DUNYASHA (flustered). I’ll faint this minute . . . Ah, I’ll faint!
We hear the sound of two carriages drawing up to the house. LOPAKHIN and DUNYASHA go out quickly. The stage is empty. Noise begins in the adjoining rooms. FIRS, leaning on a stick, hurries across the stage; he has just been to meet Lyubov Andreevna; he is wearing an old suit of livery and a top hat; he mutters something to himself, but no words can be made out. A voice: “Let’s go through here.” LYUBOV ANDREEVNA,13 ANYA, and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA with a lapdog on a leash, all three dressed in traveling clothes, VARYA in an overcoat and kerchief, GAEV, SIMEONOV-PISHCHIK, LOPAKHIN, DUNYASHA with a bundle and parasol, SERVANTS carrying suitcases—all pass through the room.
ANYA.14 Let’s go through here. Mama, do you remember what room this is?
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA (joyfully, through tears). The nursery!
VARYA. It’s cold, my hands are numb. (To Lyubov Andreevna.) Your rooms, the white and the violet, are still the same as ever, Mama dear.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA. The nursery, my darling, beautiful room . . . I slept here when I was a little girl . . . (Weeps.) And now I feel like a little girl . . . (She kisses her brother and Varya and then her brother again.) And Varya is just the same as ever, looks like a nun. And I recognized Dunyasha . . . (Kisses Dunyasha.)
GAEV. The train was two hours late. What’d y’ call that? What kind of system is that?
CHARLOTTA (to Pishchik). My dog eats nuts even.15
PISHCHIK (astounded).16 Can you imagine!
They all go out, except for ANYA and DUNYASHA.
DUNYASHA. We’re worn out with waiting . . . (Helps Anya out of her overcoat and hat.)
ANYA. I couldn’t sleep the four nights on the train . . . now I’m so frozen.
DUNYASHA. You left during Lent, there was snow then too, frost, and now? My darling! (She laughs and kisses her.) We’re worn out with waiting for you, my pride and joy . . . I’ll tell you now, I can’t hold it back another minute . . .
ANYA (weary). Always something . . .
DUNYASHA. Yepikhodov the bookkeeper right after Easter proposed to me.
ANYA. You’ve got a one-track mind . . . (Setting her hair to rights.) I’ve lost all my hair pins . . . (She is very tired, practically staggering)
DUNYASHA. I just don’t know what to think. He loves me, loves me so much!
ANYA (peering through the door to her room, tenderly). My room, my windows, as if I’d never gone away. I’m home! Tomorrow morning I’ll get up, run through the orchard . . . Oh, if only I could get some sleep! I couldn’t sleep the whole way, I was worried to death.
DUNYASHA. Day before yesterday, Pyotr Sergeich arrived.
ANYA (joyfully). Petya!
DUNYASHA. The gent’s sleeping in the bathhouse, the gent’s staying there. “I’m afraid,” says the gent, “to be a nuisance.” (Looking at her pocket watch.) Somebody ought to wake the gent up, but Varvara Mikhailovna gave the order not to. “Don’t you wake him up,” she says.
Enter VARYA, with a key ring on her belt.
VARYA. Dunyasha, coffee right away . . . Mama dear is asking for coffee.
DUNYASHA. Just a minute. (She exits.)
VARYA. Well, thank God you’re here. You’re home again. (Caressing her.) My darling’s here again! My beauty’s here again!
ANYA. What I’ve been through.
VARYA. I can imagine!
ANYA. I left during Holy Week, it was so cold then. Charlotta kept talking the whole way, doing tricks. Why you stuck me with Charlotta . . .
VARYA. You couldn’t have traveled by yourself, precious. Seventeen years old!
ANYA. We get to Paris, it was cold there too, snowing. My French is awful. Mama is living on the sixth floor, I walk all the way up, there are some French people there, ladies, an old Catholic priest with a pamphlet, and it’s full of cigarette smoke, not nice at all. And suddenly I started to feel sorry for Mama, so sorry for her, I took her head in my hands and couldn’t let go. Then Mama kept hugging me, crying . . .
VARYA (through tears). Don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it . . .
ANYA. The villa near Mentone17 she’d already sold, she had nothing left, nothing. And I hadn’t a kopek left either, we barely got this far. And Mama doesn’t understand! We sit down to dinner at a station, and she orders the most expensive meal and gives each waiter a ruble tip. Charlotta’s the same. Yasha insists on his share too, it’s simply awful. Of course Mama has a manservant, Yasha, we brought him back.
VARYA. I saw the low-life . . .
ANYA. Well, how are things? Have we paid the interest?
VARYA. What with?
ANYA. Oh dear, oh dear . . .
VARYA. In August the estate’s to be auctioned off . . .
ANYA. Oh dear . . .
LOPAKHIN (sticking his head in the doorway and bleating). Me-e-eh . . . (Exits.)
VARYA (through tears). I’d like to smack him one . . . (Shakes her fist.)
ANYA (embraces Varya, quietly). Varya, has he proposed? (VARYA shakes her head no.) He does love you . . . Why don’t you talk it over, what are you waiting for?
VARYA. I don’t think it will work out for us. He has so much business, can’t get around to me . . . and he pays me no mind. Forget about him, I can’t stand to look at him . . . Everybody talks about our getting married, everybody says congratulations, but as a matter of fact, there’s nothing to it, it’s all like a dream . . . (in a different tone.) You’ve got a brooch like a bumblebee.
ANYA (sadly). Mama bought it. (Goes to her room, speaks cheerfully, like a child.) And in Paris I went up in a balloon!
VARYA. My darling’s here again! My beauty’s here again!
DUNYASHA has returned with a coffeepot and is brewing coffee.
(Stands near the door.) The whole day long, darling, while I’m doing my chores, I keep dreaming. If only there were a rich man for you to marry, even I would be at peace, I’d go to a hermitage, then to Kiev . . . to Moscow, and I’d keep on going like that to holy shrines . . . I’d go on and on. Heaven! . . .18
ANYA. The birds are singing in the orchard. What time is it now?
VARYA. Must be three. Time for you to be asleep, dearest. (Going into Anya’s room.) Heaven!
YASHA enters with a lap rug and a traveling bag.
YASHA (crosses the stage; in a refined way). May I come through, ma’am?
DUNYASHA. A person wouldn’t recognize you, Yasha. You’ve really changed abroad.