FIERS. [Brushing GAEV'S trousers; in an insistent tone] You've put on the wrong trousers again. What am I to do with you?
VARYA. [Quietly] Anya's asleep. [Opens window quietly] The sun has risen already; it isn't cold. Look, little mother: what lovely trees! And the air! The starlings are singing!
GAEV. [Opens the other window] The whole garden's white. You haven't forgotten, Luba ? There's that long avenue going straight, straight, like a stretched strap; it shines on moonlight nights. Do you remember? You haven't forgotten?
LUBOV. [Looks out into the garden] Oh, my childhood, days of my innocence! In this nursery I used to sleep; I used to look out from here into the orchard. Happiness used to wake with me every morning, and then it was just as it is now; nothing has changed. [Laughs from joy] It's all, all white! Oh, my orchard! After the dark autumns and the cold winters, you're young again, full of happiness, the angels of heaven haven't left you. . . . If only I could take my heavy burden off my breast and shoulders, if I could forget my past!
GAEV. Yes, and they'll sell this orchard to pay off debts. How strange it seems!
LUBOV. Look, there's my dead mother going in the orchard . . . dressed in white! [Laughs from joy] That's she.
GAEV. Where?
VARYA. God bless you, little mother.
LUBOV. There's nobody there; I thought I saw somebody. On the right, at the turning by the summer-house, a white little tree bent down, looking just like a woman. [Enter TROFIMOV in a worn student uniform and spectacles] What a marvellous garden! White masses of flowers, the blue sky. . . .
TROFIMOV. Lubov Andreyevna! [She looks round at him] I only want to show myself, and I'll go away. [Kisses her hand warmly] I was told to wait till the morning, but I didn't have the patience.
[LUBOV ANDREYEVNA looks surprised.]
VARYA. [Crying] It's Peter Trofimov.
TROFIMOV. Peter Trofimov, once the tutor of your Grisha. . . . Have I changed so much?
LUBOV ANDREYEVNA embraces him and cries softly.
GAEV. [Confused] That's enough, that's enough, Luba.
VARYA. [Weeps] But I told you, Peter, to wait till to-morrow.
LUBOV. My Grisha . . . my boy . . . Grisha . . . my son.
VARYA. What are we to do, little mother? It's the will of God.
TROFIMOV. [Softly, through his tears] It's all right, it's all right.
LUBOV. [Still weeping] My boy's dead; he was drowned. Why? Why, my friend? [Softly] Anya's asleep in there. I am speaking so loudly, making such a noise. . . . Well, Peter? What's made you look so bad? Why have you grown so old?
TROFIMOV. In the train an old woman called me a decayed gentleman.
LUBOV. You were quite a boy then, a nice little student, and now your hair is not at all thick and you wear spectacles. Are you really still a student? [Goes to the door.]
TROFIMOV. I suppose I shall always be a student.
LUBOV. [Kisses her brother, then VARYA] Well, let's go to bed. . . . And you've grown older, Leonid.
PISCHIN. [Follows her] Yes, we've got to go to bed. . . . Oh, my gout! I'll stay the night here. If only, Lubov Andreyevna, my dear, you could get me 240 roubles to-morrow morning--
GAEV. Still the same story.
PISCHIN. Two hundred and forty roubles . . . to pay the interest on the mortgage.
LUBOV. I haven't any money, dear man.
PISCHIN. I'll give it back . . . it's a small sum. . .
LUBOV. Well, then, Leonid will give it to you. . . Let him have
