SVIETLOVIDOFF.  My audience has gone home.  They are all asleep, and have forgotten their old clown.  No, nobody needs me, nobody loves me; I have no wife, no children.

Ivanitch.  Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!  Don’t be so unhappy about it.

SVIETLOVIDOFF.  But I am a man, I am still alive.  Warm, red blood is tingling in my veins, the blood of noble ancestors.  I am an aristocrat, Nikitushka; I served in the army, in the artillery, before I fell as low as this, and what a fine young chap I was!  Handsome, daring, eager!  Where has it all gone?  What has become of those old days?  There’s the pit that has swallowed them all!  I remember it all now.  Forty-five years of my life lie buried there, and what a life, Nikitushka!  I can see it as clearly as I see your face:  the ecstasy of youth, faith, passion, the love of women—­women, Nikitushka!

Ivanitch.  It is time you went to sleep, sir.

SVIETLOVIDOFF.  When I first went on the stage, in the first glow of passionate youth, I remember a woman loved me for my acting.  She was beautiful, graceful as a poplar, young, innocent, pure, and radiant as a summer dawn.  Her smile could charm away the darkest night.  I remember, I stood before her once, as I am now standing before you.  She had never seemed so lovely to me as she did then, and she spoke to me so with her eyes—­such a look!  I shall never forget it, no, not even in the grave; so tender, so soft, so deep, so bright and young!  Enraptured, intoxicated, I fell on my knees before her, I begged for my happiness, and she said:  “Give up the stage!” Give up the stage!  Do you understand?  She could love an actor, but marry him—­never!  I was acting that day, I remember—­I had a foolish, clown’s part, and as I acted, I felt my eyes being opened; I saw that the worship of the art I had held so sacred was a delusion and an empty dream; that I was a slave, a fool, the plaything of the idleness of strangers.  I understood my audience at last, and since that day I have not believed in their applause, or in their wreathes, or in their enthusiasm.  Yes, Nikitushka!  The people applaud me, they buy my photograph, but I am a stranger to them.  They don’t know me, I am as the dirt beneath their feet.  They are willing enough to meet me . . . but allow a daughter or a sister to marry me, an outcast, never!  I have no faith in them, [sinks onto the stool] no faith in them.

Ivanitch.  Oh, sir! you look dreadfully pale, you frighten me to death!  Come, go home, have mercy on me!

SVIETLOVIDOFF.  I saw through it all that day, and the knowledge was dearly bought.  Nikitushka!  After that . . . when that girl . . . well, I began to wander aimlessly about, living from day to day without looking ahead.  I took the parts of buffoons and low comedians, letting my mind go to wreck.  Ah! but I was a great artist once, till little by little I threw away my talents, played the motley fool, lost my looks, lost the power of expressing myself, and became in the end a Merry Andrew instead of a man.  I have been swallowed up in that great black pit.  I never felt it before, but to-night, when I woke up, I looked back, and there behind me lay sixty-eight years.  I have just found out what it is to be old!  It is all over . . . [sobs] . . . all over.