42 Best Anton Chekhov Monologues

The Bear (Luka)

Category: Play Role: Luka From: The Bear

Luka says

There you are again! It’s too awful to listen to, so it is! Nikolai Michailovitch is dead, it was the will of the Lord and the Lord has given him eternal peace. You have grieved over it and that ought to be enough. Now it’s time to stop. One can’t weep and wear mourning forever! My wife died a few years ago, too. I grieved for her, I wept a whole month -and then it was over. Must one be forever singing lamentations? That would be more than your husband was worth! (He sighs.) You have forgotten all your neighbors. You don’t go out and you won’t receive any one. We live, -you’ll pardon me -like the spiders, and the good light of day we never see. All the livery is eaten the mice -As though there weren’t any more nice people in the world! But the whole neighborhood is full of gentlefolk. In Riblov the regiment is stationed, officers -simply beautiful! One can’t see enough of them! Every Friday a ball, and military music every day. Oh, my dear, dear ma’am, young and pretty as you are, if you’d only let your spirits live! Beauty can’t last forever. When ten short years are over, then you’ll be glad enough to go out a bit! And meet the officers -and then it’ll be too late.

The Bear (Mrs. Popov)

Category: Play Role: Mrs. Popov From: The Bear

Mrs. Popov says

The man! The man is true and faithful in love! Well, that is something new. How can you make such a statement? Men true and faithful! As long as we have gone as far as we have I may as well say that of all the men I have known my husband was the best -I loved him passionately with all my soul, as only a young, sensible woman may love, I gave him my youth, my happiness, my fortune, my life. I worshiped him like a heathen. And what happened? This best of all men betrayed me right and left in every possible fashion. After his death I found his desk filled with a collection of love letters. While he was alive he left me alone for months -it is horrible to even think about it -he made love to other women in my very presence, he wasted my money and made fun of my feelings, -and in spite of all that I trusted him and was true to him. And more than that, he is dead and I am still true to him. I have buried myself within these four walls and I shall wear this mourning to my grave.

The Bear (Smirnov)

Category: Play Role: Smirnov From: The Bear

Smirnov says

What can one say to that? Moods! Seven months since her husband died! And do I have to pay the interest or not? I repeat the question, have I to pay the interest or not? Well yes, the husband is dead and all that, the manager is -the devil with him -traveling somewhere. Now tell me, what am I to do? Shall I run away from my creditors in a balloon? Or push my head into a stone wall? If I call on Grusdev he chooses to be “not at home,” Iroschevitch has simply hidden himself, I have quarreled with Kurzin until I came near throwing him out of the window, Masutov is ill and this one in here has -moods! Not one of the crew will pay up! And all because I’ve spoiled them all, because I’m an old whiner, an old dish rag! I’m too tender hearted with them. But you wait! I’ll show you! I permit nobody to play tricks with me, the devil with ’em all! I’ll stay here and not budge from the spot until she pays! Brrr! How angry I am, how terribly angry I am! Every tendon is trembling with anger and I can hardly breathe -ah, I’m even growing ill.

(He calls out)

Servant!

On the High Road (Merik)

Category: Play Role: Merik From: On the High Road

Merik says

Aaa… greybeard! You skeleton! You needn’t go to the churchyard to see ghosts, when they get up from under the floor to give advice to their relations…. A sin!… Don’t you teach people your silly notions! You’re an ignorant lot of people living in darkness…. My father was peasant and used to be fond of teaching people. One night he stole a sack of apples from the village priest, and he brings them along and tells us, “Look, children, mind you don’t eat any apples before Easter, it’s a sin.” You’re like that…. You don’t know what a devil is, but you go calling people devils…. Take this crooked old woman, for instance. She sees an enemy in me, but is her time, for some woman’s nonsense or other, she’s given her soul to the devil five times.

Ivanov (Anna)

Ivanov (Anna)

Category: Play Role: Anna From: Ivanov

I am beginning to think that fate has cheated me, Doctor. There are a great many people, perhaps no better than I, who are happy without having had to pay for their happiness. But I have paid for everything, absolutely everything! And so dearly! Why should I have had to pay such terribly high interest? My dear friend, you are always so considerate of me, so tactful, you are afraid to tell me the truth, but do you think I don’t know what my illness is? I know perfectly well. Can you tell funny stories? Nikolai can. You say that Nikolai is this or that, one thing and another. How can you know him? Is it possible to know a man in six months? That is a remarkable man, Doctor, and I am sorry you didn’t know him two or three years ago. Now he’s depressed, he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t do anything, but then… how fascinating he was! I fell in love with him at first sight. I just looked at him and the trap was sprung! He said, “Come,” and I cut myself off from everything; it was just like cutting dead leaves with a scissors, and I went. But now, it’s different. Now he goes to the Lebedevs’ to amuse himself with other women, and I sit in the garden and listen to owls screech.

Ivanov (Borkin)

Category: Play Role: Borkin From: Ivanov

Borkin says

Wait! Wait! Isn’t this Sasha’s birthday? So it is! The idea of my forgetting it. What a memory I have. I shall go with you! I shall go, I shall go! Nicholas, old man, you are the joy of my life. If you were not always so nervous and cross and gloomy, you and I could do great things together. I would do anything for you. Shall I marry Martha Babakina and give you half her fortune? That is, not half, either, but all -take it all! No, seriously, shan’t I marry Martha and halve the money with you? But no, why should I propose it? How can you understand? You say to me: “Stop talking nonsense!” You are a good man and a clever one, but you haven’t any red blood in your veins or any -well, enthusiasm. Why, if you wanted to, you and I could cut a dash together that would shame the devil himself. If you were a normal man instead of a morbid hypochondriac we would have a million in a year. For instance, if I had twenty-three hundred roubles now I could make twenty thousand in two weeks. You don’t believe me? You think it is all nonsense? No, it isn’t nonsense. Give me twenty-three hundred roubles and let me try. Ofsianoff is selling a strip of land across the river for that price. If we buy this, both banks will be ours, and we shall have the right to build a dam across the river. Isn’t that so? We can say that we intend to build a mill, and when the people on the river below us hear that we mean to dam the river they will, of course, object violently and we shall say: If you don’t want a dam here you will have to pay to get us away. Do you see the result? The factory would give us five thousand roubles, Korolkoff three thousand, the monastery five thousand more –

Ivanov (Ivanov)

Category: Play Role: Ivanov From: Ivanov

Ivanov says

I am a worthless, miserable, useless man. Only a man equally miserable and suffering, as Paul is, could love or esteem me now. Good God! How I loathe myself! How bitterly I hate my voice, my hands, my thoughts, these clothes, each step I take! How ridiculous it is, how disgusting! Less than a year ago I was healthy and strong, full of pride and energy and enthusiasm. I worked with these hands here, and my words could move the dullest man to tears. I could weep with sorrow, and grow indignant at the sight of wrong. I could feel the glow of inspiration, and understand the beauty and romance of the silent nights which I used to watch through from evening until dawn, sitting at my worktable, and giving up my soul to dreams. I believed in a bright future then, and looked into it as trustfully as a child looks into its mother’s eyes. And now, oh, it is terrible! I am tired and without hope; I spend my days and nights in idleness; I have no control over my feet or brain. My estate is ruined, my woods are falling under the blows of the axe.

(He weeps)

My neglected land looks up at me as reproachfully as an orphan. I expect nothing, am sorry for nothing; my whole soul trembles at the thought of each new day. And what can I think of my treatment of Sarah? I promised her love and happiness forever; I opened her eyes to the promise of a future such as she had never even dreamed of. She believed me, and though for five years I have seen her sinking under the weight of her sacrifices to me, and losing her strength in her struggles with her conscience, God knows she has never given me one angry look, or uttered one word of reproach. What is the result? That I don’t love her! Why? Is it possible? Can it be true? I can’t understand. She is suffering; her days are numbered; yet I fly like a contemptible coward from her white face, her sunken chest, her pleading eyes. Oh, I am ashamed, ashamed!

(A pause)

Sasha, a young girl, is sorry for me in my misery. She confesses to me that she loves me; me, almost an old man! Whereupon I lose my head, and exalted as if music, I yell: “Hurrah for a new life and new happiness!” Next day I believe in this new life and happiness as little as I believe in my happiness at home. What is the matter with me? What is this pit I am wallowing in? What is the cause of this weakness? What does this nervousness come from? If my sick wife wounds my pride, if a servant makes a mistake, if my gun misses fire, I lose my temper and get violent and altogether unlike myself. I can’t, I can’t understand it; the easiest way out would be a bullet through the head!

Ivanov (Ivanov)

Category: Play Role: Ivanov From: Ivanov

Ivanov says

Listen to me, poor old friend. I shall not try to explain myself to you. I shall not tell you whether I am honest or a rascal, healthy or mad; you wouldn’t understand me. I was young once; I have been eager and sincere and intelligent. I have loved and hated and believed as no one else has. I have worked and hoped and tilted against windmills with the strength of ten -not sparing my strength, not knowing what life was. I shouldered a load that broke my back. I drank, I worked, I excited myself, my energy knew no bounds. Tell me, could I have done otherwise? There are so few of us and so much to do, so much to do! And see how cruelly fate has revenged herself on me, who fought with her so bravely! I am a broken man. I am old at thirty. I have submitted myself to old age. With a heavy head and a sluggish mind, weary, used up, discouraged, without faith or love or an object in life, I wander like a shadow among other men, not knowing why I am alive or what it is that I want. Love seems to me to be folly, caresses false. I see no sense in working or playing, and all passionate speeches seem insipid and tiresome. So I carry my sadness with me wherever I go; a cold weariness, a discontent, a horror of life. Yes, I am lost for ever and ever. Before you stands a man who at thirty-five is disillusioned, wearied fruitless efforts, burning with shame, and mocking at his own weakness. Oh, how my pride rebels against it all! What mad fury chokes me! I am staggering -my strength is failing me. Where is Matthew? Let him take me home.

Ivanov (Lebedieff)

Category: Play Role: Lebedieff From: Ivanov

Lebedieff says

Let me explain exactly what I mean. Everything displeases me. As for your marriage, I simply can’t abide it. Forgive me, little Sasha, this marriage may be a wise one; it may be honest and not misguided, nevertheless, there is something about the whole affair that is not right; no, not right! You are not marrying as other girls do; you are young and fresh and pure as a drop of water, and he is a widower, battered and worn. Heaven help him. I don’t understand him at all. Forgive me for saying so, Sasha, but I am sure there is something crooked about this affair; it is making a great deal of talk. It seems people are saying that first Sarah died, and then suddenly Ivanov wanted to marry you. But, no, I am like an old woman; I am gossiping like a magpie. You must not listen to me or any one, only to your own heart.

Ivanov (Sasha)

Category: Play Role: Sasha From: Ivanov

Sasha says

What can you possibly have to tell me? That you are a man of honour? The whole world knows it. You had better tell me on your honour whether you understand what you have done or not. You have come in here as a man of honour and have insulted him so terribly that you have nearly killed me. When you used to follow him like a shadow and almost keep him from living, you were convinced that you were doing your duty and that you were acting like a man of honour. When you interfered in his private affairs, maligned him and criticised him; when you sent me and whomever else you could, anonymous letters, you imagined yourself to be an honourable man! And, thinking that that too was honourable, you, a doctor, did not even spare his dying wife or give her a moment’s peace from your suspicions. And no matter what violence, what cruel wrong you committed, you still imagined yourself to be an unusually honourable and clear-sighted man.