- Will you have a little vodka?
- No, I don't drink vodka every day.
I am overworked, nurse.
I am on my feet from dawn till dusk.
I know no rest;
- At night I'm going to bed and fear
being dragged out to visit someone who is sick.
During the third week of Lent I went to
Malitskoi. There was an epidemic.
It was eruptive typhoid....
The peasants were all lying side by
side in their huts. Such dirt there was, and smoke ...
When I got home there was still
no rest for me
From the railroad they brought in
a switchman.
I laid him
on the operating table
and he went and died in
my arms under chloroform
- Exactly the moment
he shouldn't.
I sat down, closed my eyes
and thought:
Will our descendants one hundred,
two hundred years
remember to give us a kind word?
No, nurse, they will forget...
Man is forgetful,
but God remembers.
Thank you for that,
you have spoken the truth.
- Have you been asleep?
- Yes, very much so.
Ever since the Professor and
his wife have come,
our daily life seems
to have jumped the track.
I sleep at the wrong time, drink wine,
and eat all sorts of messes for dinner.
Before they came we used to have dinner
at one o'clock, like everybody else,
but now we have it at seven ...
Look at this now! The samovar has been on the table
for two hours, and they are all out walking!
All right, don't get excited;
here they come.
Excelent, excelent, sunt minunate,
nu-i aєa?
Please be good enough to send
my tea into the library.
I still have some work to finish.
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?...
Come, Ivan, tell us something.
- What shall I tell you?
- Haven't you any news for us?
I am just the same as usual,or perhaps
worse, because I have become lazy.
Maman is still chattering about
the emancipation of women.
with one eye on her grave
and always looking
for the dawn of a new life.
- And the Professor?
- The Professor...
I'll tell you something ...
the man has been writing on art
for twenty-five years,
and he doesn't know
the very first thing about it.
For twenty-five years he has been chewing on
other men's thoughts despre realism, naturalism
and all such foolishness.
for twenty-five years he has been reading
and writing things that clever men have long known
and stupid ones are not interested in;
for twenty-five years he has been
making his imaginary mountains out of molehills.
- I believe you envy him.
- Yes, I do. Look at the success he has had with women!
His second wife, a brilliant beauty
married him in his old age
and has surrendered all the glory
of her beauty and freedom to him....
Why?
What for?
- Is she faithful to him?
- Yes, unfortunately she is.
- Why unfortunately?
- Because such fidelity is false.
It is thought immoral for a
woman to deceive an old husband whom she hates,
but is it moral for her to strangle her poor youth
in her breast and banish
every vital desire from her heart?
- I don't like to hear you talk so.
Listen, every one who betrays husband
or wife is faithless
and could also betray his country
- Turn off the tap, Waffles.
There are some peasants waiting out there.
Go and see what they want.
I have come to see your husband.
You wrote me that he was ill
that he had rheumatism and I know not what else,
but it he seems to be safe and sound.
Yesterday evening he complained of pains
in his legs, but he seems all right again today.
-  This tea is cold!
- Yes, the samovar has grown cold.
Don't mind, Ivan Ivanovich,
we will drink cold tea, then.
I beg your pardon, my name is not
Ivan Ivanovich but Ilia Ilich.
Ilia Ilich Telegin,
or Waffles, as I am sometimes called
on account of my
pock-marked face.
He is our great help, our right-hand man.
I forgot to tell Alexander -
I have lost my memory.
I received a letter today
from Paul Alexevitch