ASTROFF. I can't say.

SONIA. In a month?

ASTROFF and SONIA go into the house. HELENA and VOITSKI walk over
to the terrace.

HELENA. You have behaved shockingly again. Ivan, what sense was
there in teasing your mother and talking about _perpetuum
mobile?_ And at breakfast you quarreled with Alexander again.
Really, your behaviour is too petty.

VOITSKI. But if I hate him?

HELENA. You hate Alexander without reason; he is like every one
else, and no worse than you are.

VOITSKI. If you could only see your face, your gestures! Oh, how
tedious your life must be.

HELENA. It is tedious, yes, and dreary! You all abuse my husband
and look on me with compassion; you think, "Poor woman, she is
married to an old man." How well I understand your compassion! As
Astroff said just now, see how you thoughtlessly destroy the
forests, so that there will soon be none left. So you also
destroy mankind, and soon fidelity and purity and self-sacrifice
will have vanished with the woods. Why cannot you look calmly at
a woman unless she is yours? Because, the doctor was right, you
are all possessed by a devil of destruction; you have no mercy on
the woods or the birds or on women or on one another.