Plays

by Anton Chekhov

  [The hum dies down. LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA and GAYEV come in through the hallway; she isn’t crying but she is pale, her face is trembling, she cannot speak.]

  GAYEV: You gave them your purse, Lyuba. You shouldn’t have done that! You shouldn’t!

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA : I couldn’t stop myself doing it! I just couldn’t!

  [Both go out.]

  LOPAKHIN [through the door after them]: Have something, please do! A little glass to say goodbye. I didn’t have the sense to bring some from town but I found just one bottle at the station. Please!

  [A pause.]

  Well, my friends! Don’t you want any? [Moves away from the door.] If I’d known I wouldn’t have bought it. I’m not going to drink either.

  [YASHA carefully puts the tray on a chair.]

  Yasha, at least you have a drink.

  YASHA: To the travellers! Good luck to those who stay behind! [Drinks.] This isn’t real champagne, I can tell you that.

  LOPAKHIN : Eight roubles a bottle.

  [A pause.]

  It’s devilish cold in here.

  YASHA: They didn’t light the stoves today since we’re leaving. [Laughs.]

  LOPAKHIN: What’s the matter with you?

  YASHA : Pure pleasure.

  LOPAKHIN : It’s October outside but it’s sunny and calm as summer. Good for building. [Looking at his watch and speaking through the door.] Ladies and gentlemen, remember you’ve only got forty-six minutes left before the train! That means we should leave for the station in twenty minutes. Hurry up.

  [TROFIMOV comes in from outside wearing an overcoat.]

  TROFIMOV : I think it’s time to go now. The horses have been brought round. Where the devil are my galoshes? They’ve gone missing. [Through the door] Anya, my galoshes aren’t here! I can’t find them!

  LOPAKHIN: And I’ve got to go to Kharkov. I’ll take the same train as you. I’m going to spend the whole winter in Kharkov. I’ve wasted time with you, I’m fed up with having no work. I can’t manage without work, I don’t know what to do with my hands; they just hang down oddly as if they were someone else’s.

  TROFIMOV : We’ll go away now and you can take up useful work again.

  LOPAKHIN: Have a little glass.

  TROFIMOV: I won’t.

  LOPAKHIN: So now you’re off to Moscow?

  TROFIMOV : Yes, I’ll see them to town and tomorrow I go to Moscow.

  LOPAKHIN : Yes ... Well, I suppose the professors aren’t giving their lectures, they’re all waiting for you to come!

  TROFIMOV : None of your business.

  LOPAKHIN: How many years have you been studying at university?

  TROFIMOV: Do think of something a little more original. That one’s old and feeble. [Hunts for his galoshes.] You know, we probably won’t meet again, so let me give you one piece of advice as a farewell gift: don’t wave your arms about! Get rid of that habit of waving them about. And also this building of dachas, thinking that time will make smallholders out of the dacha people — that sort of thinking, again, is just like waving your arms about ... All the same, I like you. You have fine, delicate fingers, like an artist’s, you have a fine, delicate spirit.

  LOPAKHIN [embracing him]: Goodbye, old chap. Thank you for everything. If you need it, take some money from me for the journey.

  TROFIMOV : Why should I? I don’t need it.

  LOPAKHIN: But you haven’t got any!

  TROFIMOV : Yes, I have. Thank you. I got something for a translation. It’s here, in my pocket. [Anxiously] My galoshes aren’t here!

  VARYA [from the other room]: Take your disgusting things! [Throws a pair of rubber galoshes out onto the stage.]

  TROFIMOV : Why are you angry, Varya? Hm ... But these aren’t my galoshes!

  LOPAKHIN: In the spring I sowed a thousand acres of poppy seed and now I’ve made forty thousand, net. And when my poppies were in bloom, what a sight it was! Well, I’m telling you I made forty thousand and so I’m offering you a loan because I can. Why turn up your nose at it? I’m a muzhik ... it’s as simple as that.

  TROFIMOV : Your father was a muzhik, mine had a chemist’s shop, and from that follows precisely nothing.

  [LOPAKHIN takes out his wallet.]

  Put it away, put it away ... Even if you were to give me two hundred thousand, I wouldn’t take it. I am a free man. And everything all of you, rich and poor, hold so high and dear — none of it has the slightest hold over me, it’s all just like thistledown floating in the air. I can do without you, I can walk past you, I am strong and proud. Mankind is moving towards the greatest truth, towards the greatest happiness possible on earth, and I am in the front ranks!

  LOPAKHIN : Will you get there?

  TROFIMOV: I will.

  [A pause.]

  I will get there or I will show others the way there.

  [The distant sound of axe-strokes on a tree.]

  LOPAKHIN: Well, goodbye, old man. It’s time to go. We turn up our noses at each other and life goes by regardless. When I work for a long time, tirelessly, then my thoughts are easier and I think I too know why I exist. But, my friend, how many people there are in Russia who exist without knowing why. Well, it doesn’t matter, the world goes on working regardless. They say Leonid Andreich has taken a job, he’ll be in a bank, six thousand a year ... Only he won’t stick at it, he’s very lazy ...

  ANYA [in the door]: Mama asks you not to cut down the orchard until she’s gone.

  TROFIMOV: Really, can anyone be that tactless ... [Goes out through the hall.]

  LOPAKHIN: All right, all right ... These people, really. [Goes out after him.]

  ANYA: Have they sent Firs to the hospital?

  YASHA: I told them to this morning. One must assume they did.

  ANYA [to YEPIKHODOV, who is passing through the room]: Semyon Panteleich, can you find out please if they took Firs to the hospital.

  YASHA [offended]: I told Yegor this morning. Why ask ten times!

  YEPIKHODOV: In my definite opinion, that ancient Firs can’t be mended, he should join his fathers. And I can only envy him. [Has put a suitcase on a cardboard hatbox and squashes it.] Well, of course. I knew that would happen. [Exit.]

  YASHA [mockingly]: The Walking Accident.

  VARYA [outside the door]: Have they taken Firs to the hospital?

  ANYA : They have.

  VARYA: Why didn’t they take the letter to the doctor?

  ANYA : We’ll have to send it after him ... [Exit.]

  VARYA [in the other room]: Where’s Yasha? Tell him his mother has come and wants to say goodbye to him.

  YASHA [throwing up his hand]: They just wear out your patience.

  [All this time DUNYASHA has been busy with the luggage; now YASHA has been left alone, she goes up to him.]

  DUNYASHA : If you would just give me one little look, Yasha. You’re going away ... leaving me ... [Weeps and drapes herselfroundhis neck.]

  YASHA : Why are you crying? [Drinks some champagne.] In six days I’ll be in Paris again. Tomorrow we’ll be getting into the express and we’ll be off in a flash. Somehow I can’t believe it. Vive la France! ... It doesn’t suit me here, I can’t live ... I can’t help it. I’ve had my fill of looking at ignorance — that’s enough for me.

  [Drinks champagne.] Why are you crying? Behave properly and then you won’t cry.

  DUNYASHA [powdering her face, looking in a hand mirror]: Send me a letter from Paris. You know I loved you, Yasha, I loved you so! I’m a delicate being, Yasha!

  YASHA: They’re coming in here. [Gets busy with the suitcases and hums quietly.]

  [Enter LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA, GAYEV, ANYA and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA.]

  GAYEV: We should go. There’s not much time left. [Looking at Yasha] Someone smells of herring!

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: We should get in the carriages in ten minutes ... [Looks round the room.] Goodbye, dear house, old grandfather. Winter will pass, spring will come and you won’t be there any more, they’ll have pulled you down. How much these walls ha
ve seen! [Kisses her daughter with passion.] My treasure, you are just radiant, your little eyes are sparkling like two diamonds. Are you pleased? Are you very pleased?

  ANYA: Very! A new life is beginning, Mama!

  GAYEV [cheerfully]: Indeed, everything is all right now. Before the cherry orchard was sold we were all worried, we were suffering, and then, once the matter was finally and irrevocably settled, we all calmed down, we even cheered up ... I am a bank official, I am a financier now ... yellow ball into the middle, and you, Lyuba, you really are looking better, no doubt about it.

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Yes. My nerves are better, that’s true.

  [She is brought her hat and coat.]

  I’m sleeping well. Carry my things out, Yasha. It’s time to go. [To Anya] My little girl, we’ll see each other soon ... I’m off to Paris, I will live there on the money which your great-aunt in Yaroslavl sent to buy the property — three cheers for Auntie! — but that money won’t last very long.

  ANYA: Mama, you’ll come back soon, soon ... won’t you? I’m going to study, I’ll pass the Gymnasium examination and then I will work, I’ll help you. Mama, we’ll read all sorts of books together ... Won’t we? [Kisses her mother’s hands.] We’ll read on autumn evenings, we’ll read a lot of books and a new, wonderful world will open up before us ... [She falls into thought.] Mama, come back ...

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: I will come back, my treasure. [Embraces her daughter.]

  [Enter LOPAKHIN. CHARLOTTA quietly sings a song.]

  GAYEV : Happy Charlotta: she’s singing!

  CHARLOTTA [picking up a bundle which looks like a swaddled child]: Hushaby, baby ...

  [The sound of a baby’s cry: ‘Wah, wah!’]

  Sleep, my good, darling boy!

  [‘Wah! ... Wah!’]

  I’m so sorry for you! [Throws down the bundle where it was.] So please find me a job. I can’t be like this.

  LOPAKHIN: We will find you one, Charlotta Ivanovna, don’t worry.

  GAYEV : They’re all abandoning us, Varya is leaving ... we’ve suddenly become unnecessary.

  CHARLOTTA : I have nowhere to live in the town. I must leave ... [Sings.] It’s all the same to me ...

  [Enter PISHCHIK.]

  LOPAKHIN: Wonder of nature! ...

  PISHCHIK [out of breath]: Oh, let me get my breath back ... I’m exhausted ... My most revered friends ... Give me some water ...

  GAYEV : I suppose you’ve come for some money? Your humble servant, I’ll get myself out of harm’s way ... [Exit.]

  PISHCHIK: It’s a little while since I was here ... lovely lady ... [To Lopakhin] You’re here ... I’m glad to see you ... a man of most enormous intelligence ... here ... take this ... [Gives Lopakhin some money.] Four hundred roubles ... I still owe you eight hundred and forty ...

  LOPAKHIN [shrugging his shoulders in bewilderment]: Am I dreaming ... Where did you get it?

  PISHCHIK : Wait a moment ... I’m feeling hot ... Something most extraordinary happened. Some Englishmen came to my property and discovered a kind of white clay in the soil ... [To Lyubov Andreyevna] And four hundred for you ... lovely, amazing woman ... [Gives her the money.] The rest later. [Drinks some water.] Just now a young man in the train was telling how apparently some ... great philosopher advises one to jump off the roof... ‘Jump!’ he says, and that’s our whole mission. [In astonishment] Imagine that! Some water! ...

  LOPAKHIN: Who were these Englishmen?

  PISHCHIK: I gave them a twenty-four-year lease on the land with the clay ... And now, excuse me, I’ve no time ... I must get on ... I have to go to Znoykov ... to Kardamonov ... I owe everyone ... [Drinks.] Your good health ... I’ll come round on Thursday ...

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: We’re moving out to town now and tomorrow I’m going abroad ...

  PISHCHIK : What? [Anxiously] Why are you going to town? Oh, that’s why I can see the furniture ... the suitcases ... Well, it doesn’t matter ... [With tears in his eyes] It doesn’t matter ... People of the greatest intelligence ... these Englishmen ... It doesn’t matter ... Good luck ... God will give you his aid ... It doesn’t matter ... Everything on this earth comes to an end ... [Kisses Lyubov Andreyevna’s hand.] And if it comes to your ears that my end has come, remember this old ... horse and say, ‘Once there walked the earth one ... Simeonov-Pishchik ... God rest his soul’ ... Most remarkable weather ... Yes ... [Goes out in greatconfusion but returns immediately and speaks from the door.] Dashenka sends you her greetings! [Exit.]

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Now we can go. I’m leaving with two worries. The first is Firs being ill. [Looking at her watch.] We can have five minutes more ...

  ANYA : Mama, they’ve already sent Firs to the hospital. Yasha sent him this morning.

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: My second anxiety is Varya. She’s got into the habit of getting up early and working, and now without work she’s like a fish out of water. She’s become thin and pale, and the poor girl keeps crying ...

  [A pause.]

  You know this very well, Yermolay Alekseich; I dreamed ... of having Varya married to you and indeed there was every indication that you would marry her. [Whispers to ANYA, who nods to Charlotta and both go out.] She loves you, you’re fond of her, and I do not know, I just do not know why you seem to avoid one another. I don’t understand!

  LOPAKHIN: I have to say I don’t understand, either. It’s all somehow strange ... If there’s still time, then I’m ready now ... Let’s get it done right away, and basta1 — without you I feel I’ll never propose.

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Excellent. You really only need one minute. I’ll call her at once ...

  LOPAKHIN : And luckily there’s champagne. [Looking at the glasses.] They’re empty, somebody’s already drunk it.

  [YASHA coughs.]

  Lapped it up, I should say.

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA [animatedly]: Splendid. We’ll go out ... Yasha, alleʐ!2I’ll call her ... [Through the door] Varya, leave all that, come in here. Come! [Goes out with Yasha.]

  LOPAKHIN [looking at his watch]: Yes ...

  [A pause. On the other side of the door suppressed laughter and whispering; eventually VARYA enters.]

  VARYA [inspecting the luggage for a long time]: Strange, I just can’t find it ...

  LOPAKHIN: What are you looking for?

  VARYA : I packed it myself and I can’t remember.

  [A pause.]

  LOPAKHIN : Where are you going now, Varvara Mikhaylovna?

  VARYA : Me? To the Ragulins’ ... I’ve agreed to look after his estate ... as a kind of housekeeper.

  LOPAKHIN: You mean Yashnevo? That’ll be seventy versts from here.

  [A pause.]

  Now life in this house is over ...

  VARYA [looking over the luggage]: Where is it ... Or perhaps I packed it in the trunk ... Yes, life in this house is over ... there won’t be any more ...

  LOPAKHIN : And I’m off to Kharkov now ... on the same train. I have a lot of work. And I’m leaving Yepikhodov here in the yard ... I’ve taken him on.

  VARYA : Well, why not!

  LOPAKHIN : At this time last year, if you remember, it was already snowing, but now it’s calm and sunny. Only it’s cold ... Three degrees of frost.

  VARYA: I didn’t look.

  [A pause.]

  Anyway, our thermometer’s broken ...

  [A pause. A voice through the door to the outside: ‘Yermolay Alekseich! ... ’]

  LOPAKHIN [as if he has been awaiting this summons for a long time]: Coming! [Goes out quickly.]

  [VARYA, sitting on the floor and laying her head against a bundle of clothes, sobs quietly. The door opens and LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA comes in cautiously.]

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Well?

  [A pause.]

  We must go.

  VARYA [no longer crying, wiping her eyes]: Yes, it’s time, Mama dear. I’ll manage to get to the Ragulins’ today, only I mustn’t be late for the train ...

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA [in the doorway]: Anya, put your coat on!

&n
bsp; [Enter ANYA, then GAYEV and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA. GAYEV is wearing a warm coat with a hood. The servants and drivers gather. YEPIKHODOV is busy around the luggage.]

  Now we can begin our journey!

  ANYA [joyously]: Our journey!

  GAYEV : My friends, my dear, cherished friends! As I leave this house for ever, how can I be silent, how can I restrain myself from expressing, in farewell, the feelings which now fill all my being ...

  ANYA [in a pleading tone]: Uncle!

  VARYA: Dear Uncle, you mustn’t!

  GAYEV [gloomily]: Double the yellow into the middle pocket ... I won’t say anything ...

  [Enter TROFIMOV, then LOPAKHIN.]

  TROFIMOV : Well, ladies and gentlemen, time to go!

  LOPAKHIN : Yepikhodov, my coat!

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: I’ll sit just a moment more.3 It’s as if I’ve never seen before what kind of walls this house has, what kind of ceilings, and now I look at them hungrily, with such tender love...

  GAYEV : I remember when I was six, on Trinity Sunday I sat in this window and watched my father walk to church ...

  LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Have they taken all the luggage?