Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (458 page)

LUBOV. You want giants, do you?... They’re only good in stories, and even there they frighten one. [EPIKHODOV enters at the back of the stage playing his guitar. Thoughtfully:] Epikhodov’s there.

ANYA.
[Thoughtfully]
Epikhodov’s there.

GAEV. The sun’s set, ladies and gentlemen.

TROFIMOV. Yes.

GAEV
[Not loudly, as if declaiming]
O Nature, thou art wonderful, thou shinest with eternal radiance! Oh, beautiful and indifferent one, thou whom we call mother, thou containest in thyself existence and death, thou livest and destroyest....

VARYA.
[Entreatingly]
Uncle, dear!

ANYA. Uncle, you’re doing it again!

TROFIMOV. You’d better double the red into the middle.

GAEV. I’ll be quiet, I’ll be quiet.

[They all sit thoughtfully. It is quiet. Only the mumbling of FIERS is heard. Suddenly a distant sound is heard as if from the sky, the sound of a breaking string, which dies away sadly.]

LUBOV. What’s that?

LOPAKHIN. I don’t know. It may be a bucket fallen down a well somewhere. But it’s some way off.

GAEV. Or perhaps it’s some bird... like a heron.

TROFIMOV. Or an owl.

LUBOV.
[Shudders]
It’s unpleasant, somehow.
[A pause.]

FIERS. Before the misfortune the same thing happened. An owl screamed and the samovar hummed without stopping.

GAEV. Before what misfortune?

FIERS. Before the Emancipation.
[A pause.]

LUBOV. You know, my friends, let’s go in; it’s evening now.
[To ANYA]
You’ve tears in your eyes.... What is it, little girl?
[Embraces her.]

ANYA. It’s nothing, mother.

TROFIMOV. Some one’s coming.

[Enter a TRAMP in an old white peaked cap and overcoat. He is a little drunk.]

TRAMP. Excuse me, may I go this way straight through to the station?

GAEV. You may. Go along this path.

TRAMP. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
[Hiccups]
Lovely weather....
[Declaims]
My brother, my suffering brother.... Come out on the Volga, you whose groans...
[To VARYA]
Mademoiselle, please give a hungry Russian thirty copecks....

[VARYA screams, frightened.]

LOPAKHIN.
[Angrily]
There’s manners everybody’s got to keep!

LUBOV.
[With a start]
Take this... here you are....
[Feels in her purse]
There’s no silver.... It doesn’t matter, here’s gold.

TRAMP. I am deeply grateful to you!
[Exit. Laughter.]

VARYA.
[Frightened]
I’m going, I’m going.... Oh, little mother, at home there’s nothing for the servants to eat, and you gave him gold.

LUBOV. What is to be done with such a fool as I am! At home I’ll give you everything I’ve got. Ermolai Alexeyevitch, lend me some more!...

LOPAKHIN. Very well.

LUBOV. Let’s go, it’s time. And Varya, we’ve settled your affair; I congratulate you.

VARYA.
[Crying]
You shouldn’t joke about this, mother.

LOPAKHIN. Oh, feel me, get thee to a nunnery.

GAEV. My hands are all trembling; I haven’t played billiards for a long time.

LOPAKHIN. Oh, feel me, nymph, remember me in thine orisons.

LUBOV. Come along; it’ll soon be supper-time.

VARYA. He did frighten me. My heart is beating hard.

LOPAKHIN. Let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen, on August 22 the cherry orchard will be sold. Think of that!... Think of that!...

[All go out except TROFIMOV and ANYA.]

ANYA.
[Laughs]
Thanks to the tramp who frightened Barbara, we’re alone now.

TROFIMOV. Varya’s afraid we may fall in love with each other and won’t get away from us for days on end. Her narrow mind won’t allow her to understand that we are above love. To escape all the petty and deceptive things which prevent our being happy and free, that is the aim and meaning of our lives. Forward! We go irresistibly on to that bright star which burns there, in the distance! Don’t lag behind, friends!

ANYA.
[Clapping her hands]
How beautifully you talk!
[Pause]
It is glorious here to-day!

TROFIMOV. Yes, the weather is wonderful.

ANYA. What have you done to me, Peter? I don’t love the cherry orchard as I used to. I loved it so tenderly, I thought there was no better place in the world than our orchard.

TROFIMOV. All Russia is our orchard. The land is great and beautiful, there are many marvellous places in it.
[Pause]
Think, Anya, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were serf-owners, they owned living souls; and now, doesn’t something human look at you from every cherry in the orchard, every leaf and every stalk? Don’t you hear voices...? Oh, it’s awful, your orchard is terrible; and when in the evening or at night you walk through the orchard, then the old bark on the trees sheds a dim light and the old cherry-trees seem to be dreaming of all that was a hundred, two hundred years ago, and are oppressed by their heavy visions. Still, at any rate, we’ve left those two hundred years behind us. So far we’ve gained nothing at all — we don’t yet know what the past is to be to us — we only philosophize, we complain that we are dull, or we drink vodka. For it’s so clear that in order to begin to live in the present we must first redeem the past, and that can only be done by suffering, by strenuous, uninterrupted labour. Understand that, Anya.

ANYA. The house in which we live has long ceased to be our house; I shall go away. I give you my word.

TROFIMOV. If you have the housekeeping keys, throw them down the well and go away. Be as free as the wind.

ANYA.
[Enthusiastically]
How nicely you said that!

TROFIMOV. Believe me, Anya, believe me! I’m not thirty yet, I’m young, I’m still a student, but I have undergone a great deal! I’m as hungry as the winter, I’m ill, I’m shaken. I’m as poor as a beggar, and where haven’t I been — fate has tossed me everywhere! But my soul is always my own; every minute of the day and the night it is filled with unspeakable presentiments. I know that happiness is coming, Anya, I see it already....

ANYA.
[Thoughtful]
The moon is rising.

[EPIKHODOV is heard playing the same sad song on his guitar. The moon rises. Somewhere by the poplars VARYA is looking for ANYA and calling, “Anya, where are you?”]

TROFIMOV. Yes, the moon has risen.
[Pause]
There is happiness, there it comes; it comes nearer and nearer; I hear its steps already. And if we do not see it we shall not know it, but what does that matter? Others will see it!

THE VOICE OF VARYA. Anya! Where are you?

TROFIMOV. That’s Varya again!
[Angry]
Disgraceful!

ANYA. Never mind. Let’s go to the river. It’s nice there.

TROFIMOV Let’s go.
[They go out.]

THE VOICE OF VARYA. Anya! Anya!

Curtain.

ACT THREE

[A reception-room cut off from a drawing-room by an arch. Chandelier lighted. A Jewish band, the one mentioned in Act II, is heard playing in another room. Evening. In the drawing-room the grand rond is being danced. Voice of SIMEONOV PISCHIN “Promenade a une paire!” Dancers come into the reception-room; the first pair are PISCHIN and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA; the second, TROFIMOV and LUBOV ANDREYEVNA; the third, ANYA and the POST OFFICE CLERK; the fourth, VARYA and the STATION-MASTER, and so on. VARYA is crying gently and wipes away her tears as she dances. DUNYASHA is in the last pair. They go off into the drawing-room, PISCHIN shouting, “Grand rond, balancez:” and “Les cavaliers à genou et remerciez vos dames!” FIERS, in a dress-coat, carries a tray with seltzer-water across. Enter PISCHIN and TROFIMOV from the drawing-room.]

PISCHIN. I’m full-blooded and have already had two strokes; it’s hard for me to dance, but, as they say, if you’re in Rome, you must do as Rome does. I’ve got the strength of a horse. My dead father, who liked a joke, peace to his bones, used to say, talking of our ancestors, that the ancient stock of the Simeonov-Pischins was descended from that identical horse that Caligula made a senator....
[Sits]
But the trouble is, I’ve no money! A hungry dog only believes in meat. [Snores and wakes up again immediately] So I... only believe in money....

TROFIMOV. Yes. There is something equine about your figure.

PISCHIN. Well... a horse is a fine animal... you can sell a horse.

[Billiard playing can be heard in the next room. VARYA appears under the arch.]

TROFIMOV.
[Teasing]
Madame Lopakhin! Madame Lopakhin!

VARYA.
[Angry]
Decayed gentleman!

TROFIMOV. Yes, I am a decayed gentleman, and I’m proud of it!

VARYA.
[Bitterly]
We’ve hired the musicians, but how are they to be paid?
[Exit.]

TROFIMOV.
[To PISCHIN]
If the energy which you, in the course of your life, have spent in looking for money to pay interest had been used for something else, then, I believe, after all, you’d be able to turn everything upside down.

PISCHIN. Nietzsche... a philosopher... a very great, a most celebrated man... a man of enormous brain, says in his books that you can forge bank-notes.

TROFIMOV. And have you read Nietzsche?

PISCHIN. Well... Dashenka told me. Now I’m in such a position, I wouldn’t mind forging them... I’ve got to pay 310 roubles the day after to-morrow... I’ve got 130 already....
[Feels his pockets, nervously]
I’ve lost the money! The money’s gone!
[Crying]
Where’s the money?
[Joyfully]
Here it is behind the lining... I even began to perspire.

[Enter LUBOV ANDREYEVNA and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA.]

LUBOV.
[Humming a Caucasian dance]
Why is Leonid away so long? What’s he doing in town?
[To DUNYASHA]
Dunyasha, give the musicians some tea.