Content Warning: This play includes depictions of alcohol abuse, sexual harassment, and attempted murder, as well as discussions of suicide and depression.

An old nurse named Marina knits quietly in the garden of a country house. Michael Astroff, the local doctor, walks by, and she offers him tea. However, he refuses it and her subsequent offer of vodka. He asks her how long they’ve known each other, and Marina replies that it must be at least 11 years since they first met. Astroff asks if he has changed in that time, and Marina tells him that he has: He is not as young and handsome as he once was, and he drinks too much now. Astroff says that he has grown prematurely old as a result of a decade of overwork. He works all the time and cannot even sleep at night for fear that he’s about to be called on to treat another patient. He feels his life is exhausting and senseless. He finds the people around him silly, and although his mental faculties remain intact, he thinks that he, too, has grown silly. He laments that his feelings have become numb and he is unable to love anyone, save perhaps Marina herself, since she reminds him of his childhood nurse.