The Three Sisters

by

Anton Chekhov

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Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh Character Analysis

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:
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Icon
).
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: Irina Prozorov (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh (speaker)
Page Number: 219
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: Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh (speaker)
Page Number: 231
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: Olga Prozorov (speaker), Irina Prozorov (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh
Page Number: 255
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: Irina Prozorov (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh (speaker), Solyony
Page Number: 270
Explanation and Analysis:
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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:
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Icon
).
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: Irina Prozorov (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh (speaker)
Page Number: 219
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: Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh (speaker)
Page Number: 231
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: Olga Prozorov (speaker), Irina Prozorov (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh
Page Number: 255
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: Irina Prozorov (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh (speaker), Solyony
Page Number: 270
Explanation and Analysis: