A field. An old, lopsided, long-abandoned chapel, next to it a well, big stones that apparently once used to be tombstones, and an old bench. You can see the road to Gaev’s estate. To the side, some poplars hover darkly: the cherry orchard begins there. In the distance a row of telegraph poles, and far away on the horizon a big town is vaguely outlined, which can be seen only in very fine, clear weather. The sun will set soon. Yasha and Dunyasha sit on the bench. Epikhodov stands by them. Trofimov and Anya go past them on the way from the house.
ANYA
My great-aunt lives alone, she’s very rich. She doesn’t like mama. The first few days it was hard for me to be there, she barely spoke to me. But then she softened. Promised to send me money, gave me some for my and Charlotta’s trip back. It’s so eerie, so oppressive to feel you’re a poor relation.
Looks like someone’s here already . . . Sitting. In that case, let’s go further on.
ANYA
I haven’t been home for three weeks. How I missed it!
They exit.
EPIKHODOV
(Plays the guitar and sings) “What to me is the world and its noise, / what to me are friends and foes . . .” How nice to play the mandolin!
DUNYASHA
It’s a guitar, not a mandolin.
EPIKHODOV
For a madman in love it’s a mandolin . . . (Sings under his breath) “So long as my heart knows the joys / of ardent love in all its throes . . .”
Yasha sings along.
DUNYASHA
(To Yasha) Still, you’re so lucky to have traveled abroad.
YASHA
Yes, of course. I cannot help but agree with you. (Lights a cigar)
EPIKHODOV
It’s a known thing. Abroad everything has long since been in full completeness.
YASHA
That goes without saying.
Pause.
I’m a cultivated man, I read all sorts of learned books, but I simply cannot understand where things are heading, and what in fact I want, to go on living or to shoot myself, but in any case, as a matter of fact, I always carry a revolver with me. Here it is . . . (Shows the revolver) As a matter of fact, regardless of other subjects, I must express about myself, by the way, that fate deals mercilessly with me, like a storm with a small boat. Supposing I’m mistaken, why then do I wake up this morning, for example, and see on my chest a spider of enormous proportions . . . This big. (Shows with both hands) Or I pick up a jug of kvass, so as to pour myself a drink, and there’s something highly improper floating in it, like a cockroach.
Pause.
Have you read Buckle?
Pause.
I wish to trouble you, Avdotya Fyodorovna, with a couple of words.
DUNYASHA
Speak.
EPIKHODOV
It would be desirable for us to be alone . . . (Sighs)
DUNYASHA
(Embarrassed) Very well . . . only first bring me my little shawl . . . There by the cupboard . . . It’s a bit damp here . . .
EPIKHODOV
Very well, miss . . . I’ll bring it. Wonderful, miss . . . Now I know what to do with my revolver . . . (Exits)
YASHA
Two-and-twenty Catastrophes! A stupid man, just between us.
God forbid he shoots himself.
Pause.
I’ve become anxious, I worry all the time. I was still a little girl when I was taken into the masters’ household, I’m unused to the simple life now, and look how white my hands are, like a young lady’s. I’ve become so pampered, I’m afraid of everything . . . It’s scary. And if you deceive me, Yasha, I don’t know what will happen to me.
YASHA
(Kisses her) Cute little cucumber!
Pause.
Of course, every girl should remember herself, and what I dislike most of all is a girl who misbehaves. (Hums a tune with no musical ear, then sings badly off key) “Oh, wilt thou grasp the stirrings of my soul . . .”
DUNYASHA
I’ve fallen in love with you. You’re cultivated. You can discuss everything.
Pause.
YASHA
(Yawns) Right, miss . . . My opinion is this: if a girl loves somebody, it means she’s immoral. It’s nice to smoke a cigar in the open air . . . (Listens) Somebody’s coming . . . It’s the masters . . . (Hastily) Come here tonight, when it’s dark. Make sure you come . . .
Dunyasha embraces him impulsively.
Go home, as if you’d been swimming in the river, take this path, or else they’ll see you and think we were here together. I couldn’t stand that.
(Coughs softly) That cigar has given me a headache . . . (Exits)
Yasha stays, stands by the chapel. Lyubov Andreevna, Gaev and Lopakhin enter.
LOPAKHIN
You’ve got to decide once and for all—time is running out. The question is simple. Do you agree to lease the land for the construction of summer houses or do you not? Answer in one word: yes or no? Just one word!
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Who’s been smoking disgusting cigars here . . . (Sits down)
GAEV
They’ve built the railroad, and it’s become convenient. (Sits down) Rode into town and had lunch . . . yellow into the side! I’d like to go home first and play one game . . .
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
There’s no rush.
LOPAKHIN
Just one word! Give me an answer!
GAEV
(Yawning) Whoso?
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
(Looking into her purse) Yesterday there was a lot of money, and today there’s so little. My poor Varya saves money feeding everybody milk soup, in the kitchen the old folks get nothing but peas, and I waste money somehow senselessly . . . (She drops her purse, gold coins spill out) Go on, scatter . . . (She is annoyed)
Allow me. I’ll pick them up. (Collects the coins)
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Be so kind, Yasha. And why did I go to this lunch . . . Your trashy restaurant with its music, with its tablecloths stinking of soap . . . Why drink so much, Lyonya? Why eat so much? Why talk so much? Today in the restaurant you talked too much again, and all beside the point. About the seventies, about the decadents. And to whom? Talking to the waiters about the decadents!
LOPAKHIN
Hm, yes.
GAEV
(Waves his hand) I’m incorrigible, that’s obvious . . . (Vexedly, to Yasha) Why are you constantly popping up in front of me . . .
YASHA
(Laughing into his fist) Just hearing your voice makes me laugh.
GAEV
(To his sister) It’s either me, or him . . .
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Away with you, Yasha. Go, go . . .
YASHA
(Hands Lyubov Andreevna the purse) I’m leaving. (Barely restraining his laughter) Right now . . . (Exits)
LOPAKHIN
Rich man Deriganov intends to buy your estate. They say he’ll come to the auction in person.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Where did you hear that?
There was talk in town.
GAEV
Our aunt in Yaroslavl has promised to send something, but when and how much nobody knows . . .
LOPAKHIN
How much will she send? A hundred thousand? Two hundred?
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Well . . . ten thousand—maybe fifteen, and be thankful for that.
LOPAKHIN
Forgive me, but I have never met such scatterbrained people, such strange, unbusinesslike people, as you two, my friends. I tell you in plain Russian that your estate is going to be sold, and it’s as if you don’t understand.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
What are we to do? Teach us what to do.
LOPAKHIN
I “teach” you every day. Every day I tell you one and the same thing. The cherry orchard and the land have got to be leased out for summer houses. It has got to be done now, as soon as possible—the auction is almost upon us! Understand that! Once you finally decide to have summer houses, you’ll get as much money as you like, and then you’re saved.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Summer houses, summer people—forgive me, but it’s all so banal.
GAEV
I agree with you completely.
I’m going to weep, or scream, or fall down in a faint! I can’t stand it! You’ve worn me out! (To Gaev) You old woman!
GAEV
Whoso?
LOPAKHIN
Old woman! (Starts to leave)
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
(Frightened) No, don’t leave, stay with us, dear heart! I beg you. Maybe we’ll think of something!
Varya and Charlotta Ivanovna pass by on the way from the house. Charlotta wears a man’s visored cap and carries a gun.
VARYA
She’s an intelligent and well-bred girl, nothing can happen, but still she should not be left alone with a young man. Supper’s at nine o’clock, Charlotta Ivanovna, see that you’re not late.
CHARLOTTA
I don’t want to eat. (Softly hums a song)
VARYA
That doesn’t matter. Just be there. Look, they’re sitting there on the bank . . .
Varya and Charlotta exit.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
(To Lopakhin) Don’t leave, dear heart. It’s more cheerful with you here . . . I keep expecting something, as if the house is going to fall down on us.
Double into the corner . . . Croisé into the side . . .
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
We’ve sinned so very much . . .
LOPAKHIN
What kind of sins do you have . . .
GAEV
(Puts a fruit drop into his mouth) They say I ate up my whole fortune in fruit drops . . . (Laughs)
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Oh, my sins . . . I’ve always squandered money without stint, like a madwoman, and I married a man who did nothing but run up debts. My husband died from champagne—he drank terribly—and to my misfortune I fell in love with another man, took up with him, and just then—this was my first punishment, a blow right on the head—here, in this river . . . my boy drowned, and I went abroad, for good, never to return, never to see this river . . . I shut my eyes, I fled, forgetting myself, and he followed after me . . . mercilessly, crudely. I bought a house near Menton, because he fell ill there, and for three years I got no rest day or night; the sick man wore me out, my soul dried up. And last year, once the cottage was sold for debts, I left for Paris, and there he fleeced me, abandoned me, took up with another woman, I tried to poison myself . . . So stupid, so shameful . . . And I suddenly felt drawn back to Russia, to my native land, to my little girl . . . (Wipes her tears) Lord, Lord, have mercy, forgive me my sins! Don’t punish me anymore! (Takes a telegram from her pocket) This came today from Paris . . . He asks my forgiveness, begs me to come back. (Tears up the telegram) Sounds like music somewhere. (Listens)
GAEV
It’s our famous Jewish band. Remember? Four fiddles, a flute and a double bass.
It still exists? We should get them to come here sometime, arrange an evening.
LOPAKHIN
(Listens) I don’t hear anything . . . (Hums softly) “The Germans for some ready cash / will frenchify a Russky.” (Laughs) What a play I saw last night in the theater—very funny.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
And most likely it wasn’t funny at all. You shouldn’t be looking at plays, you should take a look at yourselves. Your life is so gray, you say so much that’s unnecessary.
LOPAKHIN
That’s true. Let’s come right out with it: our life is stupid . . .
Pause.
My father was a peasant, an imbecile, he understood nothing, he taught me nothing, he just got drunk and beat me, and always with a stick. And essentially I’m the same sort of blockhead and imbecile. Never studied anything, my handwriting’s vile, I’m ashamed to show people, like a pig’s.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
You ought to get married, my friend.
LOPAKHIN
Yes . . . That’s true.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Maybe to our Varya.
LOPAKHIN
Hm, yes.
I took her from simple folk, she works all day, and the main thing is she loves you. And you’ve liked her since way back.
LOPAKHIN
Well, so? I’m willing . . .
Pause.
GAEV
I’ve been offered a post in the bank. Six thousand a year . . . Have you heard?
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Who, you? What an idea . . .
Firs enters bringing a coat.
FIRS
(To Gaev) Please put this on, sir, it’s damp.
GAEV
(Puts on coat) I’m sick of you, brother.
FIRS
Ah, well . . . You left this morning without telling me. (Looks him over)
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
How you’ve aged, Firs!
FIRS
If you please, ma’am.
LOPAKHIN
She says you’ve aged a lot!
I’ve lived a long time. They were trying to get me married before your father came into the world . . . (Laughs) When we got our freedom, I was already head valet. I didn’t accept freedom then, I stayed with my masters . . . I remember everybody was glad, but what they were glad about they didn’t know themselves.
LOPAKHIN
It was very nice in the old days. At least they had flogging.
FIRS
(Not hearing well) Sure enough. Peasants with the masters, masters with the peasants, but now it’s all gone to pieces, you can’t figure anything out.
GAEV
Quiet, Firs. I have to go to town tomorrow. They’ve promised to introduce me to a certain general who can lend me money on credit.
LOPAKHIN
Nothing will come of it. And you won’t pay the interest, don’t worry.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
He’s raving. There aren’t any generals.
Trofimov, Anya and Varya enter.
GAEV
Look who’s coming.
ANYA
Mama’s sitting there.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
(Tenderly) Come here, come here . . . My darlings . . . (Embraces Anya and Varya) If you both only knew how I love you. Sit beside me. Here.
LOPAKHIN
Our eternal student still goes around with young ladies.
TROFIMOV
That’s none of your business.
LOPAKHIN
He’ll be fifty soon, and he’s still a student.
TROFIMOV
Quit your stupid jokes.
LOPAKHIN
Why’re you getting angry, you odd duck?
TROFIMOV
Just stop badgering me.
LOPAKHIN
(Laughs) What do you think of me, if I may ask?
TROFIMOV
What I think is this, Ermolai Alexeich: you’re a rich man, you’ll soon be a millionaire. As there is a need in the food chain for predators who devour everything in their path, so there’s a need for you.
Everybody laughs.
VARYA
Petya, why don’t you tell us about planets.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
No, let’s go on with yesterday’s conversation.
About what?
GAEV
The proud man.
TROFIMOV
We talked for a long time yesterday, but we didn’t come to any conclusion. According to you, there is something mystical about the proud man. Maybe, in your own way, you’re right, but if we talk simply, without frills, what is there to be proud of? Does it even make sense when man’s physiological constitution is none too good, when the vast majority of men are coarse, ignorant and profoundly unhappy? We must stop admiring ourselves. We must work.
GAEV
You die anyway.
TROFIMOV
Who knows? And what does it mean—to die? Maybe man has a hundred senses and death only kills off the five known to us, while the remaining ninety-five remain alive.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
You’re so intelligent, Petya!
LOPAKHIN
(Ironically) Terribly!
TROFIMOV
The human race goes forward, perfecting its powers. One day all that’s beyond its reach now will become close, clear, but we must work, we must give all our strength to helping those who seek the truth. Here in Russia very few are working right now. The vast majority of the intellectuals I know seek nothing, do nothing, and at the moment are unfit for work. They call themselves intellectuals, but they talk down to servants, treat peasants like animals, study poorly, read nothing serious, do precisely nothing, their science is only talk, and they have little understanding of art. They’re all serious, they all have stern faces, they all talk only about important things, they philosophize, and meanwhile, in front of their eyes, workers eat disgusting food, sleep without pillows, thirty or forty to a room, with bedbugs everywhere, stench, dankness, moral filth . . . And all the nice talk is obviously aimed at distracting attention, our own and other people’s. Show me where those day nurseries are that are talked about so much and so often? Where are the reading rooms? They’re only written about in novels; in reality there aren’t any. There’s only dirt, banality, barbarism . . . Serious faces scare me; I don’t like them. Serious conversations scare me. Better to be quiet.
LOPAKHIN
You know, I get up at five in the morning, work from morning till night, and I’m constantly dealing with money, my own and other people’s, so I see what sort of people are around. You only need to start doing something, to realize how few honest, decent people there are. Sometimes, when I can’t fall asleep, I think: “Lord, you gave us vast forests, boundless fields, the deepest horizons, and we who live here should be real giants ourselves . . .”
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
What do you need giants for . . . They’re only good in fairy tales, otherwise they’re frightening.
Epikhodov passes by upstage.
(Pensively) There goes Epikhodov . . .
ANYA
(Pensively) There goes Epikhodov . . .
VARYA
Why is he living with us? He just keeps eating and drinks tea all day long.
And makes plans to shoot himself.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Well, I like Epikhodov. When he talks about his catastrophes, he makes me laugh. Don’t dismiss him, Varya.
VARYA
It’s impossible, mama! We have to dismiss the scoundrel.
GAEV
The sun has set, ladies and gentlemen.
TROFIMOV
Yes.
GAEV
(In a low voice, as if declaiming) O nature, wondrous nature, you shine with eternal radiance, beautiful and indifferent, you, whom we call mother, in yourself you combine being and death, you give life and you destroy . . .
VARYA
(Pleadingly) Uncle dear!
ANYA
You’re at it again, uncle!
TROFIMOV
Better double the yellow into the side.
GAEV
I’ll be quiet, I’ll be quiet.
They all sit deep in thought. Silence. Only Firs’s quiet muttering can be heard. Suddenly there is a distant sound, as if from the sky, the sound of a breaking string, dying away, sad.
What was that?
LOPAKHIN
I don’t know. Somewhere far away in a mine a bucket chain snapped. But somewhere very far away.
GAEV
Maybe it was some bird . . . like a heron.
TROFIMOV
Or a barn owl . . .
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
(Shudders) It’s unpleasant somehow.
Pause.
FIRS
It was the same before the catastrophe: the owl screeched, and the samovar went on whistling.
GAEV
Before what catastrophe?
FIRS
Freedom.
Pause.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
You know what, my friends, let’s go, it’s already evening. (To Anya) You have tears in your eyes . . . What is it, my girl? (Embraces her)
ANYA
I just do, mama. It’s nothing.
Somebody’s coming.
A passerby appears in a shabby white cap and an overcoat, slightly drunk.
PASSERBY
May I ask if I can go straight to the station from here?
GAEV
You can. Just down this road.
PASSERBY
Much obliged to you. (Coughs) Splendid weather . . . (Declaims) Brother, my suffering brother . . . come down to the Volga, whose moaning . . . (To Varya) Mademoiselle, might a starving Russian have thirty kopecks . . .
Varya cries out in fear.
LOPAKHIN
(Angrily to himself) For every outrage, there’s decency!
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
(Nonplussed) Here . . . Take this . . . (Rummages in her purse) No silver . . . Never mind, here’s a gold piece for you . . .
PASSERBY
Much obliged to you! (Exits)
Laughter.
VARYA
(Frightened) I’m leaving . . . I’m leaving . . . Oh, mama, the people at home have nothing to eat, and you gave him a gold piece.
What can you do with a fool like me?! At home I’ll give you all I have. Ermolai Alexeich, lend me some more! . . .
LOPAKHIN
Yes, ma’am.
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Let’s go, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time. And we’ve just made you a match here, Varya. Congratulations.
VARYA
(Through tears) You shouldn’t joke about that, mama.
LOPAKHIN
Ofoolia, get thee to a nunnery . . .
GAEV
My hands are shaking: I haven’t played billiards for so long.
LOPAKHIN
Ofoolia, O nymph, remember me in thy orisons!
LYUBOV ANDREEVNA
Let’s go, ladies and gentlemen. It’s nearly suppertime.
VARYA
He frightened me. My heart’s pounding.
LOPAKHIN
I remind you, ladies and gentlemen: on August twenty-second the cherry orchard will go up for sale. Think about it! . . . Think! . . .
Exit all but Trofimov and Anya.
ANYA
(Laughing) Thanks to that man who frightened Varya, we’re alone now.
Varya’s afraid we’ll up and fall in love with each other. With her narrow mind, she can’t understand that we’re higher than love. To go beyond the petty and illusory that keep us from being free and happy—that is the goal and meaning of our life. Forward! We go irrepressibly towards the bright star that shines there in the distance! Forward! Don’t lag behind, my friends!
ANYA
(Clasping her hands) How well you speak!
Pause.
It’s wonderful here today!
TROFIMOV
Yes, the weather is astonishing.
ANYA
What have you done to me, Petya? Why don’t I love the cherry orchard the way I used to? I loved it so dearly, I thought there was no better place on earth than our orchard.
TROFIMOV
All Russia is our orchard. The earth is vast and beautiful, there are many marvelous places on it.
Pause.
Think, Anya: your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were serf-owners, owners of human souls. Can it be that human beings don’t look at you from every cherry, from every leaf, from every tree trunk of this orchard, that you don’t hear their voices? . . . To own living souls—it transformed you all, those who lived before and those living now, so that your mother, you, your uncle no longer notice that you are living on credit, at the expense of others, at the expense of people you won’t allow across your threshold . . . We’re at least two hundred years behind, we still have precisely nothing, no definite attitude towards the past. We only philosophize, complain of our anguish, or drink vodka. Yet it’s so clear that to begin to live in the present, we must first atone for our past, be done with it, and we can only atone for it through suffering, only through extraordinary, relentless labor. Understand that, Anya.
ANYA
For a long time now the house we live in hasn’t been ours, and I shall leave, I give you my word.
TROFIMOV
If you have the keys of the household, throw them down the well and walk away. Be free as the wind.
ANYA
(Ecstatically) How well you put it!
TROFIMOV
Shh. Somebody’s coming. That Varya again! (Angrily) Outrageous!
ANYA
Well, then . . . Let’s go to the river. It’s nice there.
TROFIMOV
Let’s go.
ANYA
(As they go) The moon will rise soon. (They exit)
Firs enters, then Charlotta Ivanovna. Firs, muttering, is looking for something on the ground by the bench, lights a match.
FIRS
(Mutters) Eh, you . . . blunderhead.
(Sits down on the bench and takes off her cap) Is that you, Firs? What are you looking for?
FIRS
Mistress lost her purse.
CHARLOTTA
(Looking) Here’s a fan . . . and a handkerchief . . . smells of perfume.
Pause.
There’s nothing else. Lyubov Andreevna constantly loses things. She’s lost her life, too. (Softly hums a song) I don’t have a real passport, grandpa, I don’t know how old I am, and I keep imaging I’m a young girl . . . (Puts the cap on Firs’s head; he doesn’t move) Oh how I love you, my dear mister! (Laughs) Eins, zwei, drei! (Takes the cap off Firs’s head, puts it on her own) When I was little, my father and mother went around to fairs and gave performances, very good ones. And I did the salto mortale and various things like that. And when father and mother died, a German lady took me in and began to teach me. Right. I grew up, then I went to be a governess. But where I’m from and who I am—I don’t know . . . Who my parents were, and whether they were even married . . . I don’t know . . . (Takes a cucumber out of her pocket and eats) I don’t know anything.
FIRS
I was twenty or twenty-five, and so we walked there, me, and the deacon’s son, and the cook Vassily, and there was a man sitting on a stone . . . an unknown man, a stranger . . . I got scared for some reason and left, and then they up and killed him . . . He had money.
CHARLOTTA
So? Weiter.
Then there was a trial, interrogations . . . They arrested them . . . And me, too . . . I was in prison for about two years . . . Then it was all right, they let me out . . . That was long ago.
Pause.
A man can’t remember everything . . .
CHARLOTTA
It’s time for you to die, grandpa. (Eats the cucumber)
FIRS
Eh? (Mutters to himself) Well, so we went there all together, then had to stop . . . Uncle jumped off the cart . . . took a sack . . . and inside there was another sack. He looked in, and something inside went—wiggle-wiggle!
CHARLOTTA
(Laughs softly) Wiggle-wiggle! (Eats the cucumber)
There is a sound of someone walking down the road and softly playing the balalaika . . . The moon is rising. Somewhere by the poplars Varya is looking for Anya and calling: “Anya! Where are you?”
Curtain.