HELENA. [In great agitation] Do you hear me? I must leave here
this very day!

SEREBRAKOFF, SONIA, MARINA, and TELEGIN come in.

TELEGIN. I am not very well myself, your Excellency. I have been
limping for two days, and my head--

SEREBRAKOFF. Where are the others? I hate this house. It is a
regular labyrinth. Every one is always scattered through the
twenty-six enormous rooms; one never can find a soul. [Rings] Ask
my wife and Madame Voitskaya to come here!

HELENA. I am here already.

SEREBRAKOFF. Please, all of you, sit down.

SONIA. [Goes up to HELENA and asks anxiously] What did he say?

HELENA. I'll tell you later.

SONIA. You are moved. [looking quickly and inquiringly into her
face] I understand; he said he would not come here any more. [A
pause] Tell me, did he?

HELENA nods.

SEREBRAKOFF. [To TELEGIN] One can, after all, become reconciled
to being an invalid, but not to this country life. The ways of it
stick in my throat and I feel exactly as if I had been whirled