Act II

The open country. An old shrine, long abandoned and fallen out of the perpendicular; near it a well, large stones that have apparently once been tombstones, and an old garden seat. The road to Gaev’s house is seen. On one side rise dark poplars; and there the cherry orchard begins. In the distance a row of telegraph poles and far, far away on the horizon there is faintly outlined a great town, only visible in very fine clear weather. It is near sunset. Charlotta, Yasha and Dunyasha are sitting on the seat. Epihodov is standing near, playing something mournful on a guitar. All sit plunged in thought. Charlotta wears an old forage cap; she has taken a gun from her shoulder and is tightening the buckle on the strap.

Charlotta Musingly. I haven’t a real passport of my own, and I don’t know how old I am, and I always feel that I’m a young thing. When I was a little girl, my father and mother used to travel about to fairs and give performances⁠—very good ones. And I used to dance salto mortale and all sorts of things. And when papa and mamma died, a German lady took me and had me educated. And so I grew up and became a governess. But where I came from, and who I am, I don’t know.⁠ ⁠… Who my parents were, very likely they weren’t married⁠ ⁠… I don’t know takes a cucumber out of her pocket and eats. I know nothing at all a pause. One wants to talk and has no one to talk to⁠ ⁠… I have nobody.
Epihodov Plays on the guitar and sings. “What care I for the noisy world! What care I for friends or foes!” How agreeable it is to play on the mandoline!
Dunyasha That’s a guitar, not a mandoline looks in a hand-mirror and powders herself.
Epihodov To a man mad with love, it’s a mandoline. Sings. “Were her heart but aglow with love’s mutual flame.” Yasha joins in.
Charlotta How shockingly these people sing! Foo! Like jackals!
Dunyasha To Yasha. What happiness, though, to visit foreign lands.
Yasha Ah, yes! I rather agree with you there yawns, then lights a cigar.
Epihodov That’s comprehensible. In foreign lands everything has long since reached full complexion.
Yasha That’s so, of course.
Epihodov I’m a cultivated man, I read remarkable books of all sorts, but I can never make out the tendency I am myself precisely inclined for, whether to live or to shoot myself, speaking precisely, but nevertheless I always carry a revolver. Here it is⁠ ⁠… shows revolver.
Charlotta I’ve had enough, and now I’m going puts on the gun. Epihodov, you’re a very clever fellow, and a very terrible one too, all the women must be wild about you. Br‑r‑r! Goes. These clever fellows are all so stupid; there’s not a creature for me to speak to.⁠ ⁠… Always alone, alone, nobody belonging to me⁠ ⁠… and who I am, and why I’m on earth, I don’t know walks away slowly.
Epihodov Speaking precisely, not touching upon other subjects, I’m bound to admit about myself, that destiny behaves mercilessly to me, as a storm to a little boat. If, let us suppose, I am mistaken, then why did I wake up this morning, to quote an example, and look round, and there on my chest was a spider of fearful magnitude⁠ ⁠… like this shows with both hands. And then I take up a jug of kvass, to quench my thirst, and in it there is something in the highest degree unseemly of the nature of a cockroach a pause. Have you read Buckle? A pause. I am desirous of troubling you, Dunyasha, with a couple of words.
Dunyasha Well, speak.
Epihodov I should be desirous to speak with you alone sighs.
Dunyasha Embarrassed. Well⁠—only bring me my mantle first. It’s by the cupboard. It’s rather damp here.
Epihodov Certainly. I will fetch it. Now I know what I must do with my revolver takes guitar and goes off playing on it.
Yasha Two and twenty misfortunes! Between ourselves, he’s a fool yawns.
Dunyasha God grant he doesn’t shoot himself! A pause. I am so nervous, I’m always in a flutter. I was a little girl when I was taken into our lady’s house, and now I have quite grown out of peasant ways, and my hands are white, as white as a lady’s. I’m such a delicate, sensitive creature, I’m afraid of everything. I’m so frightened. And if you deceive me, Yasha, I don’t know what will become of my nerves.
Yasha Kisses her. You’re a peach! Of course a girl must never forget herself; what I dislike more than anything is a girl being flighty in her behaviour.
Dunyasha I’m passionately in love with you, Yasha; you are a man of culture⁠—you can give your opinion about anything a pause.
Yasha Yawns. Yes, that’s so. My opinion is this: if a girl loves anyone, that means that she has no principles a pause. It’s pleasant smoking a cigar in the open air listens. Someone’s coming this way⁠ ⁠… it’s the gentlefolk. Dunyasha embraces him impulsively. Go home, as though you had been to the river to bathe; go by that path, or else they’ll meet you and suppose I have made an appointment with you here. That I can’t endure.
Dunyasha Coughing softly. The cigar has made my head ache⁠ ⁠… goes off.
Yasha remains sitting near the shrine. Enter Lyubov Andreyevna, Gaev and Lopahin.
Lopahin You must make up your mind once for all⁠—there’s no time to lose. It’s quite a simple question, you know. Will you consent to letting the land for building or not? One word in answer: Yes or no? Only one word!
Lyubov Who is smoking such horrible cigars here? Sits down.
Gaev Now the railway line has been brought near, it’s made things very convenient sits down. Here we have been over and lunched in town. Cannon off the white! I should like to go home and have a game.
Lyubov You have plenty of time.
Lopahin Only one word! Beseechingly. Give me an answer!
Gaev Yawning. What do you say?
Lyubov Looks in her purse. I had quite a lot of money here yesterday, and there’s scarcely any left today. My poor Varya feeds us all on milk soup for the sake of economy; the old folks in the kitchen get nothing but pease pudding, while I waste my money in a senseless way drops purse, scattering gold pieces. There, they have all fallen out! Annoyed.
Yasha Allow me, I’ll soon pick them up collects the coins.
Lyubov Pray do, Yasha. And what did I go off to the town to lunch for? Your restaurant’s a wretched place with its music and the tablecloth smelling of soap.⁠ ⁠… Why drink so much, Leonid? And eat so much? And talk so much? Today you talked a great deal again in the restaurant, and all so inappropriately. About the era of the ’seventies, about the decadents. And to whom? Talking to waiters about decadents!
Lopahin Yes.
Gaev Waving his hand. I’m incorrigible; that’s evident. Irritably to Yasha. Why is it you keep fidgeting about in front of us!
Yasha Laughs. I can’t help laughing when I hear your voice.
Gaev To his sister. Either I or he⁠ ⁠…
Lyubov Get along! Go away, Yasha.
Yasha Gives Lyubov Andreyevna her purse. Directly hardly able to suppress his laughter. This minute⁠ ⁠… goes off.
Lopahin Deriganov, the millionaire, means to buy your estate. They say he is coming to the sale himself.
Lyubov Where did you hear that?
Lopahin That’s what they say in town.
Gaev Our aunt in Yaroslavl has promised to send help; but when, and how much she will send, we don’t know.
Lopahin How much will she send? A hundred thousand? Two hundred?
Lyubov Oh, well!⁠ ⁠… Ten or fifteen thousand, and we must be thankful to get that.
Lopahin Forgive me, but such reckless people as you are⁠—such queer, unbusiness-like people⁠—I never met in my life. One tells you in plain Russian your estate is going to be sold, and you seem not to understand it.
Lyubov What are we to do? Tell us what to do.
Lopahin I do tell you every day. Every day I say the same thing. You absolutely must let the cherry orchard and the land on building leases; and do it at once, as quick as may be⁠—the auction’s close upon us! Do understand! Once make up your mind to build villas, and you can raise as much money as you like, and then you are saved.
Lyubov Villas and summer visitors⁠—forgive me saying so⁠—it’s so vulgar.
Gaev There I perfectly agree with you.
Lopahin I shall sob, or scream, or fall into a fit. I can’t stand it! You drive me mad! To Gaev. You’re an old woman!
Gaev What do you say?
Lopahin An old woman! Gets up to go.
Lyubov In dismay. No, don’t go! Do stay, my dear friend! Perhaps we shall think of something.
Lopahin What is there to think of?
Lyubov Don’t go, I entreat you! With you here it’s more cheerful, anyway a pause. I keep expecting something, as though the house were going to fall about our ears.
Gaev In profound dejection. Potted the white! It fails⁠—a kiss.
Lyubov We have been great sinners.⁠ ⁠…
Lopahin You have no sins to repent of.
Gaev Puts a caramel in his mouth. They say I’ve eaten up my property in caramels laughs.
Lyubov Oh, my sins! I’ve always thrown my money away recklessly like a lunatic. I married a man who made nothing but debts. My husband died of champagne⁠—he drank dreadfully. To my misery I loved another man, and immediately⁠—it was my first punishment⁠—the blow fell upon me, here, in the river⁠ ⁠… my boy was drowned and I went abroad⁠—went away forever, never to return, not to see that river again⁠ ⁠… I shut my eyes, and fled, distracted, and he after me⁠ ⁠… pitilessly, brutally. I bought a villa at Mentone, for he fell ill there, and for three years I had no rest day or night. His illness wore me out, my soul was dried up. And last year, when my villa was sold to pay my debts, I went to Paris and there he robbed me of everything and abandoned me for another woman; and I tried to poison myself.⁠ ⁠… So stupid, so shameful!⁠ ⁠… And suddenly I felt a yearning for Russia, for my country, for my little girl⁠ ⁠… dries her tears. Lord, Lord, be merciful! Forgive my sins! Do not chastise me more! Takes a telegram out of her pocket. I got this today from Paris. He implores forgiveness, entreats me to return tears up the telegram. I fancy there is music somewhere listens.
Gaev That’s our famous Jewish orchestra. You remember, four violins, a flute and a double bass.
Lyubov That still in existence? We ought to send for them one evening, and give a dance.
Lopahin Listens. I can’t hear.⁠ ⁠… Hums softly. “For money the Germans will turn a Russian into a Frenchman.” Laughs. I did see such a piece at the theatre yesterday! It was funny!
Lyubov And most likely there was nothing funny in it. You shouldn’t look at plays, you should look at yourselves a little oftener. How grey your lives are! How much nonsense you talk.
Lopahin That’s true. One may say honestly, we live a fool’s life pause. My father was a peasant, an idiot; he knew nothing and taught me nothing, only beat me when he was drunk, and always with his stick. In reality I am just such another blockhead and idiot. I’ve learnt nothing properly. I write a wretched hand. I write so that I feel ashamed before folks, like a pig.
Lyubov You ought to get married, my dear fellow.
Lopahin Yes⁠ ⁠… that’s true.
Lyubov You should marry our Varya, she’s a good girl.
Lopahin Yes.
Lyubov She’s a good-natured girl, she’s busy all day long, and what’s more, she loves you. And you have liked her for ever so long.
Lopahin Well? I’m not against it.⁠ ⁠… She’s a good girl pause.
Gaev I’ve been offered a place in the bank: 6,000 roubles a year. Did you know?
Lyubov You would never do for that! You must stay as you are.
Enter Firs with overcoat.
Firs Put it on, sir, it’s damp.
Gaev Putting it on. You bother me, old fellow.
Firs You can’t go on like this. You went away in the morning without leaving word looks him over.
Lyubov You look older, Firs!
Firs What is your pleasure?
Lopahin You look older, she said.
Firs I’ve had a long life. They were arranging my wedding before your papa was born⁠ ⁠… laughs. I was the head footman before the emancipation came. I wouldn’t consent to be set free then; I stayed on with the old master⁠ ⁠… a pause. I remember what rejoicings they made and didn’t know themselves what they were rejoicing over.
Lopahin Those were fine old times. There was flogging anyway.
Firs Not hearing. To be sure! The peasants knew their place, and the masters knew theirs; but now they’re all at sixes and sevens, there’s no making it out.
Gaev Hold your tongue, Firs. I must go to town tomorrow. I have been promised an introduction to a general, who might let us have a loan.
Lopahin You won’t bring that off. And you won’t pay your arrears, you may rest assured of that.
Lyubov That’s all his nonsense. There is no such general.
Enter Trofimov, Anya and Varya.
Gaev Here come our girls.
Anya There’s mamma on the seat.
Lyubov Tenderly. Come here, come along. My darlings! Embraces Anya and Varya. If you only knew how I love you both. Sit beside me, there, like that. All sit down.
Lopahin Our perpetual student is always with the young ladies.
Trofimov That’s not your business.
Lopahin He’ll soon be fifty, and he’s still a student.
Trofimov Drop your idiotic jokes.
Lopahin Why are you so cross, you queer fish?
Trofimov Oh, don’t persist!
Lopahin Laughs. Allow me to ask you what’s your idea of me?
Trofimov I’ll tell you my idea of you, Yermolay Alexeyevitch: you are a rich man, you’ll soon be a millionaire. Well, just as in the economy of nature a wild beast is of use, who devours everything that comes in his way, so you too have your use.
All laugh.
Varya Better tell us something about the planets, Petya.
Lyubov No, let us go on with the conversation we had yesterday.
Trofimov What was it about?
Gaev About pride.
Trofimov We had a long conversation yesterday, but we came to no conclusion. In pride, in your sense of it, there is something mystical. Perhaps you are right from your point of view; but if one looks at it simply, without subtlety, what sort of pride can there be, what sense is there in it, if man in his physiological formation is very imperfect, if in the immense majority of cases he is coarse, dull-witted, profoundly unhappy? One must give up glorification of self. One should work, and nothing else.
Gaev One must die in any case.
Trofimov Who knows? And what does it mean⁠—dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.
Lyubov How clever you are, Petya!
Lopahin Ironically. Fearfully clever!
Trofimov Humanity progresses, perfecting its powers. Everything that is beyond its ken now will one day become familiar and comprehensible; only we must work, we must with all our powers aid the seeker after truth. Here among us in Russia the workers are few in number as yet. The vast majority of the intellectual people I know, seek nothing, do nothing, are not fit as yet for work of any kind. They call themselves intellectual, but they treat their servants as inferiors, behave to the peasants as though they were animals, learn little, read nothing seriously, do practically nothing, only talk about science and know very little about art. They are all serious people, they all have severe faces, they all talk of weighty matters and air their theories, and yet the vast majority of us⁠—ninety-nine percent⁠—live like savages, at the least thing fly to blows and abuse, eat piggishly, sleep in filth and stuffiness, bugs everywhere, stench and damp and moral impurity. And it’s clear all our fine talk is only to divert our attention and other people’s. Show me where to find the crèches there’s so much talk about, and the reading-rooms? They only exist in novels: in real life there are none of them. There is nothing but filth and vulgarity and Asiatic apathy. I fear and dislike very serious faces. I’m afraid of serious conversations. We should do better to be silent.
Lopahin You know, I get up at five o’clock in the morning, and I work from morning to night; and I’ve money, my own and other people’s, always passing through my hands, and I see what people are made of all round me. One has only to begin to do anything to see how few honest, decent people there are. Sometimes when I lie awake at night, I think: “Oh! Lord, thou hast given us immense forests, boundless plains, the widest horizons, and living here we ourselves ought really to be giants.”
Lyubov You ask for giants! They are no good except in storybooks; in real life they frighten us.
Epihodov advances in the background, playing on the guitar.
Lyubov Dreamily. There goes Epihodov.
Anya Dreamily. There goes Epihodov.
Gaev The sun has set, my friends.
Trofimov Yes.
Gaev Not loudly, but, as it were, declaiming. O nature, divine nature, thou art bright with eternal lustre, beautiful and indifferent! Thou, whom we call mother, thou dost unite within thee life and death! Thou dost give life and dost destroy!
Varya In a tone of supplication. Uncle!
Anya Uncle, you are at it again!
Trofimov You’d much better be cannoning off the red!
Gaev I’ll hold my tongue, I will.
All sit plunged in thought. Perfect stillness. The only thing audible is the muttering of Firs. Suddenly there is a sound in the distance, as it were from the sky⁠—the sound of a breaking harp-string, mournfully dying away.
Lyubov What is that?
Lopahin I don’t know. Somewhere far away a bucket fallen and broken in the pits. But somewhere very far away.
Gaev It might be a bird of some sort⁠—such as a heron.
Trofimov Or an owl.
Lyubov Shudders. I don’t know why, but it’s horrid a pause.
Firs It was the same before the calamity⁠—the owl hooted and the samovar hissed all the time.
Gaev Before what calamity?
Firs Before the emancipation a pause.
Lyubov Come, my friends, let us be going; evening is falling. To Anya. There are tears in your eyes. What is it, darling? Embraces her.
Anya Nothing, mamma; it’s nothing.
Trofimov There is somebody coming.
The Wayfarer appears in a shabby white forage cap and an overcoat; he is slightly drunk.
Wayfarer Allow me to inquire, can I get to the station this way?
Gaev Yes. Go along that road.
Wayfarer I thank you most feelingly coughing. The weather is superb. Declaims. My brother, my suffering brother!⁠ ⁠… Come out to the Volga! Whose groan do you hear?⁠ ⁠… To Varya. Mademoiselle, vouchsafe a hungry Russian thirty kopecks.
Varya utters a shriek of alarm.
Lopahin Angrily. There’s a right and a wrong way of doing everything!
Lyubov Hurriedly. Here, take this looks in her purse. I’ve no silver. No matter⁠—here’s gold for you.
Wayfarer I thank you most feelingly! Goes off.
Laughter.
Varya Frightened. I’m going home⁠—I’m going⁠ ⁠… Oh, mamma, the servants have nothing to eat, and you gave him gold!
Lyubov There’s no doing anything with me. I’m so silly! When we get home, I’ll give you all I possess. Yermolay Alexeyevitch, you will lend me some more⁠ ⁠… !
Lopahin I will.
Lyubov Come, friends, it’s time to be going. And Varya, we have made a match of it for you. I congratulate you.
Varya Through her tears. Mamma, that’s not a joking matter.
Lopahin “Ophelia, get thee to a nunnery!”
Gaev My hands are trembling; it’s a long while since I had a game of billiards.
Lopahin “Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember’d.”
Lyubov Come, it will soon be suppertime.
Varya How he frightened me! My heart’s simply throbbing.
Lopahin Let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen: on the 22nd of August the cherry orchard will be sold. Think about that! Think about it!
All go off, except Trofimov and Anya.
Anya Laughing. I’m grateful to the wayfarer! He frightened Varya and we are left alone.
Trofimov Varya’s afraid we shall fall in love with each other, and for days together she won’t leave us. With her narrow brain she can’t grasp that we are above love. To eliminate the petty and transitory which hinders us from being free and happy⁠—that is the aim and meaning of our life. Forward! We go forward irresistibly towards the bright star that shines yonder in the distance. Forward! Do not lag behind, friends.
Anya Claps her hands. How well you speak! A pause. It is divine here today.
Trofimov Yes, it’s glorious weather.
Anya Somehow, Petya, you’ve made me so that I don’t love the cherry orchard as I used to. I used to love it so dearly. I used to think that there was no spot on earth like our garden.
Trofimov All Russia is our garden. The earth is great and beautiful⁠—there are many beautiful places in it a pause. Think only, Anya, your grandfather, and great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were slave-owners⁠—the owners of living souls⁠—and from every cherry in the orchard, from every leaf, from every trunk there are human creatures looking at you. Cannot you hear their voices? Oh, it is awful! Your orchard is a fearful thing, and when in the evening or at night one walks about the orchard, the old bark on the trees glimmers dimly in the dusk, and the old cherry trees seem to be dreaming of centuries gone by and tortured by fearful visions. Yes! We are at least two hundred years behind, we have really gained nothing yet, we have no definite attitude to the past, we do nothing but theorise or complain of depression or drink vodka. It is clear that to begin to live in the present we must first expiate our past, we must break with it; and we can expiate it only by suffering, by extraordinary unceasing labour. Understand that, Anya.
Anya The house we live in has long ceased to be our own, and I shall leave it, I give you my word.
Trofimov If you have the house keys, fling them into the well and go away. Be free as the wind.
Anya In ecstasy. How beautifully you said that!
Trofimov Believe me, Anya, believe me! I am not thirty yet, I am young, I am still a student, but I have gone through so much already! As soon as winter comes I am hungry, sick, careworn, poor as a beggar, and what ups and downs of fortune have I not known! And my soul was always, every minute, day and night, full of inexplicable forebodings. I have a foreboding of happiness, Anya. I see glimpses of it already.
Anya Pensively. The moon is rising.
Epihodov is heard playing still the same mournful song on the guitar. The moon rises. Somewhere near the poplars Varya is looking for Anya and calling “Anya! where are you?”
Trofimov Yes, the moon is rising a pause. Here is happiness⁠—here it comes! It is coming nearer and nearer; already I can hear its footsteps. And if we never see it⁠—if we may never know it⁠—what does it matter? Others will see it after us.
Varya’s Voice Anya! Where are you?
Trofimov That Varya again! Angrily. It’s revolting!
Anya Well, let’s go down to the river. It’s lovely there.
Trofimov Yes, let’s go. They go.
Varya’s Voice Anya! Anya!
Curtain.