The Cherry Orchard

epub:type="z3998:persona">Lyubov You ask for giants! They are no good except in storybooks; in real life they frighten us. Epihodov advances in the background, playing on the guitar. Lyubov Dreamily. There goes Epihodov. Anya Dreamily. There goes Epihodov. Gaev The sun has set, my friends. Trofimov Yes. Gaev Not loudly, but, as it were, declaiming. O nature, divine nature, thou art bright with eternal lustre, beautiful and indifferent! Thou, whom we call mother, thou dost unite within thee life and death! Thou dost give life and dost destroy! Varya In a tone of supplication. Uncle! Anya Uncle, you are at it again! Trofimov You’d much better be cannoning off the red! Gaev I’ll hold my tongue, I will. All sit plunged in thought. Perfect stillness. The only thing audible is the muttering of Firs. Suddenly there is a sound in the distance, as it were from the sky⁠—the sound of a breaking harp-string, mournfully dying away. Lyubov What is that? Lopahin I don’t know. Somewhere far away a bucket fallen and broken in the pits. But somewhere very far away. Gaev It might be a bird of some sort⁠—such as a heron. Trofimov Or an owl. Lyubov Shudders. I don’t know why, but it’s horrid a pause. Firs It was the same before the calamity⁠—the owl hooted and the samovar hissed all the time. Gaev Before what calamity? Firs Before the emancipation a pause. Lyubov Come, my friends, let us be going; evening is falling. To Anya. There are tears in your eyes. What is it, darling? Embraces her. Anya Nothing, mamma; it’s nothing. Trofimov There is somebody coming. The Wayfarer appears in a shabby white forage cap and an overcoat; he is slightly drunk. Wayfarer Allow me to inquire, can I get to the station this way? Gaev Yes. Go along that road. Wayfarer I thank you most feelingly coughing. The weather is superb. Declaims. My brother, my suffering brother!⁠ ⁠… Come out to the Volga! Whose groan do you hear?⁠ ⁠… To Varya. Mademoiselle, vouchsafe a hungry Russian thirty kopecks. Varya utters a shriek of alarm. Lopahin Angrily. There’s a right and a wrong way of doing everything! Lyubov Hurriedly. Here, take this looks in her purse. I’ve no silver. No matter⁠—here’s gold for you. Wayfarer I thank you most feelingly! Goes off. Laughter. Varya Frightened. I’m going home⁠—I’m going⁠ ⁠… Oh, mamma, the servants have nothing to eat, and you gave him gold! Lyubov There’s no doing anything with me. I’m so silly! When we get home, I’ll give you all I possess. Yermolay Alexeyevitch, you will lend me some more⁠ ⁠… ! Lopahin I will. Lyubov Come, friends, it’s time to be going. And Varya, we have made a match of it for you. I congratulate you. Varya Through her tears. Mamma, that’s not a joking matter. Lopahin “Ophelia, get thee to a nunnery!” Gaev My hands are trembling; it’s a long while since I had a game of billiards. Lopahin “Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember’d.” Lyubov Come, it will soon be suppertime. Varya How he frightened me! My heart’s simply throbbing. Lopahin Let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen: on the 22nd of August the cherry orchard will be sold. Think about that! Think about it! All go off, except Trofimov and Anya. Anya Laughing. I’m grateful to the wayfarer! He frightened Varya and we are left alone. Trofimov Varya’s afraid we shall fall in love with each other, and for days together she won’t leave us. With her narrow brain she can’t grasp that we are above love. To eliminate the petty and transitory which hinders us from being free and happy⁠—that is the aim and meaning of our life. Forward! We go forward irresistibly towards the bright star that shines yonder in the distance. Forward! Do not lag behind, friends. Anya Claps her hands. How well you speak! A pause. It is divine here today. Trofimov Yes, it’s glorious weather. Anya Somehow, Petya, you’ve made me so that I don’t love the cherry orchard as I used to. I used to love it so dearly. I used to think that there was no spot on earth like our garden. Trofimov All Russia is our garden. The earth is great and beautiful⁠—there are many beautiful places in it a pause. Think only, Anya, your grandfather, and great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were slave-owners⁠—the owners of living souls⁠—and from every cherry in the orchard, from every leaf, from every trunk there are human creatures looking at you. Cannot you hear their voices? Oh, it is awful! Your orchard is a fearful thing, and when in the evening or at night one walks about the orchard, the old bark on the trees glimmers dimly in the dusk, and the old cherry trees seem to be dreaming of centuries gone by and tortured by fearful visions. Yes! We are at least two hundred years behind, we have really gained nothing yet, we have no definite attitude to the past, we do nothing but theorise or complain of depression or drink vodka. It is clear that to begin to live in the present we must first expiate our past, we must break with it; and we can expiate it only by suffering, by extraordinary unceasing labour. Understand that, Anya. Anya The house we live in has long ceased to be our own, and I shall leave it, I give you my word. Trofimov If you have the house keys, fling them into the well and go away. Be free as the wind. Anya In ecstasy. How beautifully you said that! Trofimov Believe me, Anya, believe me! I am not thirty yet, I am young, I am still a student, but I have gone through so much already! As soon as winter comes I am hungry, sick, careworn, poor as a beggar, and what ups and downs of fortune have I not known! And my soul was always, every minute, day and night, full of inexplicable forebodings. I have a foreboding of happiness, Anya. I see glimpses of it already. Anya Pensively. The moon is rising.