FIERS. I beg your pardon? [Joyfully] The mistress is home again. I've lived to see her! Don't care if I die now. . . . [Weeps with joy.]
Enter LUBOV ANDREYEVNA, GAEV, LOPAKHIN, and SIMEONOV-PISCHIN, the latter in a long jacket of thin cloth and loose trousers. GAEV, coming in, moves his arms and body about as if he is playing billiards.
LUBOV. Let me remember now. Red into the corner! Twice into the centre!
GAEV. Right into the pocket! Once upon a time you and I used both to sleep in this room, and now I'm fifty-one; it does seem strange.
LOPAKHIN. Yes, time does go.
GAEV. Who does?
LOPAKHIN. I said that time does go.
GAEV. It smells of patchouli here.
ANYA. I'm going to bed. Good-night, mother. [Kisses her.]
LUBOV. My lovely little one. [Kisses her hand] Glad to be at home? I can't get over it.
ANYA. Good-night, uncle.
GAEV. [Kisses her face and hands] God be with you. How you do resemble your mother! [To his sister] You were just like her at her age, Luba.
ANYA gives her hand to LOPAKHIN and PISCHIN and goes out, shutting the door behind her.
LUBOV. She's awfully tired.
PISCHIN. It's a very long journey.
VARYA. [To LOPAKHIN and PISCHIN] Well, sirs, it's getting on for three, quite time you went.
LUBOV. [Laughs] You're just the same as ever, Varya. [Draws her close and kisses her] I'll have some coffee now, then we'll all go. [FIERS lays a cushion under her feet] Thank you, dear. I'm used to coffee. I drink it day and night. Thank you, dear old man. [Kisses FIERS.
VARYA. I'll go and see if they've brought in all the luggage. [Exit.]
LUBOV. Is it really I who am sitting here? [Laughs] I want to jump about and wave my arms. [Covers her face with her hands] But suppose I'm dreaming! God knows I love my own country, I love it deeply; I couldn't look out of the railway carriage, I cried so much. [Through her tears] Still, I must have my coffee. Thank you, Fiers. Thank you, dear old man. I'm so glad you're still with us.
FIERS. The day before yesterday.
GAEV. He doesn't hear well.
LOPAKHIN. I've got to go off to Kharkov by the five o'clock train. I'm awfully sorry! I should like to have a look at you, to gossip a little. You're as fine-looking as ever.
PISCHIN. [Breathes heavily] Even finer-looking . . . dressed in Paris fashions . . . confound it all.
LOPAKHIN. Your brother, Leonid Andreyevitch, says I'm a snob, a usurer, but that is absolutely nothing to me. Let him talk. Only I do wish you would believe in me as you once did, that your wonderful, touching eyes would look at me as they did before. Merciful God! My father was the serf of your grandfather and your own father, but you--you more than anybody else--did so much for me once upon a time that I've forgotten everything and love you as if you belonged to my family . . . and even more.
LUBOV. I can't sit still, I'm not in a state to do it. [Jumps up and walks about in great excitement] I'll never survive this happiness. . . . You can laugh at me; I'm a silly woman. . . . My dear little cupboard. [Kisses cupboard] My little table.
GAEV. Nurse has died in your absence.
LUBOV. [Sits and drinks coffee] Yes, bless her soul. I heard by letter.
GAEV. And Anastasius has died too. Peter Kosoy has left me and now lives in town with the Commissioner of Police. [Takes a box of sugar-candy out of his pocket and sucks a piece.]
