GAYEV: You’ll die just the same.
TROFIMOV: Who knows? And what does it mean — you’ll die? Perhaps man has a hundred senses and death eliminates only the five that are known to us, but the other ninety-five remain alive.
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: How clever you are, Petya! ...
LOPAKHIN [ironically]: Frightfully clever!
TROFIMOV: Man goes forward, perfecting his skills. Everything that is now beyond his reach will one day become near and comprehensible, only we must work, we must with all our strength help those who are seeking the truth. In Russia as yet we have very few who do work. The huge majority of the intelligentsia I know seek nothing, do nothing and aren’t yet capable of hard work. They call themselves intelligentsia, but they’re rude to servants,4 they treat peasants like animals, they are poor students, they read nothing seriously, they don’t do a thing, they just talk about science, they understand little about art. They’re all serious, they all have stern expressions, they all only talk about what is significant, they talk philosophy, but meanwhile in front of their eyes the workers eat disgusting food, sleep without pillows, thirty or forty to a room, everywhere fleas, stench, damp, immorality ... And of course all our fine conversations are just to divert our own and others’ attention. Show me where we have the crèches, which are talked of so much and so often, where are the reading rooms? They’re just written about in novels, in fact they don’t exist at all. There’s only dirt, smallness of spirit, just Asia ... I fear and dislike very serious expressions, I’m frightened of serious conversations. Better to be silent!
LOPAKHIN: You know, I get up before five in the morning, I work from morning to evening, well, I’m dealing the whole time with money, my own and others‘, and I see what people around me are like. You just have to start doing something to understand how few honest, decent people there are. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I think, ‘Lord, thou hast given us huge forests, immense fields, far, far horizons, and living here we ourselves really ought to be giants ...’
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: So you need giants... They’re only good in fairy tales, otherwise they’re frightening.
[At the back ofthestage YEPIKHODOV walks by playing his guitar.]
[Pensively.] There goes Yepikhodov ...
ANYA [pensively]: There goes Yepikhodov ...
GAYEV: The sun has set, my friends.
TROFIMOV: Yes.
GAYEV [quietly as if reciting]: O nature, wonderful nature, you shine with an eternal light, lovely and indifferent, you whom we call mother, you combine within yourself being and death, you give life and you destroy ...
VARYA [imploringly]: Uncle!
ANYA: Uncle, you’ve done it again!
TROFIMOV: Better double the yellow into the middle.
GAYEV: I’ll shut up, I’ll shut up.
[They are all sitting lost in thought. Silence. There is only the sound of FIRS gently muttering. Suddenly there is a distant noise, as if up in the sky, the sound of a broken string, a dying, sad sound.]
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: What’s that?
LOPAKHIN: I don’t know. A bucket’s fallen somewhere far away in the mines. But it’s somewhere very far off.
GAYEV: Perhaps a bird ... like a heron.
TROFIMOV: Or an owl ...
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA [shivering]: It was somehow unpleasant.
[A pause.]
FIRS: It was the same before the troubles: the owl hooted and the samovar wouldn’t stop whistling.
GAYEV: Before what troubles?
FIRS : Before Emancipation, when we were freed.
[A pause.]
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Well, my friends, let’s go, it’s now evening. [To Anya] You’ve tears in your eyes ... What is it, my little girl? [Embraces her.]
ANYA: Just that, Mama. Nothing.
TROFIMOV: Someone’s coming.
[A passer-by appears wearing a shabby white peak-cap and an overcoat; he is a little drunk.]
PASSER-BY: Excuse my asking, can I go directly through here to the station?
GAYEV : You can. Take this path.
PASSER-BY : I’m extremely grateful to you. [Coughing.] It’s very fine weather ... [Recites] ‘My brother, my suffering brother ... go range the Volga whose moan ...’5 [To Varya] Mademoiselle, may a hungry Russian ask for thirty kopecks ...
[VARYA is frightened and cries out.]
LOPAKHIN [angrily]: This is going too far!
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA [confused]: Take this ... here you are ... [Looks in her purse.] I haven’t any silver ... It doesn’t matter, here’s a gold coin for you ...
PASSER-BY: Grateful from the bottom of my heart! [He goes out.]
[Laughter.]
VARYA [frightened]: I want to go ... I want to go ... Oh, Mama, at home there’s nothing for people to eat and you gave him a gold coin.
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA : What’s to be done with me, I’m a fool! When we’re home I’ll give you everything I have. Yermolay Alekseich, lend me some more! ...
LOPAKHIN: At your command.
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Let’s go, my friends, it’s time. And, Varya, we’ve just about fixed up your marriage, congratulations.
VARYA [with tears in her eyes]: You mustn’t joke about it, Mama.
LOPAKHIN: Intoxicating Okhmeliya, get thee to a nunnery ...6
GAYEV : My hands are trembling; I haven’t played billiards for a long time.
LOPAKHIN: Okhmeliya, nymph, remember me in thy orisons!
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Come, friends. It’ll soon be time for dinner.
VARYA : He frightened me. My heart’s thumping.
LOPAKHIN: I remind you, ladies and gentlemen: on the twenty-second of August the cherry orchard is going to be sold. Think of that! ... Think of it! ...
[All go out except TROFIMOV and ANYA.]
ANYA: We must thank that passer-by, he scared Varya, now we’re alone.
TROFIMOV: Varya is frightened we’ll go and fall in love with each other and she doesn’t leave us alone for days on end. With her narrow mind she can’t understand that we are above love. Avoiding things that are petty and illusory, that prevent us being free and happy, there’s the goal and the sense of our life. Onward! We are going irresistibly towards a bright star burning there in the distance! Onward! Don’t fall back, my friends!
ANYA [clapping her hands in excitement]: How well you speak!
[A pause.]
It’s wonderful here today!
TROFIMOV : Yes, the weather is amazing.
ANYA: What have you done with me, Petya, why don’t I love the cherry orchard as I used to? I loved it so dearly, I thought there was no better place on earth than our orchard.
TROFIMOV : All Russia is our orchard. The land is great and beautiful, there are many wonderful places in it.
[A pause.]
Just think, Anya: your grandfather, your great-grandfather and all your ancestors were serf-owners who owned living souls, and those human beings must surely be looking at you from every cherry-tree in the orchard, from every leaf, from every trunk, don’t you hear their voices ... The ownership of living souls has formed all of you, those who lived before and those who are living now, so that your mother, you, your uncle, no longer notice that you are living in debt, at others’ expense, at the expense of those people whom you don’t let in further than your front hall ... We’ve got at least two hundred years behind, we have nothing at all yet, no defined relationship to the past, we only talk philosophy, complain of boredom or drink vodka. It’s so very clear that to begin to live in the present we must first redeem our past, finish with it, and we can redeem it only by suffering, only by exceptional, ceaseless labour. Understand that, Anya.
ANYA: The house in which we live hasn’t been our house for a long time, and I will leave, I give you my word.
TROFIMOV : If you have the household keys, throw them in the well and leave. Be free as the wind.
ANYA [ecstatically]: How well you said that!
TROFIMOV: Believe me, Anya, believe me! I’m
not yet thirty, I’m young, I am still a student, but I have already been through so much! When winter comes, then I am hungry, sick, anxious, poor as a beggar, and — where hasn’t fate driven me, where haven’t I been! And all the time, every minute, day and night, my spirit is full of premonitions I can’t express. I have a premonition of happiness, Anya, I can already see it ...
ANYA [pensively]: The moon is rising.
[YEPIKHODOV can be heard playing his guitar, the same melancholy tune as before. The moon rises. Somewhere by the poplars VARYA is looking for Anya and is calling, ‘Anya! Where are you?’]
TROFIMOV: Yes, the moon is rising.
[A pause.]
There it is, happiness, there it comes, nearer and nearer, I can already hear its steps. And if we don’t see it, don’t recognize it, it’s not so terrible. Others will see it!
[VARYA‘s voice: ’Anya! Where are you?‘]
Varya again! [Angrily] She drives me mad!
ANYA : Well then? Let’s go to the river. It’s nice there.
TROFIMOV: Let’s go.
[They go out.]
[VARYA‘s voice: ‘Anya!Anya!’]
[Curtain.]
Act Three
A drawing-room divided from a ballroom by an arch. A chandelier is lit. A Jewish band is heard playing in the hall, the one mentioned in Act Two. Evening. In the ballroom they are dancing the grand rond. SIMEONOV-PISHCHIK’s voice: ‘Promenade à une paire!’ They come out into the drawing-room: the first couple is PISHCHIK and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA, the second TROFIMOV and LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA, the third ANYA with a Post Office official, the fourth VARYA with the station-master, etc. VARYA is crying gently and wipes her tears as she dances. DUNYASHA is in the last couple. They dance through the drawing-room. PISHCHIK calls out, ‘Grand rond, balancez!’ and ‘Les cavaliers à genoux et remerciez vos dames. ’1
[FIRS, wearing a tail-coat, brings in soda water on a tray. PISHCHIK K and TROFIMOV enter thedrawing-room.]
PISHCHIK: I have high blood-pressure, I’ve already had two strokes, it’s hard for me to dance, but as the saying goes, once you’re one of the pack, if you can’t bark then you’ve got to wag your tail. I have the constitution of a horse. My late father, who liked a joke, God rest his soul, used to say of our origins that our ancient line of Simeonov-Pishchiks apparently comes from the horse that Caligula put in the Senate2 ... [Sits down.] But here’s the problem: we’ve no money! A hungry dog only thinks about meat ... [Starts to snore and immediately wakes up.] In the same way I ... can only talk about money ...
TROFIMOV: Your figure really does have something horsy about it.
PISHCHIK: Well ... the horse is a good animal ... you can sell a horse ...
[A game of billiards can be heard in the next room. VARYA appears in the ballroom under the arch.]
TROFIMOV [teasing her]: Madame Lopakhina! Madame Lopakhina! ...
VARYA [angrily]: Moth-eaten gentleman!
TROFIMOV : Yes, I’m a moth-eaten gentleman and proud of it!
VARYA [after bitter reflection]: We’ve hired a band, but what will we pay them with? [Exit.]
TROFIMOV [to Pishchik]: If the energy you’ve expended in the course of your whole life on the search for money to pay interest had gone on something else, you could very well have ended up being able to turn the world upside down.
PISHCHIK: Nietzsche3 ... the philosopher ... the greatest, the most famous ... a man of huge intellect, says in his writings that we have the right to forge banknotes.
TROFIMOV: Have you read Nietzsche?
PISHCHIK: Well ... Dashenka told me that. And I’m now in a position where all I’ve got left to do is forge banknotes ... The day after tomorrow I have to pay three hundred and ten roubles ... I’ve already got hold of a hundred and thirty ... [Feels in his pockets, anxiously.] My money’s gone! I’ve lost my money! [With tears in his eyes] Where’s my money? [With joy] Here it is, in the lining ... I’d even started sweating ...
[Enter LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA.]
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA [humming a lezginka4]: Why is Leonid taking so long? What’s he doing in town? [To Dunyasha] Dunyasha, offer the band some tea ...
TROFIMOV: Probably the auction didn’t take place ...
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: And the band shouldn’t have come, and we were wrong to give a dance ... Well, it doesn’t matter ... [Sits down and hums softly.]
CHARLOTTA [offering Pishchik a pack of cards]: Here’s a pack of cards, think of any one card.
PISHCHIK: I’ve thought of one.
CHARLOTTA : Now shuffle the pack. Very good. Give it here, my dear Mr Pishchik. Eins, ʐwei, drei.5 Now look for it, it’s in your side pocket ...
PISHCHIK [taking the card out of his side pocket]: The eight of spades, absolutely right! [In amaʐement] Imagine that!
CHARLOTTA [holding the pack of cards on the palm of her hand, to Trofimov]: Tell me quickly, what card is on top?
TROFIMOV: What? Well, the queen of spades.
CHARLOTTA : Right! [To Pishchik] Well? What card is on top?
PISHCHIK : The ace of hearts.
CHARLOTTA: Right! [Claps her hands, the pack of cards disappears.] What lovely weather it is today!
[She is answered by a mysterious female voice which seems to come from under the floor: ‘Oh yes, madam, it’s wonderful weather.’]
You are my beau ideal ...
[The voice: ‘I too, madam, find you most attractive.’6]
STATION-MASTER [clapping]: Bravo, madam ventriloquist!
PISHCHIK [in amaʐement]: Imagine that! Most enchanting Charlotta Ivanovna, I’m simply in love ...
CHARLOTTA: In love? [Shrugging her shoulders] Can you really love? Guter Mensch, aber schlechter Musikant.7
TROFIMOV [clapping Pishchik on the shoulder]: You’re a real horse ...
CHARLOTTA : Pay attention, one more trick. [Picks up a rug from a chair.] Here’s a very good rug, I want to sell it ... [Shakes it out.] Won’t anyone buy it?
PISHCHIK [in amaʐement]: Imagine that!
CHARLOTTA: Eins, ʐwei, drei! [Lowers the rug and quickly raises it again; ANYA is standing behind the rug; she makes a curtsy, runs to her mother, embraces her and runs back into the ballroom — to general delight.]
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA [clapping]: Bravo, bravo! ...
CHARLOTTA : Once more now! Eins, ʐwei, drei! [Raises the rug; VARYA is standing behind the rug, and bows.]
PISHCHIK [in amaʐement]: Imagine that!
CHARLOTTA: That’s all! [Throws the rug over Pishchik, makes a curtsey and runs off into the ballroom.]
PISHCHIK [running after her]: Wicked ... what a woman! What a woman! [Goes out.]
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA : Leonid still isn’t here. I don’t understand what he’s doing in town for so long! Everything there has to be over by now, the estate is sold or else the auction didn’t happen, why keep us so long without knowing!
VARYA [trying to calm her]: I’m sure Uncle has bought it.
TROFIMOV [mocking]: Right.
VARYA: Great-aunt sent him power of attorney so he could buy it in her name with the debt being transferred. She did that for Anya. And I’m sure that with God’s help Uncle will have bought it.
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Your old aunt in Yaroslavl sent fifteen thousand to buy the property in her name — she doesn’t trust us — but that money wouldn’t even be enough to pay the interest. [Covers her face with her hands.] Today my fate is being decided, my fate ...
TROFIMOV [teasing Varya]: Madame Lopakhina!
VARYA [angrily]: You perpetual student! You’ve already been expelled twice from university.
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: Why are you getting angry, Varya? He’s teasing you about Lopakhin, what does it matter? Marry Lopakhin if you want to, he’s a good, interesting man. If you don’t want to, don’t; no one is forcing you, darling ...
VARYA : I take the matter seriously, Mama, I must tell you that straight. He’s a good man, I find him attractive.
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: So marry him. I
don’t understand, why wait!
VARYA : Mama, I can’t propose to him myself. For two years now everyone has been talking to me about him, everyone talks, but he’s either silent or makes jokes. I understand. He’s getting rich, he’s tied up with business, he has no time for me. If I had money, just a little, even a hundred roubles, I’d give it all up, I’d go off far away. I’d go into a convent.
TROFIMOV : Splendid!
VARYA [to Trofimov]: A student ought to be intelligent! [In a gentle voice and tearfully] How ugly you’ve become, Petya, how old! [To Lyubov Andreyevna, no longer crying] Only I can’t stand it, Mama, unless I have something to do. I have to be doing something every minute.
[Enter YASHA.]
YASHA [barely able to hold back his laughter]: Yepikhodov has broken a billiard cue! ... [Goes out.]
VARYA: Why is Yepikhodov here? Who let him play billiards? I don’t understand these people ... [Goes out.]
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA : Don’t tease her, Petya, you can see that she’s upset as it is.
TROFIMOV: She’s too eager, she meddles in other people’s business. All summer she gave me and Anya no peace, she was afraid we would have a romance. What’s it to do with her? What’s more, there wasn’t a sign from me of any such thing, I have nothing to do with any such vulgarity. We are above love!
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA: And I suppose I must be below love. [Very anxious] Why hasn’t Leonid come? If I could just know: is the estate sold or not? I find such a disaster so incredible that I somehow don’t even know what to think, I’m getting confused ... I might shriek out loud at any moment ... I might do something stupid. Save me, Petya. Say something, say something ...
The Plays of Anton Chekhov Page 34