RAKITIN
Quelle tirade!13 Nature is healthy . . . that is, in other words, I am a sickly creature.
NATALYA
You’re not the only sickly creature. We’re both none too healthy.
RAKITIN
Oh, I know that way of making the most unpleasant things sound inoffensive . . . For instance, instead of telling him to his face: “You, brother, are stupid,” you need only say with a good-natured smile: “We’re both of us stupid, you and I.”
NATALYA
So you’re offended? What nonsense! I only wanted to say that you and I are both . . . you don’t like the word “sickly” . . . that we’re both old, very old.
RAKITIN
Why old? I don’t think of myself as old.
NATALYA
Well, anyway, listen: you and I are sitting here now . . . and maybe a quarter of an hour ago, on this same bench, sat . . . two really young creatures.
RAKITIN
Belyaev and Verochka? Of course, they’re younger than us . . . there’s a few years’ difference between us, that’s all . . . That doesn’t make us old.
NATALYA
The difference between us isn’t only in years.
RAKITIN
Ah! I understand . . . You envy their . . . naïveté, their freshness, innocence . . . in short, their stupidity . . .
NATALYA
You think so? Ah, so you think they’re stupid? I see, for you everybody’s stupid today. No, you don’t understand me. And besides . . . stupid! There’s nothing wrong with that! What’s so good about intelligence, if it’s not amusing? . . . There’s nothing more tiresome than humorless intelligence.
RAKITIN
Hm. Why don’t you just say it without beating around the bush? I don’t amuse you—that’s what you want to say . . . Why blame intelligence in general for my sins?
NATALYA
You’ve got it all wrong . . .
Katya emerges from the raspberry bushes.
So you’re picking raspberries, Katya?
KATYA
That’s right, ma’am.
NATALYA
Show me . . .
Katya goes up to her.
Nice raspberries! So red . . . and your cheeks are redder still.
Katya smiles and looks down.
Well, you can go.
Katya exits.
RAKITIN
There’s another young creature to your taste.
NATALYA
Right. (Stands up)
RAKITIN
Where are you going?
NATALYA
In the first place, I want to see what Verochka is up to . . . It’s time she went in . . . and in the second place, I must say, I’m not too pleased with our conversation. Let’s drop our discussion of nature and youth for a while.
RAKITIN
Maybe you’d prefer to walk alone?
NATALYA
To tell you the truth, I would. We’ll see each other soon . . . Anyway, we part friends?
She offers him her hand.
RAKITIN
(Standing up) What else!
He presses her hand.
NATALYA
Good-bye.
She opens her parasol and exits left.
RAKITIN