the main body. Three batteries are leaving to-day,
another three to-morrow and then the town will be quiet and peaceful.

TUZENBACH. And terribly dull.

RODE. And where is Maria Sergeyevna?

KULIGIN. Masha is in the garden.

FEDOTIK. We'd like to say good-bye to her.

RODE. Good-bye, I must go, or else I'll start weeping.... [Quickly
embraces KULIGIN and TUZENBACH, and kisses IRINA'S hand] We've been so
happy here....

FEDOTIK. [To KULIGIN] Here's a keepsake for you... a note-book with a
pencil.... We'll go to the river from here.... [They go aside and both
look round.]

RODE. [Shouts] Yo-ho!

KULIGIN. [Shouts] Good-bye!

[At the back of the stage FEDOTIK and RODE meet MASHA; they say good-bye
and go out with her.]

IRINA. They've gone.... [Sits on the bottom step of the terrace.]

CHEBUTIKIN. And they forgot to say good-bye to me.

IRINA. But why is that?

CHEBUTIKIN. I just forgot, somehow. Though I'll soon see them again, I'm
going to-morrow. Yes... just one day left. I shall be retired in a year,
then I'll come here again, and finish my life near you. I've only one
year before I get my pension.... [Puts one newspaper into his pocket and
takes another out] I'll come here to you and change my life radically...
I'll be so quiet... so agree... agreeable, respectable....

IRINA. Yes, you ought to change your life, dear man, somehow or other.

CHEBUTIKIN. Yes, I feel it. [Sings softly.] "Tarara-boom-deay...."

KULIGIN. We won't reform Ivan Romanovitch! We won't reform him!

CHEBUTIKIN. If only I was apprenticed to you! Then I'd reform.

IRINA. Feodor has shaved his moustache! I can't bear to look at him.

KULIGIN. Well, what about it?

CHEBUTIKIN. I could tell you what your face looks like now, but it
wouldn't be polite.

KULIGIN. Well! It's the custom, it's modus vivendi. Our Director is
clean-shaven, and so I too, when I received my inspectorship, had
my moustaches removed. Nobody likes it, but it's all one to me. I'm
satisfied. Whether I've got moustaches or not, I'm satisfied.... [Sits.]

[At the back of the stage ANDREY is wheeling a perambulator containing a
sleeping infant.]

IRINA. Ivan Romanovitch, be a darling. I'm awfully worried. You were out
on the boulevard last night; tell me, what happened?

CHEBUTIKIN. What happened? Nothing. Quite a trifling matter. [Reads
paper] Of no importance!

KULIGIN. They say that Soleni and the Baron met yesterday on the
boulevard near the theat