Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (461 page)

ANYA. Mother! mother, are you crying? My dear, kind, good mother, my beautiful mother, I love you! Bless you! The cherry orchard is sold, we’ve got it no longer, it’s true, true, but don’t cry mother, you’ve still got your life before you, you’ve still your beautiful pure soul... Come with me, come, dear, away from here, come! We’ll plant a new garden, finer than this, and you’ll see it, and you’ll understand, and deep joy, gentle joy will sink into your soul, like the evening sun, and you’ll smile, mother! Come, dear, let’s go!

Curtain.

ACT FOUR

[The stage is set as for Act I. There are no curtains on the windows, no pictures; only a few pieces of furniture are left; they are piled up in a corner as if for sale. The emptiness is felt. By the door that leads out of the house and at the back of the stage, portmanteaux and travelling paraphernalia are piled up. The door on the left is open; the voices of VARYA and ANYA can be heard through it. LOPAKHIN stands and waits. YASHA holds a tray with little tumblers of champagne. Outside, EPIKHODOV is tying up a box. Voices are heard behind the stage. The peasants have come to say good-bye. The voice of GAEV is heard: “Thank you, brothers, thank you.”]

YASHA. The common people have come to say good-bye. I am of the opinion, Ermolai Alexeyevitch, that they’re good people, but they don’t understand very much.

[The voices die away. LUBOV ANDREYEVNA and GAEV enter. She is not crying but is pale, and her face trembles; she can hardly speak.]

GAEV. You gave them your purse, Luba. You can’t go on like that, you can’t!

LUBOV. I couldn’t help myself, I couldn’t!
[They go out.]

LOPAKHIN. [In the doorway, calling after them] Please, I ask you most humbly! Just a little glass to say good-bye. I didn’t remember to bring any from town and I only found one bottle at the station. Please, do!
[Pause]
Won’t you really have any?
[Goes away from the door]
If I only knew — I wouldn’t have bought any. Well, I shan’t drink any either. [YASHA carefully puts the tray on a chair] You have a drink, Yasha, at any rate.

YASHA. To those departing! And good luck to those who stay behind!
[Drinks]
I can assure you that this isn’t real champagne.

LOPAKHIN. Eight roubles a bottle.
[Pause]
It’s devilish cold here.

YASHA. There are no fires to-day, we’re going away.
[Laughs]

LOPAKHIN. What’s the matter with you?

YASHA. I’m just pleased.

LOPAKHIN. It’s October outside, but it’s as sunny and as quiet as if it were summer. Good for building. [Looking at his watch and speaking through the door] Ladies and gentlemen, please remember that it’s only forty-seven minutes till the train goes! You must go off to the station in twenty minutes. Hurry up.

[TROFIMOV, in an overcoat, comes in from the grounds.]

TROFIMOV. I think it’s time we went. The carriages are waiting. Where the devil are my goloshes? They’re lost.
[Through the door]
Anya, I can’t find my goloshes! I can’t!

LOPAKHIN. I’ve got to go to Kharkov. I’m going in the same train as you. I’m going to spend the whole winter in Kharkov. I’ve been hanging about with you people, going rusty without work. I can’t live without working. I must have something to do with my hands; they hang about as if they weren’t mine at all.

TROFIMOV. We’ll go away now and then you’ll start again on your useful labours.

LOPAKHIN. Have a glass.

TROFIMOV. I won’t.

LOPAKHIN. So you’re off to Moscow now?

TROFIMOV Yes. I’ll see them into town and to-morrow I’m off to Moscow.

LOPAKHIN. Yes.... I expect the professors don’t lecture nowadays; they’re waiting till you turn up!

TROFIMOV. That’s not your business.

LOPAKHIN. How many years have you been going to the university?

TROFIMOV. Think of something fresh. This is old and flat.
[Looking for his goloshes]
You know, we may not meet each other again, so just let me give you a word of advice on parting: “Don’t wave your hands about! Get rid of that habit of waving them about. And then, building villas and reckoning on their residents becoming freeholders in time — that’s the same thing; it’s all a matter of waving your hands about.... Whether I want to or not, you know, I like you. You’ve thin, delicate fingers, like those of an artist, and you’ve a thin, delicate soul....”

LOPAKHIN.
[Embraces him]
Good-bye, dear fellow. Thanks for all you’ve said. If you want any, take some money from me for the journey.

TROFIMOV. Why should I? I don’t want it.

LOPAKHIN. But you’ve nothing!

TROFIMOV. Yes, I have, thank you; I’ve got some for a translation. Here it is in my pocket.
[Nervously]
But I can’t find my goloshes!

VARYA.
[From the other room]
Take your rubbish away! [Throws a pair of rubber goloshes on to the stage.]

TROFIMOV. Why are you angry, Varya? Hm! These aren’t my goloshes!

LOPAKHIN. In the spring I sowed three thousand acres of poppies, and now I’ve made forty thousand roubles net profit. And when my poppies were in flower, what a picture it was! So I, as I was saying, made forty thousand roubles, and I mean I’d like to lend you some, because I can afford it. Why turn up your nose at it? I’m just a simple peasant....

TROFIMOV. Your father was a peasant, mine was a chemist, and that means absolutely nothing. [LOPAKHIN takes out his pocket-book] No, no.... Even if you gave me twenty thousand I should refuse. I’m a free man. And everything that all you people, rich and poor, value so highly and so dearly hasn’t the least influence over me; it’s like a flock of down in the wind. I can do without you, I can pass you by. I’m strong and proud. Mankind goes on to the highest truths and to the highest happiness such as is only possible on earth, and I go in the front ranks!

LOPAKHIN. Will you get there?

TROFIMOV. I will.
[Pause]
I’ll get there and show others the way. [Axes cutting the trees are heard in the distance.]

LOPAKHIN. Well, good-bye, old man. It’s time to go. Here we stand pulling one another’s noses, but life goes its own way all the time. When I work for a long time, and I don’t get tired, then I think more easily, and I think I get to understand why I exist. And there are so many people in Russia, brother, who live for nothing at all. Still, work goes on without that. Leonid Andreyevitch, they say, has accepted a post in a bank; he will get sixty thousand roubles a year.... But he won’t stand it; he’s very lazy.

ANYA.
[At the door]
Mother asks if you will stop them cutting down the orchard until she has gone away.

TROFIMOV. Yes, really, you ought to have enough tact not to do that.
[Exit.]

LOPAKHIN, All right, all right... yes, he’s right.
[Exit.]

ANYA. Has Fiers been sent to the hospital?

YASHA. I gave the order this morning. I suppose they’ve sent him.

ANYA. [To EPIKHODOV, who crosses the room] Simeon Panteleyevitch, please make inquiries if Fiers has been sent to the hospital.

YASHA.
[Offended]
I told Egor this morning. What’s the use of asking ten times!

EPIKHODOV. The aged Fiers, in my conclusive opinion, isn’t worth mending; his forefathers had better have him. I only envy him. [Puts a trunk on a hat-box and squashes it] Well, of course. I thought so!
[Exit.]

YASHA.
[Grinning]
Two-and-twenty troubles.

VARYA.
[Behind the door]
Has Fiers been taken away to the hospital?

ANYA. Yes.

VARYA. Why didn’t they take the letter to the doctor?

ANYA. It’ll have to be sent after him.
[Exit.]

VARYA.
[In the next room]
Where’s Yasha? Tell him his mother’s come and wants to say good-bye to him.

YASHA.
[Waving his hand]
She’ll make me lose all patience!

[DUNYASHA has meanwhile been bustling round the luggage; now that YASHA is left alone, she goes up to him.]

DUNYASHA. If you only looked at me once, Yasha. You’re going away, leaving me behind.

[Weeps and hugs him round the neck.]

YASHA. What’s the use of crying?
[Drinks champagne]
In six days I’ll be again in Paris. To-morrow we get into the express and off we go. I can hardly believe it. Vive la France! It doesn’t suit me here, I can’t live here... it’s no good. Well, I’ve seen the uncivilized world; I have had enough of it.
[Drinks champagne]
What do you want to cry for? You behave yourself properly, and then you won’t cry.

DUNYASHA. [Looks in a small mirror and powders her face] Send me a letter from Paris. You know I loved you, Yasha, so much! I’m a sensitive creature, Yasha.

YASHA. Somebody’s coming.

[He bustles around the luggage, singing softly. Enter LUBOV ANDREYEVNA, GAEV, ANYA, and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA.]

GAEV. We’d better be off. There’s no time left.
[Looks at YASHA]
Somebody smells of herring!

LUBOV. We needn’t get into our carriages for ten minutes....
[Looks round the room]
Good-bye, dear house, old grandfather. The winter will go, the spring will come, and then you’ll exist no more, you’ll be pulled down. How much these walls have seen! [Passionately kisses her daughter] My treasure, you’re radiant, your eyes flash like two jewels! Are you happy? Very?

ANYA. Very! A new life is beginning, mother!

GAEV.
[Gaily]
Yes, really, everything’s all right now. Before the cherry orchard was sold we all were excited and we suffered, and then, when the question was solved once and for all, we all calmed down, and even became cheerful. I’m a bank official now, and a financier... red in the middle; and you, Luba, for some reason or other, look better, there’s no doubt about it.

LUBOV Yes. My nerves are better, it’s true.
[She puts on her coat and hat]
I sleep well. Take my luggage out, Yasha. It’s time.
[To ANYA]
My little girl, we’ll soon see each other again.... I’m off to Paris. I’ll live there on the money your grandmother from Yaroslav sent along to buy the estate — bless her! — though it won’t last long.

ANYA. You’ll come back soon, soon, mother, won’t you? I’ll get ready, and pass the exam at the Higher School, and then I’ll work and help you. We’ll read all sorts of books to one another, won’t we? [Kisses her mother’s hands] We’ll read in the autumn evenings; we’ll read many books, and a beautiful new world will open up before us....
[Thoughtfully]
You’ll come, mother....