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course.
(silence)
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    MRS. OSHIVENSKI
    Monsieur Kuznetsoff, perhaps you might be so kind as to take a little parcel with you? I have a granddaughter in St. Petersburg.
    Â 
    OSHIVENSKI
    Zhenya!
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    KUZNETSOFF
    If the parcel is not too big I’ll take it.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    And permit me to ask, how come they let you into Russia?
    Â 
    KUZNETSOFF
    Why wouldn’t they?
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    MARIANNA
    Alexey Matveyevich, stop joking. God only knows what people will think.
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    KUZNETSOFF
    If the interrogation is over, allow me to say good-by. Olya, I’d like to lie down for an hour in your room. I still have things to do tonight.
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    OLGA PAVLOVNA
    Wait, I’ll make you comfortable....
(Olga Pavlovna and Kuznetsoff leave.)
    Â 
    OSHIVENSKI
    How do you like that!
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    MRS. OSHIVENSKI
    I had a feeling this would happen. Poor Olga Pavlovna.... I’m beginning to understand a lot of things.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    She’s a fine one too....If people decide to separate they should stop seeing each other and acting like lovebirds! I’ll never shake his hand again, you have my word on that.
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    MARIANNA
    Victor Ivanovich, I assure you—Alexey Matveyevich was only joking. You got overly excited.
    Â 
    OSHIVENSKI
(gradually calming down)

No, I detest that kind of person. May I have some more coffee!
(Marianna tilts the coffeepot.)
CURTAIN
ACT THREE
    A very bare room: a vestibule, somewhat like an embryonic foyer. A slate-colored wall extends from the right along the proscenium, stops at center stage, and recedes, with the angle of its outline creating the proper perspective, into the distance, where one can see a door that leads into an auditorium. At the extreme right edge of the stage, steps, with a copper handrail, lead down to the right. Against the wall, facing the audience, stands a small red velour settee. At the left edge, downstage, there is a table that serves as a box office, with a plain chair. Thus, someone who arrives for the lecture comes up the steps from the right, crosses from right to left along the slate wall enlivened by the red settee and either continues across the stage all the way to the left edge and the table where tickets are being sold, or else, having reached center stage, where the wall stops, turns, goes upstage and there disappears through the door leading into the hall. On the left wall there is a
Toilette
sign and the red cone of afire extinguisher above a folded hose. At the table sits Lyulya, a pert, attractive girl, with cosmetic footnotes, and beside her stands Taubendorf. Several people (typical émigrés) cross the stage, a bell rings, there is a confused sound of voices, and the stage grows empty. Everyone has gone through the upstage door. Only Lyulya and Taubendorf remain.
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    LYULYA
    Let’s count how much we’ve taken in. Wait, let’s do it this way—
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    TAUBENDORF
    Not much, I think. Why is this money lying separately?
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    LYULYA
    â€”eighteen—don’t interrupt—eighteen-fifty, nineteen—
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    TAUBENDORF
    Oh, how many times I’ve already done all this!...I’m lucky—as soon as they organize some lecture or concert or ball they always ask me to be in charge. I’ve even established a tariff: for a ball I get twenty-five.
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    LYULYA
    There, I’ve lost count! Tsk-tsk.... Now I have to start all over again.
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    TAUBENDORF
    Lectures, idiotic reports, charity balls, anniversaries—how many of them! Lyulya, I, too, have lost count. Now, for instance, someone is lecturing on something—but who it is and what, I really couldn’t care less. Then again, maybe it’s not a lecture at all but a concert, or else some long-haired moron reading poetry. Listen, Lyulya, let me count for you.
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    LYULYA
    You say such strange things, Nikolay Karlovich. Today it should be especially interesting. And there are lots of people I know. This five is all torn.
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    TAUBENDORF
    The faces are always