for my work, not one--neither in my youth nor now. You allowed me
a meagre salary of five hundred roubles a year, a beggar's
pittance, and have never even thought of adding a rouble to it.

SEREBRAKOFF. What did I know about such things, Ivan? I am not a
practical man and don't understand them. You might have helped
yourself to all you wanted.

VOITSKI. Yes, why did I not steal? Don't you all despise me for
not stealing, when it would have been only justice? And I should
not now have been a beggar!

MME. VOITSKAYA. [Sternly] Jean!

TELEGIN. [Agitated] Vanya, old man, don't talk in that way. Why
spoil such pleasant relations? [He embraces him] Do stop!

VOITSKI. For twenty-five years I have been sitting here with my
mother like a mole in a burrow. Our every thought and hope was
yours and yours only. By day we talked with pride of you and your
work, and spoke your name with veneration; our nights we wasted
reading the books and papers which my soul now loathes.

TELEGIN. Don't, Vanya, don't. I can't stand it.

SEREBRAKOFF. [Wrathfully] What under heaven do you want, anyway?

VOITSKI. We used to think of you as almost superhuman, but now
the scales have fallen from my eyes and I see you as you are! You
write on art without knowing anything about it. Those books of