Masha. [To her father] Father, do please let my husband have a horse.  He ought to go home.

Shamraeff. [Angrily] A horse to go home with! [Sternly] You know the horses have just been to the station.  I can’t send them out again.

Masha.  But there are other horses. [Seeing that her father remains silent] You are impossible!

Medviedenko.  I shall go on foot, Masha.

Paulina. [With a sigh] On foot in this weather? [She takes a seat at the card-table] Shall we begin?

Medviedenko.  It is only six miles.  Good-bye. [He kisses his wife’s hand;] Good-bye, mother. [His mother-in-law gives him her hand unwillingly] I should not have troubled you all, but the baby—­[He bows to every one] Good-bye. [He goes out with an apologetic air.]

Shamraeff.  He will get there all right, he is not a major-general.

Paulina.  Come, let us begin.  Don’t let us waste time, we shall soon be called to supper.

Shamraeff, Masha, and Dorn sit down at the card-table.

Arkadina. [To Trigorin] When the long autumn evenings descend on us we while away the time here by playing lotto.  Look at this old set; we used it when our mother played with us as children.  Don’t you want to take a hand in the game with us until supper time? [She and Trigorin sit down at the table] It is a monotonous game, but it is all right when one gets used to it. [She deals three cards to each of the players.]

TREPLIEFF. [Looking through the pages of the magazine] He has read his own story, and hasn’t even cut the pages of mine.

He lays the magazine on his desk and goes toward the door on the right, stopping as he passes his mother to give her a kiss.

Arkadina.  Won’t you play, Constantine?

TREPLIEFF.  No, excuse me please, I don’t feel like it.  I am going to take a turn through the rooms. [He goes out.]

Masha.  Are you all ready?  I shall begin:  twenty-two.

Arkadina.  Here it is.

Masha.  Three.

Dorn.  Right.

Masha.  Have you put down three?  Eight.  Eighty-one.  Ten.

Shamraeff.  Don’t go so fast.

Arkadina.  Could you believe it?  I am still dazed by the reception they gave me in Kharkoff.

Masha.  Thirty-four. [The notes of a melancholy waltz are heard.]

Arkadina.  The students gave me an ovation; they sent me three baskets of flowers, a wreath, and this thing here.

She unclasps a brooch from her breast and lays it on the table.

Shamraeff.  There is something worth while!

Masha.  Fifty.

Dorn.  Fifty, did you say?

Arkadina.  I wore a perfectly magnificent dress; I am no fool when it comes to clothes.