MASHA. I don’t like this Mihail Potapitch or Ivanitch, Protopopov. We oughtn’t to invite him here. IRINA. I never asked him. MASHA. That’s all right. [Enter CHEBUTIKIN followed by a soldier with a silver samovar; there is a rumble of dissatisfied surprise.] OLGA. [Covers her face with her hands] A samovar! That’s awful! [Exit into the dining-room, to the table.] IRINA. My dear Ivan Romanovitch, what are you doing! TUZENBACH. [Laughs] I told you so! MASHA. Ivan Romanovitch, you are simply shameless! CHEBUTIKIN. My dear good girl, you are the only thing, and the dearest thing I have in the world. I’ll soon be sixty. I’m an old man, a lonely worthless old man. The only good thing in me is my love for you, and if it hadn’t been for that, I would have been dead long ago.... [To IRINA] My dear little girl, I’ve known you since the day of your birth, I’ve carried you in my arms... I loved your dead mother.... MASHA. But your presents are so expensive! CHEBUTIKIN. [Angrily, through his tears] Expensive presents.... You really, are!... [To the orderly] Take the samovar in there.... [Teasing] Expensive presents! [The orderly goes into the dining-room with the samovar.] ANFISA. [Enters and crosses stage] My dear, there’s a strange Colonel come! He’s taken off his coat already. Children, he’s coming here. Irina darling, you’ll be a nice and polite little girl, won’t you.... Should have lunched a long time ago.... Oh, Lord.... [Exit.] TUZENBACH. It must be Vershinin. [Enter VERSHININ] Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin! VERSHININ. [To MASHA and IRINA] I have the honour to introduce myself, my name is Vershinin. I am very glad indeed to be able to come at last. How you’ve grown! Oh! oh! IRINA. Please sit down. We’re very glad you’ve come. VERSHININ. [Gaily] I am glad, very glad! But there are three sisters, surely. I remember--three little girls. I forget your faces, but your father, Colonel Prosorov, used to have three little girls, I remember that perfectly, I saw them with my own eyes. How time does fly! Oh, dear, how it flies! TUZENBACH. Alexander Ignateyevitch comes from Moscow. IRINA. From Moscow? Are you from Moscow? VERSHININ. Yes, that’s so. Your father used to be in charge of a battery there, and I was an officer in the same brigade. [To MASHA] I seem to remember your face a little. MASHA. I don’t remember you. IRINA. Olga! Olga! [Shouts into the dining-room] Olga! Come along! [OLGA enters from the dining-room] Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin comes from Moscow, as it happens. VERSHININ. I take it that you are Olga Sergeyevna, the eldest, and that you are Maria... and you are Irina, the youngest.... OLGA. So you come from Moscow?