AT THE TABLE

HELENA, SEREBRAKOFF, and SONIA go into the house. TELEGIN sits
down at the table beside MARINA.

​

TELEGIN.

Do you know, Marina, that as I walk in the fields or in
the shady garden, as I look at this table here, my heart swells
with unbounded happiness. The weather is enchanting, the birds
are singing, we are all living in peace and contentment--what
more could the soul desire? [Takes a glass of tea.]

VOITSKI. [Dreaming]

Such eyes--a glorious woman!

ASTROFF.

Come, Ivan, tell us something.

​

VOITSKI. [Indolently]

What shall I tell you?

​

ASTROFF.

Haven't you any news for us?

​

VOITSKI.

No, it is all stale. I am just the same as usual, or
perhaps worse, because I have become lazy. I don't do anything
now but croak like an old raven. My mother, the old magpie, is
still chattering about the emancipation of woman, with one eye on
her grave and the other on her learned books, in which she is
always looking for the dawn of a new life.

​

​

(​Excerpted from "DJAJA VANYA" by Anton Checkov, Projekt Gutenberg,

Re-prod. under the Fair Use Doctrine)