The Cherry Orchard

pause. She’s asleep puts her arm round Anya. Come to bed⁠ ⁠… come along! Leads her. My darling has fallen asleep! Come⁠ ⁠… They go. Far away beyond the orchard a shepherd plays on a pipe. Trofimov crosses the stage and, seeing Varya and Anya, stands still. Varya ’Sh! She’s asleep, asleep. Come, my own. Anya Softly, half asleep. I’m so tired. Still those bells. Uncle⁠ ⁠… dear⁠ ⁠… mamma and uncle.⁠ ⁠… Varya Come, my own, come along. They go into Anya’s room. Trofimov Tenderly. My sunshine! My spring! Curtain.

Act II

The open country. An old shrine, long abandoned and fallen out of the perpendicular; near it a well, large stones that have apparently once been tombstones, and an old garden seat. The road to Gaev’s house is seen. On one side rise dark poplars; and there the cherry orchard begins. In the distance a row of telegraph poles and far, far away on the horizon there is faintly outlined a great town, only visible in very fine clear weather. It is near sunset. Charlotta, Yasha and Dunyasha are sitting on the seat. Epihodov is standing near, playing something mournful on a guitar. All sit plunged in thought. Charlotta wears an old forage cap; she has taken a gun from her shoulder and is tightening the buckle on the strap.

Charlotta	Musingly. I haven’t a real passport of my own, and I don’t know how old I am, and I always feel that I’m a young thing. When I was a little girl, my father and mother used to travel about to fairs and give performances⁠—very good ones. And I used to dance salto mortale and all sorts of things. And when papa and mamma died, a German lady took me and had me educated. And so I grew up and became a governess. But where I came from, and who I am, I don’t know.⁠ ⁠… Who my parents were, very likely they weren’t married⁠ ⁠… I don’t know takes a cucumber out of her pocket and eats. I know nothing at all a pause. One wants to talk and has no one to talk to⁠ ⁠… I have nobody.
Epihodov	Plays on the guitar and sings. “What care I for the noisy world! What care I for friends or foes!” How agreeable it is to play on the mandoline!
Dunyasha	That’s a guitar, not a mandoline looks in a hand-mirror and powders herself.
Epihodov	To a man mad with love, it’s a mandoline. Sings. “Were her heart but aglow with love’s mutual flame.” Yasha joins in.
Charlotta	How shockingly these people sing! Foo! Like jackals!
Dunyasha	To Yasha. What happiness, though, to visit foreign lands.
Yasha	Ah, yes! I rather agree with you there yawns, then lights a cigar.
Epihodov	That’s comprehensible. In foreign lands everything has long since reached full complexion.
Yasha	That’s so, of course.
Epihodov	I’m a cultivated man, I read remarkable books of all sorts, but I can never make out the tendency I am myself precisely inclined for, whether to live or to shoot myself, speaking precisely, but nevertheless I always carry a revolver. Here it is⁠ ⁠… shows revolver.
Charlotta	I’ve had enough, and now I’m going puts on the gun. Epihodov, you’re a very clever fellow, and a very terrible one too, all the women must be wild about you. Br‑r‑r! Goes. These clever fellows are all so stupid; there’s not a creature for me to speak to.⁠ ⁠… Always alone, alone, nobody belonging to me⁠ ⁠… and who I am, and why I’m on earth, I don’t know walks away slowly.
Epihodov	Speaking precisely, not touching upon other subjects, I’m bound to admit about myself, that destiny behaves mercilessly to me, as a storm to a little boat. If, let us suppose, I am mistaken, then why did I wake up this morning, to quote an example, and look round, and there on my chest was a spider of fearful magnitude⁠ ⁠… like this shows with both hands. And then I take up a jug of kvass, to quench my thirst, and in it there is something in the highest degree unseemly of the nature of a cockroach a pause. Have you read Buckle? A pause. I am desirous of troubling you, Dunyasha, with a couple of words.
Dunyasha	Well, speak.
Epihodov	I should be desirous to speak with you alone sighs.
Dunyasha	Embarrassed. Well⁠—only bring me my mantle first. It’s by the cupboard. It’s rather damp here.
Epihodov	Certainly. I will fetch it. Now I know what I must do with my revolver takes guitar and goes off playing on it.
Yasha	Two and twenty misfortunes! Between ourselves, he’s a fool yawns.
Dunyasha	God grant he doesn’t shoot himself! A pause. I am so nervous, I’m always in a flutter. I was a little girl when I was taken into our lady’s house, and now I have quite grown out of peasant ways, and my hands are white, as white as a lady’s. I’m such a delicate, sensitive creature, I’m afraid of everything. I’m so frightened. And if you deceive me, Yasha, I don’t know what will become of my nerves.
Yasha	Kisses her. You’re a peach! Of course a girl must never forget herself; what I dislike more than anything is a girl being flighty in her behaviour.
Dunyasha	I’m passionately in love with you, Yasha; you are a man of culture⁠—you can give your opinion about anything a pause.
Yasha	Yawns. Yes, that’s so. My opinion is this: if a girl loves anyone, that means that she has no principles a pause. It’s pleasant smoking a cigar in the open air listens. Someone’s coming this way⁠ ⁠… it’s the gentlefolk. Dunyasha embraces him impulsively. Go home, as though you had been to the river to bathe; go by that path, or else they’ll meet you and suppose I have made an