Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Diary & Letters (Collected Edition). Anton Chekhov
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majority of those intellectuals whom I know seek for nothing, do nothing, and are at present incapable of hard work. They call themselves intellectuals, but they use “thou” and “thee” to their servants, they treat the peasants like animals, they learn badly, they read nothing seriously, they do absolutely nothing, about science they only talk, about art they understand little. They are all serious, they all have severe faces, they all talk about important things. They philosophize, and at the same time, the vast majority of us, ninety-nine out of a hundred, live like savages, fighting and cursing at the slightest opportunity, eating filthily, sleeping in the dirt, in stuffiness, with fleas, stinks, smells, moral filth, and so on… And it’s obvious that all our nice talk is only carried on to distract ourselves and others. Tell me, where are those créches we hear so much of? and where are those reading-rooms? People only write novels about them; they don’t really exist. Only dirt, vulgarity, and Asiatic plagues really exist…. I’m afraid, and I don’t at all like serious faces; I don’t like serious conversations. Let’s be quiet sooner.
LOPAKHIN. You know, I get up at five every morning, I work from morning till evening, I am always dealing with money — my own and other people’s — and I see what people are like. You’ve only got to begin to do anything to find out how few honest, honourable people there are. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I think: “Oh Lord, you’ve given us huge forests, infinite fields, and endless horizons, and we, living here, ought really to be giants.”
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