VERSHININ. [Thoughtfully] How can I put it? It seems to me that everything on earth must change, little by little, and is already changing under our very eyes. After two or three hundred years, after a thousand--the actual time doesn’t matter--a new and happy age will begin. We, of course, shall not take part in it, but we live and work and even suffer to-day that it should come. We create it--and in that one object is our destiny and, if you like, our happiness. [MASHA laughs softly.] TUZENBACH. What is it? MASHA. I don’t know. I’ve been laughing all day, ever since morning. VERSHININ. I finished my education at the same point as you, I have not studied at universities; I read a lot, but I cannot choose my books and perhaps what I read is not at all what I should, but the longer I love, the more I want to know. My hair is turning white, I am nearly an old man now, but I know so little, oh, so little! But I think I know the things that matter most, and that are most real. I know them well. And I wish I could make you understand that there is no happiness for us, that there should not and cannot be.... We must only work and work, and happiness is only for our distant posterity. [Pause] If not for me, then for the descendants of my descendants. [FEDOTIK and RODE come into the dining-room; they sit and sing softly, strumming on a guitar.] TUZENBACH. According to you, one should not even think about happiness! But suppose I am happy! VERSHININ. No. TUZENBACH. [Moves his hands and laughs] We do not seem to understand each other. How can I convince you? [MASHA laughs quietly, TUZENBACH continues, pointing at her] Yes, laugh! [To VERSHININ] Not only after two or three centuries, but in a million years, life will still be as it was; life does not change, it remains for ever, following its own laws which do not concern us, or which, at any rate, you will never find out. Migrant birds, cranes for example, fly and fly, and whatever thoughts, high or low, enter their heads, they will still fly and not know why or where. They fly and will continue to fly, whatever philosophers come to life among them; they may philosophize as much as they like, only they will fly.... MASHA. Still, is there a meaning? TUZENBACH. A meaning.... Now the snow is falling. What meaning? [Pause.] MASHA. It seems to me that a man must have faith, or must search for a faith, or his life will be empty, empty.... To live and not to know why the cranes fly, why babies are born, why there are stars in the sky.... Either you must know why you live, or everything is trivial, not worth a straw. [A pause.] VERSHININ. Still, I am sorry that my youth has gone. MASHA. Gogol says: life in this world is a dull matter, my masters! TUZENBACH. And I say it’s difficult to argue with you, my masters! Hang it all.