Previous
Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin
Tuzenbakh is an army lieutenant and frequent guest at the Prozorov house. At the start of the play, he’s not yet 30. A tender-hearted and noble man, he is in love with Irina and shares with her an idealistic view of the importance of work. He also enjoys stimulating philosophical discussions with Vershinin. Though Irina doesn’t reciprocate his love, she agrees to marry him, and he gets a job at a brick factory so they can begin a new life together. However, after he and Solyony quarrel over Irina, he agrees to a duel and is killed by his rival.
Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh Quotes in The Three Sisters
The The Three Sisters quotes below are all either spoken by Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh or refer to Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act One Quotes
IRINA: Nikolay Lvovich, don’t talk to me about love.
TUZENBAKH [not listening]: I have a passionate thirst for life, for the struggle, for work, and that thirst has merged in my soul with my love for you, Irina, and as if it were all planned, you are beautiful and life seems to me so beautiful. What are you thinking about?
IRINA: You say life is beautiful. Yes, but what if it only seems so! For us three sisters life has not yet been beautiful, it has choked us like a weed… My tears are streaming.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act Two Quotes
TUZENBAKH: […] After us men will fly in hot-air balloons, and jackets will change, and they’ll discover, maybe, a sixth sense and develop it, but life will remain the same, difficult and full of secrets and happy. And in a thousand years man will still sigh, ‘Ah, life is hard!’—and at the same time he will, as now, be afraid and not want to die.
VERSHININ [after some thought]: What shall I say to you? I think that everything on earth must gradually change, and already is changing before our eyes. In two or three hundred or even a thousand years—the point isn’t in the precise period—a new, happy life will dawn. Of course we won’t take part in that life, but we are living for it now, working, yes, suffering, we are creating that life—and in this alone lies the goal of our existence and, if you like, our happiness.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act Three Quotes
OLGA: Darling, I tell you as a sister, as a friend, if you want my advice, marry the Baron!
[IRINA is crying quietly.]
I know you respect him and think highly of him… True, he’s not good-looking, but he’s so decent and honest… After all, we marry not for love but just to do our duty. At any rate that’s what I think, and I would marry without being in love. I would accept whoever proposed, provided only he was a decent man. I would even marry someone old…
IRINA: I’ve been waiting. We were going to move to Moscow and there I would meet my true love, I dreamed of him, I loved him… But all that’s turned out to be nonsense, all nonsense…
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act Four Quotes
IRINA: […] Nikolay, why are you so distracted today?
[A pause.]
What happened yesterday by the theatre?
TUZENBAKH [making an impatient movement]: I’ll be back in an hour and be with you again. [Kissing her hands.] My beloved… [Looking into her face.] It’s already five years since I came to love you and I still can’t get accustomed to it, and you seem to me more and more beautiful. […] Tomorrow I will take you away, we will work, we’ll be rich, my dreams will come true. You will be happy. There’s just one thing, only one—you don’t love me!
IRINA: It’s not in my power! I will be your wife, true and obedient, but love—no, what can I do! [Weeps.] I’ve never loved once in my life. Oh, how I dreamed of love, for a long time how I dreamed, day and night, but my soul was like an expensive piano, shut and its key lost.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Three Sisters LitChart as a printable PDF.
Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh Character Timeline in The Three Sisters
The timeline below shows where the character Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh appears in The Three Sisters. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act One
Three men—Baron Tuzenbakh, Chebutykin, and Solyony—appear in the reception hall beyond. Olga continues to reminisce about the...
(full context)
Tuzenbakh comes in and tells them that Vershinin, their new commander, will be stopping by. Vershinin...
(full context)
Tuzenbakh says he understands Irina’s desire. He, too, was “protected from work” in his privileged upbringing,...
(full context)
...to future generations. Likewise, perhaps Columbus and Copernicus seemed like “crank[s]” to their own generations. Tuzenbakh adds that, on the other hand, perhaps people will look back and admire modern-day ethical...
(full context)
Tuzenbakh agrees with Vershinin, but says that in order to prepare for that “beautiful and amazing”...
(full context)
...a cursed, intolerable life…” Everyone, including Vershinin, proceeds to the table, except for Irina and Tuzenbakh. Irina tells Tuzenbakh that Masha is “out of sorts,” and that when she married Kulygin...
(full context)
Now that they’re alone together, Tuzenbakh begins speaking to Irina of his love for her. She tries to cut him off,...
(full context)
Act Two
Irina and Tuzenbakh enter. Tuzenbakh accompanies Irina home from the Telegraph Office each day. Irina complains of tiredness....
(full context)
...about philosophy—such as what life will be like two or three hundred years from now. Tuzenbakh says that humanity will be fundamentally the same, even if technology and science have advanced....
(full context)
Tuzenbakh objects that Vershinin’s view keeps happiness out of reach. He argues that, even a million...
(full context)
Act Three
Irina, Tuzenbakh, and Kulygin come in and talk about arranging a benefit concert for the fire victims....
(full context)
Tuzenbakh announces that he will soon be starting work in a brick factory. He sees Irina’s...
(full context)
Olga advises her sister to marry Baron Tuzenbakh. He may not be handsome, but he is “decent and honest,” and “after all,...
(full context)
...brigade will be transferred somewhere far away. Finally, Irina says that she does respect the Baron and will indeed marry him—“only,” she says, “let us go to Moscow! I beg you,...
(full context)
Act Four
...later, various members of the Prozorov household and their soldier friends are in the garden. Tuzenbakh and Irina say goodbye to Fedotik and Rode. Fedotik takes a photograph to remember them...
(full context)
...says that he’ll soon change his lifestyle completely and become “so very good and well-behaved.” Tuzenbakh exits, but Irina and Kulygin interrupt Chebutykin’s newspaper-reading to press him for details about something...
(full context)
...today.” She says she is sending off her belongings after dinner, as tomorrow she and Tuzenbakh are getting married and heading off to the brick factory. The day after that, she’ll...
(full context)
...destined not to live in Moscow, there is nothing she can do. She thought about Tuzenbakh’s proposal and made the decision to marry him, and then “it was as if my...
(full context)
...the incident in the town yesterday. Chebutykin says it was nothing, just “nonsense”—Solyony challenged the Baron to a duel after an angry exchange. In fact, it’s about time for the duel...
(full context)
Irina and Tuzenbakh enter. Irina asks Tuzenbakh why he is so distracted today. He won’t answer and doesn’t...
(full context)
...says irritably, “What can it matter!” Olga embraces Irina and struggles to tell her what’s happened—Tuzenbakh has just been killed in a duel. Irina weeps: “I knew it, I knew it…”...
(full context)
