IKIN. They won't be much longer. [Looks at his watch] My watch is
very old-fashioned, it strikes the hours.... [Winds the watch and makes
it strike] The first, second, and fifth batteries are to leave at one
o'clock precisely. [Pause] And I go to-morrow.

ANDREY. For good?

CHEBUTIKIN. I don't know. Perhaps I'll return in a year. The devil
only knows... it's all one.... [Somewhere a harp and violin are being
played.]

ANDREY. The town will grow empty. It will be as if they put a cover over
it. [Pause] Something happened yesterday by the theatre. The whole town
knows of it, but I don't.

CHEBUTIKIN. Nothing. A silly little affair. Soleni started irritating
the Baron, who lost his temper and insulted him, and so at last Soleni
had to challenge him. [Looks at his watch] It's about time, I think....
At half-past twelve, in the public wood, that one you can see from here
across the river.... Piff-paff. [Laughs] Soleni thinks he's Lermontov,
and even writes verses. That's all very well, but this is his third
duel.

MASHA. Whose?

CHEBUTIKIN. Soleni's.

MASHA. And the Baron?

CHEBUTIKIN. What about the Baron? [Pause.]

MASHA. Everything's all muddled up in my head.... But I say it ought not
to be allowed. He might wound the Baron or even kill him.

CHEBUTIKIN. The Baron is a good man, but one Baron more or less--what
difference does it make? It's all the same! [Beyond the garden somebody
shouts "Co-ee! Hallo! "] You wait. That's Skvortsov shouting; one of the
seconds. He's in a boat. [Pause.]

ANDREY. In my opinion it's simply immoral to fight in a duel, or to be
present, even in the quality of a doctor.

CHEBUTIKIN. It only seems so.... We don't exist, there's nothing on
earth, we don't really live, it only seems that we live. Does it matter,
anyway!

MASHA. You talk and talk the whole day long. [Going] You live in
a climate like this, where it might snow any moment, and there you
talk.... [Stops] I won't go into the house, I can't go there.... Tell me
when Vershinin comes.... [Goes along the avenue] The migrant birds are
already on the wing.... [Looks up] Swans or geese.... My dear, happy
things.... [Exit.]

ANDREY. Our house will be empty. The officers will go away, you are
going, my sister is getting married, and I alone will remain in the
house.

CHEBUTIKIN. And your wife?

[FERAPONT enters with some documents.]

ANDREY. A wife's a wife. She's honest, well-bred, yes; and kind, but
with all that th