by analysis. Too early you have ceased to
live in the heart and have put your faith in the intellect.

VALENTIN: What do you mean by the heart? That is a concept of
anatomy. As a conventional term for what are called the feelings,
I do not admit it.

ANNA _(confused)_: And love? Surely that is not merely a product
of the association of ideas? Tell me frankly, have you ever loved?

VALENTIN _(bitterly)_: Let us not touch on old wounds not yet healed.
_(A pause.)_ What are you thinking of?

ANNA: I believe you are unhappy.

During the sixteenth scene Pavel Vassilyevitch yawned, and accidently
made with his teeth the sound dogs make when they catch a fly. He
was dismayed at this unseemly sound, and to cover it assumed an
expression of rapt attention.

"Scene seventeen! When will it end?" he thought. "Oh, my God! If
this torture is prolonged another ten minutes I shall shout for the
police. It's insufferable."

But at last the lady began reading more loudly and more rapidly,
and finally raising her voice she read _"Curtain."_

Pavel Vassilyevitch uttered a faint sigh and was about to get up,
but the lady promptly turned the page and went on reading.

ACT II.--_Scene, a village street. On right, School. On left,
Hospital._ Villagers, _male and female, sitting on the hospital
steps._

"Excuse me," Pavel Vassilyevitch broke in, "how many acts are there?"

"Five," answered the lady, and at once, as though fearing her
audience might escape her, she went on rapidly.

VALENTIN _is looking out of the schoolhouse window. In the background_
Villagers _can be seen taking their goods to the Inn._

Like a man condemned to be executed and convinced of the impossibility
of a reprieve, Pavel Vassilyevitch gave up expecting the end,
abandoned all hope, and simply tried to prevent his eyes from
closing, and to retain an expression of attention on his face. . . .
The future when the lady would finish her play and depart seemed
to him so remote that he did not even think of it.

"Trooo--too--too--too . . ." the lady's voice sounded in his ears.
"Troo--too--too . . . sh--sh--sh--sh . . ."

"I forgot to take my soda," he thought. "What am I thinking about?
Oh--my soda. . . . Most likely I shall have a bilious attack. . . .
It's extraordinary, Smirnovsky swills vodka all day long and
yet he never has a bilious attack. . . . There's a bird settled on
the window . . . a sparrow. . . ."

Pavel Vassilyevitch made an effort to un