FEDOTIK. [To KULIGIN] Here’s a keepsake for you... a note-book with a pencil.... We’ll go to the river from here.... [They go aside and both look round.] RODE. [Shouts] Yo-ho! KULIGIN. [Shouts] Good-bye! [At the back of the stage FEDOTIK and RODE meet MASHA; they say good-bye and go out with her.] IRINA. They’ve gone.... [Sits on the bottom step of the terrace.] CHEBUTIKIN. And they forgot to say good-bye to me. IRINA. But why is that? CHEBUTIKIN. I just forgot, somehow. Though I’ll soon see them again, I’m going to-morrow. Yes... just one day left. I shall be retired in a year, then I’ll come here again, and finish my life near you. I’ve only one year before I get my pension.... [Puts one newspaper into his pocket and takes another out] I’ll come here to you and change my life radically... I’ll be so quiet... so agree... agreeable, respectable.... IRINA. Yes, you ought to change your life, dear man, somehow or other. CHEBUTIKIN. Yes, I feel it. [Sings softly.] “Tarara-boom-deay....” KULIGIN. We won’t reform Ivan Romanovitch! We won’t reform him! CHEBUTIKIN. If only I was apprenticed to you! Then I’d reform. IRINA. Feodor has shaved his moustache! I can’t bear to look at him. KULIGIN. Well, what about it? CHEBUTIKIN. I could tell you what your face looks like now, but it wouldn’t be polite. KULIGIN. Well! It’s the custom, it’s modus vivendi. Our Director is clean-shaven, and so I too, when I received my inspectorship, had my moustaches removed. Nobody likes it, but it’s all one to me. I’m satisfied. Whether I’ve got moustaches or not, I’m satisfied.... [Sits.] [At the back of the stage ANDREY is wheeling a perambulator containing a sleeping infant.] IRINA. Ivan Romanovitch, be a darling. I’m awfully worried. You were out on the boulevard last night; tell me, what happened? CHEBUTIKIN. What happened? Nothing. Quite a trifling matter. [Reads paper] Of no importance! KULIGIN. They say that Soleni and the Baron met yesterday on the boulevard near the theatre.... TUZENBACH. Stop! What right... [Waves his hand and goes into the house.] KULIGIN. Near the theatre... Soleni started behaving offensively to the Baron, who lost his temper and said something nasty.... CHEBUTIKIN. I don’t know. It’s all bunkum. KULIGIN. At some seminary or other a master wrote “bunkum” on an essay, and the student couldn’t make the letters out--thought it was a Latin word “luckum.” [Laughs] Awfully funny, that. They say that Soleni is in love with Irina and hates the Baron.... That’s quite natural. Irina is a very nice girl. She’s even like Masha, she’s so thoughtful.... Only, Irina your character is gentler. Though Masha’s character, too, is a very good one. I’m very fond of Masha. [Shouts of “Yo-ho!” are heard behind the stage.]