Selected plays

twenty-seven, and still a schoolboy of the second class!

TROFIMOV. Why not!

LUBOV. You ought to be a man, at your age you ought to be able to understand those who love. And you ought to be in love yourself, you must fall in love! [Angry] Yes, yes! You aren't pure, you're just a freak, a queer fellow, a funny growth. . . .

TROFIMOV. [In horror] What is she saying!

LUBOV. 'I'm above love!' You're not above love, you're just what our Fiers calls a bungler. Not to have a mistress at your age!

TROFIMOV. [In horror] This is awful! What is she saying? [Goes quickly up into the drawing-room, clutching his head] It's awful . . . I can't stand it, I'll go away. [Exit, but returns at once] All is over between us! [Exit.]

LUBOV. [Shouts after him] Peter, wait! Silly man, I was joking! Peter! [Somebody is heard going out and falling downstairs noisily. ANYA and VARYA scream; laughter is heard immediately] What's that?

ANYA comes running in, laughing.

ANYA. Peter's fallen downstairs! [Runs out again.]

LUBOV. This Peter's a marvel.

The STATION-MASTER stands in the middle of the drawing-room and recites 'The Magdalen' by Tolstoy. He is listened to, but he has only delivered a few lines when a waltz is heard from the front room, and the recitation is stopped. Everybody dances. TROFIMOV, ANYA, VARYA, and LUBOV ANDREYEVNA come in from the front room.

LUBOV. Well, Peter . . . you pure soul . . . I beg your pardon . . . let's dance.

She dances with PETER. ANYA and VARYA dance. FIERS enters and stands his stick by a side door. YASHA has also come in and looks on at the dance.

YASHA. Well, grandfather?

FIERS. I'm not well. At our balls some time back, generals and barons and admirals used to dance, and now we send for post-office clerks and the Station-master, and even they come as a favour. I'm very weak. The dead master, the grandfather, used to give everybody sealing-wax when anything was wrong. I've taken sealing-wax every day for twenty years, and more; perhaps that's why I still live.

YASHA. I'm tired of you, grandfather. [Yawns] If you'd only hurry up and kick the bucket.

FIERS. Oh you . . . bungler! [Mutters.]

TROFIMOV and LUBOV ANDREYEVNA dance in the reception-room, then into the sitting-room.

LUBOV. Merci. I'll sit down. [Sits] I'm tired.

Enter ANYA.

ANYA. [Excited] Somebody in the kitchen was saying just now that the cherry orchard was sold to-day.

LUBOV. Sold to whom?

ANYA. He didn't say to whom. He's gone now. [Dances out into the reception-room with TROFIMOV.]

YASHA. Some old man was chattering about it a long time ago. A stranger!

FIERS. And Leonid Andreyevitch isn't here yet, he hasn't come. He's wearing a light, demi-saison overcoat. He'll catch cold. Oh these young fellows.

LUBOV. I'll die of this. Go and find out, Yasha, to whom it's sold.

YASHA. Oh, but he's been gone a long time, the old man. [Laughs.]

LUBOV. [Slightly vexed] Why do you laugh? What are you glad about?

YASHA. Epikhodov's too funny. He's a silly man. Two-and-twenty troubles.

LUBOV. Fiers, if the estate is sold, where will you go?