Yes, yes. I’m on my way. (Enter CHATSKY preceded by footman.)

CHATSKY Call my carriage, step on it! (exit footman) So ends the day, my phantom hopes dissolved in mist. Where the happy welcome, joyous cries, warm embraces, outbursts of surprise? Where indeed? I wasn’t even missed! As if, when on the road, idly looking out the window of a coach, before one’s eye, beneath the cloudless blue of open sky a rich and varied landscape is payed out, while one hour, two, a whole day passes by; ACT IV

\ 123

124 \

ACT IV

and then, arriving at one’s lodging for the night— there’s just a bare, flat, endless steppe in sight. I’m so chagrined, it’s almost more than I can bear. (The footman returns.)

Ready?

FOOTMAN Sir, the coachman’s gone. There’s no one there.

CHATSKY Well, find him, then! I can’t stay overnight. (REPETILOV comes running in, stumbles, and falls in the doorway, immediately picks himself up.)

REPETILOV Oooph! That was dumb! Good Lord! You of all— Let me rub my eyes. Dropped in from where? My dearest friend! My closest friend! Mon cher! Well may you laugh to see me take a fall, me, a windbag full of superstitions, in thrall to signs and premonitions, because I knew beforehand, if you will, that running in, I’d stumble on the sill, and falling down, look up to see you there. Say that Repetilov lies, Say he is a simpleton,

there’s a force in you like iron that acts to magnetize; it draws me to you so, I swear, in all the world you have no friend as true; I’ve such affection, such a love for you, for your sake, I’d give up my children, wife, I’d stake my all, my very life— or strike me dead upon the spot!

CHATSKY Oh, stop talking rot.

REPETILOV Of course, it’s natural for you not to like me. With most, I’m good to average company. With you, I feel inferior, foolish, irksome, a thing deserving of your scorn if not your pity.

CHATSKY Come, come, this self-abasement will not do.

REPETILOV Revile me! I revile myself for being born when I consider what a ruinous life I’ve led— I say, what time is it?

ACT IV

\ 125

126 \

ACT IV

CHATSKY Time for bed. The ball has ended. You are overdue.

REPETILOV Balls! Just so! We must throw off this yoke constricting us with rules of etiquette day in, day out, from sunrise to sunset— You know, there is a book—

CHATSKY Is this a joke? You? A book?

REPETILOV Call me a barbarian! For vicious living I’m your man. I’ve traveled in an idle, worthless set, been mad for balls, the whirl of social life, ignored my children, cheated on my wife, gambled recklessly, accumulated debt, defaulted on a mortgage, ruined my best friend, kept a ballerina, no, not one, but three— and kept them simultaneously!— gone drunk and missing on the town, set conscience, law, religion all on end. I tell you—

CHATSKY Your lies are overblown! Lie of course, but exercise restraint. These would make the stoutest heart grow faint.

REPETILOV Congratulate me. The men I frequent now count among the brightest lights in Moscow, I’ve stopped hunting down diversions all night long.

CHATSKY You’re here by chance, then.

REPETILOV Wrong: every rule is proved by its exception. Where’ve I been? You’ll never guess.

CHATSKY Your club, perhaps?

REPETILOV Exactly. Yes. The English club. You’ve no conception what a stormy meeting I was in, don’t breathe a word, it’s all clandestine. I’m sworn to silence. Every Thursday night we meet in secret.

ACT IV

\ 127

128 \

ACT IV

CHATSKY There?

REPETILOV That’s right.

CHATSKY Have a care: they’ll expel you from the club with all your secrets; it’s a risky business.

REPETILOV No chance of that. There’s such a hubbub, it’s impossible to tell whose voice it is you’re hearing. And called on to decide a range of issues, from the rule of parliaments, to juries, Bryon, matters of great consequence, I’m so bewildered that my tongue is tied! Oh, Alexandre! You’re just the man we need! Listen, grant me one small favor, do! Such splendid men I’ll introduce you to if you’ll accompany me right now. Agreed? Enlightened minds, the flower of our youth, you can’t imagine them, mon cher! nothing like myself.

CHATSKY Go tearing off somewhere? Now? At midnight? To tell the truth, the day’s been long. I’m going home to sleep.

REPETILOV Who can sleep in times like these. Forget it. Be decisive! Please! We’re men who do not hesitate, think deep; a fiery lot we are, not mindless sheep. When we’re loud enough, the noise is so great, a dozen’s like a hundred voices.

CHATSKY But why get so worked up? What for?

REPETILOV To stir the pot, to stir the pot, mon cher!

CHATSKY To stir the pot? Nothing more?

REPETILOV Now’s not the time or place to give an explanation. I can only tell you it’s a state affair; we’re in the early days of preparation. Such men! In short, Prince Gregory, for one. Eccentric? Funny? There’s no comparison! A dedicated Anglophile: clips his vowels, crops his hair. You haven’t met him? Wait a while, you will. Let’s see: Who else is there? Vorkulov, Yevdokim: What a voice! Ah, Non lasciarmi no no no! ACT IV

\ 129

130 \

ACT IV

That’s his aria of choice. Then Boris and his brother, Leo, splendid fellows, say no more. But if it’s genius that you’re looking for, Udushyev, Ipolit Markevich—he’s your man. He must have crossed your path sometime. I used to be his biggest fan. No new work for ages! It’s a crime! Flog these idlers—it will serve them right— and sentence them to write, write, write! He’s published articles still widely read in reprint: Shards. Envision. Naught] What’s Naught about? Everything! He’s stuffed his head with reams of knowledge, all of it self-taught. We’re keeping him for when the time is ripe. Our leader is a Russian without peer. Why name him when his portrait makes it clear just who: an expert dueler, fractious type; was exiled to Kamchatka, trekked a thousand miles, returning via the Aleutian Isles.∗ Some skeletons, no player by the book, but any clever man is half a crook. When nobility of soul or honor is addressed, his flaming cheeks and bloodshot eyes lend him the aspect of a man possessed. ∗ Count Feodor Tolstoy, a cardsharp and bully with eleven dueling deaths to his name, who, when eleven of his children died early, accounted it a quid pro quo from heaven. He was thrown off a ship for troublemaking on a round-the-world tour and made his way back to Russia via the Aleutian Islands and Kamchatka.

He breaks out weeping, and the whole room cries. Where are people to be found like these? Among them all, no mediocrities except myself—a lazy dog, not up to snuff. But I’ve been known, when thinking hard enough, to come up with a genial pun or turn of phrase to turn into a vaudeville: six will write the verse, another six compose, another six rehearse, and all the rest supply applause and praise. You laugh, but, brother, we enjoy ourselves, we do! My heart is good, if my abilities are few, that’s why I’m liked, why I’m forgiven for my lies! (Enter footman.)

Carriage for Colonel Skalozub!

REPETILOV For who? (going to meet him as he descends the staircase)

Skalozub, dear friend, this is a surprise! you’re not leaving? Wait! (smothers him in embraces)

CHATSKY Where can I escape to? (He withdraws into the porter’s lodge.) ACT IV

\ 131

132 \

ACT IV

REPETILOV I’ve had no news of you since God knows when. I hear they’re calling up your regiment. (looking around expecting to see CHATSKY) You know each other? . . . Most obstinate of men. Vanished. You’re even better! You’re godsent! There’s a swarm of people at Prince Gregory’s. Come around with me—I won’t take no! You’ve never met such men as these. We’ll talk all night, but first champagne will flow; you’ll learn such things as are undreamt of, things you and I alone could not discover.

SKALOZUB Give it up. You’re wasting words. Your precious learning’s for the birds! I tell you what, I’ll send over Sergeant-Major Voinikov. He’ll shake you up, you, your crew, Prince Gregory, and Voltaire, too: he’ll line you up and drill you till you drop.

REPETILOV You military men! Always talking shop! Consider me, I was once like you, I climbed the ladder, could have made it to the top, but Lady Luck made hash of all my plans. I was in the civil service, Baron Krantz was aiming for a ministerial post,

I was aiming for his daughter, Ann— You wouldn’t believe the sums I lost to bring that family into line! I went for it like a demented man. He lived on the Fontanka in grand style. I built a house next door, just as fine, with marble columns, a gigantic pile! When I think of the expense! In the end I married her, but to what end? A piddling dowry and no job in sight. There’s your German—stingy, stiff, and oh! so upright! Refused to help his own relations for fear of drawing accusations of nepotism—May he fry in hell! His puny clerks, those piglets in a sty, bland creatures of the pen and inkwell, have all grown powerful and rich from bribes collected on the sly! The current system is a bitch! Desperate times need desperate remedies! (He stops, seeing that ZAGORETSKY has replaced SKALOZUB , who has left in the meantime.)

ZAGORETSKY Oh, don’t let me stop you, please. I confess: I’m a passionate liberal, too. You can’t imagine what I’ve suffered through to speak out fearlessly, aching to be heard. ACT IV

\ 133

134 \

ACT IV

REPETILOV They all ran off without a word. One’s scarcely gone from sight before the other’s taken flight. First Chatsky left, then Skalozub did!

ZAGORETSKY How did Chatsky strike you?

REPETILOV He’s not stupid. Just now discussing this and that, the usual sort of social chat, we settled down to something serious: the vaudeville stage: we both agree, unlike so much that is superfluous, it’s a cultural priority. He and I share common ground.

ZAGORETSKY But didn’t you notice that his mind’s unsound? That he’s deranged, in fact?

REPETILOV That’s absurd!

ZAGORETSKY It’s not.

REPETILOV Preposterous.

ZAGORETSKY Everyone agrees.

REPETILOV Tommyrot.

ZAGORETSKY Here comes the prince, Pyotr Ilyich, with his flock of girls. Ask them.

REPETILOV Poppycock! (PRINCE and PRINCESS TUGO-UKHOVSKY arrive with the six young princesses, followed shortly after by KHLYOSTOVA, descending the main staircase on MOLCHALIN’s arm. Footmen bustle about).

ZAGORETSKY Young ladies, can you answer this? Is Chatsky mad or not?

FIRST PRINCESS DAUGHTER Of course he is!

SECOND PRINCESS DAUGHTER Everybody knows. ACT IV

\ 135

136 \

ACT IV

THIRD PRINCESS DAUGHTER The Dryanskys, Khvorovs, Skatchkovs, and Varlyanskys.

FOURTH PRINCESS DAUGHTER We’ve known for ages.

FIFTH PRINCESS DAUGHTER Who would disagree?

ZAGORETSKY This man does, apparently.

SIXTH PRINCESS DAUGHTER You!

ALL M’sieu Repetilov! You! M’sieu Repetilov! What’s wrong with you?! What can you be thinking of? Quarrel with what the whole world knows! Shame on you!

REPETILOV (stopping his ears)

I was reluctant to disclose the secret, I supposed it was held close. Forgive me!

PRINCESS Speaking to him’s dangerous! He should have been confined long since. He thinks he’s better than the rest of us, he knows so much, more even than the prince! In my opinion, he’s a Jacobin! Let’s go, Prince. We can’t all fit in my carriage. Take Zizi or Catish with you.

KHLYOSTOVA (from the staircase)

You forgot to settle, Princess!

PRINCESS Take my IOU.

ALL Goodbye! Goodbye! (The TUGO-UKHOVSKYS leave, as does ZAGORETSKY .)

REPETILOV God help us! Amfisa Nilovna ! Chatsky! Mad! Poor soul! All our labors, high ideals, so much fuss for what? What’s the point? Where’s the goal?

KHLYOSTOVA It’s heaven’s judgment. Still, eventually, with treatment, cure may come. Wait and see. ACT IV

\ 137

138 \

ACT IV

Your own case is quite hopeless, though: as if you’d ever show up anywhere when you’re supposed to. Not a prayer! Molchalin, there’s your room. You can go. I’ll see myself out. Thank you. That’s a dear. (MOLCHALIN goes into his room.)

Goodbye, sir. And listen: Pull yourself together. (She drives off.)

REPETILOV Where to go from here? It’s getting on— almost dawn. (to footman) Get my carriage, drive me—oh, wherever! (He drives off. The last light is extinguished. CHATSKY comes in from the porter’s lodge.)

CHATSKY What’s this! Can I believe my ears? It’s no joke; it’s unalloyed malice. What magic spell or vile conspiracy compels them to reiterate, as with one voice, some rejoicing, some as if they’re sorry, this vicious and fantastic story? If one could see inside the human skin, which would have more venom in it?

heart or tongue!? Now how did it begin? Someone whispers it, some fool is taken in, others pass it on; the more it spreads, the more disposed the beldames are to spin it, and in the end, despite the wiser heads, the public makes it its inalterable opinion. And that’s my native land! At least it’s clear, I won’t prolong my sojourn here. But Sophie? Has she heard it too? Of course she has. I doubt it’s me she’d see attacked particularly; regardless if the story’s false or true, if it amuses her, anyone will do. There’s no one she is presently attached to. But what explains her fainting fit? Hothouse nerves account for it. The merest trifle makes them fail. The sign I took for passion I’ve misread: she’d faint if someone were to tread upon a cat or lapdog’s tail!

SOPHIE (at the head of the stairs with a candle)

Molchalin, is that you? (She hastily closes the door behind her.)

CHATSKY That apparition! My head’s aflame, my pulses race! ACT IV

\ 139

140 \

ACT IV

It was her! I saw her figure, saw her face. Or was it? Suppose it was a vision. Perhaps I’ve really lost my senses . . . The world is packed with strange occurrences. No, it was real, all right. Why go in for self-deception? Didn’t she call “Molchalin”?! There was no mistaking it. Then it’s true! There’s his room. She has a rendezvous! (His footman, coming from the porch.)

FOOTMAN Your carr—.

CHATSKY Shh! (He pushes him out.)

I’ll stay rooted here till sunup if need be. Best to drain the poison cup, if drink one must, immediately: postponement won’t diminish misery. The door is opening . . . (He hides behind a column. Enter LIZA with a candle.)

LIZA Dear God, I can’t stop shivering! It’s so dark I can’t make out a thing. I’m scared of ghosts, worse scared of the living!

My lady’s worried me to death. Chatsky’s like a thorn stuck in her flesh. She thinks she saw him prowling in the hall. (peering around)

As if it wasn’t ages since he left the ball and went back home to give his love a break till morning. Now to knock up Dearest! (knocking on MOLCHALIN’s door) You in there, are you awake? My mistress says you are to come. Psst! Hurry up! Before we’re seen! (MOLCHALIN comes to the door, stretching and yawning.

SOPHIE steals down the stairs from above. CHATSKY watches from behind the column.) You act as if you’re made of ice or stone!

MOLCHALIN Ah, Lizanka, with you, you mean?!

LIZA With my lady.

MOLCHALIN Can those cheeks have never known love’s blushing play, those veins not felt its pulse? Is running errands all you’d do? Nothing else?

ACT IV

\ 141

142 \

ACT IV

LIZA When you’re engaged, it doesn’t pay to lounge about and yawn, and oversleep or eat; it’s best to stay fresh and sweet until the wedding day.

MOLCHALIN Whose wedding day?

LIZA Yours, with my lady.

MOLCHALIN Oh, come on. I have my future to consider. I’m fine the way I am. Why marry her?

LIZA Oh, Sir! What a thing to say! Who is she to marry if not you?

MOLCHALIN Search me. I haven’t got a clue. In fact, I shudder at the thought. Suppose her father catches on. If we get caught, he’ll throw me out without a reference. Shall I take you in my confidence? Sophie Pavlovna does not appeal to me. God give her joy, but leave me out. She once loved Chatsky. I’ve no doubt she’ll drop me just as readily.

I wish I felt for her just half of what I feel for you, my sweet. No matter how I steel my nerves, my heart’s blood freezes over when I’m called on to enact the lover.

SOPHIE (aside) How low!

CHATSKY (behind the column)

The cur!

LIZA Aren’t you ashamed?

MOLCHALN On his deathbed my father gave me this advice. He said: make yourself agreeable to all, bar none. The mistress and the master where you lodge, your employer, with the key to your promotion, his servant, so he’ll put your clothes in order, the doorman and the footman and the porter, to keep them sweet, in case they bear a grudge, the porter’s dog, to stop his yapping.

LIZA That’s quite a handful to keep happy. ACT IV

\ 143

144 \

ACT IV

MOLCHALIN And so I play the role of lover with the daughter of the man . . .

LIZA with whom you live, whose bread you share, and on whose favor you rely for your advancement? Let’s go. We can’t stay talking here forever.

MOLCHALIIN Come, share the love so uselessly misspent on our poor beauty, one embrace, one kiss— that’s all— (LIZA repulses him.) Why can’t you be your mistress?! (As he starts to go, SOPHIE intercepts him.)

SOPHIE (Almost in a whisper; the whole scene is played out in an undertone.)

Stop! I’ve heard enough. How despicable! My ears, the very walls, are ringing.

MOLCHALIN Who—Miss Sophie . . .

SOPHIE Hold your tongue! I’m capable of anything. Anything!  

MOLCHALIN (He throws himself on his knees; she pushes him away.)

Don’t be angry—don’t look away! Remember—

SOPHIE Remember what! There’s not one memory that doesn’t cut me to the quick, like a whetted knife!

MOLCHALIN (crawling at her feet)

Forgive me! Oh, Miss Sophie, only say one word of pardon!

SOPHIE Not on your life! Stand up. Stop groveling! You wretched, spineless thing! Spare me your excuses! No more lies! I’ve had enough.

MOLCHALIN Have some pity!

SOPHIE Stop it!

ACT IV

\ 145

146 \

ACT IV

MOLCHALIN It was just a joke, I tried it on for size—

SOPHIE Stop, I say! Or I’ll have such a screaming fit, I’ll wake the whole house up, and ruin us both irreparably. (MOLCHALIN stands.)

From now on, you’re dead to me. Don’t think you’re worth one reproach, one complaint, a single tear. Before the sun is up I want you gone: out of sight and mind, you hear?

MOLCHALIN As you wish.

SOPHIE I don’t care at all about myself, that you know, but from sheer gall, I might tell Papa. Now go! No wait! Be glad you were so diffident at night, more so than by day, in the open— your nature’s more perverse than insolent. Thank God this revelation’s kept from hostile eyes by cloak of darkness. Otherwise, suppose, as with my fainting fit, an Alexander Chatsky’d witnessed it. (CHATSKY emerges, throwing himself between them.)

CHATSKY Dissembler! He has! (MOLCHALIN retreats to his room, LIZA drops the candle as she and SOPHIE both shriek.)

Why not faint all over? You have a reason now that makes more sense. At least you’ve cured me of suspense. To think: you jilted a devoted lover, for such a low, conniving knave! It rankles so, I can hardly breathe. With eyes to see, I didn’t believe! You sacrificed the oldest friend you have, your maiden modesty and honor for a swine who hides behind a door, afraid to show his face! Who can penetrate the fathomless designs of fate: the world that eats an honest man alive is well content to let Molchalins thrive.

SOPHIE (weeping)

Don’t go on. I’m to blame. There’s no excuse for it. But who could guess he’d practice such deceit?

LIZA Oh my God, listen! Noise, knocking, running feet. The whole house up. Your father’s going to throw a fit. (Enter FAMUSOV, followed by a throng of servants with candles.) ACT IV

\ 147

148 \

ACT IV

FAMUSOV Follow me! Hurry! Faster! Bring more light! Hullo! Ghost indeed! The place is haunted by familiar faces! An assignation in the dead of night! My shameless daughter! Exactly like her mother! No sooner than my back was turned, off canoodling with some man or other. Where is your religion? Haven’t you been warned? And with Chatsky! How’d he draw you in? You said yourself the man was mad. Oh! Now I see it! I’ve been had! How blind, how stupid I have been! It was all a plot, a stratagem. He was in on it, all of them, all my guests, were in it too. Oh, why must I be punished so?

CHATSKY (to SOPHIE) For this invention, I’m obliged to you?

FAMUSOV No charades! Let the acting go! You can’t deceive me now I’ve been put wise. Filka! You! Yes, you, you lazy dolt! Had you no ears? Had you no eyes? Why didn’t you think to draw the bolt if you’d gone off somewhere?

What earthly good’s a porter for who doesn’t mind the entrance door? Keeping people out is why you’re there! Hard labor in Siberia! That’s your wage! You’d sell me for a mess of pottage. (to LIZA)

And you, my sly-eyed miss! Don’t try to wriggle out of this! It’s back tomorrow to your native village. No more finery from the shops of Moscow corrupting you to play the go-between. The poultry yard is what you’ll dress for now! The cowshed where you’ll primp and preen! (to SOPHIE)

And you, my daughter, don’t think you’re exempt! Wait a day or two, then say goodbye to pleasures of polite society and gentlemen who use us with contempt, and eat your heart out at a far remove from Moscow, at your aunt’s house in Saratov, instructed by an edifying book and plying your embroidery hook. (to CHATSKY)

As for you, sir! Keep your distance! I’ll see that you’re debarred from entrance to any house of mine or of my kin. And too, I’ll see to it that every door in Moscow’s closed to you. What’s more, I’ll shout it from the rooftops, ring the tocsin, ACT IV

\ 149

150 \

ACT IV

proclaim to the whole nation what you are! to the Senate, to the courts, to the Tsar!

CHATSKY (after a short silence)

I’m at a loss, excuse me, please. I hear the words, but cannot take them in. It’s hard to follow, something is unclear, something’s missing—how did this begin . . . (heatedly)

How blind I was! Who did I hold dear? Who was to crown my efforts with her love? I sped, flew, trembled in anticipation of the happiness that I imagined near. What tender passion touched me to the quick and prompted me just now to bare my heart! And you! My God! Look who you preferred? When I think of it, it makes me sick! Why weren’t you open with me from the start? What made you lead me on, without a word? Why didn’t you tell me you’d dismissed the past as a mere joke, dismissed those memories I held so close, supposing they could last, those feelings making us, two entities, as one, feelings nothing could erase, distractions, distance, or a change of place, they were so strong in me, so true and constant. If only you’d been straight with me up front, when I dropped in on you this morning from the blue, said my words, my looks, my actions, were abhorrent,

then and there, I would have broken off with you, I’d have never troubled to discover before I left forever, who it was you loved. (mockingly)

You’ll make it up with him, once you’ve thought it over— He trumps a future with all hope removed. Imagine what a prize you’ll get, an errand boy, domestic pet to stroke and coddle, Moscow’s picture of the ideal spouse. Enough! This rupture has restored my pride. But you, sir, father of the bride, with your fine appreciation for degrees of rank and station, may you enjoy the blissful ease of blind-eyed ignorance, now and ever: I’ve no intention whatsoever of asking for your daughter’s hand. Another who can’t fail to please, underhanded, smooth, and bland, with all a fawning toady’s qualities has that honor. He will do you proud! There! I’m sane! No dreams becloud my reason. I’ve nothing more to lose! It’s their turn now to suffer the abuse they rained on me—father, daughter, dimwit lover—I’ll pour my bitterness and gall on each of them in order, on all the world, and its maliciousness! ACT IV

\ 151

152 \

ACT IV

Where was I thrown up by fate: what people was I cast among? A hateful mob, eager to calumniate: The spinster with a spiteful tongue, the evil-minded reprobate, the denigrator, cutting down to size, the clever parasite, self-regarding fool, tittering maidens scarcely out of school, decrepit graybeards, feeding off of lies— all declared me mad, in one concerted choir: and right they were. Take it for a fact: a man could pass unharmed through fire who spent a day with them with mind intact. Farewell to Moscow, to its days and nights! I’m off to search the wide world round for somewhere I can go to ground and set insulted sense to rights. My carriage! Bring my carriage round! (He leaves.)

FAMUSOV Obviously his mind has given way. There’s no end to rubbish he can spout! “fawning toady,” “father of the bride”— what on earth’s he so worked up about? And Moscow too! Why so vilified? (to SOPHIE)

You’ve done it now! They’ll think my own wits gone astray! It’s just my luck to be so singled out! Oh, my God! What will Princess Mary say?

RUSSIAN LIBRARY Between Dog and Wolf by Sasha Sokolov, translated by Alexander Boguslawski Strolls with Pushkin by Andrei Sinyavsky, translated by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy and Slava I. Yastremski Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays by Andrei Platonov, translated by Robert Chandler, Jesse Irwin, and Susan Larsen Rapture: A Novel by Iliazd, translated by Thomas J. Kitson City Folk and Country Folk by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya, translated by Nora Seligman Favorov Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry by Konstantin Batyushkov, presented and translated by Peter France Found Life: Poems, Stories, Comics, a Play, and an Interview by Linor Goralik, edited by Ainsley Morse, Maria Vassileva, and Maya Vinokur Sisters of the Cross by Alexei Remizov, translated by Roger John Keys and Brian Murphy Sentimental Tales by Mikhail Zoshchenko, translated by Boris Dralyuk Redemption by Friedrich Gorenstein, translated by Andrew Bromfield The Man Who Couldn’t Die: The Tale of an Authentic Human Being by Olga Slavnikova, translated by Marian Schwartz Necropolis by Vladislav Khodasevich, translated by Sarah Vitali Nikolai Nikolaevich and Camouflage: Two Novellas by Yuz Aleshkovsky, translated by Duffield White, edited by Susanne Fusso New Russian Drama: An Anthology edited by Maksim Hanukai and Susanna Weygandt A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova, translated and with an introduction by Barbara Heldt Klotsvog by Margarita Khemlin, translated by Lisa Hayden Fandango and Other Stories by Alexander Grin, translated by Bryan Karetnyk