dy and where nobody knows you, and you don't feel all the same
that you're a stranger. And here you know everybody and everybody knows
you, and you're a stranger... and a lonely stranger.

FERAPONT. What? And the same contractor was telling--perhaps he was
lying--that there was a cable stretching right across Moscow.

ANDREY. What for?

FERAPONT. I can't tell. The contractor said so.

ANDREY. Rubbish. [He reads] Were you ever in Moscow?

FERAPONT. [After a pause] No. God did not lead me there. [Pause] Shall I
go?

ANDREY. You may go. Good-bye. [FERAPONT goes] Good-bye. [Reads] You can
come to-morrow and fetch these documents.... Go along.... [Pause] He's
gone. [A ring] Yes, yes.... [Stretches himself and slowly goes into his
own room.]

[Behind the scene the nurse is singing a lullaby to the child. MASHA and
VERSHININ come in. While they talk, a maidservant lights candles and a
lamp.]

MASHA. I don't know. [Pause] I don't know. Of course, habit counts for
a great deal. After father's death, for instance, it took us a long time
to get used to the absence of orderlies. But, apart from habit, it seems
to me in all fairness that, however it may be in other towns, the best
and most-educated people are army men.

VERSHININ. I'm thirsty. I should like some tea.

MASHA. [Glancing at her watch] They'll bring some soon. I was given in
marriage when I was eighteen, and I was afraid of my husband because
he was a teacher and I'd only just left school. He then seemed to me
frightfully wise and learned and important. And now, unfortunately, that
has changed.

VERSHININ. Yes... yes.

MASHA. I don't speak of my husband, I've grown used to him, but
civilians in general are so often coarse, impolite, uneducated. Their
rudeness offends me, it angers me. I suffer when I see that a man isn't
quite sufficiently refined, or delicate, or polite. I simply suffer
agonies when I happen to be among schoolmasters, my husband's
colleagues.

VERSHININ. Yes.... It seems to me that civilians and army men are
equally interesting, in this town, at any rate. It's all the same! If
you listen to a member of the local intelligentsia, whether to civilian
or military, he will tell you that he's sick of his wife, sick of
his house, sick of his estate, sick of his horses.... We Russians are
extremely gifted in the direction of thinking on an exalted plane, but,
tell me, why do we aim so low in real life? Why?

MASHA. Why?

VERSHININ. Why is