Man From the USSR & Other Plays (22 page)

 

LYUBOV'

Tell me—have you ever asked yourself why people don't like you?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Who doesn't like me?

 

LYUBOV'

Nobody likes you. Not a living soul would lend you a penny. And many people simply feel a kind of revulsion for you.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

What rot. On the contrary, you saw yourself how many people dropped in today, expressed interest, and offered their advice....

 

LYUBOV'

I don't know....I was watching your face while Mama was reading her little piece, and I had a feeling I understood your thoughts, and how alone you felt. It even appeared to me that we exchanged a glance, the kind of glance we used to exchange once, long, long ago. Now it seems to me that it was all a mistake, that you felt nothing, and your thoughts merely kept going in a circle: will Baumgarten give me that wretched bit of cash for my escape or not?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

What's the point of tormenting me, Lyuba?

 

LYUBOV'

I have no desire to torment you. I want to talk with you in earnest for once.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Thank goodness. It's high time you changed your infantile attitude toward danger.

 

LYUBOV'

No, it's not about
that
danger that I want to talk, but about our entire life together.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Oh, no. Please spare me. I can't face a lot of female blah-blah-blah right now. I know that kind of talk well, the enumeration of offenses, the balancing of idiotic totals. Right now I am more interested in knowing why that damn detective isn't here yet. Oh Lyuba, don't you realize that we are in deadly, deadly...

 

LYUBOV'

Stop the hysterics! I am ashamed of you. I always knew you were a coward. I'll never forget how you started crawling under this very rug when he began shooting.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

This rug, Lyuba, had my blood on it. You forget: I fell, I was critically wounded.... Yes, my blood. Think back, just think back—we had to send it to the cleaner's afterwards.

 

LYUBOV'

You always were a coward. When my baby died, you were afraid of his poor little ghost, and took tranquilizers at night. When some fire chief gave you a vulgar bawling-out for your portrait of him, because you got some detail of his parade uniform wrong, you did it over without a word. When we were walking down Industrial Avenue one time, and a couple of guffawing hooligans were ambling along behind us, appraising my assets, you pretended you didn't hear anything, but your face was as white as ... as a piece of veal.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Go on, go on. This is getting interesting! My God, how rude you are!

 

LYUBOV'

There've been a million cases like that, but perhaps your most elegant gesture in this vein was when you took advantage of your adversary's helpless condition to slap his cheek. By the way, I think you didn't even hit it but smacked poor Misha's hand instead.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

I certainly did hit it—you can be quite sure of that. I hit it and how! But continue, please. I am most curious to see to what extremes you're capable of going. And today of all days ... when a terrible event has happened and upset everything.... What an obnoxious bitch.

 

LYUBOV'

Thank God it happened, this event. It has given us a real jolt, and put a lot of things into focus. You are heartless, unfeeling, petty, morally vulgar, and an egoist the likes of whom has never been seen before....I guess I'm no great shakes either in my own way. But not because I am a “fishwife,” as you chose to call me. If I am rude and short-tempered, it is because you have made me so. Oh, Alyosha, if only you weren't stuffed full of yourself to the exclusion of all air and light, you would probably be able to see what I've turned into during the past few years, and what a state I am in now.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Lyuba, I'm controlling myself, and you please do the same. I realize that a brutal night like this is upsetting and makes you say brutal things. But get a grip on yourself.

 

LYUBOV'

There's nothing to grip—it has all crumbled.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Nothing has crumbled. What are you dreaming up? Lyuba, snap out of it! The fact that now and then we ... well, yell at each other doesn't mean we are unhappy. And right now we are like two cornered animals who bite at each other only because they feel cramped and frightened.

 

LYUBOV'

No, it's not true. It's not true. Our quarreling has nothing to do with it. I'll even tell you more: you have nothing to do with it. I'm perfectly willing to believe that you have been happy with me, because, even in the worst catastrophe, an egoist of your proportions will always find his ultimate refuge inside himself. I know perfectly well that if anything were to happen to me, you would of course be very distressed, but at the same time you'd give your feelings a quick shuffle to see if some little trump pops up for you, some advantage—be it ever so small—deriving from the fact of my death. And you'd find it, yes, you'd find it! Even if it's no more than the fact that life costs exactly half as much. Oh, of course I know that it would be quite subconscious and not so coarse—simply a little mental subsidy at a critical moment.... It's a horrid thing to say, but I am convinced that when our boy died, the thought did go through your head that now there would be one less worry. Nowhere will you find such crafty rascals as among impractical people. Naturally, though, I'm willing to concede that you love me in your own fashion.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

This must all be a dream: this room, this dreadful night, this virago. I reject any other explanation.

 

LYUBOV'

And your art! Your art.... At first I really did think that you were a marvelous, dazzling, precious talent, but now I know your true worth.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

What? I've never heard that one before.

 

LYUBOV'

You'll hear it now. You're a nothing, you're a spinning top, you're a sterile flower, you're an empty, slightly gilded nutshell, and you will never create anything but will always remain what you are, a provincial portrait-painter with dreams of some azure grotto.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Lyuba! Lyuba! This painting ... do you think it's bad? Take a look. Is it bad?

 

LYUBOV'

It's not my opinion, it's everybody's opinion of you. And they are right, because pictures must be painted for others, not for the delectation of some voracious monster inside you.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Lyuba, you can't be serious. There's no other way—of course I must paint for my monster, my tapeworm, and for it alone.

 

LYUBOV'

For God's sake, don't start a debate. I'm tired and don't know what I'm saying, and you quibble over words.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Your criticism of my art, of what is most important and sacred to me, is so silly and unfair that all your other accusations become meaningless. You can abuse my life and my character all you want, and I'll agree with everything in advance, but this—this is outside your competence. So you'd better drop the subject.

 

LYUBOV'

You're right—it's useless for me to talk to you.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Absolutely useless. And, anyway, it's not the right moment. This night worries me far more than our entire past life. If you're tired and can't think straight, then keep quiet, instead of ... Lyuba, Lyuba, don't make me suffer any more than I'm suffering already.

 

LYUBOV'

What do you have to suffer about? Shame on you. Let's suppose the improbable happens, and Leonid Barbashin comes crashing through that door right now, or climbs in through that window, or emerges like a shadow from behind that screen.... Even if this were to happen, believe me, I have an extremely simple way of turning things around.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

You do?

 

LYUBOV'

Oh, yes!

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Namely?

 

LYUBOV'

You want to know?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Tell me, tell me.

 

LYUBOV'

Here's what I'll do: I'll shout that I love him, that it was all a mistake, that I'm ready to follow him to the ends of the earth....

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Yes.... But don't you think it's a bit ... melodramatic? I don't know.... What if he doesn't believe you, and realizes it's a trick? No, Lyuba, I just don't think it'll work. It may sound logical, but.... No, he'll feel insulted and kill us on the spot.

 

LYUBOV'

Is that all you have to tell me on the subject?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

No, no—it's all wrong. No, Lyuba, it's somehow unartistic and flat.... I don't know.... Tell me, does that look to you like somebody standing over there on the other side? Further up, over there? Or is it only the shadow of leaves under the street lamp?

 

LYUBOV'

Is that all, Alyosha?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Yes, it's only a shadow.

 

LYUBOV'

You are exactly like the child in
Erlkönig.
And, what's more, this has happened before, all of it has happened just like this—you said “shadow,” I said “child,” and at that point Mother came in.

 

ANTONINA PAVLOVNA

I came to say goodnight. I want to go to bed early tonight.

 

LYUBOV'

Yes, I'm tired too.

 

ANTONINA PAVLOVNA

What a night.... What a wind!

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Now, that's strange to say the least: it's so still out not even the proverbial leaf is stirring.

 

ANTONINA PAVLOVNA

Then it must be the ringing in my ears.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Or the whispering muse.

 

LYUBOV'

Alyosha, stop it.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Nice, pleasant situation, isn't it, Antonina Pavlovna? A scoundrel, who has sworn he will murder your daughter, is at large, perhaps at our very doorstep, while here we have a cozy family gathering, and swans perform high kicks, and the typewriter chatters merrily away....

 

LYUBOV'

Alyosha, stop it this instant.

 

ANTONINA PAVLOVNA

My dear Alyosha, nothing you say can offend me, and, as for the danger, we are all in the hands of the Almighty.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

I don't have much confidence in those hands.

 

ANTONINA PAVLOVNA

That, my friend, is why you're so pathetic and ill-tempered.

 

LYUBOV'

Come on, stop quarreling.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Oh well, Antonina Pavlovna, not everyone is blessed with Buddhist wisdom.
(The doorbell rings.)

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Ah, thank heavens. That's my detective. Listen, Lyuba—I know it's silly of me, but I'm afraid to open the door.

 

LYUBOV'

All right, I'll open it.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

No, no—wait a minute.... What's the best way to do it....

 

ANTONINA PAVLOVNA

Why, has Marfa gone to bed already?

 

LYUBOV'

Marfa has left. Alyosha, let go of my hand.

 

ANTONINA PAVLOVNA

I'll open the door. You stay here. It would take more than a Barbashin to scare me.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Ask who it is through the door first.

 

LYUBOV'

I'll go with you, Mama.
(The bell rings again. Antonina Pavlovna goes off to the right.)

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Strange ... why does he ring so energetically? How unpleasant.... No, Lyuba, I will not let you go!

 

LYUBOV'

Yes, you will.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Stop it. Don't try to get away. I can't hear a thing.

 

LYUBOV'

You're hurting me.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Then stop twisting. Let me listen. What's going on? Can you hear?

 

LYUBOV'