ods.

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 off the earth and
landed on a strange planet. Please be seated, ladies and gentlemen.
Sonia! [SONIA does not hear. She is standing with her head bowed sadly
forward on her breast] Sonia! [A pause] She does not hear me. [To
MARINA] Sit down too, nurse. [MARINA sits down and begins to knit her
stocking] I crave your indulgence, ladies and gentlemen; hang your ears,
if I may say so, on the peg of attention. [He laughs.]

VOITSKI. [Agitated] Perhaps you do not need me--may I be excused?

SEREBRAKOFF. No, you are needed now more than any one.

VOITSKI. What is it you want of me?

SEREBRAKOFF. You--but what are you angry about? If it is anything I have
done, I ask you to forgive me.

VOITSKI. Oh, drop that and come to business; what do you want?

MME. VOITSKAYA comes in.

SEREBRAKOFF. Here is mother. Ladies and gentlemen, I shall begin. I
have asked you to assemble here, my friends, in order to discuss a very
important matter. I want to ask you for your assistance and advice, and
knowing your unfailing amiability I think I can count on both. I am a
book-worm and a scholar, and am unfamiliar with practical affairs. I
cannot, I find, dispense with the help of well-informed people such as
you, Ivan, and you, Telegin, and you, mother. The truth is, _manet omnes
una nox,_ that is to say, our lives are in the hands of God, and as I
am old and ill, I realise that the time has come for me to dispose of
my property in regard to the interests of my family. My life is nearly
over, and I am not thinking of myself, but I have a young wife and
daughter. [A pause] I cannot continue to live in the country; we were
not made for country life, and yet we cannot afford to live in town on
the income derived from this estate. We might sell the woods, but that
would be an expedient we could not resort to every year. We must find
some means of guaranteeing to ourselves a certain more or less fixed
yearly income. With this object in view, a plan has occurred to me which
I now have the honour of presenting to you for your consideration. I
shall only give you a rough outline, avoiding all details. Our estate
does not pay on an average more than two per cent on the money invested
in it. I propose to sell it. If we then invest our capital in bonds,
i