GAYEV, indignantly: Poppycock!
Enter Varya and YASHA.
Varya: There are two telegrams for you, mamma dear. Picks a key from the bunch at her belt and noisily opens an old-fashioned bookcase. Here they are.
Mme. RANEVSKAYA: They're from Paris. Tears them up without reading them. I'm through with Paris.
GAYEv: Do you know, Luba, how old this bookcas^ is? Last week I pulled out the bottom drawer and there I found the date burnt in it. It was made exactly a hun- D.red years ago. Think of that! We could celebrate its centenary. True, it's an inanimate object, but neverthe- less, a bookcase , . .
Pishchix, amazed: A hundred years! Just imagine!
GAYEv: Yes. Tapping it. That's something. . . . Dear, honored bookcase, hail to you who for more than a cen- tury have served the glorious ideals of goodness and justice! Your silent summons to fruitful toil has never weakened in all those hundred years (through tears), sustaining, through successive generations of our family, courage and faith in a better future, and fostering in us ideals of goodness and social consciousness. . • . Pauses.
LOPAHIN: Yes , . .
Mme. RANEVSKAYA: You haven't changed a bit, Leonid.
Gayev, somewhat embarrassed: I'll play it off the red in the corner! Tip it in the side pocket!
Lopahin, looking at his watch: Well, it's time for me to g° . . .
Yasha, handing a pill box to Mme. R^^VSKAYA: Per- haps you'll take your pills now.
Pishchik: One shouldn't take medicines, dearest lady, they do neither harm nor good. . . . Give them here, my valued friend. Takes the pill box, pours the pills into his palm, blows on them, puts them in his mouth, and washes them down with some kvass. There!
Mme. RANEVSKAYA, frightened: You must be mad!
PiSHCHIK: I've taken all the pills.
Lopaidn: What a glutton!
All laugh.
Firs: The gentleman visited us in Easter week, ate half a bucket of pickles, he did . . . Mumbles.
Mme. RANEVSKAYA: What's he saying?
Varya: He's been mumbling like that for the last three years—we're used to it.
Yasha: His declining years!
CHARLOTTA Ivanovna, very thin, tightly laced, dressed in white, a lorgnette at her waist, crosses the stage.
Lop^bn: Forgive me, Charlotta Ivanovna, Tve not had time to greet you. Tries to kiss her hand.
Charlotta, pulling away her hand: If I let you kiss my hand, you'll be wanting to kiss my elbow next, and then my shoulder.
LopAHiN: I've no luck today. All laugh. Charlotta Ivanovna, show us a trick.
Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Yes, Charlotta, do a trick for us.
CHARLOTTA: I don't see the need. I want to sleep. Exits.
Lopa^^: In thiee weeks we'll meet again. Kisses Mme. Ranevskaya's hand. Good-by till then. Time's up. To Gayev: Bye-bye. Kisses Pishchik. Bye-bye. Shakes hands with Varya, then with Firs and Yasha. I hate to leave. To Mme. Ranevskaya: If you make up your mind about the cottages, let me know; I'll get you a loan of 50,000 rubles. Think it over seriously.
Varya, crossly: Will you never go!
Lop^mN: I'm going, I'm going. Exits.
Gayev: The vulgarian. But, excuse me . . . Varyrt's going to marry him, he's Varya's fiance.
Varya: You talk too much, uncle dear.
Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Well, Varya, it would make me happy. He's a good man.
PiSHcmK: Yes, one must admit, he's a most estimable man. And my Dashenka . . . she too says that . . . she says . . . lots of things. Snores; but wakes up at once. All the same, my valued friend, could you oblige
me . . . with a loan of 240 rubles? I must pay the in-
terest on the mortgage tomorrow.
Varya, affirmed: We can't, we can't!
Mme. ^^revsKAYA: I really haven't any money.
PISHCHIK: It'll turn up. Laughs. I never lose hope, I hought everything was lost, that I was done for, when lo and behold, the railway ran through my land . . . and I was paid for it. . . . And something else will tum up again, if not today, then tomorrow . . . Da- shenka will win two hundred thousand . . . she's got a lottery ticket.
Mme. Ranevskaya: I've had my coffee, now let's go to bed.
fim, brushes off Gayev; admonishingly: You've got the wrong trousers on again. What am I to do with you?
Varya, softly: Anya's asleep. Gently opens the win- dow. The sun's up now, it's not a bit cold. Look, mamma dear, what wonderful trees. And heavens, what air! The starlings are singing!
Gayev, opens the other window: The orchard is all white. You've not forgotten it? Luba? That's the long alley that runs straight, straight as an arrow; how it shines on moonlight nights, do you remember? You've not forgotten?
Mme. Ranevskaya, looking out of the window into the orchard: Oh, my childhood, my innocent childhood. I used to sleep in this nursery—I used to look out into the orchard, happiness waked with me every morning, the orchard was just the same then . . . nothing has changed. Laughs with ;oy. All, all white! Oh, my or- chard! After the dark, rainy autumn and the cold win- ter, you are young again, and full of happiness, the heavenly angels have not left you . . . If I could free my chest and my shoulders from this rock that weighs on me, if I could only forget the past!
Gayev: Yes, and the orchard will be sold to pay our debts, strange as it may seem. . . .
Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Look! There is our poor mother walking in the orchard . • . aU in white . • . Laughs with ;oy. It is she!
Gayev: Where?
VARYA: What are you saying, mamma dear!
Mme. Ranevskaya: There's no one there, I just im- agined it. To the right, where the path turns towards the arbor, there's a little white tree, leaning over, that looks like a woman . . .
Trofimov enters, wearing a shabby tiudent's uni- form and spectacles.
M^. RANEVSKAYA: What an amazing orchard! White masses of blossom, the blue sky . . .
Trofimov: Lubov Andreyevna! She looks round at him. I just want to pay my respects to you, then I'U leave at once. Kisses her hand ardently. I was told to wait until morning, but I hadn't the patience Mme. RANEVSKAYA looks at him, perplexed.
Varya, through tears: This is Petya Trofimov.
TROFIMOV: Petya Trofimov, formerly your Grisha's tutor. . . . Can I have changed so much? Mme. Ra- nevskaya embraces him and weeps quietly.
GAYEV, embarrassed: Don't, don't, Luba.
Varya, crying: I told you, Petya, to wait until to- morrow.
M^. RANEVSKAYA: My Grisha . . . my little boy . . . Grisha . . . my son.
Varya: What can one do, mamma dear, it's God's will.