YASHA. Mm . . . who are you?
DUNYASHA. When you left here, I was so high . . . (Measures from the floor.) Dunyasha, Fyodor Kozoedov’s daughter. You don’t remember!
YASHA. Mm . . . Tasty little pickle! (Glances around and embraces her, she shrieks and drops a saucer. YASHA exits hurriedly.)
VARYA (in the doorway, crossly). Now what was that?
DUNYASHA (through tears). I broke a saucer . . .
VARYA. That’s good luck.
ANYA (entering from her room). We ought to warn Mama that Petya’s here . . .
VARYA. I gave orders not to wake him.
ANYA (thoughtfully). Six years ago father died, a month later our brother Grisha drowned in the river, a sweet little boy, seven years old. Mama couldn’t stand it, she went away, went away without looking back . . . (Shivers.) How well I understand her, if only she knew!
Pause.
Since Petya Trofimov was Grisha’s tutor, he might remind her . . .
Enter FIRS in a jacket and white waistcoat.
FIRS (goes to the coffeepot; preoccupied). The mistress will take it in here . . . (Putting on white gloves.) Cawrfee ready? (Sternly to Dunyasha.) You! What about cream?
DUNYASHA. Oh, my goodness . . . (Exits hurriedly.)
FIRS (fussing with the coffeepot). Eh you, half-baked bungler19 . . . (Mumbles to himself.) Come home from Paris . . . And the master went to Paris once upon a time . . . by coach and horses . . . (Laughs.)
VARYA. Firs, what are you on about?
FIRS. What’s wanted, miss? (Joyfully.) My mistress has come home! I’ve been waiting! Now I can die . . . (Weeps with joy.)
Enter LYUBOV ANDREEVNA, GAEV, LOPAKHIN, and SIMEONOV-PISHCHIK, the last in a long-waisted coat of expensive cloth and baggy pantaloons.20 GAEV, on entering, moves his arms and torso as if he were playing billiards.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA. How does it go? Let me remember . . . Yellow in the corner! Doublette in the center!21
GAEV. Red in the corner! Once upon a time, sister, we used to sleep together here in this room, and now I’ve turned fifty-one, strange as it seems . . .
LOPAKHIN. Yes, time marches on.
GAEV. How’s that?22
LOPAKHIN. Time, I say, marches on.
GAEV. It smells of cheap perfume23 in here.
ANYA. I’m going to bed. Good night, Mama. (Kisses her mother.)
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA. My dazzling little princess.24 (Kisses her hands.) Are you glad you’re home? I can’t get over it.
ANYA. Good night, Uncle.
GAEV (kisses her face, hands). God bless you. How like your mother you are! (To his sister.) Lyuba, at her age you were just the same.
ANYA gives her hand to Lopakhin and Pishchik, exits, and shuts the door behind her.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA. She’s utterly exhausted.
PISHCHIK. Must be a long trip.
VARYA (to Lopakhin and Pishchik). Well, gentlemen? Three o’clock, by this time you’ve worn out your welcome.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA (laughing). And you’re still the same too, Varya. (Draws Varya to her and kisses her.) First I’ll have some coffee, then everybody will go.
FIRS puts a cushion under her feet.
Thank you, dear. I’ve grown accustomed to coffee. I drink it night and day. Thank you, my old dear. (Kisses Firs.)
VARYA. I’ve got to see if all the luggage was brought in . . . (Exits.)
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA. Can I really be sitting here? (Laughs.) I feel like jumping up and down and swinging my arms. (Covers her face with her hands.) But suppose I’m dreaming! God knows, I love my country, love it dearly, I couldn’t look at it from the train, couldn’t stop crying. (Through tears.) However, we should have some coffee. Thank you, Firs, thank you, my old dear. I’m so glad you’re still alive.
FIRS. Day before yesterday.
GAEV. He’s hard of hearing.
LOPAKHIN. I’ve got to leave for Kharkov right away, around five. What a nuisance! I wanted to feast my eyes on you, have a chat . . . You’re still as lovely as ever.
PISHCHIK (breathing hard). Even prettier . . . Dressed in Parisian fashions . . . “lost my cart with all four wheels . . .”25
LOPAKHIN. Your brother, Leonid Andreich here, says that I’m an oaf, I’m a money-grubbing peasant,26 but it doesn’t make the least bit of difference to me. Let him talk. The only thing I want is for you to believe in me as you once did, for your wonderful, heartbreaking eyes to look at me as they once did. Merciful God! My father was your grandfather’s serf, and your father’s, but you, you personally did so much for me once that I forgot all that and love you like my own kin . . . more than my own kin.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA. I can’t sit still, I just can’t . . . (Leaps up and walks about in great excitement.) I won’t survive this joy . . . Laugh at me, I’m silly . . . My dear little cupboard. (Kisses the cupboard.) My little table.
GAEV. While you were away Nanny died.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA (sits and drinks coffee). Yes, rest in peace. They wrote me.
GAEV. And Anastasy died. Cross-eyed Petrusha left me and now he’s working in town for the chief of police. (Takes a little box of hard candies out of his pocket and sucks one.)
PISHCHIK. My dear daughter Dashenka . . . sends her regards . . .
LOPAKHIN. I’d like to tell you something you’d enjoy, something to cheer you up. (Looking at his watch.) I have to go now, never time for a real conversation . . . well, here it is in a nutshell. As you already know, the cherry orchard will be sold to pay your debts, the auction is set for August twenty-second, but don’t you worry, dear lady, don’t lose any sleep, there’s a way out . . . Here’s my plan. Your attention, please! Your estate lies only thirteen miles from town, the railroad runs past it, and if the cherry orchard and the land along the river were subdivided into building lots and then leased out for summer cottages, you’d have an income of at the very least twenty-five thousand a year.
GAEV. Excuse me, what rubbish!
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA. I don’t quite follow you, Yermolay Alekseich.
LOPAKHIN. You’ll get out of the summer tenants at least twenty-five rubles a year for every two and a half acres, and if you advertise now, I’ll bet whatever you like that by fall there won’t be a single lot left vacant, they’ll all be snapped up. In short, congratulations, you’re saved. The location’s wonderful, the river’s deep. Only, of course, it’ll have to be spruced up, cleared out . . . for example, tear down all the old sheds, and this house, say, which is absolutely worthless, chop down the old cherry orchard . . .