SONIA. [Shrugging her shoulders] There is plenty to do if you
would.

HELENA. For instance?

SONIA. You could help run this place, teach the children, care
for the sick--isn't that enough? Before you and papa came, Uncle
Vanya and I used to go to market ourselves to deal in flour.

HELENA. I don't know anything about such things, and besides,
they don't interest me. It is only in novels that women go out
and teach and heal the peasants; how can I suddenly begin to do
it?

SONIA. How can you live here and not do it? Wait awhile, you will
get used to it all. [Embraces her] Don't be sad, dearest.
[Laughing] You feel miserable and restless, and can't seem to fit
into this life, and your restlessness is catching. Look at Uncle
Vanya, he does nothing now but haunt you like a shadow, and I
have left my work to-day to come here and talk with you. I am
getting lazy, and don't want to go on with it. Dr. Astroff hardly
ever used to come here; it was all we could do to persuade him to
visit us once a month, and now he has abandoned his forestry and
his practice, and comes every day. You must be a witch.

VOITSKI. Why should you languish here? Come, my dearest, my
beauty, be sensible! The blood of a Nixey runs in your veins. Oh,
won't you let yourself be one? Give your nature the reins for
once in your life; fall head over ears in love with some other
water sprite and plunge down head first into a deep pool, so that