The Cherry Orchard

you⁠—you⁠—did so much for me once, that I’ve forgotten all that; I love you as though you were my kin⁠ ⁠… more than my kin. Lyubov I can’t sit still, I simply can’t⁠ ⁠… jumps up and walks about in violent agitation. This happiness is too much for me.⁠ ⁠… You may laugh at me, I know I’m silly.⁠ ⁠… My own bookcase kisses the bookcase. My little table. Gaev Nurse died while you were away. Lyubov Sits down and drinks coffee. Yes, the Kingdom of Heaven be hers! You wrote me of her death. Gaev And Anastasy is dead. Squinting Petrushka has left me and is in service now with the police captain in the town takes a box of caramels out of his pocket and sucks one. Pishtchik My daughter, Dashenka, wishes to be remembered to you. Lopahin I want to tell you something very pleasant and cheering glancing at his watch. I’m going directly⁠ ⁠… there’s no time to say much⁠ ⁠… well, I can say it in a couple of words. I needn’t tell you your cherry orchard is to be sold to pay your debts; the 22nd of August is the date fixed for the sale; but don’t you worry, dearest lady, you may sleep in peace, there is a way of saving it.⁠ ⁠… This is what I propose. I beg your attention! Your estate is not twenty miles from the town, the railway runs close by it, and if the cherry orchard and the land along the river bank were cut up into building plots and then let on lease for summer villas, you would make an income of at least 25,000 roubles a year out of it. Gaev That’s all rot, if you’ll excuse me. Lyubov I don’t quite understand you, Yermolay Alexeyevitch. Lopahin You will get a rent of at least twenty-five roubles a year for a three-acre plot from summer visitors, and if you say the word now, I’ll bet you what you like there won’t be one square foot of ground vacant by the autumn, all the plots will be taken up. I congratulate you; in fact, you are saved. It’s a perfect situation with that deep river. Only, of course, it must be cleared⁠—all the old buildings, for example, must be removed, this house too, which is really good for nothing, and the old cherry orchard must be cut down. Lyubov Cut down? My dear fellow, forgive me, but you don’t know what you are talking about. If there is one thing interesting⁠—remarkable indeed⁠—in the whole province, it’s just our cherry orchard. Lopahin The only thing remarkable about the orchard is that it’s a very large one. There’s a crop of cherries every alternate year, and then there’s nothing to be done with them, no one buys them. Gaev This orchard is mentioned in the Encyclopaedia. Lopahin Glancing at his watch. If we don’t decide on something and don’t take some steps, on the 22nd of August the cherry orchard and the whole estate too will be sold by auction. Make up your minds! There is no other way of saving it, I’ll take my oath on that. No, no! Firs In old days, forty or fifty years ago, they used to dry the cherries, soak them, pickle them, make jam too, and they used⁠— Gaev Be quiet, Firs. Firs And they used to send the preserved cherries to Moscow and to Harkov by the wagon-load. That brought the money in! And the preserved cherries in those days were soft and juicy, sweet and fragrant.⁠ ⁠… They knew the way to do them then.⁠ ⁠… Lyubov And where is the recipe now? Firs It’s forgotten. Nobody remembers it. Pishtchik To Lyubov Andreyevna. What’s it like in Paris? Did you eat frogs there? Lyubov Oh, I ate crocodiles. Pishtchik Fancy that now! Lopahin There used to be only the gentlefolks and the peasants in the country, but now there are these summer visitors. All the towns, even the small ones, are surrounded nowadays by these summer villas. And one may say for sure, that in another twenty years there’ll be many more of these people and that they’ll be everywhere. At present the summer visitor only drinks tea in his verandah, but maybe he’ll take to working his bit of land too, and then your cherry orchard would become happy, rich and prosperous.⁠ ⁠… Gaev Indignant. What rot! Enter Varya and Yasha. Varya There are two telegrams for you, mamma takes out keys and opens an old-fashioned bookcase with a loud crack. Here they are. Lyubov From Paris tears the telegrams, without reading them. I have done with Paris. Gaev Do you know, Lyuba, how old that bookcase is? Last week I pulled out the bottom drawer and there I found the date branded on it. The bookcase was made just a hundred years ago. What do you say to that? We might have celebrated its jubilee. Though it’s an inanimate object, still it is a book case. Pishtchik Amazed. A hundred years! Fancy that now. Gaev Yes.⁠ ⁠… It is a thing⁠ ⁠… feeling the bookcase. Dear, honoured, bookcase! Hail to thee who for more than a hundred years hast served the pure ideals of good and justice; thy silent call to fruitful labour has never flagged in those hundred years, maintaining in tears in the generations of man, courage and faith in a brighter future and fostering in us ideals of good and social consciousness a pause. Lopahin Yes.⁠ ⁠… Lyubov You are just the same as ever, Leonid. Gaev A little embarassed. Cannon off the right into the pocket! Lopahin Looking at his watch. Well, it’s time I was off. Yasha Handing Lyubov Andreyevna medicine. Perhaps you will take your pills now. Pishtchik You shouldn’t take medicines, my dear madam⁠ ⁠… they do no harm and no good. Give them here⁠ ⁠… honoured lady takes the pillbox, pours the pills into the hollow of his hand, blows on them, puts them in his mouth and drinks off some kvass. There! Lyubov In alarm. Why, you must be out of your mind! Pishtchik I