The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Plays, Novellas, Short Stories, Diary & Letters. Anton Chekhov
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laying his axe to the cherry orchard, come and look at the trees falling! We’ll build villas here, and our grandsons and great-grandsons will see a new life here…. Play on, music! [The band plays. LUBOV ANDREYEVNA sinks into a chair and weeps bitterly. LOPAKHIN continues reproachfully] Why then, why didn’t you take my advice? My poor, dear woman, you can’t go back now. [Weeps] Oh, if only the whole thing was done with, if only our uneven, unhappy life were changed!
PISCHIN. [Takes his arm; in an undertone] She’s crying. Let’s go into the drawing-room and leave her by herself… come on…. [Takes his arm and leads him out.]
LOPAKHIN. What’s that? Bandsmen, play nicely! Go on, do just as I want you to! [Ironically] The new owner, the owner of the cherry orchard is coming! [He accidentally knocks up against a little table and nearly upsets the candelabra] I can pay for everything! [Exit with PISCHIN]
[In the reception-room and the drawing-room nobody remains except LUBOV ANDREYEVNA, who sits huddled up and weeping bitterly. The band plays softly. ANYA and TROFIMOV come in quickly. ANYA goes up to her mother and goes on her knees in front of her. TROFIMOV stands at the drawing-room entrance.]
ANYA. Mother! mother, are you crying? My dear, kind, good mother, my beautiful mother, I love you! Bless you! The cherry orchard is sold, we’ve got it no longer, it’s true, true, but don’t cry mother, you’ve still got your life before you, you’ve still your beautiful pure soul… Come with me, come, dear, away from here, come! We’ll plant a new garden, finer than this, and you’ll see it, and you’ll understand, and deep joy, gentle joy will sink into your soul, like the evening sun, and you’ll smile, mother! Come, dear, let’s go!
Curtain.
ACT FOUR
[The stage is set as for Act I. There are no curtains on the windows, no pictures; only a few pieces of furniture are left; they are piled up in a corner as if for sale. The emptiness is felt. By the door that leads out of the house and at the back of the stage, portmanteaux and travelling paraphernalia are piled up. The door on the left is open; the voices of VARYA and ANYA can be heard through it. LOPAKHIN stands and waits. YASHA holds a tray with little tumblers of champagne. Outside, EPIKHODOV is tying up a box. Voices are heard behind the stage. The peasants have come to say goodbye. The voice of GAEV is heard: “Thank you, brothers, thank you.”]
YASHA. The common people have come to say goodbye. I am of the opinion, Ermolai Alexeyevitch, that they’re good people, but they don’t understand very much.
[The voices die away. LUBOV ANDREYEVNA and GAEV enter. She is not crying but is pale, and her face trembles; she can hardly speak.]
GAEV. You gave them your purse, Luba. You can’t go on like that, you can’t!
LUBOV. I couldn’t help myself, I couldn’t! [They go out.]
LOPAKHIN. [In the doorway, calling after them] Please, I ask you most humbly! Just a little glass to say goodbye. I didn’t remember to bring any from town and I only found one bottle at the station. Please, do! [Pause] Won’t you really have any? [Goes away from the door] If I only knew — I wouldn’t have bought any. Well, I shan’t drink any either. [YASHA carefully puts the tray on a chair] You have a drink, Yasha, at any rate.
YASHA. To those departing! And good luck to those who stay behind! [Drinks] I can assure you that this isn’t real champagne.
LOPAKHIN. Eight roubles a bottle. [Pause] It’s devilish cold here.
YASHA. There are no fires to-day, we’re going away. [Laughs]
LOPAKHIN. What’s the matter with you?
YASHA. I’m just pleased.
LOPAKHIN. It’s October outside, but it’s as sunny and as quiet as if it were summer. Good for building. [Looking at his watch and speaking through the door] Ladies and gentlemen, please remember that it’s only forty-seven minutes till the train goes! You must go off to the station in twenty minutes. Hurry up.
[TROFIMOV, in an overcoat, comes in from the grounds.]
TROFIMOV. I think it’s time we went. The carriages are waiting. Where the devil are my goloshes? They’re lost. [Through the door] Anya, I can’t find my goloshes! I can’t!
LOPAKHIN. I’ve got to go to Kharkov. I’m going in the same train as you. I’m going to spend the whole winter in Kharkov. I’ve been hanging about with you people, going rusty without work. I can’t live without working. I must have something to do with my hands; they hang about as if they weren’t mine at all.
TROFIMOV. We’ll go away now and then you’ll start again on your useful labours.
LOPAKHIN. Have a glass.
TROFIMOV. I won’t.
LOPAKHIN. So you’re off to Moscow now?
TROFIMOV Yes. I’ll see them into town and tomorrow I’m off to Moscow.
LOPAKHIN. Yes…. I expect the professors don’t lecture nowadays; they’re waiting till you turn up!
TROFIMOV. That’s not your business.
LOPAKHIN. How many years have you been going to the university?
TROFIMOV. Think of something fresh. This is old and flat. [Looking for his goloshes] You know, we may not meet each other again, so just let me give you a word of advice on parting: “Don’t wave your hands about! Get rid of that habit of waving them about. And then, building villas and reckoning on their residents becoming freeholders in time — that’s the same thing; it’s all a matter of waving your hands about…. Whether I want to or not, you know, I like you. You’ve thin, delicate fingers, like those of an artist, and you’ve a thin, delicate soul….”
LOPAKHIN. [Embraces him] Goodbye, dear fellow. Thanks for all you’ve said. If you want any, take some money from me for the journey.
TROFIMOV. Why should I? I don’t want it.
LOPAKHIN. But you’ve nothing!
TROFIMOV. Yes, I have, thank you; I’ve got some for a translation. Here it is in my pocket. [Nervously] But I can’t find my goloshes!
VARYA. [From the other room] Take your rubbish away! [Throws a pair of rubber goloshes on to the stage.]
TROFIMOV. Why are you angry, Varya? Hm! These aren’t my goloshes!
LOPAKHIN. In the spring I sowed three thousand acres of poppies, and now I’ve made forty thousand roubles net profit. And when my poppies were in flower, what a picture it was! So I, as I was saying, made forty thousand roubles, and I mean I’d like to lend you some, because I can afford it. Why turn up your nose at it? I’m just a simple peasant….
TROFIMOV. Your father was a peasant, mine was a chemist, and that means absolutely nothing. [LOPAKHIN takes out his pocketbook] No, no…. Even if you gave me twenty thousand I should refuse. I’m a free man. And everything that all you people, rich and poor, value so highly and so dearly hasn’t the least influence over me; it’s like a flock of down in the wind. I can do without you, I can pass you by. I’m strong and proud. Mankind goes on to the highest truths and to the highest happiness such as is only possible on earth, and I go in the front ranks!
LOPAKHIN. Will you get there?
TROFIMOV. I will. [Pause] I’ll get there and show others the way. [Axes cutting the trees are heard in the distance.]
LOPAKHIN. Well, goodbye, old man. It’s time to go. Here we stand pulling one another’s noses, but life goes its own way all the time. When I work for a long time, and I don’t get tired, then I think more easily, and I think I get to understand why I exist. And there are so many people in Russia, brother, who live for nothing at all. Still, work goes on without that. Leonid Andreyevitch, they say, has accepted a post in a bank; he will get sixty thousand roubles a