Where does act 3 of the cherry orchard begin. Chekhov Anton Pavlovich - Cherry Orchard. Test on the play "The Cherry Orchard"

Living room, separated by an arch from the hall. The chandelier is on. One can hear the Jewish orchestra playing in the hall, the same one mentioned in the second act. Evening. Grand-rond is dancing in the hall. The voice of Simeonov-Pishchik: "Promenade à une paire!" They go out into the living room: in the first pair Pishchik and Charlotte Ivanovna, in the second - Trofimov and Lyubov Andreevna, in the third - Anya with the postal official, in the fourth - Varya with the head of the station, etc. Varya is crying softly and, dancing, wipes her tears. In the last pair of Dunyasha. They walk around the living room, Pishchik shouts: “Grand-rond, balancez!” and "Les cavaliers à genoux et remerciez vos dames".

Firs in evening dress carries seltzer water on a tray. Pishchik and Trofimov enter the drawing room.

Pishchik. I am full-blooded, I have already had a blow twice, it is difficult to dance, but, as they say, I got into a flock, bark not bark, but wag your tail. My health is like a horse. My late parent, a joker, the kingdom of heaven, spoke about our origin as if our ancient family of Simeonov-Pishchikov descended from the same horse that Caligula planted in the Senate ... (Sits down.) But here's the problem: no money! A hungry dog ​​believes only in meat... (Snores and wakes up immediately.) So I ... I can only about money ...

Trofimov. And you really have something equine in your figure.

Pishchik. Well… a horse is a good animal… You can sell a horse…

You can hear billiards playing in the next room. Varya appears in the hall under the archway.

Trofimov(teasing). Madame Lopakhina! Madame Lopakhina!

Varya(angrily). Wretched bard!

Trofimov. Yes, I'm a shabby gentleman and I'm proud of it!

Varya(in bitter thought). They hired musicians, but how to pay? (Exits.)

Trofimov(Pishchiku). If the energy you've spent your entire life looking for money to pay interest were spent elsewhere, you could probably move the earth in the end.

Pishchik. Nietzsche... the philosopher... the greatest, most famous... man of enormous intelligence, says in his writings that it is possible to make counterfeit papers.

Trofimov. Have you read Nietzsche?

Pishchik. Well... Dashenka told me. And now I’m in such a position that at least make fake papers ... The day after tomorrow I’ll pay three hundred and ten rubles ... I’ve already got one hundred and thirty ... (He feels his pockets, anxiously.) The money is gone! Lost money! (Through tears.) Where's the money? (Joyfully.) Here they are, behind the lining... I even got sweaty...

Enter Lyubov Andreyevna and Charlotte Ivanovna.

Lyubov Andreevna(sings lezginka). Why is Leonidas gone so long? What is he doing in the city? (Dunyasha.) Dunyasha, offer the musicians some tea...

Trofimov. Bidding did not take place, in all likelihood.

"The Cherry Orchard". Performance based on the play by A.P. Chekhov, 1976

Lyubov Andreevna. And the musicians came inopportunely, and we started the ball inopportunely ... Well, nothing ... (Sits down and hums softly.)

Charlotte(gives Pischik a deck of cards). Here's a deck of cards, think of one card.

Pishchik. Thought.

Charlotte. Shuffle the deck now. Very well. Give it here, oh my dear Mr. Pishchik. Ein, zwei, drei! Now look, it's in your side pocket...

Pishchik(pulls out card from side pocket). Eight of spades, absolutely right! (Surprised.) You think!

Charlotte(holds a deck of cards in the palm of his hand, Trofimova). Tell me quickly, which card is on top?

Trofimov. Well? Well, the lady of spades.

Charlotte. There is! (Pishchik.) Well? Which card is on top?

Pishchik. Ace of hearts.

Charlotte. There is!.. (He hits his palm, the deck of cards disappears.) And what good weather today!

station master(applause). Lady ventriloquist, bravo!

Pishchik(surprised). You think! The most charming Charlotte Ivanovna... I am simply in love...

Charlotte. In love? (Shrugging.) Can you love? Guter Mensch, aberschlechter Musikant.

Trofimov(pats Pishchik on the shoulder). You are a horse...

Charlotte. I beg your attention, one more trick. (Takes a blanket from a chair.) Here is a very good blanket, I want to sell ... (Shakes.) Does anyone want to buy?

Pishchik(surprised). You think!

Charlotte. Ein, zwei, drei! (Quickly picks up the lowered blanket.)

Anya is standing behind the blanket; she curtsies, runs to her mother, embraces her and runs back into the hall with general delight.

Lyubov Andreevna(applause). Bravo, bravo!

Charlotte. Now more! Ein, zwei, drei!

Raises the blanket; Varya stands behind the rug and bows.

Pishchik(surprised). You think!

Charlotte. End! (Throws a blanket at Pishchik, makes a curtsy and runs into the hall.)

Pishchik(hurries after her). The villainess... what? What? (Exits.)

Lyubov Andreevna. But Leonidas is still missing. What he's been doing in the city for so long, I don't understand! After all, everything is already over there, the estate has been sold or the auction has not taken place, why keep it in the dark for so long!

Varya(trying to comfort her). My uncle bought it, I'm sure of it.

Trofimov(mockingly). Yes.

Varya. Grandmother sent him a power of attorney to buy in her name with the transfer of the debt. This is for Anya. And I'm sure God will help, uncle will buy.

Lyubov Andreevna. The Yaroslavl grandmother sent fifteen thousand to buy the estate in her name - she does not believe us - and this money would not even be enough to pay the interest. (He covers his face with his hands.) Today my fate is decided, fate ...

Trofimov(teasing Varya). Madame Lopakhina!

Varya(angrily). Eternal student! I've been fired from the university twice already.

Lyubov Andreevna. Why are you angry, Varya? He teases you with Lopakhin, so what? If you want, marry Lopakhin, he is a good, interesting person. If you don't want to, don't come out; you, darling, no one captivates ...

Varya. I look at this matter seriously, Mommy, I must speak frankly. He is a good person, I like him.

Lyubov Andreevna. And get out. What to expect, I do not understand!

Varya. Mommy, I can't propose to him myself. For two years now, everyone has been talking to me about him, everyone is talking, but he is either silent or joking. I understand. He is getting rich, busy with business, he is not up to me. If I had money, at least a little, at least a hundred rubles, I would have thrown everything, I would have gone away. I would go to a monastery.

Trofimov. Grace!

Varya(to Trofimov). The student must be smart! (Soft tone, with tears.) How ugly you have become, Petya, how old you have become! (To Lyubov Andreyevna, no longer crying.) I just can't do nothing, Mom. I have to do something every minute.

Yasha enters.

Yasha(can barely stop laughing). Epikhodov broke the billiard cue!.. (Exits.)

Varya. Why is Epikhodov here? Who let him play billiards? I don't understand these people... (Exits.)

Lyubov Andreevna. Do not tease her, Petya, you see, she is already in grief.

Trofimov. She is very zealous, she pokes her own business. All summer she haunted neither me nor Anya, she was afraid that our romance would not work out. What's her business? And besides, I didn’t show it, I’m so far from vulgarity. We are above love!

Lyubov Andreevna. And I must be below love. (In great anxiety.) Why is there no Leonidas? Just to know: sold the estate or not? The misfortune seems to me so incredible that I somehow don’t even know what to think, I’m at a loss ... I can now shout ... I can do something stupid. Save me, Petya. Say something, say something...

Trofimov. Whether the estate is sold today or not sold, does it matter? It has long been finished with him, there is no turning back, the path is overgrown. Calm down, dear. Do not deceive yourself, you must at least once in your life look the truth straight in the eye.

Lyubov Andreevna. What truth? You can see where the truth is and where the lie is, but I definitely lost my sight, I don’t see anything. You boldly resolve all important issues, but tell me, my dear, is it not because you are young, that you have not had time to suffer through a single one of your questions? You boldly look ahead, and is it not because you do not see and do not expect anything terrible, since life is still hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than us, but think about it, be generous at the tip of your finger, spare me. After all, I was born here, my father and mother lived here, my grandfather, I love this house, I don’t understand my life without a cherry orchard, and if you really need to sell it, then sell me along with the garden ... (Hugs Trofimov, kisses him on the forehead.) After all, my son drowned here ... (Crying.) Have pity on me, good, kind man.

Trofimov. You know, I sympathize with all my heart.

Lyubov Andreevna. But it is necessary to say otherwise, otherwise it must be said ... (Takes out a handkerchief, a telegram falls on the floor.) My heart is heavy today, you can't imagine. It’s noisy here, my soul trembles at every sound, I’m trembling all over, but I can’t go to my room, I’m scared alone in the silence. Don't judge me, Petya... I love you like my own. I would gladly give Anya for you, I swear to you, only, my dear, you have to study, you have to finish the course. You do nothing, only fate throws you from place to place, it's so strange ... Isn't it? Yes? And you need to do something with the beard so that it grows somehow ... (Laughs.) Funny you!

Trofimov(picks up telegram). I don't want to be handsome.

Lyubov Andreevna. This is a telegram from Paris. I receive every day. Both yesterday and today. This wild man fell ill again, it’s not good with him again ... He asks for forgiveness, begs to come, and really I should have gone to Paris, to be near him. You, Petya, have a stern face, but what should I do, my dear, what should I do, he is sick, he is lonely, unhappy, and who is there to look after him, who will keep him from making mistakes, who will give him medicine in time? And what is there to hide or be silent, I love him, that's clear. I love, I love... This is a stone on my neck, I go to the bottom with it, but I love this stone and I cannot live without it. (Shakes Trofimov's hand.) Don't think badly, Petya, don't say anything to me, don't say...

Trofimov(through tears). Forgive me for the frankness for God's sake: after all, he robbed you!

Lyubov Andreevna. No, no, no, don't say that... (Closes his ears.)

Trofimov. After all, he is a scoundrel, only you alone do not know this! He's a petty scoundrel, a nonentity...

Lyubov Andreevna(angry but restrained). You are twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, and you are still a second grade schoolboy!

Trofimov. Let!

Lyubov Andreevna. You have to be a man, at your age you need to understand those who love. And you need to love yourself ... you need to fall in love! (Angrily.) Yes Yes! And you don't have cleanliness, and you're just a neat, funny eccentric, freak...

Trofimov(horrified). What does she say!

Lyubov Andreevna. "I am above love!" You are not above love, but simply, as our Firs says, you are a klutz. At your age not to have a mistress! ..

Trofimov(horrified). This is terrible! What does she say?! (He walks quickly into the hall, clutching his head.) It's terrible... I can't, I'll leave... (He leaves, but immediately returns.) It's over between us! (Goes into the hallway.)

Lyubov Andreevna(shouts after). Petya, wait! Funny man, I was joking! Petya!

Someone in the hall is heard quickly going up the stairs and suddenly falls down with a crash. Anya and Varya scream, but laughter is immediately heard.

What is there?

Anya runs.

Anya(laughing). Petya fell down the stairs! (Runs away.)

Lyubov Andreevna. What an eccentric this Petya ...

The stationmaster stops in the middle of the hall and reads "The Sinner" by A. Tolstoy. They listen to him, but as soon as he read a few lines, the sounds of a waltz come from the hall, and the reading breaks off. Everyone is dancing. Trofimov, Anya, Varya and Lyubov Andreevna pass from the front.

Well, Petya... well, pure soul... I beg your pardon... Let's go dancing... (Dancing with Petya.)

Anya and Varya are dancing. Firs enters, puts his stick near the side door. Yasha also came in from the living room, looking at the dances.

Yasha. What, grandpa?

Firs. Not well. Before, generals, barons, admirals danced at our balls, but now we send for the postal clerk and the head of the station, and even they are not willing to go. Something weakened me. The late gentleman, grandfather, used sealing wax for all, from all diseases. I have been taking sealing wax every day for twenty years, or even more; maybe I'm alive from him.

Yasha. You're tired, grandfather. (Yawns.) If only you would die sooner.

Firs. Oh, you ... silly! (Mumbling.)

Trofimov and Lyubov Andreevna dance in the hall, then in the living room.

Lyubov Andreevna. Mercy! I will sit... (Sits down.) Tired.

Anya enters.

Anya(excitedly). And now, in the kitchen, a man was saying that the cherry orchard had already been sold today.

Lyubov Andreevna. To whom is it sold?

Anya. Didn't say to whom. Gone. (Dances with Trofimov, both go into the hall.)

Yasha. It was some old man talking there. Stranger.

Firs. But Leonid Andreevich is not here yet, he hasn't arrived. His coat is light, demi-season, he looks like he will catch a cold. Ah, young green.

Lyubov Andreevna. I'll die now. Go, Yasha, find out to whom it was sold.

Yasha. Yes, he's long gone, old man. (Laughs.)

Lyubov Andreevna(with slight annoyance). Well, what are you laughing at? What are you happy about?

Yasha. Epikhodov is very funny. Empty man. Twenty-two misfortunes.

Lyubov Andreevna. Firs, if the estate is sold, where will you go?

Firs. Wherever you tell me, I will go there.

Lyubov Andreevna. Why is your face like that? Are you unwell? I would go, you know, to sleep ...

Firs. Yes… (With a grin.) I'm going to sleep, but without me, who will give, who will order? One for the whole house.

Yasha(Lyubov Andreevna). Lyubov Andreevna! Let me ask you to be so kind! If you go to Paris again, then take me with you, do me a favor. It is positively impossible for me to stay here. (Looking around, in an undertone.) What can I say, you can see for yourself, the country is uneducated, the people are immoral, and besides, boredom, the food is ugly in the kitchen, and then there is this Firs walking around, muttering various inappropriate words. Take me with you, be so kind!

Pishchik enters.

Pishchik. Let me ask you ... for a waltz, most beautiful ... (Lyubov Andreyevna goes with him.) Charming, after all, I will take one hundred and eighty rubles from you ... I will take ... (Dancing.) One hundred and eighty rubles ...

We moved into the hall.

Yasha(sings softly). "Will you understand the excitement of my soul..."

In the hall a figure in a gray top hat and checkered trousers is waving his arms and jumping; cries of "Bravo, Charlotte Ivanovna!"

Dunyasha(stopped to powder). The young lady tells me to dance - there are many gentlemen, but few ladies - and my head is spinning from dancing, my heart is beating, Firs Nikolaevich, and now the official from the post office told me this, it took my breath away.

The music subsides.

Firs. What did he say to you?

Dunyasha. You, he says, are like a flower.

Yasha(yawns). Ignorance… (Exits.)

Dunyasha. Like a flower ... I am such a delicate girl, I love tender words terribly.

Firs. You will spin.

Epikhodov enters.

Epikhodov. You, Avdotya Fyodorovna, do not want to see me ... as if I were some kind of insect. (Sighs.) Ah, life!

Dunyasha. What do you want?

Epikhodov. Surely you may be right. (Sighs.) But, of course, if you look from the point of view, then you, let me put it this way, sorry for the frankness, completely put me in a state of mind. I know my fortune, every day some kind of misfortune happens to me, and I have long been accustomed to this, so I look at my fate with a smile. You gave me your word, and even though I...

Dunyasha. Please, we'll talk later, but now leave me alone. Now I dream. (Plays with a fan.)

Epikhodov. I have misfortune every day, and I, let me put it this way, only smile, even laugh.

Enters from Varya's hall.

Varya. You still haven't left, Semyon? What a disrespectful person you are. (Dunyasha.) Get out of here, Dunyasha. (Epikhodov.) Now you play billiards and break your cue, then you walk around the living room like a guest.

Epikhodov. Charge me, let me put it, you can't.

Varya. I do not exact from you, but I say. You only know that you go from place to place, but do not do business. We keep a clerk, but it is not known why.

Epikhodov(offended). Whether I work, whether I go, whether I eat, whether I play billiards, only people who understand and elders can talk about that.

Varya. You dare to tell me that! (Exploding.) Do you dare? So I don't understand anything? Get out of here! This minute!

Epikhodov(cowardly). I ask you to express yourself in a delicate way.

Varya(getting out of my mind). Get out of here this minute! Out!

He goes to the door, she follows him.

Twenty-two misfortunes! So that your spirit is not here! May my eyes not see you!

Oh, are you going back? (He grabs the stick that Firs has placed near the door.) Go... Go... Go, I'll show you... Ah, are you coming? Are you going? So here's to you... (Swings.)

At this time, Lopakhin enters.

Lopakhin. Thank you very much.

Varya(angrily and mockingly). Guilty!

Lopakhin. Nothing, sir. Thank you very much for the pleasant meal.

Varya. Do not mention it. (Steps away, then looks around and asks softly.) Did I hurt you?

Lopakhin. There is nothing. The bump, however, will jump up huge.

Pishchik. Seeing, hearing, hearing... (He kisses Lopakhin.) You smell of cognac, my dear, my soul. And we have fun here too.

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA enters.

Lyubov Andreevna. Is that you, Ermolai Alekseich? Why so long? Where is Leonidas?

Lopakhin. Leonid Andreevich came with me, he's coming...

Lyubov Andreevna(worried). Well? Were there auctions? Speak now!

Lopakhin(embarrassed, afraid to reveal his joy). Bidding ended by four o'clock ... We were late for the train, we had to wait until half past nine. (Sighing heavily.) Phew! I'm getting a little dizzy...

Gaev enters; in his right hand he has purchases, with his left he wipes away tears.

Lyubov Andreevna. Lenya what? Lenya, right? (Impatiently, with tears.) Hurry, for God's sake...

Gaev(does not answer her, only waves her hand; to Firs, crying). Here, take it... There are anchovies, Kerch herring... I haven't eaten anything today... I've suffered so much!

The door to the billiard room is open; the sound of balls and the voice of Yasha are heard: “Seven and eighteen!” Gaev's expression changes, he no longer cries.

I'm terribly tired. Let me, Firs, change my clothes. (Goes away across the hall, followed by Firs.)

Pishchik. What's up for auction? Tell me!

Lyubov Andreevna. Sold cherry orchard?

Lopakhin. Sold.

Lyubov Andreevna. Who bought?

Lopakhin. I bought.

Pause.

Lyubov Andreevna is oppressed; she would have fallen if she had not been standing near the chair and table. Varya takes the keys from her belt, throws them on the floor, in the middle of the living room, and leaves.

I bought! Wait, gentlemen, do me a favor, my head is clouded, I can’t speak ... (Laughs.) We came to the auction, Deriganov was already there. Leonid Andreevich had only fifteen thousand, and Deriganov immediately gave thirty in excess of the debt. I see, it's like that, I grabbed him, hit forty. He is forty-five. I am fifty five. He, then, adds five, I ten ... Well, it's over. In excess of the debt, I slapped ninety, it was left for me. The cherry orchard is now mine! My! (Laughs.) My God, Lord, my cherry orchard! Tell me that I am drunk, out of my mind, that all this seems to me ... (Stomps feet.) Don't laugh at me! If my father and grandfather had risen from their graves and looked at the whole incident, like their Yermolai, beaten, illiterate Yermolai, who ran barefoot in winter, how this same Yermolai bought an estate, more beautiful than which there is nothing in the world. I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I'm dreaming, it only seems to me, it just seems... It's a figment of your imagination, covered in the darkness of the unknown... (Raises the keys, smiling affectionately.) She threw the keys, wants to show that she is no longer the mistress here ... (Jingling keys.) Well, it doesn't matter.

You can hear the orchestra tuning in.

Hey, musicians, play, I want to listen to you! Everyone come and watch how Yermolai Lopakhin will hit the cherry orchard with an ax, how the trees will fall to the ground! We will set up dachas, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here ... Music, play!

Music is playing, Lyubov Andreevna sank into a chair and wept bitterly.

(With reproach.) Why, why didn't you listen to me? My poor, good, you will not return now. (With tears.) Oh, that all this would soon pass, that our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.

Pishchik(takes his arm in a low voice). She is crying. Let's go to the hall, let her be alone... Let's go... (Takes him by the arm and leads him into the hall.)

Lopakhin. What is it? Music, play it distinctly! Let everything as I wish! (With irony.) A new landowner is coming, the owner of a cherry orchard! (He accidentally pushed the table, almost knocked over the candelabra.) I can pay for everything! (Exits with PISCHIK.)

There is no one in the hall and drawing room except Lyubov Andreevna, who is sitting, shrinking all over and crying bitterly. Music plays softly. Anya and Trofimov quickly enter. Anya approaches her mother and kneels in front of her. Trofimov remains at the entrance to the hall.

Anya. Mom!.. Mom, are you crying? My dear, kind, good mother, my beautiful, I love you ... I bless you. The cherry orchard has been sold, it’s gone, it’s true, it’s true, but don’t cry, mom, you have a life ahead of you, your good, pure soul remains ... Come with me, go, dear, from here, let’s go! .. We will plant a new garden , more luxurious than this, you will see him, you will understand, and joy, quiet, deep joy will descend on your soul, like the sun in the evening hour, and you will smile, mother! Let's go, honey! Let's go to!..

Curtain

Couples Promenade! Big circle, balance! Cavaliers, on your knees and thank the ladies! (French)

One, two, three (German).

A good man, but a bad musician (German).

The Cherry Orchard is the last play by A.P. Chekhov. He wrote it a year before his death. Behind the story of a noble family that lost its garden, the writer hid the history of his homeland, which, according to the author, would have the same miserable existence in the future as the nobility without a manor. We wrote more about his idea in, and now you can find out the plot and main events of the book by reading a brief retelling of the actions from Literaguru.

Lived in France for five years. The youngest daughter Anya spent several months with her. In May, both of them had to return to their homeland. The footman Firs, Ranevskaya's brother Gaev and the eldest daughter Varya are sent to the station (here are them). And at home they are expected by the merchant Lopakhin and the maid Dunyasha. They are sitting in a room that is still called the "nursery" out of old habit. talks about how life can turn around, that he, the son of a serf, is now a free and prosperous merchant.

Crews arrive from the station. Ranevskaya and Anya are happy to return. The estate has not changed since their departure. Soon it becomes obvious to the reader that Lyubov Andreevna was in a difficult financial situation. She had to sell all her foreign property and return to Russia. Lopakhin reminds her that the estate with the garden will have to be sold by auction in August if he and his brother do not urgently come up with a solution. The merchant immediately offers them an option that seems to him very successful. Cut down the garden, divide the land into plots and rent to summer residents. But Lyubov Andreevna and Gaev only brush aside, saying that the garden is the most valuable thing on the territory of the entire province. They hope for the help of a rich aunt from Yaroslavl, although relations with her are strained.

Action 2

Several weeks have passed since Ranevskaya's arrival. But neither she nor Gaev are in a hurry to solve their problems. Moreover, they continue to overspend. Returning from the city, where they went to have breakfast in the company of Lopakhin, they stop at the old church. Shortly before their appearance, on this bench, the clerk Epikhodov declared his love to Dunyasha. But the frivolous girl preferred the footman Yasha to him.

Lopakhin again recalls the auction. He once again offers them to cut down the garden. But the brother and sister only brush aside his words, saying that the aunt will definitely send money. And yes, there is still plenty of time. The merchant does not understand them, calls them strange and frivolous.

The daughters of Ranevskaya and Petya Trofimov approach the shop (here are them). Ranevskaya starts talking about a proud person. But the conversation does not come out, and soon everyone leaves the bench by the church one by one. Anya and Petya are left alone. Trofimov, in love, tries to charm the girl with his speeches. He says that it is necessary, rejecting everything material, strives for the ideal. Anya, who, like her mother, easily succumbs to beautiful words, is fond of Petya, not noticing his worthlessness.

Action 3

August is coming. Ranevskaya, it seems, does not think at all about the fate of the estate. On the day of the auction, she throws a lavish party. Lyubov Andreevna even invites the orchestra. Everyone dances, communicates and rejoices. However, there is a sense of fun. The thoughts of everyone in the room are turned to Gaev and Lopakhin, who went to the auction.

During the conversation, Petya begins to criticize Ranevskaya and her affair with a swindler from France who robbed her. He laughs at her reluctance to admit the obvious truth. But she immediately accuses him of duplicity. After all, he is an “eternal student”, who cannot even finish the course, preaches hard work and striving for the ideal to everyone. Petya runs out of the room in hysterics.

Gaev and Lopakhin are returning from the auction. The merchant triumphs, although he tries to hide it in the first minutes. And Gaev next to him did not even try to hide his tears and disappointment. They say that both the estate and the garden have been sold. Now the merchant is the owner of the very estate where his father was a serf. The orchestra subsides, Ranevskaya, sitting heavily on a chair, sobs. Anya, whose brain is besotted by Petya's words, reassures her mother that now they are starting a new life, not burdened by anything material.

Action 4

The last action takes place in October. Lopakhin, without waiting for the departure of the former owners, begins to cut down the garden. The aunt from Yaroslavl nevertheless gave money to Gaev and Ranevskaya. But Lyubov Andreevna took them from her brother and returned to France to her lover. Varya, her daughter, had to go to work as a housekeeper in a neighboring estate, because the new owner of the garden did not propose to her, still feeling inferior to the masters. Anya is preparing to take the gymnasium exam and is looking for a part-time job. Petya leaves for Moscow to continue his studies. His only concern is a pair of lost galoshes. Gaev is offered a job at a bank. However, the whole family is sure that because of his laziness, he will not stay there for a long time. Lopakhin, unable to confess his feelings to Varya, leaves for work in Kharkov. Everyone says goodbye, the estate is locked with a key.

Firs appears on the stage, which even the owners have forgotten about. He walks around the estate, muttering under his breath about a bygone life. When he reaches the sofa, the old man sits down on it and finally calms down. The silence is broken only by the sound of axes.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The Cherry Orchard

Comedy in 4 acts

CHARACTERS

Ranevskaya Lyubov Andreevna, landowner.

Anya, her daughter, 17 years old.

Varya, her adopted daughter, aged 24.

Gaev Leonid Andreevich, brother of Ranevskaya.

Lopakhin Ermolai Alekseevich, merchant.

Trofimov Petr Sergeevich, student.

Simeonov-Pishchik Boris Borisovich, landowner.

Charlotte Ivanovna, governess.

Epikhodov Semyon Panteleevich, clerk.

Dunyasha, housemaid.

Firs, footman, old man 87 years old.

Yasha, a young footman.

Passerby.

Station manager.

Postal official.

Guests, servants.

The action takes place in the estate of L. A. Ranevskaya.

STEP ONE

The room, which is still called the nursery. One of the doors leads to Anna's room. Dawn, soon the sun will rise. It's already May, the cherry trees are blooming, but it's cold in the garden, it's a matinee. The windows in the room are closed.

Enter Dunyasha with a candle and Lopakhin with a book in his hand.

Lopakhin. The train arrived, thank God. What time is it now?

Dunyasha. Two soon. (Extinguishes the candle.) It's already light.

Lopakhin. How late was the train? Two hours, at least. (Yawns and stretches.) I'm good, what a fool I made! I came here on purpose to meet me at the station, and suddenly I overslept... I fell asleep while sitting. Annoyance ... If only you would wake me up.

Dunyasha. I thought you left. (Listens.) It looks like they are already on their way.

Lopakhin(listens). No ... get luggage, then yes ...

Pause.

Lyubov Andreevna lived abroad for five years, I don’t know what she has become now ... She is a good person. Easy, simple person. I remember when I was a boy of about fifteen, my father, the deceased - he then traded here in the village in a shop - hit me in the face with his fist, blood came from the nose ... Then we came together for some reason to the yard, and he was drunk. Lyubov Andreevna, as I remember now, still young, so thin, led me to the washstand, in this very room, in the nursery. “Don’t cry, he says, little man, he will heal before the wedding ...”

Pause.

Little man... My father, it's true, was a man, but here I am in a white waistcoat and yellow shoes. With a pig's snout in a kalashny row ... Only now he is rich, there is a lot of money, but if you think and figure it out, then a peasant is a peasant ... (Flips through the book.) I read the book and didn't understand anything. Read and fell asleep.

Pause.

Dunyasha. And the dogs did not sleep all night, they can smell that the owners are coming.

Lopakhin. What are you, Dunyasha, such a ...

Dunyasha. Hands are shaking. I will faint.

Lopakhin. You are very gentle, Dunyasha. And you dress like a young lady, and your hair too. You can not do it this way. We must remember ourselves.

Epikhodov enters with a bouquet; he is in a jacket and in brightly polished boots that creak strongly; entering, he drops the bouquet.

Epikhodov(raises bouquet). Here the gardener sent, he says, put it in the dining room. (Gives Dunyasha a bouquet.)

Lopakhin. And bring me kvass.

Dunyasha. I'm listening. (Exits.)

Epikhodov. Now it's a matinee, the frost is three degrees, and the cherry is all in bloom. I can't approve of our climate. (Sighs.) I can not. Our climate cannot help just right. Here, Ermolai Alekseich, allow me to add, I bought myself boots the third day, and I dare to assure you, they creak so that there is no possibility. What to grease?

Lopakhin. Leave me alone. Tired.

Epikhodov. Every day some misfortune happens to me. And I don’t grumble, I’m used to it and even smile.

Dunyasha enters, serves kvass to Lopakhin.

I will go. (Bumps into a chair, which falls over.) Here… (As if triumphant.) You see, sorry for the expression, what a circumstance, by the way ... It's just wonderful! (Exits.)

Dunyasha. And to me, Ermolai Alekseich, I confess, Epikhodov made an offer.

Lopakhin. BUT!

Dunyasha. I don’t know how ... He is a meek person, but only sometimes, as soon as he starts talking, you won’t understand anything. And good, and sensitive, just incomprehensible. I seem to like him. He loves me madly. He is an unhappy man, every day something. They tease him like that with us: twenty-two misfortunes ...

Lopakhin(listens). Looks like they're on their way...

Dunyasha. They're coming! What is it with me ... all cold.

Lopakhin. They go, in fact. Let's go meet. Will she recognize me? Haven't seen each other for five years.

Dunyasha(in excitement). I'm going to fall... Oh, I'm going to fall!

You can hear two carriages pulling up to the house. Lopakhin and Dunyasha leave quickly. The stage is empty. There is noise in the neighboring rooms. Firs, who had come to meet Lyubov Andreevna, hurriedly passes across the stage, leaning on a stick; he is in an ancient livery and a tall hat; something speaks to itself, but not a single word can be made out. The background noise gets louder and louder. Voice: “Here, let’s go here ...” Lyubov Andreevna, Anya and Charlotte Ivanovna with a dog on a chain, dressed like a traveler, Varya in a coat and scarf, Gaev, Simeonov-Pishchik, Lopakhin, Dunyasha with a knot and an umbrella, servants with things - everyone walks across the room.

Anya. Let's go here. Do you remember what room this is?

Lyubov Andreevna(joyfully, through tears). Children's!

Varya. How cold, my hands are numb (Lyubov Andreevna.) Your rooms, white and purple, are the same, Mommy.

Lyubov Andreevna. Children's, my dear, beautiful room ... I slept here when I was little ... (Crying.) And now I'm like a little... (He kisses his brother, Varya, then again his brother.) And Varya is still the same, she looks like a nun. And I recognized Dunyasha ... (Kisses Dunyasha.)

Gaev. The train was two hours late. What is it? What are the orders?

Charlotte(Pishchiku). My dog ​​eats nuts too.

Pishchik(surprised). You think!

Everyone leaves except Anya and Dunyasha.

Dunyasha. We waited… (Takes off Ani's coat and hat.)

Anya. I did not sleep on the road for four nights ... now I am very cold.

Dunyasha. You left in Lent, then there was snow, there was frost, and now? My darling! (Laughs, kisses her.) I've been waiting for you, my joy, my little light... I'll tell you now, I can't stand one minute...

Anya(sluggishly). Something again...

Dunyasha. The clerk Epikhodov proposed to me after the saint.

Anya. You are all about the same... (Fixing her hair.) I lost all my pins... (She is very tired, even staggers.)

Dunyasha. I don't know what to think. He loves me, he loves me so!

Anya(looks at his door, tenderly). My room, my windows, like I never left. I'm home! Tomorrow morning I will get up and run to the garden... Oh, if only I could sleep! I did not sleep all the way, anxiety tormented me.

Dunyasha. On the third day Pyotr Sergeyevich arrived.

Anya(joyfully). Petya!

Dunyasha. They sleep in the bathhouse, they live there. I'm afraid, they say, to embarrass. (Glancing at his pocket watch.) We ought to wake them up, but Varvara Mikhailovna didn't tell them to. You, he says, don't wake him up.

Varya enters, with a bunch of keys on her belt.

Varya. Dunyasha, coffee as soon as possible ... Mommy asks for coffee.

Dunyasha. This minute. (Exits.)

Varya. Well, thank God, they arrived. You are at home again. (caressing.) My darling has arrived! Beauty has arrived!

Anya. I suffered.

Varya. I imagine.

Anya. I left during Holy Week, it was cold then, Charlotte talks all the way, performs tricks. And why did you force Charlotte on me...

Varya. You can't go alone, my dear. At seventeen!

Anya. We arrive in Paris, it's cold there, it's snowing. I speak French terribly. Mom lives on the fifth floor, I come to her, she has some French, ladies, an old priest with a book, and it's smoky, uncomfortable. I suddenly felt sorry for my mother, so sorry, I hugged her head, squeezed her hands and could not let go. Mom then caressed everything, cried ...

Varya(through tears). Don't talk, don't talk...

Anya. She had already sold her dacha near Menton, she had nothing left, nothing. I didn't even have a penny left, we barely got there. And my mom doesn't understand! We sit down at the station to dine, and she demands the most expensive thing and gives the lackeys a ruble for tea. Charlotte too. Yasha also demands a portion, it's just awful. After all, my mother has a footman Yasha, we brought him here ...

Varya. I saw a scoundrel.

Anya. Well, how? Did you pay interest?

Varya. Where exactly.

Anya. My God, my God...

Varya. In August, the estate will be sold ...

Anya. My God…

Lopakhin(looks in the door and hums). Me-e-e… (Exits.)

Varya(through tears). That's what I would give him... (Shakes fist.)

Anya(hugs Varya, quietly). Varya, did he propose? (Varya shakes her head negatively.) After all, he loves you ... Why don't you explain what you are waiting for?

Varya. I don't think we can do anything. He has a lot to do, he is not up to me ... and does not pay attention. God is with him at all, it’s hard for me to see him ... Everyone talks about our wedding, everyone congratulates, but in reality there is nothing, everything is like a dream ... (In a different tone.) Your brooch looks like a bee.

Anya(sadly). Mom bought this. (Goes to his room, speaks cheerfully, like a child.) And in Paris I flew in a hot air balloon!

Varya. My darling has arrived! Beauty has arrived!

Dunyasha has already returned with a coffee pot and is making coffee.

(Stands near the door.) I go, my dear, the whole day doing housework and dreaming all the time. If I were to marry you off as a rich man, then I would be dead, I would go to the desert, then to Kyiv ... to Moscow, and so I would go to holy places ... I would go and go. Blessing!..

Anya. The birds are singing in the garden. What time is it now?

Varya. It must be the third... It's time for you to sleep, darling. (Entering Anna's room.) Grace!

Yasha enters with a blanket, a travel bag.

Yasha(walks across the stage, delicately). Can you go through here?

Dunyasha. And you don't recognize you, Yasha. What did you become abroad.

Yasha. Hm... And who are you?

Dunyasha. When you left here, I was like... (Points from the floor.) Dunyasha, Fyodor Kozoedov's daughter. You do not remember!

Yasha. Hmm... Cucumber! (He looks around and hugs her; she screams and drops her saucer.)

Yasha leaves quickly.

Dunyasha(through tears). Broke the saucer.

Varya. This is good.

Anya(leaving her room). You should warn your mother: Petya is here ...

Varya. I ordered him not to wake up.

Anya(thoughtfully). Six years ago my father died, and a month later my brother Grisha, a pretty seven-year-old boy, drowned in the river. Mom couldn’t bear it, she left, left without looking back ... (Starts.) How I understand her, if she knew!

Pause.

And Petya Trofimov was Grisha's teacher, he can remind ...

Fiers enters, wearing a jacket and white waistcoat.

Firs(goes to the coffee pot, anxiously). The lady will eat here ... (Puts on white gloves.) Ready for coffee? (Strictly, Dunyasha.) You! What about cream?

Dunyasha. Oh my god… (Quickly leaves.)

Firs(bustles around the coffee pot). Oh you fool... (Mumbling to himself.) They came from Paris... And the master once went to Paris... on horseback... (Laughs.)

Varya. Firs, what are you talking about?

Firs. What would you like? (Joyfully.) My lady has arrived! Waited! Now even die... (Crying for joy.)

Enter Lyubov Andreevna, Gayev, Lopakhin and Simeonov-Pishchik, Simeonov-Pishchik in a fine cloth coat and trousers. Gaev, entering, makes movements with his arms and torso, as if playing billiards.

Lyubov Andreevna. Like this? Let me remember... Yellow in the corner! Doublet in the middle!

Gaev. I cut into the corner! Once upon a time, you and I, sister, slept in this very room, and now I am already fifty-one years old, oddly enough ...

Lopakhin. Yes, time is ticking.

Gaev. Whom?

Lopakhin. Time, I say, is running out.

Gaev. And it smells like patchouli in here.

Anya. I'll go to sleep. Good night, Mom. (Kisses mother.)

Lyubov Andreevna. My beloved child. (Kisses her hands.) Are you glad you're home? I won't come to my senses.

Anya. Farewell, uncle.

Gaev(kisses her face and hands). The Lord is with you. How you look like your mother! (Sister.) You, Lyuba, were exactly like that at her age.

Anya offers her hand to Lopakhin and Pishchik, goes out and shuts the door behind her.

Lyubov Andreevna. She was very tired.

Pishchik. The road is long.

Varya(Lopakhin and Pishchik). Well, gentlemen? The third hour, it's time and honor to know.

Lyubov Andreevna(laughs). You are still the same, Varya. (He draws her to him and kisses her.) I'll drink coffee, then we'll all leave.

Firs puts a pillow under her feet.

Thank you dear. I'm used to coffee. I drink it day and night. Thanks my old man. (Kisses Firs.)

Varya. See if all the things have been brought... (Exits.)

Lyubov Andreevna. Is this me sitting? (Laughs.) I want to jump, wave my arms. (He covers his face with his hands.) And suddenly I'm sleeping! God knows, I love my homeland, I love dearly, I could not look out of the car, I kept crying. (Through tears.) However, you need to drink coffee. Thank you, Firs, thank you my old man. I'm so glad you're still alive.

Firs. The day before yesterday.

Gaev. He is hard of hearing.

Lopakhin. I now, at five o'clock in the morning, go to Kharkov. Such an annoyance! I wanted to look at you, talk ... You are still the same gorgeous.

Pishchik(breathing heavily). She even got prettier ... Dressed in Parisian fashion ... my cart, all four wheels, disappear ...

Lopakhin. Your brother, that's Leonid Andreevich, says about me that I'm a boor, I'm a kulak, but I absolutely don't care. Let him speak. I only wish that you believed me as before, that your amazing, touching eyes looked at me as before. Merciful God! My father was a serf of your grandfather and father, but you, in fact, you once did so much for me that I forgot everything and love you like my own ... more than my own.

Lyubov Andreevna. I can't sit, I can't... (Screams and walks around in great agitation.) I won’t survive this joy… Laugh at me, I’m stupid… My closet… (Kisses the closet.) My table.

Gaev. And without you here the nanny died.

Lyubov Andreevna(sits down and drinks coffee). Yes, the kingdom of heaven. They wrote to me.

Gaev. And Anastasius died. Petrushka Kosoy left me and now lives in the city with the bailiff. (Takes a candy box out of his pocket and sucks.)

Pishchik. My daughter, Dashenka ... bows to you ...

Lopakhin. I want to tell you something very pleasant, cheerful. (Glancing at the clock.) I’m leaving now, there’s no time to talk ... well, yes, I’ll say it in two or three words. You already know that your cherry orchard is being sold for debts, auctions are scheduled for August 22, but don't worry, my dear, sleep well, there is a way out ... Here is my project. Attention please! Your estate is only twenty versts from the city, there is a railway nearby, and if the cherry orchard and the land along the river are divided into summer cottages and then leased out for summer cottages, then you will have at least twenty-five thousand a year income.

Gaev. Sorry, what nonsense!

Lyubov Andreevna. I don't quite understand you, Yermolai Alekseich.

Lopakhin. You will take summer residents at the very least for twenty-five rubles a year for a tithe, and if you announce it now, then, I guarantee with anything, you will not have a single free patch left until the fall, everything will be sorted out. In a word, congratulations, you are saved. The location is wonderful, the river is deep. Only, of course, you need to clean it up, clean it up ... for example, say, demolish all the old buildings, this house, which is no longer good for anything, cut down the old cherry orchard ...

Lyubov Andreevna. Cut down? My dear, I'm sorry, you do not understand anything. If there is anything interesting, even remarkable, in the whole province, it is only our cherry orchard.

Lopakhin. The only remarkable thing about this garden is that it is very large. Cherry is born every two years, and even that has nowhere to go, no one buys.

Gaev. And the Encyclopedic Dictionary mentions this garden.

Lopakhin(looking at the clock). If we think of nothing and come to nothing, then on the twenty-second of August both the cherry orchard and the whole estate will be auctioned off. Make up your mind! There is no other way, I swear to you. No and no.

Firs. In the old days, forty or fifty years ago, cherries were dried, soaked, pickled, jam was cooked, and it happened ...

Gaev. Shut up, Firs.

Firs. And, it used to be, dried cherries were sent by carts to Moscow and Kharkov. There was money! And dried cherries were then soft, juicy, sweet, fragrant… The method was then known…

Lyubov Andreevna. Where is this method now?

Firs. Forgot. Nobody remembers.

Pishchik(Lyubov Andreevna). What's in Paris? How? Did you eat frogs?

Lyubov Andreevna. Ate crocodiles.

Pishchik. You think...

Lopakhin. Until now, there were only gentlemen and peasants in the village, but now there are more summer residents. All towns, even the smallest ones, are now surrounded by dachas. And we can say that in twenty years the summer resident will multiply to extraordinary. Now he only drinks tea on the balcony, but it may happen that on his one tithe he will take care of the household, and then your cherry orchard will become happy, rich, luxurious ...

Gaev(outraged). What nonsense!

Varya and Yasha enter.

Varya. Here, mommy, two telegrams for you. (Selects a key and clangs open an old cabinet.) Here they are.

Lyubov Andreevna. This is from Paris. (Tears telegrams without reading.) Paris is over...

Gaev. Do you know, Lyuba, how old is this closet? A week ago, I pulled out the bottom drawer, and I looked, and the numbers were burned there. The wardrobe was made exactly one hundred years ago. What is it? We could celebrate an anniversary. An inanimate object, but still, after all, a bookcase.

Pishchik(surprised). One hundred years ... Just think! ..

Gaev. Yes... It's a thing... (Feeling closet.) Dear, dear closet! I salute your existence, which for more than a hundred years has been directed towards the bright ideals of goodness and justice; your silent call to fruitful work has not weakened for a hundred years, supporting (through tears) in the generations of our kind cheerfulness, faith in a better future and educating in us the ideals of goodness and social self-consciousness.

Pause.

Lopakhin. Yes…

Lyubov Andreevna. You're still the same, Lenya.

Gaev(slightly confused). From the ball to the right into the corner! I cut in the middle!

Lopakhin(looking at the clock). Well, I have to go.

Yasha(gives Lyubov Andreevna medicine). Maybe take some pills now...

Pishchik. There is no need to take medicines, my dear ... they do no harm or good ... Give it here ... dear. (He takes pills, pours them into his palm, blows on them, puts them in his mouth and drinks kvass.) Here!

Lyubov Andreevna(scared). Yes, you are crazy!

Pishchik. I took all the pills.

Lopakhin. What an abyss.

Everyone laughs.

Firs. They were at our holy place, they ate half a bucket of cucumbers ... (Mumbling.)

Lyubov Andreevna. What is it about?

Varya. She's been muttering like that for three years now. We are used to.

Yasha. Advanced age.

Charlotte Ivanovna, in a white dress, very thin, tight-fitting, with a lorgnette on her belt, passes across the stage.

Lopakhin. Excuse me, Charlotte Ivanovna, I haven't had time to say hello to you yet. (Tries to kiss her hand.)

Charlotte(takes his hand away). If you allow your hand, then you will then wish in the elbow, then in the shoulder ...

Lopakhin. I'm not lucky today.

Everyone laughs.

Charlotte Ivanovna, show me the trick!

Lyubov Andreevna. Charlotte, show me the trick!

Charlotte. No need. I wish to sleep. (Exits.)

Lopakhin. See you in three weeks. (Kisses Lyubov Andreevna's hand.) For now, goodbye. It's time. (Gaev.) Goodbye. (Kissing Pishchik.) Goodbye. (Gives her hand to Varya, then to Firs and Yasha.) Don't want to leave. (Lyubov Andreevna.) If you think about dachas and decide, then let me know, I'll get fifty thousand on loan. Think seriously.

Varya(angrily). Yes, finally leave!

Lopakhin. I'm leaving, I'm leaving... (Exits.)

Gaev. Ham. However, sorry ... Varya is marrying him, this is Varya's fiance.

Varya. Don't talk too much, uncle.

Lyubov Andreevna. Well, Varya, I will be very glad. He is a good man.

Pishchik. Man, you have to tell the truth... to the most worthy... And my Dashenka... also says that... she says different words. (Snores, but wakes up immediately.) But still, my dear lady, lend me... a loan of two hundred and forty rubles... to pay the interest on the mortgage tomorrow...

Varya(scared). No, no!

Lyubov Andreevna. I really don't have anything.

Pishchik. There will be. (Laughs.) I never lose hope. Now, I think, everything is gone, he died, and lo and behold, the railway passed through my land, and ... they paid me. And there, look, something else will happen not today or tomorrow ... Dashenka will win two hundred thousand ... she has a ticket.

Lyubov Andreevna. Coffee is drunk, you can rest.

Firs(brushes Gaev, instructively). Wrong pants again. And what am I to do with you!

Varya(quiet). Anya is sleeping. (Quietly opens the window.) The sun is up, it's not cold. Look, mommy: what wonderful trees! My God, air! The starlings sing!

Gaev(opens another window). The garden is all white. Have you forgotten, Luba? This long avenue runs straight, straight, like a stretched out belt, it glitters on moonlit nights. Do you remember? Didn't forget?

Lyubov Andreevna(looks out the window at the garden). Oh my childhood, my purity! I slept in this nursery, looked from here at the garden, happiness woke up with me every morning, and then it was exactly like that, nothing has changed. (Laughs with joy.) All, all white! O my garden! After a dark rainy autumn and a cold winter, you are young again, full of happiness, the angels of heaven have not abandoned you ... If only I could remove a heavy stone from my chest and shoulders, if I could forget my past!

Gaev. And the garden will be sold for debts, oddly enough ...

Lyubov Andreevna. Look, the dead mother is walking through the garden ... in a white dress! (Laughs with joy.) That's her.

Gaev. Where?

Varya. The Lord is with you, mommy.

Lyubov Andreevna. Nobody, I thought. To the right, at the turn to the gazebo, a white tree leaned over like a woman...

Enter Trofimov in a shabby student uniform, wearing glasses.

What an amazing garden! White masses of flowers, blue sky...

Trofimov. Lyubov Andreevna!

She looked back at him.

I will only bow to you and leave immediately. (He kisses his hand warmly.) I was ordered to wait until the morning, but I did not have the patience ...

Lyubov Andreevna looks on in bewilderment.

Varya(through tears). This is Petya Trofimov...

Trofimov. Petya Trofimov, former teacher of your Grisha... Have I really changed so much?

Lyubov Andreevna looks at him and weeps softly.

Gaev(embarrassed). Full, full, Lyuba.

Varya(crying). She said, Petya, to wait until tomorrow.

Lyubov Andreevna. Grisha my... my boy... Grisha... son...

Varya. What to do, mommy. God's will.

Trofimov(softly, through tears). Will be, will be...

Lyubov Andreevna(quietly crying). The boy died, drowned ... For what? For what, my friend? (Quiet.) Anya is sleeping there, and I'm talking loudly ... making a fuss ... Well, Petya? Why are you so mad? Why are you getting old?

Trofimov. One woman in the carriage called me like this: shabby gentleman.

Lyubov Andreevna. You were then just a boy, a sweet student, and now your hair is thin, glasses. Are you still a student? (Goes to the door.)

Trofimov. I must be a perpetual student.

Lyubov Andreevna(kisses brother, then Varya). Well, go to sleep... You've grown old too, Leonid.

Pishchik(follows her). So, now to sleep ... Oh, my gout. I will stay with you. I would, Lyubov Andreevna, my soul, tomorrow morning ... two hundred and forty rubles ...

Gaev. And this one is all mine.

Pishchik. Two hundred and forty rubles ... to pay interest on the mortgage.

Lyubov Andreevna. I have no money, my dear.

Pishchik. I'll give it back, dear ... The amount is trifling ...

Lyubov Andreevna. Well, all right, Leonid will give it... You give it, Leonid.

Gaev. I'll give it to him, keep your pocket.

Lyubov Andreevna. What to do, give... He needs... He will give.

Lyubov Andreevna, Trofimov, Pishchik and Firs leave. Gaev, Varya and Yasha remain.

Gaev. My sister has not yet lost the habit of overspending money. (Yashe.) Move away, my dear, you smell like chicken.

Yasha(with a grin). And you, Leonid Andreevich, are still the same as you were.

Gaev. Whom? (Ware.) What did he say?

Varya(Yashe). Your mother came from the village, since yesterday she has been sitting in the servants' room, wants to see...

Yasha. God bless her!

Varya. Ah, shameless!

Yasha. Very necessary. I could come tomorrow. (Exits.)

Varya. Mom is the same as she was, she has not changed at all. If she had the will, she would distribute everything.

Gaev. Yes…

Pause.

If a lot of remedies are offered against any disease, it means that the disease is incurable. I think, I strain my brains, I have a lot of funds, a lot, and, therefore, in essence, not a single one. It would be nice to receive an inheritance from someone, it would be nice to marry our Anya to a very rich person, it would be nice to go to Yaroslavl and try your luck with the aunt countess. My aunt is very, very rich.

Varya(crying). If only God could help.

Gaev. Do not Cry. My aunt is very rich, but she does not like us. My sister, firstly, married a barrister, not a nobleman ...

Anya appears at the door.

She married a non-nobleman and behaved, one might say, very virtuously. She is good, kind, nice, I love her very much, but no matter how you think of mitigating circumstances, nevertheless, I must admit, she is vicious. It is felt in her slightest movement.

Varya(whispers). Anya is at the door.

Gaev. Whom?

Pause.

Surprisingly, something got into my right eye ... I began to see badly. And on Thursday, when I was in the district court...

Anya enters.

Varya. Why aren't you sleeping, Anya?

Anya. Can't sleep. I can not.

Gaev. My baby. (Kisses Anya's face and hands.) My child... (Through tears.) You are not my niece, you are my angel, you are everything to me. Believe me, believe...

Anya. I believe you, uncle. Everyone loves you, respects you ... but, dear uncle, you need to be silent, only be silent. What did you just say about my mother, about your sister? Why did you say this?

Gaev. Yes Yes… (She covers her face with her hand.) In fact, it's terrible! My God! God save me! And today I gave a speech in front of the closet ... how stupid! And only when he finished, I realized that it was stupid.

Varya. Really, uncle, you should be silent. Be silent, that's all.

Anya. If you remain silent, then you yourself will be calmer.

Gaev. I am silent. (Kisses Anna and Varya's hands.) I am silent. Only here about business. On Thursday I was in the district court, well, the company agreed, a conversation began about this, fifth, tenth, and it seems that it will be possible to arrange a loan against bills to pay interest to the bank.

Varya. If the Lord would help!

Gaev. I'll go on Tuesday and talk again. (Ware.) Do not Cry. (But not.) Your mother will talk to Lopakhin; he, of course, will not refuse her ... And when you have a rest, you will go to Yaroslavl to the countess, your grandmother. This is how we will act from three ends - and our business is in the bag. We'll pay the interest, I'm sure... (Puts a lollipop in his mouth.) By my honor, whatever you want, I swear, the estate will not be sold! (Excited.) I swear by my happiness! Here's my hand, then call me a lousy, dishonorable person if I let you go to the auction! I swear with all my being!

Anya(calm mood returned to her, she is happy). How good you are, uncle, how smart! (Hugs uncle.) I am now calm! I am calm! I'm happy!

Firs enters.

Firs(reproachfully). Leonid Andreich, you are not afraid of God! When to sleep?

Gaev. Now. You go, Firs. I'll undress myself, so be it. Well, kids, bye-bye ... Details tomorrow, now go to bed. (Kisses Anya and Varya.) I am a man of the eighties… This time is not praised, but still I can say that for my convictions I got a lot in my life. No wonder the man loves me. The man needs to know! You need to know what...

Anya. You again, uncle!

Varya. You, uncle, shut up.

Firs(angrily). Leonid Andreich!

Gaev. I'm coming, I'm coming... Lie down. From two sides to the middle! I put clean... (He leaves, Firs trotting after him.)

Anya. I am now calm. I don’t want to go to Yaroslavl, I don’t love my grandmother, but still I am calm. Thanks, uncle. (Sits down.)

Varya. Need sleep. I'll go. And here without you there was dissatisfaction. As you know, only old servants live in the old servants' quarters: Yefimyushka, Polya, Yevstigney, and, well, Karp. They began to let in some rogues to spend the night - I said nothing. Only now, I hear, they spread a rumor that I ordered them to be fed only peas. From stinginess, you see... And that's all Yevstigney... Well, I think. If so, I think, then wait. I call Evstigney ... (Yawns.) It comes ... How are you, I say, Yevstigney ... you are such a fool ... (Looking at Anya.) Anechka!..

Pause.

I fell asleep!.. (Takes Anna by the arm.) Let's go to bed ... Let's go! .. (Guides her.) My baby fell asleep! Let's go to…

They're coming.

Far beyond the garden, a shepherd is playing his flute.

Trofimov walks across the stage and, seeing Varya and Anya, stops.

Shh... She's sleeping... sleeping... Let's go, dear.

Anya(quietly, half asleep). I'm so tired... all the bells... Uncle... dear... and mother and uncle...

Varya. Let's go baby, let's go... (Goes into Anna's room.)

Trofimov(in tenderness). Sweetheart! My spring!

Curtain

ACT TWO

Field. An old, crooked, long-abandoned chapel, next to it is a well, large stones that once were, apparently, tombstones, and an old bench. The road to Gaev's estate is visible. To the side, towering, poplar trees darken: there begins a cherry orchard. In the distance there is a row of telegraph poles, and far, far away on the horizon, a large city is indistinctly marked, which is visible only in very good, clear weather. The sun will set soon. Charlotte, Yasha and Dunyasha are sitting on a bench: Epikhodov is standing near and playing the guitar; they all sit thoughtful, Charlotte in an old cap; she has taken the gun off her shoulders and is adjusting the buckle on her belt.

Charlotte(thinking). I don't have a real passport, I don't know how old I am, and I keep feeling like I'm young. When I was a little girl, my father and mother went to fairs and gave performances, very good ones. And I jumped salto mortale and various things. And when my father and mother died, a German lady took me to her and began to teach me. Good. I grew up, then went to the governess. And where I come from and who I am - I don’t know ... Who are my parents, maybe they didn’t get married ... I don’t know. (Takes a cucumber out of his pocket and eats it.) I know nothing.

Pause.

I so want to talk, but not with anyone ... I have no one.

Epikhodov(plays guitar and sings). “What do I care about the noisy light, what are my friends and enemies ...” How nice it is to play the mandolin!

Dunyasha. It's a guitar, not a mandolin. (Looks in the mirror and powders.)

Epohodov. For a madman who is in love, this is a mandolin ... (Sings.)“It would be heart warmed by the heat of mutual love…”

Yasha sings.

Charlotte. These people sing terribly... fuy! Like jackals.

Dunyasha(Yashe). Still, what a joy to be abroad.

Yasha. Oh sure. I cannot but agree with you. (Yawns, then lights a cigar.)

Epikhodov. It's understandable. Abroad, everything has long been in full complexion.

Yasha. By itself.

Epikhodov. I am a developed person, I read various wonderful books, but I just can’t understand the direction of what I actually want, to live or to shoot myself, in fact, but nevertheless I always carry a revolver with me. Here he is… (Shows a revolver.)

Charlotte. Finished. Now I'll go. (Puts on a gun.) You, Epikhodov, are a very clever man, and a very terrible one; you must be madly loved by women. Brrr! (Goes.) These wise men are all so stupid, I have no one to talk to ... All alone, alone, I have no one and ... and who I am, why I am unknown ... (Leaves slowly.)

Epohodov. As a matter of fact, without touching on other subjects, I must express myself, among other things, that fate treats me without pity, like a storm treats a small ship. If, let's say, I'm wrong, then why do I wake up this morning, for example, say, I look, and I have a terrible size spider on my chest ... Like this. (Points with both hands.) And you will also take kvass to get drunk, and there, you see, something extremely indecent, like a cockroach.

Pause.

Have you read Buckle?

Pause.

I wish to disturb you, Avdotya Fyodorovna, for a few words.

Dunyasha. Speak up.

Epikhodov. I would like to be alone with you... (Sighs.)

Dunyasha(embarrassed). Okay... just bring me my talmochka first... It's near the closet... It's a little damp here...

Epikhodov. All right, sir… I’ll bring it sir… Now I know what to do with my revolver… (Picks up guitar and leaves, playing.)

Yasha. Twenty-two misfortunes! Silly man, between us. (Yawns.)

Dunyasha. God forbid, shoot yourself.

Pause.

I became anxious, all worried. I was taken to the masters as a girl, now I have lost the habit of a simple life, and now my hands are white, white, like a young lady's. She became tender, so delicate, noble, I'm afraid of everything ... It's so scary. And if you, Yasha, deceive me, then I don't know what will happen to my nerves.

Yasha(kisses her). Cucumber! Of course, every girl should remember herself, and I don’t like it more than anything if a girl has bad behavior.

Dunyasha. I passionately fell in love with you, you are educated, you can talk about everything.

Pause.

Yasha(yawns). Yes, sir ... In my opinion, this is how: if a girl loves someone, then she, therefore, is immoral.

Pause.

It's nice to smoke a cigarette in the fresh air ... (Listens.) They're coming here... These are the gentlemen...

Dunyasha embraces him impetuously.

Go home, as if you went to the river to swim, go along this path, otherwise they will meet and think about me, as if I were on a date with you. I can't stand it.

Dunyasha(coughs softly). I got a headache from the cigar... (Exits.)

Yasha stays, sits near the chapel. Enter LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA, GAYEV and LOPAKHIN.

Lopakhin. We must finally decide - time does not wait. The question is completely empty. Do you agree to give the land for dachas or not? Answer in one word: yes or no? Only one word!

Lyubov Andreevna. Who is smoking disgusting cigars here... (Sits down.)

Gaev. Here the railway was built, and it became convenient. (Sits down.) We went to the city and had breakfast ... yellow in the middle! I would like to go to the house first, play one game ...

Lyubov Andreevna. You will succeed.

Lopakhin. Only one word! (Pleading.) Give me an answer!

Gaev(yawning). Whom?

Lyubov Andreevna(looks in his wallet). Yesterday there was a lot of money, and today there is very little. My poor Varya, out of economy, feeds everyone with milk soup, in the kitchen they give the old people one pea, and I somehow waste it senselessly. (She dropped her purse, scattered the gold ones.) Well, fell down... (She's annoyed.)

Yasha. Let me pick it up now. (Picks up coins.)

Lyubov Andreevna. Please, Yasha. And why did I go to have breakfast... Your trashy restaurant with music, the tablecloths smell of soap... Why drink so much, Lenya? Why eat so much? Why talk so much? Today in the restaurant you again spoke a lot and everything was inopportune. About the seventies, about the decadents. And to whom? Sex talk about decadents!

Lopakhin. Yes.

Gaev(waving hand). I'm incorrigible, it's obvious... (Irritably, Yasha.) What is it, constantly spinning before your eyes ...

Yasha(laughs). I couldn't hear your voice without laughing.

Gaev(sister). Either me or he...

Lyubov Andreevna. Go away, Yasha, go...

Yasha(gives Lyubov Andreevna a purse). I'll leave now. (Barely refrains from laughing.) This minute... (Exits.)

Lopakhin. Your estate is going to be bought by the rich Deriganov. At the auction, they say, he will come personally.

Lyubov Andreevna. Where did you hear from?

Lopakhin. They talk in the city.

Gaev. The Yaroslavl aunt promised to send, but when and how much she will send, it is not known ...

Lopakhin. How much will she send? Thousand one hundred? Two hundred?

Lyubov Andreevna. Well ... Ten thousand - fifteen, and thanks for that.

Lopakhin. Forgive me, such frivolous people as you, gentlemen, such unbusinesslike, strange, I have not yet met. They speak Russian to you, your estate is for sale, but you definitely do not understand.

Lyubov Andreevna. What do we do? Teach what?

Lopakhin. I teach you every day. Every day I say the same thing. And the cherry orchard and the land must be leased for summer cottages, do it now, as soon as possible - the auction is on the nose! Understand! Once you finally decide that there will be dachas, they will give you as much money as you like, and then you will be saved.

Lyubov Andreevna. Dachas and summer residents - it's so vulgar, sorry.

Gaev. Completely agree with you.

Lopakhin. I will either sob, or scream, or faint. I can not! You tortured me! (Gaev.) Baba you!

Gaev. Whom?

Lopakhin. Woman! (Wants to leave.)

Lyubov Andreevna(scared). No, don't go, stay, my dear. I ask you to. Maybe we can think of something!

Lopakhin. What is there to think about!

Lyubov Andreevna. Don't leave, please. It's more fun with you.

Pause.

I'm still waiting for something, as if a house should collapse above us.

Gaev(in deep thought). Doublet in the corner… Croiset in the middle…

Lyubov Andreevna. We've been wrong a lot...

Lopakhin. What are your sins...

Gaev(puts a lollipop in his mouth). They say that I ate my entire fortune on candy ... (Laughs.)

Lyubov Andreevna. Oh my sins... I've always been throwing money around like crazy and married a man who only ran into debt. My husband died from champagne - he drank terribly - and, unfortunately, I fell in love with another, got together, and just at that time - it was the first punishment, a blow right in the head - right here on the river ... my boy drowned , and I went abroad, left completely, never to return, not to see this river ... I closed my eyes, ran, not remembering myself, but he behind me... ruthlessly, rudely. I bought a cottage near Menton, because he fell ill there, and for three years I did not know rest day or night; the patient has tormented me, my soul has dried up. And last year, when the dacha was sold for debts, I went to Paris, and there he robbed me, left me, got together with another, I tried to poison myself ... So stupid, so ashamed ... And suddenly I was drawn to Russia, to my homeland, to my girl … (Wipes away tears.) Lord, Lord, be merciful, forgive me my sins! Don't punish me anymore! (Pulls out a telegram from his pocket.) Received today from Paris ... He asks for forgiveness, begs to return ... (Tears up the telegram.) It's like there's music somewhere. (Listens.)

Gaev. This is our famous Jewish orchestra. Remember, four violins, a flute and a double bass.

Lyubov Andreevna. Does he still exist? He should be invited to us somehow, arrange an evening.

Lopakhin(listens). Do not hear... (Sings softly.)"And for the money of a hare, the Germans will Frenchize." (Laughs.) What play I saw yesterday at the theater is very funny.

Lyubov Andreevna. And probably nothing funny. You don’t have to watch plays, but you should watch yourself more often. How gray you all live, how much you say unnecessary things.

Lopakhin. This is true. We must say frankly, our life is stupid ...

Pause.

My dad was a peasant, an idiot, he didn’t understand anything, he didn’t teach me, but only beat me while drunk, and all with a stick. In saturation, and I'm the same blockhead and idiot. I didn’t learn anything, my handwriting is bad, I write in such a way that people are ashamed of me, like a pig.

Lyubov Andreevna. You need to get married, my friend.

Lopakhin. Yes it's true.

Lyubov Andreevna. On our Varya. She's a good girl.

Lopakhin. Yes.

Lyubov Andreevna. I have one of the simple ones, she works all day, and most importantly, she loves you. And yes, you like it too.

Lopakhin. What? I don't mind... She's a good girl.

Pause.

Gaev. They offered me a job at a bank. Six thousand a year ... Heard?

Lyubov Andreevna. Where are you! Sit already...

Firs enters; he brought a coat.

Firs(to Gaev). If you please, sir, put it on, otherwise it's damp.

Gaev(puts on coat). You're tired, brother.

Firs. There is nothing there ... In the morning they left without saying anything. (Looks at him.)

Lyubov Andreevna. How old you are, Firs!

Firs. What would you like?

Lopakhin. They say you've aged a lot!

Firs. I live for a long time. They were going to marry me, but your dad was not yet in the world ... (Laughs.) And the will came out, I was already the senior valet. Then I did not agree to freedom, I remained with the masters ...

Pause.

And I remember that everyone is happy, but what they are happy about, they themselves do not know.

Lopakhin. It was very good before. At least they fought.

Firs(not heard). And still. The peasants are with the gentlemen, the gentlemen are with the peasants, and now everything is scattered, you won’t understand anything.

Gaev. Shut up, Firs. Tomorrow I need to go to the city. They promised to introduce me to one general who could give a bill.

Lopakhin. You won't get anything. And you will not pay interest, be calm.

Lyubov Andreevna. He is delirious. There are no generals.

Enter Trofimov, Anya and Varya.

Gaev. And here comes ours.

Anya. Mom is sitting.

Lyubov Andreevna(gently). Go, go... my family... (Embracing Anya and Varya.) If only you both knew how much I love you. Sit next to me, like this.

Everyone sits down.

Lopakhin. Our eternal student always walks with young ladies.

Trofimov. None of your business.

Lopakhin. He is fifty years old soon, and he is still a student.

Trofimov. Stop your stupid jokes.

Lopakhin. What are you, eccentric, angry?

Trofimov. And you don't come.

Lopakhin(laughs). Let me ask you, how do you understand me?

Trofimov. I, Yermolai Alekseevich, so understand: you are a rich man, you will soon be a millionaire. This is how, in terms of metabolism, you need a predatory beast that eats everything that comes in its way, so you are needed.

Everyone laughs.

Varya. You, Petya, tell us better about the planets.

Lyubov Andreevna. No, let's continue yesterday's conversation.

Trofimov. What is it about?

Gaev. About a proud man.

Trofimov. We talked for a long time yesterday, but came to nothing. In a proud person, in your sense, there is something mystical. Perhaps you are right in your own way, but if you talk simply, without fantasies, then what kind of pride is there, is there any sense in it, if a person is physiologically unimportant, if in his vast majority he is rude, unintelligent, deeply unhappy. We need to stop admiring ourselves. We just need to work.

Gaev. You will still die.

Trofimov. Who knows? And what does it mean to die? Perhaps a person has a hundred senses, and only five known to us perish with death, while the remaining ninety-five remain alive.

Lyubov Andreevna. How smart you are, Petya! ..

Lopakhin(ironically). Passion!

Trofimov. Mankind is moving forward, improving its forces. Everything that is inaccessible to him now will someday become close, understandable, but now you have to work, help with all your might to those who are looking for the truth. We, in Russia, still have very few people working. The vast majority of the intelligentsia that I know are looking for nothing, doing nothing, and are not yet capable of work. They call themselves intelligentsia, but they say “you” to the servants, they treat the peasants like animals, they study poorly, they don’t read anything seriously, they do absolutely nothing, they only talk about the sciences, they understand little in art. Everyone is serious, everyone has a stern face, everyone talks only about important things, they philosophize, but meanwhile, before everyone’s eyes, the workers eat disgustingly, sleep without pillows, thirty, forty in one room, bedbugs everywhere, stench, dampness, moral impurity ... And, obviously, all the good talk we have is only to avert the eyes of ourselves and others. Show me where we have a nursery, about which they talk so much and often, where are the reading rooms? They are written about only in novels, but in reality they do not exist at all. There is only dirt, vulgarity, Asianism ... I am afraid and do not like very serious faces, I am afraid of serious conversations. Better shut up!

Lopakhin. You know, I get up at five o'clock in the morning, work from morning to evening, well, I always have my own money and other people's money, and I see what kind of people are around. You just have to start doing something to understand how few honest, decent people there are. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I think: “Lord, you gave us huge forests, vast fields, the deepest horizons, and living here, we ourselves should really be giants ...”

Lyubov Andreevna. You needed giants... They are only good in fairy tales, but they are so frightening.

Epikhodov walks in the back of the stage and plays the guitar.

(Thoughtfully.) Epikhodov is coming...

Anya(thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...

Gaev. The sun has set, gentlemen.

Trofimov. Yes.

Gaev(quietly, as if reciting). Oh nature, marvelous, you shine with eternal radiance, beautiful and indifferent, you, whom we call mother, combine life and death, you live and destroy ...

Varya(pleadingly). Uncle!

Anya. Uncle, you again!

Trofimov. You better yellow in the middle of a doublet.

Gaev. I am silent, I am silent.

Everyone is sitting and thinking. Silence. All you can hear is Firs mumbling softly. Suddenly there was a distant sound, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, fading, sad.

Lyubov Andreevna. What's this?

Lopakhin. Don't know. Somewhere far away in the mines, a bucket broke. But somewhere very far away.

Gaev. Or maybe some kind of bird ... like a heron.

Trofimov. Or an owl...

Lyubov Andreevna(shudders). For some reason it's unpleasant.

Pause.

Firs. Before the misfortune, it was also: the owl screamed, and the samovar hummed endlessly.

Gaev. Before what misfortune?

Firs. Before will.

Pause.

Lyubov Andreevna. You know, friends, let's go, it's already evening. (But not.) You have tears in your eyes ... What are you, girl? (Hugs her.)

Anya. That's right, mom. Nothing.

Trofimov. Someone is coming.

A passer-by appears in a tattered white cap and overcoat; he is slightly drunk.

passerby. May I ask you, can I go straight to the station here?

Gaev. You can. Follow this road.

passerby. Thank you very much. (Coughing.) The weather is excellent… (Reciting.) My brother, suffering brother... go out to the Volga, whose groan... (Ware.) Mademoiselle, let the hungry Russian thirty kopecks...

Varya was frightened and screamed.

Lopakhin(angrily). Every ugliness has its decency!

Lyubov Andreevna(taken aback). Take ... here you are ... (Looks in wallet.) There is no silver ... It doesn't matter, here's a gold one for you ...

passerby. Thank you very much! (Exits.)

Laugh.

Varya(scared). I'll leave... I'll leave... Oh, Mommy, people have nothing to eat at home, and you gave him the golden one.

Lyubov Andreevna. What to do with me, stupid! I will give you everything I have at home. Yermolai Alekseich, give me another loan!...

Lopakhin. I'm listening.

Lyubov Andreevna. Come on, gentlemen, it's time. And then, Varya, we completely wooed you, congratulations.

Varya(through tears). This, Mom, is not a joke.

Lopakhin. Ohmelia, go to the monastery...

Gaev. And my hands are trembling: I haven't played billiards for a long time.

Lopakhin. Ohmelia, O nymph, remember me in your prayers!

Lyubov Andreevna. Come on, gentlemen. Dinner soon.

Varya. He scared me. The heart beats like that.

Lopakhin. I remind you, gentlemen: on August 22, the cherry orchard will be on sale. Think about it!.. Think!..

Everyone leaves except Trofimov and Anya.

Anya(laughing). Thanks to a passerby, I scared Varya, now we are alone.

Trofimov. Varya is afraid, what if we fall in love with each other, and does not leave us for whole days. She, with her narrow head, cannot understand that we are above love. To get around that petty and illusory thing that prevents us from being free and happy, this is the goal and meaning of our life. Forward! We march irresistibly towards the bright star that burns far away! Forward! Keep up, friends!

Anya(clapping hands). How well you speak!

Pause.

It's amazing here today!

Trofimov. Yes, the weather is amazing.

Anya. What have you done to me, Petya, why I no longer love the cherry orchard as before. I loved him so dearly, it seemed to me that there is no better place on earth than our garden.

Trofimov. All Russia is our garden. The earth is great and beautiful, there are many wonderful places on it.

Pause.

Think, Anya: your grandfather, great-grandfather and all your ancestors were serf-owners who owned living souls, and is it possible that human beings do not look at you from every cherry in the garden, from every leaf, from every trunk, do you really not hear voices ... Own living souls - after all, it has reborn all of you who lived before and are living now, so that your mother, you, uncle, no longer notice that you live on credit, at someone else's expense, at the expense of those people whom you do not let further than the front ... We are behind for at least two hundred years, we still have absolutely nothing, no definite relationship to the past, we only philosophize, complain of boredom or drink vodka. After all, it is so clear that in order to begin to live in the present, we must first redeem our past, put an end to it, and it can only be redeemed by suffering, only by extraordinary, uninterrupted labor. Get it, Anya.

Anya. The house in which we live is no longer our home, and I will leave, I give you my word.

Trofimov. If you have the keys to the household, then throw them into the well and leave. Be free as the wind.

Anya(excited). How well you said!

Trofimov. Believe me, Anya, believe me! I am not yet thirty, I am young, I am still a student, but I have already endured so much! Like winter, so I am hungry, sick, anxious, poor, like a beggar, and - wherever fate has not driven me, wherever I have been! And yet my soul was always, at every moment, day and night, full of inexplicable forebodings. I foresee happiness, Anya, I already see it...

Anya(thoughtfully). The moon is rising.

One can hear Epikhodov playing the same sad song on the guitar. The moon is rising. Somewhere near the poplars, Varya is looking for Anya and calls: “Anya! Where are you?"

Trofimov. Yes, the moon is rising.

Pause.

Here it is, happiness, here it comes, coming closer and closer, I can already hear his steps. And if we don't see it, don't recognize it, then what's the trouble? Others will see it!

Again this Varya! (Angrily.) Outrageous!

Anya. Well? Let's go to the river. It's good there.

Trofimov. Let's go.

Curtain

ACT THREE

Living room, separated by an arch from the hall. The chandelier is on. One can hear the Jewish orchestra playing in the hall, the same one mentioned in the second act. Evening. Grand-rond is dancing in the hall. The voice of Simeonov-Pishchik: "Promenade a une paire!" They go out into the living room: in the first pair Pishchik and Charlotte Ivanovna, in the second - Trofimov and Lyubov Andreevna, in the third - Anya with the postal official, in the fourth - Varya with the head of the station, etc. Varya is crying softly and, dancing, wipes away her tears. In the last pair of Dunyasha. They walk through the living room. Pishchik yells "Grand-rond balancez!" and "Les cavaliers a genoux et remerciez vos dames!".

Firs in evening dress brings seltzer water on a tray. Pishchik and Trofimov enter the drawing room.

Pishchik. I am full-blooded, I have already had a blow twice, it is difficult to dance, but, as they say, I got into a flock, bark not bark, but wag your tail. My health is like a horse. My late parent, a joker, the kingdom of heaven, spoke about our origin as if our ancient family of Simeonov-Pishchikov descended from the same horse that Caligula planted in the Senate ... (Sits down.) But here's the problem: no money! A hungry dog ​​believes only in meat... (Snores and wakes up immediately.) So I ... I can only about money ...

Trofimov. And you really have something equine in your figure.

Pishchik. Well... a horse is a good beast... a horse can be sold...

You can hear billiards playing in the next room. Varya appears in the hall under the archway.

Trofimov(teasing). Madame Lopakhina! Madame Lopakhina!

Varya(angrily). Wretched bard!

Trofimov. Yes, I'm a shabby gentleman and I'm proud of it!

Varya(in bitter thought). They hired musicians, but how to pay? (Exits.)

Trofimov(Pishchiku). If the energy you've spent your entire life looking for money to pay interest were spent elsewhere, you could probably move the earth in the end.

Pishchik. Nietzsche... the philosopher... the greatest, most famous... man of enormous intelligence, says in his writings that it is possible to make counterfeit papers.

Trofimov. Have you read Nietzsche?

Pishchik. Well... Dashenka told me. And now I’m in such a position that at least make fake papers ... The day after tomorrow I’ll pay three hundred and ten rubles ... I’ve already got one hundred and thirty ... (He feels his pockets, anxiously.) The money is gone! Lost money! (Through tears.) Where's the money? (Joyfully.) Here they are, behind the lining... I even got sweaty...

Enter Lyubov Andreyevna and Charlotte Ivanovna.

Lyubov Andreevna(sings lezginka). Why is Leonidas gone so long? What is he doing in the city? (Dunyasha.) Dunyasha, offer the musicians some tea...

Trofimov. Bidding did not take place, in all likelihood.

Lyubov Andreevna. And the musicians came inopportunely, and we started the ball inopportunely ... Well, nothing ... (Sits down and hums softly.)

Charlotte(gives Pischik a deck of cards). Here's a deck of cards, think of one card.

Pishchik. Thought.

Charlotte. Shuffle the deck now. Very well. Give it here, oh my dear Mr. Pishchik. Ein, zwei, drei. Now look, it's in your side pocket...

Pishchik(pulls out card from side pocket). Eight of spades, absolutely right! (Surprised.) You think!

Charlotte(holds a deck of cards in the palm of his hand, Trofimova). Tell me quickly, which card is on top?

Trofimov. Well? Well, the lady of spades.

Charlotte. There is! (Pishchik.) Well, which card is on top?

Pishchik. Ace of hearts.

Charlotte. There is!.. (He hits his palm, the deck of cards disappears.) And what good weather today!

You are such a good my ideal ...

station master(applause). Lady ventriloquist, bravo!

Pishchik(surprised). You think. The most charming Charlotte Ivanovna... I am simply in love...

Charlotte. In love? (Shrugging.) Can you love? Guter Mensch, aberschlechter Musikant.

Trofimov(pats Pishchik on the shoulder). You are a horse...

Charlotte. I beg your attention, one more trick. (Takes a blanket from a chair.) Here is a very good blanket, I want to sell ... (Shakes.) Does anyone want to buy?

Pishchik(surprised). You think!

Charlotte. Ein, zwei, drei! (Quickly picks up the lowered blanket.)

Anya is standing behind the blanket; she curtsies, runs to her mother, embraces her and runs back into the hall with general delight.

Lyubov Andreevna(applause). Bravo, bravo!

Charlotte. Now more! Ein, zwei, drei! (Picks up blanket.)

Varya stands behind the rug and bows.

Pishchik(surprised). You think!

Charlotte. End! (Throws a blanket at Pishchik, makes a curtsy and runs into the hall.)

Pishchik(hurries after her). The villainess... what? What? (Exits.)

Lyubov Andreevna. But Leonidas is still missing. What he's been doing in the city for so long, I don't understand! After all, everything is already over there, the estate has been sold or the auction has not taken place, why keep it in the dark for so long!

Varya(trying to comfort her). My uncle bought it, I'm sure of it.

Trofimov(mockingly). Yes.

Varya. Grandmother sent him a power of attorney to buy in her name with the transfer of the debt. This is for Anya. And I'm sure God will help, uncle will buy.

Lyubov Andreevna. The Yaroslavl grandmother sent fifteen thousand to buy the estate in her name - she does not believe us - and this money would not even be enough to pay the interest. (He covers his face with his hands.) Today my fate is decided, fate ...

Trofimov(teasing Varya). Madame Lopakhina!

Varya(angrily). Eternal student! I've been fired from the university twice already.

Lyubov Andreevna. Why are you angry, Varya? He teases you with Lopakhin, so what? If you want, marry Lopakhin, he is a good, interesting person. If you don't want to, don't come out; you, darling, no one captivates ...

Varya. I look at this matter seriously, Mommy, I must speak frankly. He is a good person, I like him.

Lyubov Andreevna. And get out. What to expect, I do not understand!

Varya. Mommy, I can't propose to him myself. For two years now, everyone has been talking to me about him, everyone is talking, but he is either silent or joking. I understand. He is getting rich, busy with business, he is not up to me. If I had money, at least a little, at least a hundred rubles, I would have thrown everything, I would have gone away. I would go to a monastery.

Trofimov. Grace!

Varya(to Trofimov). The student must be smart! (Soft tone, with tears.) How ugly you have become, Petya, how old you have become! (To Lyubov Andreyevna, no longer crying.) I just can't do nothing, Mom. I have to do something every minute.

Yasha enters.

Yasha(can barely stop laughing). Epikhodov broke the billiard cue!.. (Exits.)

Varya. Why is Epikhodov here? Who let him play billiards? I don't understand these people... (Exits.)

Lyubov Andreevna. Do not tease her, Petya, you see, she is already in grief.

Trofimov. She is very zealous, she pokes her own business. All summer long, she haunted neither me nor Anya, she was afraid that our romance would not work out. What's her business? And besides, I didn’t show it, I’m so far from vulgarity. We are above love!

Lyubov Andreevna. And I must be below love. (In great anxiety). Why is there no Leonidas? Just to know: sold the estate or not? The misfortune seems to me so incredible that I somehow don’t even know what to think, I’m at a loss ... I can now shout ... I can do something stupid. Save me, Petya. Say something, say something...

Trofimov. Whether the estate is sold today or not sold - does it matter? It has long been finished with him, there is no turning back, the path is overgrown. Calm down, dear. Do not deceive yourself, you must at least once in your life look the truth straight in the eye.

Lyubov Andreevna. What truth? You can see where the truth is and where the lie is, but I definitely lost my sight, I don’t see anything. You boldly resolve all important issues, but tell me, my dear, is it not because you are young, that you have not had time to suffer through a single one of your questions? You boldly look ahead, and is it not because you do not see and do not expect anything terrible, since life is still hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than us, but think about it, be generous at the tip of your finger, spare me. After all, I was born here, my father and mother lived here, my grandfather, I love this house, I don’t understand my life without a cherry orchard, and if you really need to sell it, then sell me along with the garden ... (Hugs Trofimov, kisses him on the forehead.) After all, my son drowned here ... (Crying.) Have pity on me, good, kind man.

Trofimov. You know, I sympathize with all my heart.

Lyubov Andreevna. But it is necessary to say otherwise, otherwise it must be said ... (Takes out a handkerchief, a telegram falls on the floor.) My heart is heavy today, you can't imagine. It’s noisy here, my soul trembles at every sound, I’m trembling all over, but I can’t go to my room, I’m scared alone in the silence. Don't judge me, Petya... I love you like my own. I would gladly give Anya for you, I swear, you, only, my dear, you have to study, you have to finish the course. You do nothing, only fate throws you from place to place, it's so strange ... Isn't it? Yes? And you need to do something with the beard so that it grows somehow ... (Laughs). Funny you!

Trofimov(picks up telegram). I don't want to be handsome.

Lyubov Andreevna. This is a telegram from Paris. Every day I receive ... Both yesterday and today. This wild man fell ill again, it’s not good with him again ... He asks for forgiveness, begs to come, and really I should have gone to Paris, to be near him. You, Petya, have a stern face, but what should I do, my dear, what should I do, he is sick, he is lonely, unhappy, and who is there to look after him, who will keep him from making mistakes, who will give him medicine in time? And what is there to hide or be silent, I love him, that's clear. I love, I love... This is a stone on my neck, I go to the bottom with it, but I love this stone and I cannot live without it. (Shakes Trofimov's hand.) Don't think badly, Petya, don't say anything to me, don't say...

Trofimov(through tears). Forgive me for being frank, for God's sake: after all, he robbed you!

Lyubov Andreevna. No, no, no, don't say that... (Closes his ears.)

Trofimov. After all, he is a scoundrel, only you alone do not know this! He's a petty scoundrel, a nonentity...

Lyubov Andreevna(angry but restrained). You are twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, and you are still a second grade schoolboy!

Trofimov. Let!

Lyubov Andreevna. You have to be a man, at your age you need to understand those who love. And you need to love yourself ... you need to fall in love! (Angrily.) Yes Yes! And you don't have cleanliness, and you're just a neat, funny eccentric, freak...

Trofimov(horrified). What does she say!

Lyubov Andreevna. "I am above love!" You are not above love, but simply, as our Firs says, you are a klutz. At your age not to have a mistress! ..

Trofimov(horrified). This is terrible! What does she say?! (He walks quickly into the hall, clutching his head.) It's terrible... I can't, I'll leave... (leaves but immediately returns). It's over between us! (Goes into the hallway.)

Lyubov Andreevna(shouts after). Petya, wait! Funny man, I was joking! Petya!

Someone in the hall is heard quickly going up the stairs and suddenly falls down with a crash. Anya and Varya scream, but laughter is immediately heard.

What is there?

Anya runs.

Anya(laughing). Petya fell down the stairs! (Runs away.)

Lyubov Andreevna. What an eccentric this Petya ...

The stationmaster stops in the middle of the hall and reads "The Sinner" by A. Tolstoy. They listen to him, but as soon as he read a few lines, the sounds of a waltz come from the hall, and the reading breaks off. Everyone is dancing. Trofimov, Anya, Varya and Lyubov Andreevna pass from the front.

Well, Petya... well, pure soul... I beg your pardon... Let's go dancing... (Dancing with Petya.)

Anya and Varya are dancing. Firs enters, places his stick near the side door. Yasha also came in from the living room, looking at the dances.

Yasha. What, grandpa?

Firs. Not well. Before, generals, barons, admirals danced at our balls, but now we send for the postal clerk and the head of the station, and even they are not willing to go. Something weakened me. The late gentleman, grandfather, used sealing wax for all, from all diseases. I have been taking sealing wax every day for twenty years, or even more; maybe I'm alive from him.

Yasha. You're tired, grandfather. (Yawns.) If only you would die sooner.

Firs. Oh, you... you idiot! (Mumbling.)

Trofimov and Lyubov Andreevna dance in the hall, then in the living room.

Lyubov Andreevna. Mercy. I will sit... (Sits down.) Tired.

Anya enters.

Anya(excitedly). And now, in the kitchen, a man was saying that the cherry orchard had already been sold today.

Lyubov Andreevna. To whom is it sold?

Anya. Didn't say to whom. Gone. (Dancing with Trofimov.)

Both leave the room.

Yasha. It was some old man talking there. Stranger.

Firs. But Leonid Andreevich is not here yet, he hasn't arrived. His coat is light, the demi-season is about to catch a cold. Oh, young green!

Lyubov Andreevna. I'll die now. Go, Yasha, find out to whom it was sold.

Yasha. Yes, he's long gone, old man. (Laughs.)

Lyubov Andreevna(with slight annoyance). Well, what are you laughing at? What are you happy about?

Yasha. Epikhodov is very funny. Empty man. Twenty-two misfortunes.

Lyubov Andreevna. Firs, if the estate is sold, where will you go?

Firs. Wherever you tell me, I will go there.

Lyubov Andreevna. Why is your face like that? Are you unwell? I would go, you know, to sleep ...

Firs. Yes… (With a grin.) I'm going to sleep, but without me, who will give, who will order? One for the whole house.

Yasha(Love Andreevna). Lyubov Andreevna! Let me ask you to be so kind! If you go to Paris again, then take me with you, do me a favor. It is positively impossible for me to stay here. (Looking around, in an undertone.) What can I say, you can see for yourself, the country is uneducated, the people are immoral, and besides, boredom, the food is ugly in the kitchen, and then there is this Firs walking around, muttering various inappropriate words. Take me with you, be so kind!

Pishchik enters.

Pishchik. Let me ask you ... for a waltz, most beautiful ... (Lyubov Andreyevna goes with him.) Charming, after all, I will take one hundred and eighty rubles from you ... I will take ... (Dancing.) One hundred and eighty rubles ...

We moved into the hall.

Yasha(sings softly). "Will you understand the excitement of my soul..."

In the hall, a figure in a gray top hat and plaid trousers is waving his arms and jumping; cries of "Bravo, Charlotte Ivanovna!"

Dunyasha(stopped to powder). The young lady tells me to dance - there are many gentlemen, but few ladies - and my head is spinning from dancing, my heart is beating. Firs Nikolaevich, and just now an official from the post office told me that it took my breath away.

The music subsides.

Firs. What did he say to you?

Dunyasha. You, he says, are like a flower.

Yasha(yawns). Ignorance… (Exits.)

Dunyasha. Like a flower ... I am such a delicate girl, I love tender words terribly.

Firs. You will spin.

Epikhodov enters.

Epikhodov. You, Avdotya Fyodorovna, do not want to see me ... as if I were some kind of insect. (Sighs.) Ah, life!

Dunyasha. What do you want?

Epikhodov. Surely you may be right. (Sighs.) But, of course, if you look from the point of view, then you, let me put it this way, sorry for the frankness, completely put me in a state of mind. I know my fortune, every day some kind of misfortune happens to me, and I have long been accustomed to this, so I look at my fate with a smile. You gave me your word, and even though I...

Dunyasha. Please, we'll talk later, but now leave me alone. Now I dream. (Plays with a fan.)

Epikhodov. I have misfortune every day, and I, let me put it this way, only smile, even laugh.

Enters from Varya's hall.

Varya. You still haven't left, Semyon? What a disrespectful person you are. (Dunyasha.) Get out of here, Dunyasha. (Epikhodov.) Now you play billiards and break your cue, then you walk around the living room like a guest.

Epikhodov. Charge me, let me put it, you can't.

Varya. I do not exact from you, but I say. You only know that you go from place to place, but do not do business. We keep a clerk, but it is not known why.

Epikhodov(offended). Whether I work, whether I go, whether I eat, whether I play billiards, only people who understand and elders can talk about that.

Varya. You dare to tell me that! (Exploding.) Do you dare? So I don't understand anything? Get out of here! This minute!

Epikhodov(cowardly). I ask you to express yourself in a delicate way.

Varya(getting out of my mind). Get out of here this minute! Out!

He goes to the door, she follows him.

Twenty-two misfortunes! So that your spirit is not here! May my eyes not see you!

Oh, are you going back? (He grabs the stick Firs left near the door.) Go... Go... Go, I'll show you... Ah, are you coming? Are you going? So here's to you... (Swings.)

At this time, Lopakhin enters.

Lopakhin. Thank you very much.

Varya(angrily and mockingly). Guilty!

Lopakhin. Nothing, sir. Thank you very much for the pleasant meal.

Varya. Do not mention it. (Steps away, then looks around and asks softly.) Did I hurt you?

Lopakhin. There is nothing. The bump, however, will jump up huge.

Pishchik. Seeing, hearing, hearing... (He kisses Lopakhin.) You smell of cognac, my dear, my soul. And we have fun here too.

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA enters.

Lyubov Andreevna. Is that you, Ermolai Alekseich? Why so long? Where is Leonidas?

Lopakhin. Leonid Andreevich came with me, he's coming...

Lyubov Andreevna(worried). Well? Were there auctions? Speak now!

Lopakhin(embarrassed, afraid to reveal his joy). Bidding ended by four o'clock ... We were late for the train, we had to wait until half past nine. (Sighing heavily.) Phew! I'm getting a little dizzy...

Gaev enters; in his right hand he has purchases, with his left he wipes away tears.

Lyubov Andreevna. Lenya what? Lenya, right? (Impatiently, with tears.) Hurry, for God's sake...

Gaev(does not answer her, only waves her hand; to Firs, crying). Here, take it... There are anchovies, Kerch herring... I haven't eaten anything today... I've suffered so much!

The door to the billiard room is open; the sound of balls and the voice of Yasha are heard: “Seven and eighteen!” Gaev's expression changes, he no longer cries.

I'm terribly tired. Let me, Firs, change my clothes. (Goes away across the hall, followed by Firs.)

Pishchik. What's up for auction? Tell me!

Lyubov Andreevna. Sold cherry orchard?

Lopakhin. Sold.

Lyubov Andreevna. Who bought?

Lopakhin. I bought.

Pause.

Lyubov Andreevna is oppressed; she would have fallen if she had not been standing near the chair and table. Varya takes the keys from her belt, throws them on the floor, in the middle of the living room, and leaves.

I bought! Wait, gentlemen, do me a favor, my head is clouded, I can’t speak ... (Laughs.) We came to the auction, Deriganov was already there. Leonid Andreevich had only fifteen thousand, and Deriganov immediately gave thirty in excess of the debt. I see, it's like that, I grabbed him, hit forty. He is forty-five. I am fifty five. He, then, adds five, I ten ... Well, it's over. In excess of the debt, I slapped ninety, it was left for me. The cherry orchard is now mine! My! (Laughs.) My God, Lord, my cherry orchard! Tell me that I am drunk, out of my mind, that all this seems to me ... (Stomps feet.) Don't laugh at me! If my father and grandfather had risen from their graves and looked at the whole incident, like their Yermolai, beaten, illiterate Yermolai, who ran barefoot in winter, how this same Yermolai bought an estate, more beautiful than which there is nothing in the world. I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I'm dreaming, it only seems to me, it just seems... It's a figment of your imagination, covered in the darkness of the unknown... (Raises the keys, smiling affectionately.) She threw the keys, wants to show that she is no longer the mistress here ... (Jingling keys.) Well, it doesn't matter.

You can hear the orchestra tuning in.

Hey, musicians, play, I want to listen to you! Everyone come and watch how Yermolai Lopakhin will hit the cherry orchard with an ax, how the trees will fall to the ground! We will set up dachas, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here ... Music, play!

Music is playing. Lyubov Andreyevna sank into a chair and wept bitterly.

(With reproach.) Why, why didn't you listen to me? My poor, good, you will not return now. (With tears.) Oh, that all this would soon pass, that our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.

Pishchik(takes his arm in a low voice). She is crying. Let's go to the hall, let her be alone... Let's go... (Takes him by the arm and leads him into the hall.)

Lopakhin. What is it? Music, play it distinctly! Let everything as I wish! (With irony.) A new landowner is coming, the owner of a cherry orchard! (He accidentally pushed the table, almost knocked over the candelabra.) I can pay for everything! (Exits with PISCHIK.)

There is no one in the hall and drawing room except Lyubov Andreevna, who is sitting, shrinking all over and crying bitterly. Music plays softly. Anya and Trofimov quickly enter, Anya goes up to her mother and kneels in front of her, Trofimov remains at the entrance to the hall.

Anya. Mom!.. Mom, are you crying? My dear, kind, good mother, my beautiful, I love you ... I bless you. The cherry orchard has been sold, it’s gone, it’s true, it’s true, but don’t cry, mom, you have a life ahead of you, your good, pure soul remains ... Come with me, go, dear, from here, let’s go! .. We will plant a new garden , more luxurious than this, you will see him, you will understand, and joy, quiet, deep joy will descend on your soul, like the sun in the evening hour, and you will smile, mother! Let's go, honey! Let's go to!..

Curtain.

ACT FOUR

Scenery of the first act. There are no curtains on the windows, no paintings, there is a little furniture left, which is folded into one corner, as if for sale. Feels empty. Suitcases, road knots, etc. are stacked near the exit door and in the back of the stage. To the left, the door is open, and the voices of Varya and Anya can be heard from there. Lopakhin is standing, waiting. Yasha holds a tray with glasses filled with champagne. In the hall, Epikhodov is tying up a box. Behind the scenes in the depths of the rumble. The men came to say goodbye. Gaev's voice: "Thank you, brothers, thank you."

Yasha. The common people came to say goodbye. This is my opinion, Yermolai Alekseich: the people are kind, but understand little.

The hum subsides. LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA and GAYEV enter through the anteroom; she does not cry, but is pale, her face trembles, she cannot speak.

Gaev. You gave them your wallet, Lyuba. You can not do it this way! You can not do it this way!

Lyubov Andreevna. I could not! I could not!

Both leave.

Lopakhin(at the door, following them). Please, I beg you! A glass of goodbye. I didn’t think to bring it from the city, but at the station I found only one bottle. Please!

Pause.

Well, gentlemen! Don't you want to? (Moves away from the door.) Had I known, I wouldn't have bought it. Well, I won't drink.

Yasha carefully places the tray on a chair.

Drink, Yasha, at least you.

Yasha. With departing! Happy to stay? (Drinking.) This champagne is not real, I can assure you.

Lopakhin. Eight rubles a bottle.

Pause.

It's fucking cold in here.

Yasha. We didn’t heat today, we’re leaving anyway. (Laughs.)

Lopakhin. What you?

Yasha. From pleasure.

Lopakhin. It's October outside, but it's sunny and quiet like summer. Build well. (Looking at the clock, at the door.) Gentlemen, keep in mind, there are only forty-six minutes left before the train! So, in twenty minutes to go to the station. Hurry up.

Trofimov, in his overcoat, enters from the yard.

Trofimov. I think it's time to go. The horses are on. The devil knows where my galoshes are. Gone. (In the door.) Anya, my galoshes are gone! Not found!

Lopakhin. I need to go to Kharkov. I will travel with you on the same train. I will live in Kharkov all winter. I kept hanging out with you, I was exhausted with nothing to do. I can’t live without work, I don’t know what to do with my hands; dangle in a strange way, as if they were strangers.

Trofimov. Now we will leave, and you will again take up your useful work.

Lopakhin. Have a glass.

Trofimov. I won't.

Lopakhin. So, to Moscow now?

Trofimov. Yes, I'm taking them to the city, and tomorrow to Moscow.

Lopakhin. Yes... Well, professors don't give lectures, I suppose everyone is waiting for you to arrive!

Trofimov. None of your business.

Lopakhin. How many years have you been studying at the university?

Trofimov. Come up with something new. It's old and flat. (Looking for galoshes.) You know, we probably won't see each other again, so let me give you one piece of goodbye advice: don't wave your arms! Break the habit of waving. And also to build dachas, to expect that individual owners will eventually come out of dacha owners, to count in this way - this also means waving ... After all, I still love you. You have thin, tender fingers, like an artist, you have a thin, tender soul ...

Lopakhin(hugs him). Farewell, dove. Thanks for all. If necessary, take money from me for the journey.

Trofimov. Why should I? No need.

Lopakhin. After all, you don't!

Trofimov. There is. Thank you. I received a translation. Here they are, in my pocket. (Anxious.) And I don't have galoshes!

Varya(from another room). Take your crap! (Throws a pair of rubber galoshes onto the stage.)

Trofimov. Why are you angry, Varya? Hm... Yes, these are not my galoshes!

Lopakhin. I sowed a thousand acres of poppies in the spring and now I have earned forty thousand net. And when my poppy blossomed, what a picture it was! So I, I say, have earned forty thousand and, therefore, I offer you a loan, because I can. Why tear up your nose? I'm a man... simply.

Trofimov. Your father was a peasant, mine is a pharmacist, and absolutely nothing follows from this.

Lopakhin takes out his wallet.

Leave it, leave it... Give me at least two hundred thousand, I won't take it. Im free person. And everything that you all, rich and poor, value so highly and dearly, has not the slightest power over me, just like fluff that rushes through the air. I can do without you, I can pass you, I am strong and proud. Humanity is moving towards the highest truth, the highest happiness possible on earth, and I am in the forefront!

Lopakhin. Will you get there?

Trofimov. I will.

Pause.

I will reach or show others the way how to reach.

You can hear the sound of an ax banging on wood in the distance.

Lopakhin. Well, goodbye, little dove. It's time to go. We tear up our noses in front of each other, but life, you know, passes. When I work for a long time, without getting tired, then my thoughts are easier, and it seems that I also know what I exist for. And how many, brother, there are people in Russia who exist for no one knows why. Well, anyway, circulation is not the point. Leonid Andreevich, they say, has taken a job, will be in the bank, six thousand a year ... But he won’t sit still, he’s very lazy ...

Anya(in the door). Mom asks you: until she leaves, so that they do not cut down the garden.

Trofimov. Really, is there a lack of tact... (Leaves through the front.)

Lopakhin. Now, now ... What, right. (Walks after him.)

Anya. Firs sent to the hospital?

Yasha. I spoke in the morning. Sent, I think.

Anya(to Epikhodov, who passes through the hall). Semyon Panteleevich, please inquire whether Firs was taken to the hospital.

Yasha(offended). In the morning I spoke to Yegor. Why ask ten times!

Epikhodov. Long-term Firs, in my final opinion, is not good for repair, he needs to go to the forefathers. And I can only envy him. (He put the suitcase on top of the hat box and crushed it.) Well, here it is, of course. I knew it. (Exits.)

Yasha(mockingly). Twenty-two misfortunes...

Varya(Behind the door). Firs was taken to the hospital?

Anya. They took it.

Varya. Why didn't they take the letter to the doctor?

Anya. So you need to send after ... (Exits.)

Varya(from next room). Where is Yasha? Tell him his mother has come, she wants to say goodbye to him.

Yasha(waving hand). They only take it out of patience.

Dunyasha was busy all the time around things: now that Yasha was left alone, she went up to him.

Dunyasha. If only they could take a look, Yasha. You are leaving... you are leaving me. (Cries and throws herself on his neck.)

Yasha. Why cry? (Drinks champagne.) Six days later I'm back in Paris. Tomorrow we'll get on the courier train and drop off, they just saw us. Somehow I don't even believe it. Viv la France! .. It's not for me, I can't live ... there's nothing to be done. Seen enough of ignorance - will be with me. (Drinks champagne.) Why cry? Behave yourself, then you won't cry.

Dunyasha(powdering, looking in the mirror). Send a letter from Paris. After all, I loved you, Yasha, I loved you so much! I am a gentle creature, Yasha!

Yasha. They're coming here. (He fusses about the suitcases, sings softly.)

Enter LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA, ANIA, and CHARLOTTE Ivanovna.

Gaev. We would go. Already a little left. (Looking at Yasha.) Who smells like herring?

Lyubov Andreevna. In about ten minutes, let's get into the carriage already ... (Looks around the room.) Farewell, sweet home, old grandfather. Winter will pass, spring will come, and you will no longer be there, you will be broken. How many have seen these walls! (He kisses his daughter passionately.) My treasure, you shine, your eyes play like two diamonds. Are you satisfied? Highly?

Anya. Highly! A new life begins, mom!

Gaev(fun). In fact, everything is fine now. Before the sale of the cherry orchard, we all worried, suffered, and then, when the issue was finally resolved, irrevocably, everyone calmed down, even cheered up ... I am a bank servant, now I am a financier ... yellow in the middle, and you, Lyuba, after all, look better, it is certain.

Lyubov Andreevna. Yes. My nerves are better, it's true.

She is given a hat and coat.

I sleep well. Take out my things, Yasha. It's time. (But not.) My girl, we will see each other soon ... I am leaving for Paris, I will live there with the money that your Yaroslavl grandmother sent to buy an estate - long live grandmother! - and this money will not last long.

Anya. You, mother, will be back soon, soon ... isn't it? I will prepare, I will pass the exam at the gymnasium and then I will work, help you. We, mother, will read different books together ... Isn't it? (Kisses mother's hands.) We will read in the autumn evenings, we will read many books, and a new wonderful world will open before us ... (Dreams.) Mom, come...

Lyubov Andreevna. I'll come, my gold. (Hugs her daughter.)

Lopakhin enters. Charlotte hums a song softly.

Gaev. Happy Charlotte: Sing!

Charlotte(picks up a knot that looks like a folded baby). My baby, bye, bye ...

The cry of a child is heard: "Wah, wah! .."

Shut up, my good, my dear boy.

"Wah!.. Wah!.."

I feel so sorry for you! (Throws the knot back.) So you please find me a place. I can't do that.

Lopakhin. We'll find it, Charlotte Ivanovna, don't worry.

Gaev. Everyone is leaving us, Varya is leaving ... we are suddenly no longer needed, Charlotte. I have nowhere to live in the city. Gotta leave... (Sings.) Does not matter…

Pishchik enters.

Lopakhin. Nature miracle!..

Pishchik(out of breath). Oh, let me catch my breath... I'm exhausted... My most respected ones... Give me some water...

Gaev. For money perhaps? Humble servant, I'm leaving sin ... (Exits.)

Pishchik. Haven't been to you for a long time ... the most beautiful ... (Lopakhin.) You are here ... glad to see you ... a man of the greatest mind ... take ... receive ... (Gives money to Lopakhin.) Four hundred rubles ... Eight hundred and forty remain behind me ...

Lopakhin(shrugs in confusion). Like in a dream... Where did you get it?

Pishchik. Wait... It's hot... An extraordinary event. The British came to me and found some kind of white clay in the ground ... (Lyubov Andreevna.) And you are four hundred ... beautiful, amazing ... (Gives money.) The rest later. (Drinks water.) Just now, one young man was telling in the carriage that some great philosopher advises jumping from rooftops ... "Jump!", he says, and that's the whole problem. (Surprised.) You think! Water!..

Lopakhin. What are these Englishmen?

Pishchik. I rented out a plot of clay to them for twenty-four years… And now, excuse me, there is no time… we have to ride on… I’ll go to Znoykov… to Kardamonov… I owe everyone… (Drinking.) I wish you good health ... I'll call on Thursday ...

Lyubov Andreevna. We are now moving to the city, and tomorrow I am abroad ...

Pishchik. How? (Alarmed.) Why to the city? That's why I look at the furniture ... suitcases ... Well, nothing ... (Through tears.) Nothing... Greatest intelligence people... these Englishmen... Nothing. Be happy ... God will help you ... Nothing ... Everything in this world comes to an end ... (Kisses the hand of Lyubov Andreyevna.) And a rumor will reach you that the end has come to me, remember this very ... horse and say: “There was such and such in the world ... Simeonov-Pishchik ... God rest his soul” ... Wonderful weather ... Yes ... (Exits greatly embarrassed, but immediately returns and speaks at the door.) Dashenka bowed to you! (Exits.)

Lyubov Andreevna. Now you can go. I leave with two concerns. The first is the sick Firs. (Glancing at the clock.) Five more minutes maybe...

Anya. Mom, Firs has already been sent to the hospital. Yasha sent in the morning.

Lyubov Andreevna. My second sadness is Varya. She was used to getting up early and working, and now without difficulty she is like a fish without water. She lost weight, turned pale and cries, poor thing ...

Pause.

You know this very well, Yermolai Alekseich; I dreamed ... to marry her to you, and it was clear from everything that you were getting married. (Whispers to Anya, she nods to Charlotte, and they both leave.) She loves you, you like her, and I don't know, I don't know why you definitely avoid each other. I do not understand!

Lopakhin. I don't get it either, to be honest. Everything is somehow strange ... If there is still time, then at least I am ready now ... Let's finish it right away - and that's it, but without you I feel I won't make an offer.

Lyubov Andreevna. And excellent. After all, one minute is needed, only. I will now call...

Lopakhin. By the way, there is champagne. (Looking at the glasses.) Empty, someone has already drunk.

Yasha coughs.

It's called spitting...

Lyubov Andreevna(lively). Wonderful. We will go out… Yasha, allez! I will call her... (In the door.) Varya, leave everything, come here. Go! (Leaves with Yasha.)

Lopakhin(looking at the clock). Yes…

Pause.

Behind the door, restrained laughter, a whisper, finally Varya enters.

Varya(looks around for a long time). Weird, I can't find it...

Lopakhin. What are you looking for?

Varya. I did it myself and I don't remember.

Pause.

Lopakhin. Where are you going now, Varvara Mikhailovna?

Varya. I? To the Ragulins ... I agreed with him to look after the household ... to be a housekeeper, or something.

Lopakhin. Is it in Yashnevo? There will be seventy versts.

Pause.

That's the end of life in this house ...

Varya(looking around things). Where is it... Or maybe I put it in a chest... Yes, life in this house is over... there will be no more...

Lopakhin. And I'm leaving for Kharkov now ... with this train. There is a lot to do. And then I leave Epikhodov in the yard ... I hired him.

Varya. Well!

Lopakhin. Last year it was already snowing about this time, if you remember, but now it's quiet, sunny. Just now it's cold ... Three degrees of frost.

Varya. I didn't look.

Pause.

And yes, our thermometer is broken ...

Lopakhin(as if I had been waiting for this call for a long time). This minute! (Quickly leaves.)

Varya, sitting on the floor, with her head on the bundle with her dress, is quietly sobbing. The door opens, Lyubov Andreevna cautiously enters.

Lyubov Andreevna. What?

Pause.

Must go.

Varya(no longer crying, wiped her eyes). Yes, it's time, Mom. I’ll be in time for the Ragulins today, if only I wouldn’t be late for the train ...

Lyubov Andreevna(in the door). Anya, get dressed!

Anya enters, then Gaev, Charlotte Ivanovna. Gaev is wearing a warm coat with a hood. The servants, the cab drivers, converge. Epikhodov is bustling about things.

Now you can go on the road.

Anya(joyfully). On the road!

Gaev. My friends, my dear, dear friends! Leaving this house forever, can I remain silent, can I resist not to say goodbye those feelings that now fill my whole being ...

Anya(pleadingly). Uncle!

Varya. Uncle, don't!

Gaev(sadly). A doublet of yellow in the middle ... I am silent ...

Enter Trofimov, then Lopakhin.

Trofimov. Well, gentlemen, it's time to go!

Lopakhin. Epikhodov, my coat!

Lyubov Andreevna. I'll sit for one more minute. As if before, I had never seen what walls and ceilings were in this house, and now I look at them with greed, with such tender love ...

Gaev. I remember when I was six years old, on Trinity Day, I sat on this window and watched my father go to church ...

Lyubov Andreevna. Have you taken all your things?

Lopakhin. Everything seems to be. (To Epikhodov, putting on his overcoat.) You, Epikhodov, see that everything is in order.

Epikhodov. Now I drank water, swallowed something.

Yasha(with contempt). Ignorance…

Lyubov Andreevna. Let's go - and not a soul will be left here ...

Lopakhin. Until the spring.

Varya(pulls an umbrella out of the knot, it seems as if she has taken a swing; Lopakhin pretends to be frightened). What are you, what are you ... I didn’t even think ...

Trofimov. Gentlemen, let's go get into the carriages ... It's time already! Now the train is coming!

Varya. Petya, here they are, your galoshes, near the suitcase. (With tears.) And how dirty and old they are...

Trofimov(putting on galoshes). Let's go gentlemen!

Gaev(very embarrassed, afraid to cry). Train… station… Croiset in the middle, white doublet in the corner…

Lyubov Andreevna. Let's go!

Lopakhin. All here? Is there no one there? (Locks the side door to the left.) Here things are stacked, it is necessary to lock up. Let's go!..

Anya. Farewell home! Farewell, old life!

Trofimov. Hello new life! (Exits with Anya.)

Varya looks around the room and slowly leaves. Exit Yasha and Charlotte with the dog.

Lopakhin. So until spring. Come out, gentlemen ... Goodbye! .. (Exits.)

Lyubov Andreevna and Gaev were left alone. They were definitely waiting for this, throwing themselves on each other's necks and sobbing restrainedly, quietly, afraid that they would not be heard.

Gaev(in desperation). My sister, my sister...

Lyubov Andreevna. Oh my dear, my tender beautiful garden! .. My life, my youth, my happiness, farewell! .. Farewell! ..

Lyubov Andreevna. For the last time, look at the walls, at the windows ... The late mother loved to walk around this room ...

Gaev. My sister, my sister!

Lyubov Andreevna. We go!..

They leave.

The stage is empty. You can hear how all the doors are locked with a key, how the carriages then drive off. It becomes quiet. Amidst the silence, there is a dull knock on wood, sounding lonely and sad. Footsteps are heard. Firs appears from the door to the right. He is dressed, as always, in a jacket and white vest, shoes on his feet. He is sick.

Firs(goes to the door, touches the handle). Locked up. We left... (Sits down on the sofa.) They forgot about me ... Nothing ... I'll sit here ... But Leonid Andreevich probably didn't put on a fur coat, he went in a coat ... (Sighs anxiously.) I didn’t look at it ... Young and green! (He mutters something he can't understand.) Life has passed, as if it had not lived. (Lies down.) I'll lie down... You don't have any Silushka, there's nothing left, nothing... Oh, you... silly!.. (Lies motionless.)

A distant sound is heard, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, fading, sad. There is silence, and only one can hear how far in the garden they knock with an ax on a tree.

"THE CHERRY GARDEN. 03 Act Three A Comedy in Four Acts"

Living room, separated by an arch from the hall. The chandelier is on. A troy orchestra is heard playing in the hall, the same one mentioned in the second act. Evening. Grand-rond is dancing in the hall. The voice of Simeonov-Pishchik: "Promenade a une paire!" They go out into the living room: in the first pair Pishchik and Charlotte Ivanovna, in the second - Trofimov and Lyubov Andreevna, in the third - Anya with the postal official, in the fourth - Varya with the head of the station, etc. Varya is crying quietly and, dancing, wipes her tears. In the last pair of Dunyasha. They walk around the living room, Pishchik shouts: “Grand-rond, balancez!” and "Les cavaliers a genoux et remerciez vos dames" 1.

Firs in evening dress carries seltzer water on a tray. Pishchik and Trofimov enter the drawing room.

Pishchik. I am full-blooded, I have already had a blow twice, it is difficult to dance, but, as they say, I got into a flock, bark not bark, but wag your tail. My health is like a horse. My late parent, a joker, the kingdom of heaven, spoke about our origin as if our ancient family of Simeonov-Pishchikov descended from the same horse that Caligula planted in the Senate ... (Sits down.) But the trouble is: there is no money! A hungry dog ​​believes only in meat ... (Snores and wakes up immediately.) So I ... I can only about money ...

Trofimov. Ay, you really have something horse in your figure.

Pishchik. Well... a horse is a good animal... You can sell a horse...

You can hear billiards playing in the next room. Varya appears in the hall under the archway.

Trofimov (teasing). Madame Lopakhina! Madame Lopakhina!

Varya (angrily). Wretched bard!

Trofimov. Yes, I'm a shabby gentleman and I'm proud of it!

VARYA (in bitter thought). They hired musicians, but how to pay? (Exits.)

Trofimov (to Pishchik). If the energy you've spent your entire life looking for money to pay interest were spent elsewhere, you could probably move the earth in the end.

Pishchik. Nietzsche... the philosopher... the greatest, most famous... man of enormous intelligence, says in his writings that it is possible to make counterfeit papers.

Trofimov. Have you read Nietzsche?

Pishchik. Well... Dashenka told me. And now I'm in such a position that at least make fake papers ... The day after tomorrow, three hundred and ten rubles to pay ... I already got a hundred and thirty ... (Feels his pockets, alarmed.) The money is gone! Lost money! (Through tears.) Where is the money? (Joyfully.) Here they are, behind the lining... I even started to sweat...

Enter Lyubov Andreyevna and Charlotte Ivanovna.

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (sings a lezginka). Why is Leonidas gone so long? What is he doing in the city? (Dunyasha.) Dunyasha, offer the musicians tea...

Trofimov. Bidding did not take place, in all likelihood.

Lyubov Andreevna. And the musicians came inopportunely, and we started the ball inopportunely ... Well, nothing ... (Sits down and quietly bakes.)

Charlotte (gives Pishchik a deck of cards). Here's a deck of cards, think of one card.

Pishchik. Thought.

Charlotte. Shuffle the deck now. Very well. Give it here, oh my dear Mr. Pishchik. Ein, zwei, drei! Now look, it's in your side pocket...

PISCHIK (takes out a map from his side pocket). Eight of spades, absolutely right! (Surprised.) Just think!

CHARLOTTE (holding a deck of cards in her palm, to Trofimova). Tell me quickly, which card is on top?

Trofimov. Well? Well, the lady of spades.

Charlotte. There is! (to Pishchik.) Well? Which card is on top?

Pishchik. Ace of hearts.

Charlotte. There is! .. (He hits his palm, the deck of cards disappears.) And what good weather today!

Stationmaster (applause). Lady ventriloquist, bravo!

The most charming Charlotte Ivanovna... I am simply in love...

Charlotte. In love? (Shrugging his shoulders.) How can you love? Guter Mensch, aberschlechter Musikant 2.

TROFIMOV (slaps Pishchik on the shoulder). You are a horse...

Charlotte. I beg your attention, one more trick. (Takes a plaid from a chair.) Here is a very good plaid, I want to sell ... (Shakes it.) Does anyone want to buy?

PISCHIK (surprised). You think!

Charlotte. Ein, zwei, drei! (Quickly picks up the lowered blanket.)

Anya is standing behind the blanket; she curtsies, runs to her mother, embraces her and runs back into the hall with general delight.

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (applause). Bravo, bravo!

Charlotte. Now more! Ein, zwei, drei!

Raises the blanket; Varya stands behind the rug and bows.

PISCHIK (surprised). You think!

Charlotte. End! (Throws a blanket at Pishchik, makes a curtsy and runs into the hall.)

PISCHIK (hurries after her). The villain... what? What? (Exits.)

Lyubov Andreevna. But Leonidas is still missing. What he's been doing in the city for so long, I don't understand! After all, everything is already over there, the estate has been sold or the auction has not taken place, why keep it in the dark for so long!

VARYA (trying to console her). My uncle bought it, I'm sure of it.

Trofimov (mockingly). Yes.

Varya. Grandmother sent him a power of attorney to buy in her name with the transfer of the debt. This is for Anya. And I'm sure God will help, uncle will buy.

Lyubov Andreevna. The Yaroslavl grandmother sent fifteen thousand to buy the estate in her name - she does not believe us - and this money would not even be enough to pay the interest. (He covers his face with his hands.) Today my fate is being decided, my fate...

TROFIMOV (teasing Varya). Madame Lopakhina!

Varya (angrily). Eternal student! I've been fired from the university twice already.

Lyubov Andreevna. Why are you angry, Varya? He teases you with Lopakhin, so what? If you want, marry Lopakhin, he is a good, interesting person. If you don't want to, don't come out; you, darling, no one captivates ...

Varya. I look at this matter seriously, Mommy, I must speak frankly. He is a good person, I like him.

Lyubov Andreevna. And get out. What to expect, I do not understand!

Varya. Mommy, I can't propose to him myself. For two years now, everyone has been talking to me about him, everyone is talking, but he is either silent or joking. I understand. He is getting rich, busy with business, he is not up to me. If I had money, at least a little, at least a hundred rubles, I would have thrown everything, I would have gone away. I would go to a monastery.

Trofimov. Grace!

Varya (to Trofimov). The student must be smart! (In a soft tone, with tears.) How ugly you have become, Petya, how old you have become! (To Lyubov Andreyevna, no longer crying.) Only now I can’t do nothing, mommy. I have to do something every minute.

Yasha enters.

YASHA (can hardly help laughing) Epikhodov broke his billiard cue!

Varya. Why is Epikhodov here? Who let him play billiards? I don't understand these people... (Leaves.)

Lyubov Andreevna. Do not tease her, Petya, you see, she is already in grief.

Trofimov. She is very zealous, she pokes her own business. All summer she haunted neither me nor Anya, she was afraid that our romance would not work out. What's her business? And besides, I didn’t show it, I’m so far from vulgarity. We are above love!

Lyubov Andreevna. And I must be below love. (In great anxiety.) Why isn't Leonid? Just to know: sold the estate or not? The misfortune seems to me so unbelievable that somehow I don’t even know what to think, I’m at a loss ... I can shout now ... I can do something stupid. Save me, Petya. Say something, say something...

Trofimov. Whether the estate is sold today or not sold - does it matter? It has long been finished with him, there is no turning back, the path is overgrown. Calm down, dear. Do not deceive yourself, you must at least once in your life look the truth straight in the eye.

Lyubov Andreevna. What truth? You can see where the truth is and where the lie is, but I definitely lost my sight, I don’t see anything. You boldly resolve all important issues, but tell me, my dear, is it not because you are young, that you have not had time to suffer through a single one of your questions? You boldly look ahead, and is it not because you do not see and do not expect anything terrible, since life is still hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than us, but think about it, be generous at the tip of your finger, spare me. After all, I was born here, my father and mother lived here, my grandfather, I love this house, I don’t understand my life without a cherry orchard, and if you really need to sell it, then sell me along with the garden ... (Hugging Trofimova, kisses him on the forehead.) After all, my son drowned here ... (Crying.) Have pity on me, good, kind person.

Trofimov. You know, I sympathize with all my heart.

Lyubov Andreevna. But it must be done differently, otherwise it must be said... (Takes out a handkerchief, a telegram falls on the floor.) My heart is heavy today, you can't imagine. It’s noisy here, my soul trembles at every sound, I’m trembling all over, but I can’t go to my room, I’m scared alone in the silence. Don't judge me, Petya... I love you like my own. I would gladly give Anya for you, I swear to you, only, my dear, you have to study, you have to finish the course. You do nothing, only fate throws you from place to place, it's so strange ... Isn't it? Yes? And you have to do something with the beard so that it grows somehow ... (Laughs.) You are funny!

TROFIMOV (raises the telegram). I don't want to be handsome.

Lyubov Andreevna. This is a telegram from Paris. I receive every day. Both yesterday and today. This wild man fell ill again, he is not well again ... He asks for forgiveness, begs me to come, and really I should go to Paris, be near him. You, Petya, have a stern face, but what should I do, my dear, what should I do, he is sick, he is lonely, unhappy, and who is there to look after him, who will keep him from making mistakes, who will give him medicine in time? And what is there to hide or be silent, I love him, that's clear. I love, I love ... This is a stone on my neck, I go to the bottom with it, but I love this stone and cannot live without it. (Shakes Trofimov's hand.) Don't think badly, Petya, don't say anything to me, don't say...

Trofimov (through tears). Forgive me for the frankness for God's sake: after all, he robbed you!

Lyubov Andreevna. No, no, no, don't talk like that... (Closes his ears.)

Trofimov. After all, he is a scoundrel, only you alone do not know this! He's a petty scoundrel, a nonentity...

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (angry, but restrained). You are twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, and you are still a second grade schoolboy!

Trofimov. Let!

Lyubov Andreevna. You have to be a man, at your age you need to understand those who love. And you need to love yourself ... you need to fall in love! (Angry.) Yes, yes! And you have no cleanliness, and you are just a clean, funny eccentric, freak ...

Trofimov (in horror). What does she say!

Lyubov Andreevna. "I am above love!" You are not above love, but simply, as our Firs says, you are a klutz. At your age not to have a mistress! ..

Trofimov (in horror). This is terrible! What does she say?! (He walks quickly into the hall, clutching his head.) It's terrible... I can't. I'll leave... (He leaves, but immediately returns.) It's all over between us! (Goes into the hallway.)

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (shouting after her). Petya, wait! Funny man, I was joking! Petya!

Someone in the hall is heard quickly going up the stairs and suddenly falls down with a crash. Anya and Varya scream, but laughter is immediately heard.

What is there?

Anya runs.

Anya (laughing). Petya fell down the stairs! (Runs away.)

Lyubov Andreevna. What an eccentric this Petya ...

The stationmaster stops in the middle of the hall and reads "The Sinner" by A. Tolstoy. They listen to him, but as soon as he read a few lines, the sounds of a waltz come from the hall, and the reading breaks off. Everyone is dancing. Trofimov, Anya, Varya and Lyubov Andreevna pass from the front.

Well, Petya... well, pure soul... I beg your pardon... Let's go dancing... (Dances with Petya.)

Anya and Varya are dancing.

Firs enters, places his stick near the side door.

Yasha also came in from the living room, looking at the dances.

Yasha. What, grandpa?

Firs. Not well. Before, generals, barons, admirals danced at our balls, but now we send for the postal clerk and the head of the station, and even they are not willing to go. Something weakened me. The late gentleman, grandfather, used sealing wax for all, from all diseases. I have been taking sealing wax every day for twenty years, or even more; maybe I'm alive from him.

Yasha. You're tired, grandfather. (Yawns.) If only you would die sooner.

Firs. Oh, you... silly! (Mumbling.)

Trofimov and Lyubov Andreevna dance in the hall, then in the living room.

Lyubov Andreevna. Mercy! I'll sit... (Sits down.) Tired.

Anya enters.

Anya (excitedly). And now, in the kitchen, a man was saying that the cherry orchard had already been sold today.

Lyubov Andreevna. To whom is it sold?

Anya. Didn't say to whom. Gone. (Dances with Trofimov, both go into the hall.)

Yasha. It was some old man talking there. Stranger.

Firs. But Leonid Andreevich is not here yet, he hasn't arrived. His coat is light, demi-season, he looks like he will catch a cold. Ah, young green.

Lyubov Andreevna. I'll die now. Go, Yasha, find out to whom it was sold.

Yasha. Yes, he's long gone, old man. (Laughs.)

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (with slight annoyance). Well, what are you laughing at? What are you happy about?

Yasha. Epikhodov is very funny. Empty man. Twenty-two misfortunes.

Lyubov Andreevna. Firs, if the estate is sold, where will you go?

Firs. Wherever you tell me, I will go there.

Lyubov Andreevna. Why is your face like that? Are you unwell? You know, go to sleep...

Firs. Yes... (With a grin.) I'll go to sleep, but without me, who will give here, who will order? One for the whole house.

Yasha (Lyubov Andreevna). Lyubov Andreevna! Let me ask you to be so kind! If you go to Paris again, then take me with you, do me a favor. It is positively impossible for me to stay here. (Looking around, in an undertone.) What can I say, you yourself see, the country is uneducated, the people are immoral, and moreover, boredom, the food is ugly in the kitchen, and then there is this Firs walking around, muttering various inappropriate words. Take me with you, be so kind!

Pishchik enters.

Pishchik. Allow me to ask you ... to waltz, most beautiful ... (Lyubov Andreevna goes with him.) Charming, after all, I will take one hundred and eighty rubles from you ... I will take ... (Dances.) One hundred and eighty rubles ...

We moved into the hall.

Yasha (singing softly). "Will you understand the excitement of my soul..."

In the hall a figure in a gray top hat and checkered trousers is waving his arms and jumping; cries of "Bravo, Charlotte Ivanovna!"

DUNYASHA (stopping to powder). The young lady tells me to dance - there are many gentlemen, but few ladies - but my head is spinning from dancing, my heart is beating, Firs Nikolaevich, and now the official from the post office told me this, it took my breath away.

The music subsides.

Firs. What did he say to you? Dunyasha. You, he says, are like a flower.

Yasha (yawns). Ignorance... (Leaves.) Dunyasha. Like a flower... I am such a delicate girl, I love gentle words terribly.

Firs. You will spin.

Epikhodov enters.

Epikhodov. You, Avdotya Fyodorovna, don't want to see me... as if I were some kind of insect. (Sighs.) Ah, life!

Dunyasha. What do you want?

Epikhodov. Surely you may be right. (Sighs.) But, of course, if you look from the point of view, then you, let me put it this way, sorry for the frankness, completely put me in a state of mind. I know my fortune, every day some kind of misfortune happens to me, and I have long been accustomed to this, so I look at my fate with a smile. You gave me your word, and even though I...

Dunyasha. Please, we'll talk later, but now leave me alone. Now I dream. (Plays with a fan.)

Epikhodov. I have misfortune every day, and I, let me put it this way, only smile, even laugh.

Enters from Varya's hall.

Varya. You still haven't left, Semyon? What a disrespectful person you are. (to Dunyasha) Get out of here, Dunyasha. (To Epikhodov.) Now you play billiards and break your cue, now you pace the living room like a guest.

Epikhodov. Charge me, let me put it, you can't.

Varya. I do not exact from you, but I say. You only know that you go from place to place, but do not do business. We keep a clerk, but it is not known why.

EPIHODOV (offended). Whether I work, whether I go, whether I eat, whether I play billiards, only people who understand and elders can talk about that.

Varya. You dare to tell me that! (Burning up) Do you dare? So I don't understand anything? Get out of here! This minute!

Epikhodov (cowardly). I ask you to express yourself in a delicate way.

VARYA (losing her temper). Get out of here this minute! Out!

He goes to the door, she follows him.

Twenty-two misfortunes! So that your spirit is not here! May my eyes not see you!

Oh, are you going back? (He grabs the stick Firs placed near the door.) Go... Go... Go, I'll show you... Ah, are you coming? Are you going? So here's to you... (Swings.)

At this time, Lopakhin enters.

Lopakhin. Thank you very much.

VARYA (angrily and mockingly). Guilty!

Lopakhin. Nothing, sir. Thank you very much for the pleasant meal.

Varya. Do not mention it. (Steps away, then looks around and asks softly.) Didn't I hurt you?

Lopakhin. There is nothing. The bump, however, will jump up huge.

Pishchik. You can see it by sight, you can hear it by ear... (He kisses Lopakhin.) You smell of cognac, my dear, my soul. And we have fun here too.

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA enters.

Lyubov Andreevna. Is that you, Ermolai Alekseich? Why so long? Where is Leonidas?

Lopakhin. Leonid Andreevich came with me, he's coming...

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (excitedly). Well? Were there auctions? Speak now!

LOPAKHIN (embarrassed, afraid to reveal his joy). The auction was over by four o'clock... We were late for the train, we had to wait until half past ten. (Sighing heavily.) Phew! I'm getting a little dizzy...

Gaev enters; in his right hand he has purchases, with his left he wipes away tears.

Lyubov Andreevna. Lenya what? Lenya, right? (Impatiently, with tears.) Hurry, for God's sake...

GAYEV (does not answer her, only waves his hand to Firs, crying). Here, take it... There are anchovies, Kerch herring... I haven't eaten anything today... I've suffered so much!

The door to the billiard room is open; the sound of balls and the voice of Yasha are heard: “Seven and eighteen!” Gaev's expression changes, he no longer cries.

I'm terribly tired. Let me, Firs, change my clothes. (Goes away across the hall, followed by Firs.)

Pishchik. What's up for auction? Tell me!

Lyubov Andreevna. Sold cherry orchard?

Lopakhin. Sold.

Lyubov Andreevna. Who bought?

Lopakhin. I bought.

Lyubov Andreevna is oppressed; she would have fallen if she had not been standing near the chair and table. Varya takes the keys from her belt, throws them on the floor, in the middle of the living room, and leaves.

I bought! Wait, gentlemen, do me a favor, my head is clouded, I can’t speak ... (Laughs.) We came to the auction, Deriganov was already there. Leonid Andreevich had only fifteen thousand, and Deriganov immediately gave thirty in excess of the debt. I see, it's like that, I grabbed him, hit forty. He is forty-five. I am fifty five. So he adds five, I ten ... Well, it's over. In excess of the debt, I slapped ninety, it was left for me. The cherry orchard is now mine! My! (Laughs.) My God, Lord, my cherry orchard! Tell me that I'm drunk, out of my mind, that all this seems to me ... (Stomps his feet.) Don't laugh at me! If my father and grandfather had risen from their graves and looked at the whole incident, like their Yermolai, beaten, illiterate Yermolai, who ran barefoot in winter, how this same Yermolai bought an estate, more beautiful than which there is nothing in the world. I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I'm sleeping, it only seems to me, it just seems... It's a figment of your imagination, covered in the darkness of the unknown... keys.) Well, it doesn't matter.

You can hear the orchestra tuning in.

Hey, musicians, play, I want to listen to you! Everyone come and watch how Yermolai Lopakhin will hit the cherry orchard with an ax, how the trees will fall to the ground! We will set up dachas, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here... Music, play!

Music is playing, Lyubov Andreevna sank into a chair and wept bitterly.

(Reproachfully.) Why, why didn't you listen to me? My poor, good, you will not return now. (With tears.) Oh, that all this would soon pass, that our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.

Lopakhin. What is it? Music, play it distinctly! Let everything as I wish! (With irony.) A new landowner is coming, the owner of a cherry orchard! (He accidentally pushed the table, almost knocked over the candelabra.) I can pay for everything! (Exits with PISCHIK.)

There is no one in the hall and drawing room except Lyubov Andreevna, who is sitting, shrinking all over and crying bitterly. Music plays softly. Anya and Trofimov quickly enter. Anya approaches her mother and kneels in front of her. Trofimov remains at the entrance to the hall.

Anya. Mom!.. Mom, are you crying? Dear, kind, my good mother, my beautiful, I love you ... I bless you. The cherry orchard has been sold, it's gone, it's true, it's true, but don't cry, mother, you have a life ahead of you, your good, pure soul remains... Come with me, come, dear, from here, let's go! a new garden, more luxurious than this, you will see it, understand it, and joy, quiet, deep joy will descend on your soul, like the sun in the evening hour, and you will smile, mother! Let's go, honey! Let's go to!..

“Promenade for couples!” ... “Big circle, balance!” ... “Cavaliers, on your knees and thank the ladies” (French).

A good man, but a bad musician (German).

Anton Chekhov - CHERRY GARDEN. 03 Act Three A comedy in four acts, read text

See also Chekhov Anton - Prose (stories, poems, novels ...):

THE CHERRY ORCHARD. 04 Act four A comedy in four acts
Scenery of the first act. There are no curtains on the windows, no paintings, only...

IN LANDO
The daughters of the real state councilor Bryndin, Kitty and Zina, cat...

By the beginning of the 3rd act, the ideological and moral positions of the characters have been determined, a feeling of a global “undercurrent” has been created: through empty chatter, talk about nothing or each about his own, through the apparent eventlessness, the growing internal boiling begins to be clearly felt.

Lopakhin is trying again to revive the dead practical vein of Ranevskaya and Gaev, but they live in another dimension, they are not able to understand Lopakhin, they only sensitively catch the approaching disaster.

Petya Trofimov solemnly convinces Anya that they are “above love”, above this particular garden, they need to “get around the petty and ghostly ...”, that “all of Russia is our garden”, that we need to work “to redeem our past”. Anya, seemingly perceiving Petya's calls, is nevertheless thoughtful and sad, her farewell to the garden is very ambiguous: the joy of moving towards the new life promised by Trofimov is combined with the bitterness of losing tender attachment to the past, and simply love for her mother, who is now ill.

The action takes place in the living room. A Jewish orchestra is playing, for which there is no one to pay, everyone is dancing (a kind of feast during the plague). Varya quarrels with Trofimov, Charlotte shows Pishchik tricks on the cards. Varya is again being asked to marry Lopakhin. Epikhodov broke the billiard ball. It strikes the routine of what is happening with a simultaneous increase in internal tension.

Ranevskaya's heart is getting worse and worse. At first, she acts and speaks as if mechanically, absent-mindedly, only complaining a few times that there is no news from the auction from Lopakhin. Then she suddenly explodes in a conversation with Petya, revealing her spiritual heaviness from parting with her life in her home. So she flared up, bringing down all her indignation on the head of poor Petya.

Music plays, the characters quarrel, reconcile, and the tension of painful expectation hangs in the air. The severity of Ranevskaya is even more intensified with the appearance of Firs, who reminds her of the past. Varya drives Epikhodov away with a stick, and at that moment - the culmination of the action - Lopakhin, treated by mistake to Varya's stick, enters with the main message. Perhaps the tragicomic nature of this decisive situation forced Chekhov to define the play as a comedy genre?

It is curious that, unlike the whole play (there are 38 famous Chekhov pauses in four acts), there is only one pause in Act 3 - after Lopakhin's words: "I bought it." Everything is mixed up. Gaev's crying is replaced by a desire to eat and play billiards (defensive reaction). The convulsive expectation of Ranevskaya turns into tears and loss of speech (she is silent). The unbridled and indelicately plebeian triumph of Lopakhin is intertwined with Ranevskaya's reproach and sympathy for her. The orchestra is no longer playing cheerfully, but quietly. In Anya's consoling speech, words of love for her mother, coming from the depths of her soul, are interspersed with high-flown words about the "new garden" learned from Petya.

Act 3 is the climax of the play. All important things happened. The garden was bought, but it was bought all the same by his own, native "predator", and not by someone else's Deriganov. Only the scene of farewell and departure remains, when the equally unnecessary Firs is forgotten in a house no longer needed, and the whole play will end with the symbolic sounds of a broken string and the clatter of an ax on the still-living cherry trees.