The Cherry Orchard

Goodbye, my dear fellow. Thanks for everything. Let me give you money for the journey, if you need it. Trofimov What for? I don’t need it. Lopahin Why, you haven’t got a halfpenny. Trofimov Yes, I have, thank you. I got some money for a translation. Here it is in my pocket, anxiously but where can my goloshes be! Varya From the next room. Take the nasty things! Flings a pair of goloshes on to the stage. Trofimov Why are you so cross, Varya? h’m!⁠ ⁠… but those aren’t my goloshes. Lopahin I sowed three thousand acres with poppies in the spring, and now I have cleared forty thousand profit. And when my poppies were in flower, wasn’t it a picture! So here, as I say, I made forty thousand, and I’m offering you a loan because I can afford to. Why turn up your nose? I am a peasant⁠—I speak bluntly. Trofimov Your father was a peasant, mine was a chemist⁠—and that proves absolutely nothing whatever. Lopahin takes out his pocketbook. Stop that⁠—stop that. If you were to offer me two hundred thousand I wouldn’t take it. I am an independent man, and everything that all of you, rich and poor alike, prize so highly and hold so dear, hasn’t the slightest power over me⁠—it’s like so much fluff fluttering in the air. I can get on without you. I can pass by you. I am strong and proud. Humanity is advancing towards the highest truth, the highest happiness, which is possible on earth, and I am in the front ranks. Lopahin Will you get there? Trofimov I shall get there a pause. I shall get there, or I shall show others the way to get there. In the distance is heard the stroke of an axe on a tree. Lopahin Goodbye, my dear fellow; it’s time to be off. We turn up our noses at one another, but life is passing all the while. When I am working hard without resting, then my mind is more at ease, and it seems to me as though I too know what I exist for; but how many people there are in Russia, my dear boy, who exist, one doesn’t know what for. Well, it doesn’t matter. That’s not what keeps things spinning. They tell me Leonid Andreyevitch has taken a situation. He is going to be a clerk at the bank⁠—6,000 roubles a year. Only, of course, he won’t stick to it⁠—he’s too lazy. Anya In the doorway. Mamma begs you not to let them chop down the orchard until she’s gone. Trofimov Yes, really, you might have the tact walks out across the front of the stage. Lopahin I’ll see to it! I’ll see to it! Stupid fellows! Goes out after him. Anya Has Firs been taken to the hospital? Yasha I told them this morning. No doubt they have taken him. Anya To Epihodov, who passes across the drawing-room. Semyon Pantaleyevitch, inquire, please, if Firs has been taken to the hospital. Yasha In a tone of offence. I told Yegor this morning⁠—why ask a dozen times? Epihodov Firs is advanced in years. It’s my conclusive opinion no treatment would do him good; it’s time he was gathered to his fathers. And I can only envy him puts a trunk down on a cardboard hatbox and crushes it. There, now, of course⁠—I knew it would be so. Yasha Jeeringly. Two and twenty misfortunes! Varya Through the door. Has Firs been taken to the hospital? Anya Yes. Varya Why wasn’t the note for the doctor taken too? Anya Oh, then, we must send it after them goes out. Varya From the adjoining room. Where’s Yasha? Tell him his mother’s come to say goodbye to him. Yasha Waves his hand. They put me out of all patience! Dunyasha has all this time been busy about the luggage. Now, when Yasha is left alone, she goes up to him. Dunyasha You might just give me one look, Yasha. You’re going away. You’re leaving me weeps and throws herself on his neck. Yasha What are you crying for? Drinks the champagne. In six days I shall be in Paris again. Tomorrow we shall get into the express train and roll away in a flash. I can scarcely believe it! Vive la France! It doesn’t suit me here⁠—it’s not the life for me; there’s no doing anything. I have seen enough of the ignorance here. I have had enough of it drinks champagne. What are you crying for? Behave yourself properly, and then you won’t cry. Dunyasha Powders her face, looking in a pocket-mirror. Do send me a letter from Paris. You know how I loved you, Yasha⁠—how I loved you! I am a tender creature, Yasha. Yasha Here they are coming! Busies himself about the trunks, humming softly. Enter Lyubov Andreyevna, Gaev, Anya and Charlotta Ivanovna. Gaev We ought to be off. There’s not much time now looking at Yasha. What a smell of herrings! Lyubov In ten minutes we must get into the carriage casts a look about the room. Farewell, dear house, dear old home of our fathers! Winter will pass and spring will come, and then you will be no more; they will tear you down! How much those walls have seen! Kisses her daughter passionately. My treasure, how bright you look! Your eyes are sparkling like diamonds! Are you glad? Very glad? Anya Very glad! A new life is beginning, mamma. Gaev Yes, really, everything is all right now. Before the cherry orchard was sold, we were all worried and wretched, but afterwards, when once the question was settled conclusively, irrevocably, we all felt calm and even cheerful. I am a bank clerk now⁠—I am a financier⁠—cannon off the red. And you, Lyuba, after all, you are looking better; there’s no question of that. Lyubov Yes. My nerves are better, that’s true. Her hat and coat are handed to her. I’m sleeping well. Carry out my things, Yasha.