On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco

On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco

A monologue-scene in one act

Character

, husband of his wife, proprietress of a music school and a boarding school for girls.

(with long side-whiskers, no mustache, in an old worn-out tailcoat, enters majestically, bows, and straightens his waistcoat).

Gracious ladies and, in a certain sense, gracious sirs.

(Combs his side-whiskers.)

My wife proposed that I should read some sort of popular lecture here for a charitable purpose. Well? A lecture is a lecture — it’s absolutely all the same to me. I am, of course, no professor, and no stranger to learned degrees I am not, but nevertheless I have now for thirty years, without ceasing, one might even say to the detriment of my own health and so forth, been working on questions of a strictly scientific nature, pondering, and even, if you can imagine, sometimes writing learned articles — that is, not exactly learned, but, if you’ll excuse the expression, something like learned. Incidentally, just the other day I wrote an enormous article entitled: "On the Harmful Effects of Certain Insects." My daughters liked it very much, especially the part about bedbugs, while I myself read it over and tore it up. After all, no matter how you write it, you still can’t do without Persian powder. We even have bedbugs in the piano… As the subject of today’s lecture I have chosen, so to speak, the harm that the consumption of tobacco brings to mankind. I myself smoke, but my wife ordered me to lecture today on the harm of tobacco, and so there’s nothing more to discuss about it. Tobacco it is, then — it’s absolutely all the same to me, while you, gracious sirs, I ask to treat my present lecture with due seriousness, or else something might happen. Whoever is frightened by a dry, scientific lecture, whoever doesn’t like it, may not listen and may leave.

(Straightens his waistcoat.)

I especially ask the attention of the gentlemen doctors present here, who may draw much useful information from my lecture, since tobacco, besides its harmful effects, is also used in medicine. Thus, for example, if you put a fly into a snuffbox, it will die, probably from a disorder of the nerves. Tobacco is, chiefly, a plant… When I give a lecture, I usually wink with my right eye, but pay it no mind; it’s from nervousness. I am a very nervous man generally speaking, and I began winking my eye in 1889, on the 13th of September, on the very day my wife gave birth to, in a certain sense, our fourth daughter, Varvara. All my daughters were born on the 13th. However

(glancing at his watch)

, in view of the shortage of time, let us not stray from the subject of the lecture. I should note that my wife keeps a music school and a private boarding house — that is, not exactly a boarding house, but something of the kind. Between us, my wife loves to complain about hardship, but she has something put by, some forty or fifty thousand, whereas I haven’t a kopeck to my name, not a groat — well, but why go into it! At the boarding school I hold the post of manager of the household affairs. I purchase the provisions, keep an eye on the servants, record the expenses, sew up the notebooks, drive out the bedbugs, walk my wife’s little dog, catch mice… Yesterday evening it fell to my duty to give the cook flour and butter, since blini were planned. Well, in short, today, when the blini had already been baked, my wife came into the kitchen to say that three of the boarders would not be eating blini, since their glands had swollen. And so it turned out that we had baked several blini too many. Where, if you please, was one to put them? My wife first ordered them carried down to the cellar, and then she thought and thought and said: "Eat these blini yourself, you scarecrow." She calls me that when she’s out of sorts: scarecrow, or viper, or Satan. But what kind of Satan am I? She’s always out of sorts. And I didn’t eat them, I swallowed them whole, without chewing, since I’m always hungry. Yesterday, for instance, she didn’t give me dinner. "There’s no reason," she says, "to feed you, scarecrow…" But, however

(looks at his watch)

, we’ve got to chattering and have strayed somewhat from the subject. Let us continue. Though, of course, you would rather now listen to a romance, or some sort of symphony, or an aria…

(Strikes up a song.)

"We shall not blink an eye in the heat of battle…" I don’t recall where that’s from… Incidentally, I forgot to tell you that at my wife’s music school, besides managing the household, I am also charged with teaching mathematics, physics, chemistry, geography, history, solfège, literature, and so on. For dancing, singing, and drawing my wife charges an extra fee, although I teach the dancing and singing too. Our music school is located in Five-Dogs Lane, in house No. 13. That, no doubt, is why my life has turned out so unsuccessful, because we live in house No. 13. And my daughters were born on the 13th, and our house has 13 windows… Well, but why go into it! For any matters one may find my wife at home at any hour, and the school’s program, if you wish, is sold by the doorman for 30 kopecks a copy.

(Takes several pamphlets from his pocket.)

And here, if you wish, I can share some with you. Thirty kopecks a copy! Who would like one?

(Pause.)

No one wants one? Well, twenty kopecks, then!

(Pause)

. How vexing. Yes, house No. 13! Nothing goes right for me, I’ve grown old, grown stupid… Here I am giving a lecture, outwardly I look cheerful, but I myself want nothing so much as to shout at the top of my lungs, or to fly off somewhere beyond the ninth land. And there’s no one to complain to, I even want to weep… You’ll say: your daughters… What of my daughters? I speak to them, and they only laugh… My wife has seven daughters… No, forgive me, I believe it’s six…

(Briskly.)

Seven! The eldest of them, Anna, is twenty-seven years old, the youngest seventeen. Gracious sirs!

(Looks around.)

I am unhappy, I have turned into a fool, into a nonentity, but in essence you see before you the happiest of fathers. In essence it must be so, and I dare not say otherwise. If only you knew! I have lived with my wife thirty-three years, and, I may say, those were the best years of my life — not exactly the best, but, well, on the whole. They flowed by, in a word, like one happy instant — devil take them all, to be quite honest.

(Looks around.)

However, it seems she has not yet arrived, she’s not here, and one may say whatever one likes… I’m terribly afraid… afraid when she looks at me. Yes, so as I was saying: my daughters have not been marrying for so long, probably because they are shy, and because men never see them. My wife doesn’t wish to give evening parties, she invites no one to dinner, she is a very stingy, ill-tempered, quarrelsome lady, and so no one calls on us, but… I can tell you a secret…

(Approaches the footlights.)

My wife’s daughters can be seen on major holidays at their aunt Natalya Semyonovna’s, the very one who suffers from rheumatism and wears that sort of yellow dress with black spots, as though she were entirely covered in cockroaches. There they serve refreshments too. And when my wife isn’t there, one can even… this…

(Flicks himself on the neck.)

I should note, I get drunk from a single glass, and from it my soul grows warm and at the same time so sad that I cannot express it; for some reason I recall my young years, and for some reason I want to run away, ah, if only you knew how I want to!

(With feeling.)

To run away, to throw everything over and run without looking back… where? It’s all the same where… only to run from this rotten, vulgar, cheap little life, which has turned me into an old, pitiful fool, an old, pitiful idiot, to run from this stupid, petty, wicked, wicked, wicked miser, from my wife, who has tormented me for thirty-three years, to run from the music, from the kitchen, from my wife’s money, from all these trifles and vulgarities… and to stop somewhere far, far away in a field and stand like a tree, like a post, like a scarecrow in a vegetable garden, under the wide sky, and gaze all night as the quiet, clear moon stands overhead, and forget, forget… Oh, how I wish I could remember nothing!.. How I wish I could tear off this vile old tailcoat, in which I was married thirty years ago…

(tears the tailcoat off himself)

, in which I constantly give lectures for charitable purposes… There, take that!

(Tramples on the tailcoat.)

There, take that! I am old, poor, pitiful, like this very waistcoat with its worn, threadbare back…

(Shows his back.)

I need nothing! I am above and better than all this, I was once young, intelligent, I studied at the university, I dreamed, I thought of myself as a human being… Now I need nothing! Nothing at all, save peace… save peace!

(Glancing to one side, quickly puts his tailcoat back on.)

However, my wife is standing in the wings… She has come and is waiting for me there…

(Looks at his watch.)

The time is already up… If she asks, then please, I beg you, tell her that the lecture went well… that the scarecrow, that is, I, conducted myself with dignity.

(Looks to one side, clears his throat.)

She’s looking this way…

(Raising his voice.)

Proceeding from the premise that tobacco contains a terrible poison, of which I have just been speaking, one ought under no circumstances to smoke, and I shall permit myself, in a certain sense, to hope that this lecture of mine "on the harm of tobacco" will prove of some use. I have said all I have to say.

Notes