"AntonChekhov-Ivanoff" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chekhov Anton)

back] Nicholas, give me a rouble.

IVANOFF silently hands him the money

BORKIN. Thanks. Shabelski, you still hold some trump cards.

SHABELSKI follows him out.

SHABELSKI. Well, what are they?

BORKIN. If I were you I should have thirty thousand roubles and
more in a week. [They go out together.]

IVANOFF. [After a pause] Useless people, useless talk, and the
necessity of answering stupid questions, have wearied me so,
doctor, that I am ill. I have become so irritable and bitter that
I don't know myself. My head aches for days at a time. I hear a
ringing in my ears, I can't sleep, and yet there is no escape
from it all, absolutely none.

LVOFF. Ivanoff, I have something serious to speak to you about.

IVANOFF. What is it ?

LVOFF. It is about your wife. She refuses to go to the Crimea
alone, but she would go with you.

IVANOFF. [Thoughtfully] It would cost a great deal for us both to
go, and besides, I could not get leave to be away for so long. I
have had one holiday already this year.

LVOFF. Very well, let us admit that. Now to proceed. The best
cure for consumption is absolute peace of mind, and your wife has
none whatever. She is forever excited by your behaviour to her.
Forgive me, I am excited and am going to speak frankly. Your
treatment of her is killing her. [A pause] Ivanoff, let me
believe better things of you.

IVANOFF. What you say is true, true. I must be terribly guilty,
but my mind is confused. My will seems to be paralysed by a kind
of stupor; I can't understand myself or any one else. [Looks
toward the window] Come, let us take a walk, we might be
overheard here. [They get up] My dear friend, you should hear the
whole story from the beginning if it were not so long and
complicated that to tell it would take all night. [They walk up
and down] Anna is a splendid, an exceptional woman. She has left
her faith, her parents and her fortune for my sake. If I should
demand a hundred other sacrifices, she would consent to every one
without the quiver of an eyelid. Well, I am not a remarkable man
in any way, and have sacrificed nothing. However, the story is a