«Tres hermanas» en inglés

A DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS

CHARACTERS

ANDREY SERGEYEVITCH PROSOROV

NATALIA IVANOVA (NATASHA), his fiancée, later his wife (28)

His sisters:
OLGA
MASHA
IRINA

FEODOR ILITCH KULIGIN, high school teacher, married to MASHA (20)

ALEXANDER IGNATEYEVITCH VERSHININ, lieutenant-colonel in charge of a battery (42)

NICOLAI LVOVITCH TUZENBACH, baron, lieutenant in the army (30)

VASSILI VASSILEVITCH SOLENI, captain

IVAN ROMANOVITCH CHEBUTIKIN, army doctor (60)

ALEXEY PETROVITCH FEDOTIK, sub-lieutenant

VLADIMIR CARLOVITCH RODE, sub-lieutenant

FERAPONT, door-keeper at local council offices, an old man

ANFISA, nurse (80)

[In PROSOROV'S house. A sitting-room with pillars; behind is seen a large dining-room. It is midday, the sun is shining brightly outside. In the dining-room the table is being laid for lunch.]

[OLGA, in the regulation blue dress of a teacher at a girl's high school, is walking about correcting exercise books; MASHA, in a black dress, with a hat on her knees, sits and reads a book; IRINA, in white, stands about, with a thoughtful expression.]

OLGA. It's just a year since father died last May the fifth, on your name-day, Irina. It was very cold then, and snowing. I thought I would never survive it, and you were in a dead faint. And now a year has gone by and we are already thinking about it without pain, and you are wearing a white dress and your face is happy. [Clock strikes twelve] And the clock struck just the same way then. [Pause] I remember that there was music at the funeral, and they fired a volley in the cemetery. He was a general in command of a brigade but there were few people present. Of course, it was raining then, raining hard, and snowing.

IRINA. Why think about it!

[BARON TUZENBACH, CHEBUTIKIN and SOLENI appear by the table in the dining-room, behind the pillars.]

OLGA. It's so warm to-day that we can keep the windows open, though the birches are not yet in flower. Father was put in command of a brigade, and he rode out of Moscow with us eleven years ago. I remember perfectly that it was early in May and that everything in Moscow was flowering then. It was warm too, everything was bathed in sunshine. Eleven years have gone, and I remember everything as if we rode out only yesterday. Oh, God! When I awoke this morning and saw all the light and the spring, joy entered my heart, and I longed passionately to go home.