Why would I talk about dachas? Well, first of all, summer and hot. Secondly, I came across a nice "dacha" exhibition in Melikhovo.
Lopakhin. 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. Dachas and summer residents - it's so vulgar, sorry.
Melikhovo is a museum-estate of Chekhov. So you involuntarily recall the "Cherry Orchard". The play was written in 1903, by which time the “dacha” culture had already expanded.
And where did it start? The word itself is etymologically clear - it comes from the verb "give". And at first it was simply about land or forest plots granted by a prince or tsar (there was a lot of land in Rus', little money in the treasury - this is the way to reward worthy close associates).
The concept of a suburban - or rather, even a suburban - small estate appeared in the Petrine era. The tsar began to distribute the lands under the newly built St. Petersburg to high officials - as it was alleged, so that they would not go to distant estates for the summer, but would remain at the monarch’s hand just in case.
However, the meaning of the term continued to be modified - and already in the 1820s we see "Her Imperial Majesty's own dacha Alexandria." And here, of course, we mean simply a suburban ensemble, something like a European villa.
But those dachas that Chekhov's character spoke about were still far away. The changes brought with them two things: the peasant reform of Alexander II (which, having launched many economic transformations, at the same time destroyed the very principle of the noble estate as a large complex, primarily agricultural land) and the railway.
The last one is important. After all, wealthy townspeople existed before - and some even acquired or built small estates for summer holidays (Chekhov's Melikhovo itself, after all, is one of those). But before the advent of the railroad, to leave for your summer residence meant to equip a large - and slowly creeping - convoy and already set off, so for several months at once.
The dacha of the second half of the 19th century is, in a certain sense, a reproduction of a manor, an estate, but in miniature. Not just landless and not related to agriculture, but also not requiring a large number of servants. And also not too far from the city - unlike the owners of traditional estates, who only twice a year made an arbitrarily long journey from the village to the city and back, the "dacha residents" were tied to the city by service or professional activity. For such people, the slowly creeping estate convoy was not suitable. And the townspeople, as a rule, no longer kept their own horses. And with the advent of the train, the issue was resolved.
Of course, some dachas were built "for themselves" - as a rule, according to an individual project and often even with the involvement of serious architects. But more often, entire summer cottages were lined up for rent. And so they begin to appear precisely around the railway stations - so that the father of the family (whose vacation was, as a rule, the shortest summer period) could go to the city in the morning to work, and return in the evening.
Judging by the ads of that time, it was still not about 30 square meters prescribed as a limit on the area of \u200b\u200bthe house for the Soviet owner of six acres, but about more impressive buildings, designed for both the largest family and servants.
In general, let's quote Chekhov's play once again:
Lopakhin. Until now, there were only gentlemen and peasants in the village, but now there are also summer residents.
And with summer residents, a special country style appeared. These were, indeed, no longer those "gentlemen" who spent considerable time looking after agricultural work. The summer resident was resting - adults from the affairs of the service or from urban secular life, children from gymnasium science. And they all drank tea together on the veranda (and also brewed jam at the peak of the season, and cooking jam under the trees in a copper basin is generally a separate, namely country ritual).
Along with traditional (including for urban leisure) board games, sports games also appeared. Among which, the now forgotten (and in some places with difficulty, but stubbornly revived) croquet stood out.
Other types of suburban leisure, one must think, are familiar to everyone - walks, picnics, mushrooms, fishing, swimming, boats ... Why summer cottages quickly acquired a kind of leisure infrastructure.
And summer theaters sprang up everywhere. Somewhere completely capitally built, suitable for inviting professional singers and actors. Somewhere adapted from a barn or a barn - for amateur performances.
How important the dacha theme became at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries is evidenced by numerous printed publications devoted only to it. With advice like "when to go to the country" and "how rational baths should be arranged." And also with numerous cartoons and humorous stories (and to be honest, not only Teffi or Averchenko, but Anton Pavlovich himself managed to pay tribute to the dacha theme in this context).
Well, as you know, there have always been problems with country roads - and this is also an age-old Russian story.
Well, it's funny that in Chekhov's play one can also subtract something like a prediction - only it concerns the "dachas" of the second half of the 20th century.
Lopakhin. 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.
Well, this time I ended up in the Chekhov estate itself on the occasion of another theatrical premiere at the Melikhovsky Theater. What those interested can read about.
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, maid. Firs, footman, old man 87 years old. Yasha, a young footman. Passerby. station master. Postal official. Guests, servants.The action takes place in the estate of L. A. Ranevskaya.
Act 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 sat down and fell asleep. 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 and there ...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 late father - he then traded here in the village in a shop - hit me in the face with his fist, blood came out of my 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, right in this very room, in the nursery. “Don’t cry, he says, little man, he will heal before the wedding ...”
Little man ... My father, however, was a man, but here I am in a white waistcoat, 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.
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't. 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, pardon 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. A! 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 among us: twenty-two misfortunes ... Lopakhin (listens). Looks like they're on their way... Dunyasha. They're coming! What's the matter with me... I've gone cold all over. Lopakhin. They go, in fact. Let's go meet. Will she recognize me? Haven't seen each other for five years. Dunyasha (in agitation). 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. Through the stage, leaning on a stick, Firs hastily passes, who went to meet Lyubov Andreevna; 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: "Let's go here..." Lyubov Andreevna, Anya and Charlotte Ivanovna with a dog on a chain, dressed in a travel way. Varya in a coat and scarf, Gaev, Simeonov-Pishchik, Lopakhin, Dunyasha with a bundle and an umbrella, servants with things - they all go 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 still 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 (to Pischiku). My dog eats nuts too. Pishchik (surprised). You think!Everyone leaves except Anya and Dunyasha.
Dunyasha. We've been waiting... (Takes off Ani's coat and hat.) Anya. I didn't sleep on the road for four nights... now I'm very cold. Dunyasha. You left during Great 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 (weakly). Something again... Dunyasha. The clerk Epikhodov proposed to me after the Saint. Anya. You are all about the same... (Fixes 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). Peter! 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, she has 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. (Coursing.) My darling has arrived! Beauty has arrived! Anya. I suffered. Varya . I imagine! Anya. I left on Holy Week, when it was cold. Charlotte talks all the way, doing 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 terrible. 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 . The estate will be sold in August... Anya. My God... Lopakhin (looks in the door and hums). Me-ee... (Exit.) 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 bless 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 had married you off as a rich man, then I would have been calmer, I would have gone to the desert, then to Kiev ... to Moscow, and so I would have walked all over the holy places ... I would have walked and walked. Blessing!.. Anya. The birds are singing in the garden. What time is it now? Varya . 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. Um... And who are you? Dunyasha. When you left here, I was like... (Pointing from the floor.) Dunyasha, Fyodor Kozoedov's daughter. You do not remember! Yasha. Hm... Cucumber! (He looks around and hugs her; she screams and drops her saucer. Yasha quickly leaves.) Varya (at the door, in an unhappy voice). What else is there? 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, 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 only she knew!And Petya Trofimov was Grisha's teacher, he can remind ...
Firs enters; he is wearing a jacket and a white vest.
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 mistress has arrived! Waited! Now even die... (Crying for joy.)Enter Lyubov Andreevna, Gaev, 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! (To her 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 a long one. 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 must drink coffee. Thank you, Firs, thank you, my old man. I'm so glad you're still alive. Firs. 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 magnificent. Pishchik (breathing heavily). Even prettier ... Dressed in Parisian style ... my cart, all four wheels ... Lopakhin. Your brother, that's Leonid Andreevich, says about me that I'm a boor, I'm a kulak, but it makes absolutely no difference to me. 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... (Jumps up 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, an auction is scheduled for the twenty-second of August, 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 charge the dacha owners at the very least twenty-five rubles a year for a tithe, and if you announce it now, I will guarantee anything, you will not have a single free patch left until the autumn, 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 don’t think of anything 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 then dried cherries were soft, juicy, sweet, fragrant... Then they knew the way... 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 also 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 ... GAYEV (indignant). 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? A? 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 the closet.) Dear, respected 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, maintaining (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. Lopakhin. Yes... Lyubov Andreevna. You're still the same, Lepya. 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 with us at Svyatoy, they ate half a bucket of cucumbers ... (Mumblings.) 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, with a lorgnette on her belt, passes through the stage.
Lopakhin. Excuse me, Charlotte Ivanovna, I haven't had time to say hello to you yet. (Tries to kiss her hand.) Charlotte (withdrawing her hand). If you let me kiss your hand, then you will later wish on the elbow, then on 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. (to 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... (Leaves.) 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. A man, you have to tell the truth... worthy... And my Dashenka... also says that... he says different words. (Snores, but wakes up immediately.) But still, dear, lend me... two hundred and forty rubles on loan... to pay the interest on the mortgage tomorrow... Varya (frightened). No, no! Lyubov Andreevna. I really don't have anything. Pishchik. There will be. (Laughs.) I never lose hope. So, I think, everything is gone, perished, but 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). Again, they put on the wrong trousers. And what am I to do with you! Varya (quietly). 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, 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! Oh 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. Yes, 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 worn student uniform, with 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 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 Andreyevna embraces him and weeps softly.
GAYEV (embarrassed). Full, full, Lyuba. Varya (crying). She said, Petya, to wait until tomorrow. Lyubov Andreevna. My Grisha... my boy... Grisha... son... Varya . What to do, mommy. God's will. Trofimov (softly, through tears). Will be, will be... Lyubov Andreevna(weeping softly). The boy died, drowned... For what? For what, my friend? (Hush.) 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 not thick, 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. PISCHIK (goes after her). So, now to sleep... Oh, my gout. I'll stay with you... I would, Lyubov Andreyevna, my soul, tomorrow morning... two hundred and forty rubles... Gaev. And this one is all mine. Pishchik. Two hundred and forty rubles... to pay the 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. (To Yasha.) Move away, my dear, you smell like chicken. Yasha (with a smile). And you, Leonid Andreevich, are still the same as you were. Gaev. Whom? (to Varya) What did he say? Varya (Yashe). Your mother came from the village, she has been sitting in the servants' room since yesterday, she 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 give everything away. Gaev. Yes...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 (in a whisper). Anya is at the door. Gaev. Whom?Surprisingly, something got into my right eye ... I began to see badly. And on Thursday, when I was in the county 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, just be silent. What did you just say about my mother, about your sister? Why did you say that? 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... so 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 and that, the fifth or 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. (Vara.) Don't cry. (But not.) Your mother will talk to Lopakhin; he, of course, will not refuse her ... And when you get some 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! (Excitedly.) 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! (Hugging uncle.) I'm calm now! I am calm! I'm happy!Enter Firs.
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... They do not praise this time, 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 kept silent. 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 Yevstigney ... (Yawns.) He comes ... How are you, I say, Yevstigney ... you are such a fool ... (Looking at Anya.) Anechka!..I fell asleep!.. (Takes Anna by the arm.) Let's go to bed... Let's go!... (He leads her.) My darling has fallen asleep! Let's go to...
Comedy in four 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.
Act 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 is already light.
Lopakhin. How late was the train? For 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 sat down and fell asleep. Annoyance... If only you would wake me up.
Dunyasha. I thought you left. ( Listens.) Here, it seems, they are already on their way.
Lopakhin (listens). No ... Get luggage, then and there ...
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 late father - he then traded here in the village in a shop - hit me in the face with his fist, blood came out of my 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, right in this very room, in the nursery. "Do not cry, he says, little man, he will heal before the wedding ..."
Pause.
Little man ... My father, however, was a man, but here I am in a white vest! 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 the book.) I read the book and did not 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 the 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. ( Leaves.)
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 that falls.) Here... ( As if celebrating.) You see, excuse the expression, what a circumstance, by the way ... It's just wonderful! ( Leaves.)
Dunyasha. And to me, Ermolai Alekseich, I confess, Epikhodov made an offer.
Lopakhin. A!
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 it's 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 among us: twenty-two misfortunes ...
Lopakhin(listens). Looks like they're on their way...
Dunyasha. They're coming! What's the matter with me... I've gone cold all over.
Lopakhin. They go, in fact. Let's go meet. Will she recognize me? Haven't seen each other for five years.
Dunyasha (in a flurry). 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 in a high hat, he says something to himself, but you can not make out a single word. The background noise gets louder and louder. Voice: "Let's go through here..." Lyubov Andreevna, Anya and Charlotte Ivanovna with a dog on a chain, dressed in travel clothes. Varya in a coat and a scarf. Gaev, Simeonov-Pishchik, Lopakhin, Dunyasha with a bundle and an umbrella, servants with things - they all go 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, have remained the same, mommy.
Lyubov Andreevna. Children's, my dear, beautiful room ... I slept here when I was little ... ( Cries.) 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 (Pischiku). My dog eats nuts too.
Pishchik (surprised). You think!
Everyone leaves except Anya and Dunyasha.
Dunyasha. We've been waiting... ( Take off Anya's coat and hat.)
Anya. I didn't sleep on the road for four nights... now I'm very cold.
Dunyasha. You left in Lent, then there was snow, there was frost, and now? My darling! ( Laughs and kisses her.) I've been waiting for you, my joy, little light ... I'll tell you now, I can't stand one minute ...
Anya (listlessly). Something again...
Dunyasha. The clerk Epikhodov proposed to me after the saint.
Anya. You are all about one... ( Fixing my hair.) I lost all the hairpins... ( 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, gently). My room, my windows, like I never left. I'm home! Tomorrow morning I'll get up, 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). Peter!
Dunyasha. They sleep in the bathhouse, they live there. I'm afraid, they say, to embarrass. ( Looking at your pocket watch.) It would be necessary to wake them up, but Varvara Mikhailovna did not order. 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. ( Leaves.)
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 Passion Week, when it was cold. Charlotte talks all the way, doing 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 terrible. 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. The estate will be sold in August...
Anya. My God...
Lopakhin (peeks at the door and hums). Me-ee... ( Leaves.)
Varya (through tears). That's how I would give him ... ( He threatens with his fist.)
Anya(hugs Varya, quietly). Varya, did he propose? ( Varya shakes her head.) 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 bless 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 ... ( Another tone.) Your brooch looks like a bee.
Anya (sadly). Mom bought this. ( He 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.
(It stands next to 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, and then I would be dead, I would go to the desert, then to Kiev ... to Moscow, and so I would go all over the holy places ... I would go and go. Blessing!..
Anya. The birds are singing in the garden. What time is it now?
Varya. Must be the third. It's time for you to sleep, darling. ( Entering Anna's room.) Magnificence!
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. Um... And who are you?
Dunyasha. When you left here, I was like... ( Shows off the floor.) Dunyasha, Fyodor Kozoedov's daughter. You do not remember!
Yasha. Hm... Cucumber! ( 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 your 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 stand it, she left, left without looking back ... ( Starts.) As 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, preoccupied). The lady will eat here ... ( Puts on white gloves.) Is coffee ready? ( Strictly Dunyasha.) You! What about cream?
Dunyasha. Oh my god... ( Leaves quickly.)
Firs (fussing 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 mistress has arrived! Waited! Now at least die ... ( Crying with joy.)
Enter LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA, GAYEV 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. ( Kissing mother.)
Lyubov Andreevna. My beloved child. ( He kisses her hands.) Are you glad you're home? I won't come to my senses.
Anya. Farewell, uncle.
Gaev (kiss her face, 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. ( Kissing Firs.)
Varya. See if all the things have been brought... ( Leaves.)
Lyubov Andreevna. Is this me sitting? ( Laughs.) I want to jump, wave my arms. ( Covers his face with his hands.) What if I'm sleeping! God knows, I love my homeland, I love dearly, I could not look out of the car, I kept crying. ( Through the tears) However, you should drink coffee. Thank you, Firs, thank you, my old man. I'm so glad you're still alive.
Firs. 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 magnificent.
Pishchik (breathing heavily). Even prettier ... Dressed in Parisian style ... my cart, all four wheels ...
Lopakhin. Your brother, that's Leonid Andreevich, says about me that I'm a boor, I'm a kulak, but it makes absolutely no difference to me. 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... ( Jumps up and walks in great agitation.) I will not survive this joy ... Laugh at me, I'm stupid ... My dear closet ... ( Kiss the closet.) My table.
Gaev. And without you here the nanny died.
Lyubov Andreevna (sit down and drink coffee). Yes, the kingdom of heaven. They wrote to me.
Gaev. And Anastasy died: Petrushka Kosoy left me and now lives in the city with the bailiff. ( He takes a box of candies 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, an auction is scheduled for the twenty-second of August, 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 charge the summer residents at least twenty-five rubles a year for a tithe, and if you declare 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 don’t think of anything 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 then dried cherries were soft, juicy, sweet, fragrant... Then they knew the way...
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 also 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 (resenting). What nonsense!
Varya and Yasha enter.
Varya. Here, mommy, two telegrams for you. ( He selects a key and unlocks an antique cabinet with a ringing sound.) Here they are.
Lyubov Andreevna. This is from Paris. ( Tears telegrams without reading them.) Paris is over...
Gaev. Do you know, Lyuba, how old is this cabinet? A week ago, I pulled out the bottom drawer, and I looked, and the numbers were burned there. The cabinet was made exactly one hundred years ago. What is it? A? We could celebrate an anniversary. The object is inanimate, but still, after all, a bookcase.
Pishchik (surprised) One hundred years ... You think! ..
Gaev. Yes... It's a thing... ( Feeling the closet.) Dear, respected cupboard! 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 (a little 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 them down with kvass.) Here!
Lyubov Andreevna (frightened). 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 ... ( Mumbles.)
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. ( He wants to kiss her hand.)
Charlotte (taking away your hand). If you let me kiss your hand, then you will later wish on the elbow, then on 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. ( Leaves.)
Lopakhin. See you in three weeks. ( He kisses Lyubov Andreevna's hand.) Goodbye for now. It's time. ( Gaev.) Goodbye. ( Kisses with Pishchik.) Goodbye. ( He gives his hand to Varya, then to Firs and Yasha.) I 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... (Leaves.)
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. A man, you have to tell the truth... worthy... And my Dashenka... also says that... he says different words. ( Snores, but wakes up immediately.) But all the same, my dear, lend me ... a loan of two hundred and forty rubles ... to pay interest on the mortgage tomorrow ...
Varya (frightened). No, no!
Lyubov Andreevna. I really don't have anything.
Pishchik. There will be. ( Laughs.) 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, didactically). Again, they put on the wrong trousers. And what am I to do with you!
Varya (quiet). Anya is sleeping. ( Quietly opens the window.) The sun has already risen, it is 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 (looking 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. Yes, 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 Andreyevna embraces him and weeps softly.
Gaev (embarrassed). Full, full, Lyuba.
Varya (crying). She said, Petya, to wait until tomorrow.
Lyubov Andreevna. My Grisha... 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 his brother, then Varya). Well, go to sleep... You've grown old too, Leonid.
Pishchik (goes after her). So, now to sleep... Oh, my gout. I'll stay with you... I would, Lyubov Andreevna, my soul, tomorrow morning... two hundred and forty roubles.
Gaev. And this one is all mine.
Pishchik. Two hundred and forty rubles... to pay the 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. ( Yasha.) 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? ( Vare.) What did he say?
Varya (Yashe). Your mother came from the village, she has been sitting in the servants' room since yesterday, she wants to see...
Yasha. God bless her!
Varya. Ah, shameless!
Yasha. Very necessary. I could come tomorrow. ( Leaves.)
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 (in a whisper). 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 county court...
Anya enters.
Varya. Why aren't you sleeping, Anya?
Anya. Can't sleep. I can not.
Gaev. My baby. ( He kisses Anya's face and hands.) My child ... ( Through the 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, just be silent. What did you just say about my mother, about your sister? Why did you say that?
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... so 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 Anya 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 and that, the fifth or 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. ( Vare.) Do not Cry. ( But not.) Your mother will talk to Lopakhin; he, of course, will not refuse her ... And when you get some 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 will pay the interest, I am convinced ... ( He 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'm calm now! 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... They do not praise this time, but still I can say that I got a lot for my convictions 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, followed by Firs.)
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.) Comes ... How are you, I say, Yevstigney ... you are such a fool ... ( Looking at Anna.) Anechka!..
Pause.
I fell asleep!.. ( She takes Anya's hand.) Let's go to bed... Let's go!.. ( Leads her.) My darling 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.
Varya. Tess... She's sleeping... sleeping... Let's go, honey.
Anya (quiet, half asleep). I'm so tired... all the bells... Uncle... dear... and mother and uncle...
Varya. Let's go, dear, let's go ... ( They go to Anya's room.).
Trofimov (in tenderness). My sun! My spring!
A curtain.
Action 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 stands near and plays the guitar; everyone sits and thinks. Charlotte is wearing an old cap, she has taken off her gun from her shoulders and is adjusting the buckle on her belt.
Charlotte (in thought). 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. Fine. 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. ( He takes a cucumber out of his pocket and eats it.) I do not know anything.
Pause.
I so want to talk, but not with anyone ... I have no one.
Epikhodov (plays the 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. ( She looks in the mirror and powders herself.)
Epikhodov. For a madman who is in love, this is a mandolin... ( Humming.) "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 blessing to be abroad.
Yasha. Yes, 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 smart person and very scary; 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 ... ( He leaves slowly.)
Epikhodov. 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 ... Here's one. ( Shows with both hands.) And you 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). All right... but first bring me my talmochka... It's near the cupboard... it's a little damp here...
Epikhodov. Well, sir... I'll bring it... Now I know what to do with my revolver... ( He takes the guitar and leaves, playing.)
Yasha. Twenty-two misfortunes! Stupid man, speaking 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 cigar in the fresh air... ( Listens.) They are 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 (quietly coughing). I got a headache from the cigar... ( Leaves.)
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'd 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 (looking in his purse). 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 and scattered gold.) Well, they fell down ... ( She's bored.)
Yasha. Let me pick it up now. ( Collects 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). I'm incorrigible, it's obvious... ( Annoyed Yasha.) What is it, constantly spinning before your eyes ...
Yasha (laughs). I can'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 kept from laughing.) Right now... (Leaves.)
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. Both the cherry orchard and the land must be leased out for dachas, 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 (frightened). 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 your 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 made nothing but 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 ... drowned my boy, and I went abroad, left completely, never to return, not to see this river ... I closed my eyes, ran, not remembering myself, and he followed 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! ( He takes out a telegram from his pocket.) Received today from Paris ... He asks for forgiveness, begs to return ... ( Rip the telegram.) Like 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). Don't hear... ( Quietly sings.) "And for the money of a hare, the Germans will Frenchize." ( Laughs.) What play I watched 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 fact, 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... Did you hear?
Lyubov Andreevna. Where are you! Sit down.
Firs enters; he brought a coat.
Firs (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 over 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 (without hearing). 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 relatives... ( Embracing Anya and Varya.) If 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 badly, 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 stern faces, everyone talks only about important things, philosophizes, and yet, before everyone’s eyes, the workers eat disgustingly, sleep without pillows, thirty or 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, Asiaticism... I am afraid and do not like very serious physiognomies, 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, 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 (softly, 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 (imploringly). 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 is 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 the same: 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... ( Recites.) My brother, suffering brother ... go to the Volga, whose groan ... ( Vare.) Mademoiselle, let the hungry Russian thirty kopecks ...
Varya was frightened and screamed.
Lopakhin (angrily). Every ugliness has its decency!
Lyubov Andreevna (dumbfounded). Take ... here you are ... ( Searching in a purse.) There is no silver ... Anyway, here's a gold one for you ...
Passerby. Thank you very much! ( Leaves.)
Laughter.
Varya (frightened). 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 do 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 from every cherry in the garden, from every leaf, from every trunk human beings do not look at you, do you really not hear voices ... Own living souls - after all, this 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 at least two hundred years behind, we still have absolutely nothing, we have no definite attitude to the past, we only philosophize, complain of melancholy 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 like 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. Good there.
Trofimov. Let's go.
A 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 quietly and, dancing, wipes her tears. In the last pair of Dunyasha. They walk through the living room. Pishchik shouts: "Grand-rond balancez!" and "Les cavaliers a genoux et remerciez vos dames!" ( French Expressions - Names of Dance Figures and Dance Appeals).
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... ( He snores and wakes up immediately.) So am I ... I can only talk about money ...
Trofimov. Ay, you really have something horse 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 (teases). 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? ( Leaves.)
Trofimov (Pischiku). If the energy you've spent your entire life looking for money to pay interest had gone to something else, you could probably move the earth in the end.
Pishchik. Nietzsche... the philosopher... the greatest, the 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 the tears) Where's the money? ( Joyfully.) Here they are, behind the lining ... Even hit the sweat ...
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 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 ... ( He sits down and sings softly.)
Charlotte (hands Pischik a deck of cards). Here's a deck of cards, think of one card.
Pishchik. Thought.
Charlotte. Shuffle the deck now. Very good. Give it here, oh my dear Mr. Pishchik. Ein, zwei, drei! ( One two Three! (German)) Now look, it's in your side pocket...
Pishchik (takes out a card from the side pocket). Eight of spades, absolutely right! ( Surprised.) You think!
Charlotte (holds a deck of cards in his palm, Trofimova). Tell me quickly, which card is on top?
Trofimov. Well? Well, the lady of spades.
Charlotte. Eat! ( Pishchik.) Well? Which card is on top?
Pishchik. Ace of hearts.
Charlotte. Eat! ( Hits the palm of the hand, the deck of cards disappears.) And what good weather today!
station master (applauds). Lady ventriloquist, bravo!
Pishchik (wondering). You think! The most charming Charlotte Ivanovna... I am simply in love...
Charlotte. In love? ( Shrugging.) Can you love? Guter Mensch, aberschlechter Musikant ( Good man but bad musician).
Trofimov (pats Pishchik on the shoulder). You are a horse...
Charlotte. I beg your attention, one more trick. ( He takes a blanket from the chair.) Here is a very good blanket, I want to sell ... ( Shakes.) Does anyone want to buy?
Pishchik (wondering). You think!
Charlotte. Ein, zwei, drei! ( He 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 (applauds). Bravo, bravo!
Charlotte. Now more! Ein, zwei, drei! ( Raises the blanket.)
Varya stands behind the rug and bows.
Pishchik(surprised). You think!
Charlotte. End! ( He throws a blanket at Pishchik, makes a curtsy and runs into the hall.)
Pishchik (hurry after her). The villain... what? What? ( Leaves.)
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 (derisively). 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. ( 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.
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 (Trofimov). The student must be smart! ( Soft tone, with tears.) How ugly you have become, Petya, how old you have become! ( Lyubov Andreevna, no longer crying.) But I can’t do nothing, mommy. I have to do something every minute.
Yasha enters.
Yasha (can hardly stop laughing). Epikhodov broke a billiard cue! .. ( Leaves.)
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 is there no Leonidas? 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 ... ( Hugs Trofimov, kisses him on the forehead.) After all, my son drowned here ... ( Cries.) Have pity on me, good, kind person.
Trofimov. You know, I sympathize with all my heart.
Lyubov Andreevna. But it must be said otherwise, otherwise it must be said ... ( He 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.) You are funny!
Trofimov (raises a 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 can I do, my dear, what should I do, he is sick, he is lonely, unhappy, and who will look after him there, 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 being frank, for God's sake: after all, he robbed you!
Lyubov Andreevna. No, no, no, don't say that... Closes 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 be!
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 have no cleanliness, and you are just a clean, 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). It's horrible! What does she say?! (He walks quickly into the hall, clutching his head.) This is terrible... I can't, I'll leave... ( He leaves, but immediately returns.) It's over between us! ( He goes to the front.)
Lyubov Andreevna (screaming after). Petya, wait! Funny man, I was joking! Peter!
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, a pure soul ... I ask for forgiveness ... 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 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 soon die.
Firs. Oh, you... you idiot! ( Mumbles.)
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. ( 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 a 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, 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 back, in a low voice.) What can I say, you can see for yourself, the country is uneducated, the people are immoral, 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. 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 it ... ( Dancing.) One hundred and eighty rubles ...
We moved into the hall.
Yasha (softly hums). "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 Nikolayevich, 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 tender 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.) Oh, 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 the cue is broken, 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 (resentfully). 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! ( Having flared up.) 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 myself). 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 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 (angry and mocking). Guilty!
Lopakhin. Nothing, sir. Thank you very much for the pleasant meal.
Varya. Do not mention it. ( He walks away, then looks back and asks softly.) Didn't I hurt you?
Lopakhin. There is nothing. The bump, however, will jump up huge.
Pishchik. Seeing by sight, hearing by hearing ... ( Kisses with 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 (worrying). Well? Were there auctions? Speak now!
Lopakhin (embarrassed, afraid to discover their 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 up, for God's sake...
Gaev (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 is heard and Yasha's voice: "Seven and eighteen!" Gaev's expression changes, he no longer cries.
I'm terribly tired. Let me, Firs, change my clothes. ( He leaves through 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. 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 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 only seems... This is a figment of your imagination, covered in the darkness of the unknown... ( Raises the keys, smiling affectionately.) She threw the keys, she wants to show that she is no longer the mistress here ... ( Ringing 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, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.
Pishchik (takes him by the arm, in an undertone). She is crying. Let's go to the hall, let her be alone... Let's go... ( She 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.) There is a new landowner, the owner of a cherry orchard! ( He accidentally pushed the table, almost knocked over the candelabra.) I can pay for everything! ( Leaves with Pishchik.)
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!..
A 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.) I would have known - I did not buy. Well, I won't drink.
Yasha carefully places the tray on a chair.
Drink, Yasha, at least you.
Yasha. With departing! Happy to stay! ( Drinks.) 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. ( Glancing at the clock, at the door.) Gentlemen, keep in mind that 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, there are no my galoshes! Have not found!
Lopakhin. But 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 come!
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 love you all the same. 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. Eat. Thank you. I received a translation. Here they are, in my pocket. ( Worrying.) But my galoshes are not!
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. In the spring I sowed a thousand acres of poppies 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 accepted 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 really not enough tact ... ( He leaves through the front.)
Lopakhin. Now, now... What, right. ( He goes after him.)
Anya. Firs sent to the hospital?
Yasha. I spoke in the morning. Sent, I think.
Anya (Epikhodov, who passes through the hall). Semyon Panteleevich, please inquire whether Firs was taken to the hospital.
Yasha (resentfully). 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, of course. I knew it. ( Leaves.)
Yasha (derisively). 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 ... ( Leaves.)
Varya (from the next room). Where is Yasha? Tell him his mother has come, she wants to say goodbye to him.
Yasha (waving). They only take it out of patience.
Dunyasha is busy all the time around things; now that Yasha was alone, she went up to him.
Dunyasha. If only they could take a look, Yasha. You are leaving... you are leaving me... ( She cries and throws herself on his neck.)
Yasha. Why cry? ( Drinking 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!.. ( Long live France! .. (French - Vive la France!)) It's not for me here, 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, Gayev, Anya 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 carriages already ... ( He glances 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? Very?
Anya. Very! A new life begins, mom!
Gaev (funny). 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 you look better, that's for sure.
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'll see each other soon... I'm leaving for Paris, I'll live there with the money that your Yaroslavl grandmother sent to buy the 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 hand.) We will read in the autumn evenings, we will read many books, and a new, wonderful world will open before us ... ( Dreaming.) Mom, come ...
Lyubov Andreevna. I'll come, my gold. ( Hugs daughter.)
Lopakhin enters, Charlotte softly sings a song.
Gaev. Happy Charlotte: Sing!
Charlotte (picks up a knot that looks like a folded baby.) My baby, bye, bye ...
A child's cry is heard: "Wah, wah! .."
Shut up, my good, my dear boy.
"Wah!..Wah!.."
I feel so sorry for you! ( Drops the knot in place.) 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 suddenly became unnecessary.
Charlotte. I have nowhere to live in the city. Gotta go... Humming.) Doesn't 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 ... ( Leaves.)
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 ... get it ... ( 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 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!" - says, and this is the whole task. ( Surprised.) You think! Water!..
Lopakhin. What are these Englishmen?
Pishchik. I rented a plot with clay to them for twenty-four years ... And now, excuse me, there is no time ... we must ride further ... I will go to Znoykov ... to Kardamonov ... I owe everyone ... ( Drinks.) I wish you good health... I'll call on Thursday...
Lyubov Andreevna. We are now moving to the city, and tomorrow I will go abroad...
Pishchik. How? ( Alarmed.) Why to the city? That's when I look at the furniture ... suitcases ... Well, nothing ... ( Through the tears) Nothing... People of the greatest intelligence... these Englishmen... Nothing... Be happy... God will help you... Nothing... Everything in this world comes to an end... ( Kisses the hand of Lyubov Andreevna.) 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 ... his kingdom of heaven" ... Wonderful weather .. . Yes... ( He leaves in great embarrassment, but immediately returns and speaks at the door.) Dashenka bowed to you! ( Leaves.)
Lyubov Andreevna. Now you can go. I leave with two concerns. The first is the sick Firs. ( Glancing at the clock.) Another five minutes is possible ...
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 the poor thing cries.
Pause.
You know this very well, Yermolai Alekseich; I dreamed ... of marrying 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 don't 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'll call her now...
Lopakhin. By the way, there is champagne. ( I looked at the glasses.) Empty, someone has already drunk.
Yasha coughs.
It's called spitting...
Lyubov Andreevna (lively). Wonderful. We'll go out... Yasha, allez! ( go! (French)) I'll 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 (looking at things 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 to look after the household ... to be housekeepers, or something.
Lopakhin. Is it in Yashnevo? There will be seventy versts.
Pause.
That's the end of life in this house...
Varya (looking at 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. It's just that it's cold... Three degrees of frost.
Varya. I didn't look.
Pause.
And yes, our thermometer is broken.
Lopakhin (I've been waiting for this call for a long time.) Right now! ( Leaves quickly.)
Varya, sitting on the floor, with her head resting 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 (happily). On the road!
Gaev. My friends, my dear, dear friends! Leaving this house forever, can I remain silent, can I restrain myself from saying goodbye those feelings that now fill my whole being ...
Anya (imploringly). 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 kind of walls, what 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 at this window and watched my father go to church ...
Lyubov Andreevna. Have you taken all your things?
Lopakhin. It seems to be everything. ( Epikhodov, putting on his coat.) 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 the umbrella out of the knot, it looks like she has swung it; Lopakhin pretends to be frightened). What are you, what are you... I didn't think so.
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, 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.) Things are stacked here, we need to lock them up. Let's go!..
Anya. Farewell home! Farewell, old life!
Trofimov. Hello new life! Leaves with Anya.)
Varya looks around the room and slowly leaves. Exeunt Yasha and Charlotte with the dog.
Lopakhin. So until spring. Come out, gentlemen ... Goodbye! .. ( Leaves.)
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. Take a last look at the walls, at the windows... The late mother loved to walk around this room...
Gaev. My sister, my sister!
Lyubov Andreevna. We are going!..
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. In the midst of the silence, there is a dull thud of an ax 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 a white vest, with shoes on his feet. He is sick.
Firs (comes to the door, touches the handle). Locked up. Have left... ( He 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 ... ( He sighs in concern.) I didn’t look ... Young and green! ( He mumbles something that cannot be understood.) Life has passed, as if it had not lived. ( Lie down.) I’ll lie down ... You don’t have Silushka, there’s nothing left, nothing ... Oh, you ... stupid! .. ( 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 goal of the theater at all times has been and will be:
hold a mirror before nature,
show virtue its true colors
and its true - baseness,
and every age of history -
his unadorned appearance.Shakespeare. Hamlet
Prologue
OPHELIA. It's short, my prince.
HAMLET. Like a woman's love.Shakespeare. Hamlet
What was the first thing Papa Carlo bought for his wooden son? More precisely: not the first, but the only one (for Pope Carlo did not buy anything else for Pinocchio). Book!
The beggar old fool sold his only jacket for this gift. He acted like a man. Because a person became a real person only when the book became the most important thing.
And why did Pinocchio sell his only book? For the sake of going to the theater once.
To poke a curious nose into a dusty piece of old canvas, into a dusty old play - a stunningly interesting world opens up there ... Theater.
"The goal of the theater at all times" - but who says it? An actor in London four hundred years ago or Hamlet in Elsinore a thousand and two hundred years ago?
And how does he want to show Claudius (a high-ranking meanness) his true face? What kind of mirror sticks under your nose? Hecuba! Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides...
This is the goal of classical education, which included (until 1917) Latin and Greek. Dead languages carried a living culture.
Shakespeare (through Hamlet) says: "The purpose of the theater is to show the century its unadorned appearance, its real face."
Show age? - And if the age does not understand? What if you're blind? And if he looks, but does not understand that he sees himself? Do not heed! see - and do not know! Covered with bribes(Derzhavin).
To show baseness its true face? But baseness refuses to recognize itself. Moreover, in ceremonial portraits she is depicted as the Greatest Valor.
... And every century of history - his unadorned look. We, staging Hamlet, must, therefore, show the twenty-first century, and not the seventeenth (Shakespearean) and not the ninth (Hamletian). The theater is not a museum; costumes are not important. Boyars in fur coats? No, they are in armored Mercedes. And Hamlet shows Claudius his unadorned appearance, and not Hecuba and not Baptista. He uses ancient texts like an X-ray machine, like a laser - it burns through.
And the X-ray already then (and always) existed.
KING. I wish you only the best. You wouldn't doubt it if you could see our thoughts.
HAMLET. I see a cherub who sees them.
Tom Sawyer does not study the Bible for the sake of Faith (he believes in a dead cat, in ghosts). This provincial boy in wild slave-owning America thinks in terms of chivalrous times. He has stories of dukes and kings on his lips...
Benvenuto Cellini, Henry of Navarre, Duke of Northumberland, Guildford Dudley, Louis XVI, Casanova, Robin Hood, Captain Kidd - ask a twelve-year-old boy next door: which of them does he know (and not only by name, but life events, exploits, famous phrases). And Tom Sawyer, in his historical and geographical outback, knows all of them: someone is an example to follow, someone is an object of contempt. But they are all guidelines.
People do not always need a common language to understand each other. Yum-yum - clearly without translation. What about emotional experiences? Painful choice: what to do? The basis for understanding is a common book, common heroes.
Huck understands Tom as they discuss what to eat and where to run. But the release of Negro Jim ... Tom operates on the experience of dukes and kings, and Gek does not understand what is happening and why complicate it.
Tom, having read nonsense, what is he doing? He frees a slave, Negro. And in the country where it was considered a shame, not a feat. Tom is aware of his crime, but he does. What pushes him?
Of course, Tom Sawyer plays. But what he plays - that's what is infinitely important. Release the prisoner!
The moral law is within us, not outside. Book concepts of honor and nobility (concepts read, learned from books) were stronger and more important for Tom than those among which he grew up. He acts like a Don Quixote, endlessly complicating the simplest situations, trying on himself to great models, obeying not profit and not customs, but the movements of the soul. Crazy. Nearby (on a bookshelf) is another madman. Hamlet tries himself on Hecuba, who died thousands of years ago. Here is the connection of times: Hecuba (1200 BC) - Hamlet (IX century) - Shakespeare (1600) - and we, holding our breath in the XXI century - thirty-three centuries!
General concepts are needed to understand common book. People die, but she remains. She is a concept carrier.
The Bible worked. But now a lot of people don't have a common book. What is it today? Pushkin? In Russia, it exists only as a name, as a school name “green oak near the seashore” - that is, as Eniki-Beniks.
To understand, one needs not just a common (formally) language, but also the same understanding of common words.
These notes (including those on power, theater and time) stand, as if on a foundation, on the texts of Pushkin, Shakespeare ... And there is hope that the reader knows both these texts (that is, the fate of the characters), and the fate of the authors, and the fate of the texts , and why the Politburo was written with a big one, and God - with a small one.
... Let not the foundation, but the texts of the great ones stick out like landmarks - from the snow, from the swamp, into the darkness, into the storm, into the fog - and lead you.
We got lost, what should we do
In the field the demon leads us, apparently
And circling around...
Why a stupid book about old well-known plays, about performances that don't exist?
Why has Hamlet been staged in Australia, Germany, Russia, France, Japan (in alphabetical order) for more than four hundred years? An old English play about a prince, in addition, for some reason, Danish. Why has the whole world staged The Cherry Orchard for more than a hundred years?
We look at old plays as in a mirror - we see ourselves and our age.
Part I
tender soul
Dedicated to two geniuses of Russian theater
In memory of Anatoly Efros, who staged The Cherry Orchard at Taganka in 1975
In memory of Vladimir Vysotsky, who played Lopakhin
FIRS. The method was then known.
RANEVSKAYA. Where is this method now?
FIRS. Forgot. Nobody remembers.Chekhov. The Cherry Orchard
Characters
RANEVSKAYA LYUBOV ANDREEVNA, landowner.
ANIA, her daughter, 17 years old.
VARYA, her adopted daughter, 24 years old.
GAYEV LEONID ANDREEVICH, brother of Ranevskaya.
LOPAKHIN YERMOLAI ALEKSEEVICH, merchant.
TROFIMOV PETER SERGEEVICH, student.
SIMEONOV-PISHCHIK BORIS BORISOVICH, landowner.
CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA, governess.
EPIKHODOV SEMYON PANTELEEVICH, clerk.
DUNYASHA, the maid.
FIRS, footman, old man 87 years old.
YASHA, a young footman.
Size matters
Theatrical liberties
In addition to the huge space that no one noticed, the Cherry Orchard has two secrets. They have not yet been unraveled.
... For those who have forgotten the plot. First year of the twentieth century. The noblewoman Ranevskaya returns from Paris to her estate. Her brother and her two daughters, Anya and Varya (adopted), live here. The entire estate is being auctioned for debts. A family friend, the merchant Lopakhin, seemed to be trying to teach the owners how to get out of debt, but they did not listen to him. Then Lopakhin, unexpectedly for everyone, bought it himself. And Petya Trofimov is a thirty-year-old eternal student, a beggar, a homeless man, Anya's boyfriend. Petya considers it his duty to cut the truth in the eyes of everyone. He asserts himself so much... The Cherry Orchard is sold, everyone is leaving in all directions; Finally, the aged Firs is slaughtered. Not baseball bats, of course, but nails; board up doors, shutters; downtrodden in an empty house, he will simply die of hunger.
What are the mysteries in the old play? For a hundred years, thousands of theaters have staged it; everything has long been dismantled to the bone.
And yet there are secrets! - do not hesitate, reader, the evidence will be presented.
Secrets!.. And what are real secrets? For example, was Ranevskaya Lopakhin's mistress? Or how old is she?
Such life truth(which gossips discuss on the benches) is entirely in the hands of the director and actors. In a scholarly way, it is called interpretation. But most often it is rudeness, smuttyness, vulgarity, antics, or that simplicity that is worse than theft.
Here the landowner Ranevskaya was left alone with the eternal student.
RANEVSKAYA. I can shout now ... I can do stupid things. Save me, Petya.
She prays for spiritual sympathy, for consolation. But without changing a word - only facial expressions, intonation, body movements - it is easy to show that she asks to satisfy her lust. It is enough for the actress to lift up her skirt or simply pull Petya towards her.
The theater is a rough, old, square art, in Russian - a shame.
The adventures of the body are much more spectacular than the work of the soul, and they are a million times easier to play.
* * *
How old is the heroine? The play does not say, but usually Ranevskaya is played "from fifty". It happens that the role is played by a famous actress over seventy (she saw Stanislavsky as a child!). The great old woman is led out onto the stage by the arms. The audience greets the living (half-living) legend with applause.The famous Lithuanian director Nyakroshyus gave this role to Maksakova. Her Ranevskaya is under sixty (in the West, women over eighty look like this). But Nyakroshyus came up with not only age for Ranevskaya, but also a diagnosis.
She barely walks, barely speaks, and most importantly, she doesn’t remember anything. And the viewer immediately understands: aha! the Russian mistress Ranevskaya in Paris had a stroke (in our opinion - a stroke). An ingenious find brilliantly justifies many of the lines of the first act.
LOPAKHIN. Lyubov Andreevna lived abroad for five years. Will she recognize me?
Strange. Has Lopakhin changed so much in five years? Why does he doubt, “will he know”? But if Ranevskaya has a stroke, then it’s understandable.
Justified and the first words of Anya and Ranevskaya.
ANYA. Do you remember what room this is?
RANEVSKAYA(joyfully, through tears) . Children's!
The question is stupid. Ranevskaya was born and lived all her life in this house, grew up in this nursery, then her daughter Anya grew up here, then her son Grisha, who drowned at the age of seven.
But if Ranevskaya is insane, then the daughter’s question is justified, and with difficulty, with tears, the answer found, and the patient’s joy that she could remember.
If the play had ended here, bravo, Nyakroshus! But in ten minutes Gaev will speak about his sister with indecent frankness.
GAEV. She is vicious. It is felt in her slightest movement.
Sorry, in all the movements of Ranevskaya-Maksakova we see paralysis, not depravity.
Yes, of course, the director has the right to any interpretation. But you can't turn too hard. The play, having lost its logic, collapses like a train derailed.
And it becomes boring to watch. Nonsense is boring.
Features of the interpretation can be associated with age, and with gender, and with the orientation of the director, and even with nationality.
The world-famous German director Peter Stein directed The Three Sisters and was a resounding success. The Muscovites watched with curiosity as Ferapont, the watchman of the zemstvo council, brought papers to the master's house (office) to be signed. Winter, so the old man comes in with earflaps, in a sheepskin coat, in felt boots. Snow on the cap and on the shoulders. Foreign tourists are delighted - Russia! And that the watchman cannot enter the master in a hat and sheepskin coat, that the old man would have been undressed and taken off at the distant approaches (in the hallway, in the people's room) - this the German does not know. He does not know that a Russian, Orthodox, automatically takes off his hat when entering the rooms, even if not to the master, but to the hut. But Stein wanted to show icy Russia (Europe's eternal nightmare). If “Three Sisters” had been staged in a German circus, the snow-covered Ferapont would have entered the master’s office on a bear. In a rich circus - on a polar bear.
Chekhov is not a symbolist, not a decadent. It has subtext, but no substitutions.
When Varya says to Trofimov:
VARYA. Petya, here they are, your galoshes.(With tears.) And how dirty, old you have them ... -
the subtext, of course, is: “How tired I am of you! How unhappy I am! But the substitutions are kind of flirtatious: “You can take your galoshes, and if you want you can take me too”- this is not. And it can't be. And if they play like that (which is not excluded), then the image of Varya will be destroyed. And for what? - for a few teenagers to chuckle in the last row?
Interpretations have a limit. You can't argue against direct meanings, direct indications of the text. Here in "Three Sisters" Andrey's wife worries:
NATASHA. I think Bobik is unwell. Bobik has a cold nose.
You can, of course, give her a lap dog named Bobik. But if the play clearly states that Bobik is the child of Andrei and Natasha, then:
a) Bobik is not a dog;
b) Natasha is not a disguised man; not a transvestite.
... So how old is Ranevskaya? The play doesn't say, but the answer is simple. Chekhov wrote the role for Olga Knipper, his wife, adjusted it to her data and talent. He knew all her habits, knew her as a woman and as an actress, sewed exactly to measure, so that she would sit “in a slip”. The play was completed in the autumn of 1903. Olga Knipper was 35 years old. So, Ranevskaya is the same; she got married early (at 18 she already gave birth to Anya, her daughter's age is indicated - 17). She is, as her brother says, vicious. Lopakhin, waiting, is worried like a man.
Chekhov really wanted both the play and his wife to be a success. Adult children age their parents. The younger Anya looks, the better for Olga Knipper. The playwright struggled to assign roles by mail.
CHEKHOV TO NEMIROVICH-DANCHENKO
September 2, 1903. Yalta
I'll call the play a comedy. The role of the mother will be taken by Olga, and who will play the daughter of 17 years old, a girl, young and thin, I do not presume to decide.
CHEKHOV TO OLGA KNIPPER
October 14, 1903. Yalta
You will play Lyubov Andreevna. Anna must play certainly young actress.
CHEKHOV TO NEMIROVICH-DANCHENKOIt didn't work out. Stanislavsky gave Anya to his wife, Marya Petrovna, who at that time was thirty-seven. Stage Anya became two years older than her mother. And Chekhov insisted in the following letters: Anya does not care who - as long as she is young. Corset and makeup do not save. The voice and plasticity at thirty-seven are not the same as at seventeen.
November 2, 1903. Yalta
Anya can be played by anyone, even a completely unknown actress, as long as she is young, and looks like a girl, and speaks in a young, sonorous voice.
Ranevskaya is pretty, worries. Lopakhin hastily explains to her:
LOPAKHIN. You are still just as amazing. Your brother says about me that I'm a boor, I'm a kulak, but I absolutely don't care. 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 once did so much for me that I forgot everything and love you like my own ... more than my own.
Such a passionate explanation, and even in the presence of her brother and servants. How would Lopakhin behave if they were alone? There was something between them. What does “I forgot everything and love you more than my own” mean? "I forgot everything" sounds like "I forgave everything." What did he forgive? Serfdom? or change? After all, she lived in Paris with her lover, everyone knows that, even Anya.
Ranevskaya is a young, passionate woman. And Lopakhin’s remark “does she recognize me?” - not her stroke, but his fear: how will she look at him? Is there any hope for the resumption of an exciting relationship?
Or was he aiming to take over the estate?
Peter and the wolf
In The Cherry Orchard, we repeat, there are two mysteries that have not been solved so far.
First secret- why did Petya Trofimov decisively and completely change his mind about Lopakhin?
Here is their dialogue (in the second act):
LOPAKHIN. 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.)
This is very rude. It looks like rudeness. Yes, even in the presence of ladies. In the presence of Ranevskaya, whom Lopakhin idolizes. Moreover, this transition from “you” to “you” to demonstrate frank contempt. And he didn’t just call him a predator and a beast, but he also added about the metabolism, tightened the gastrointestinal tract.
A beast of prey - that is, a nurse of the forest. Okay, I didn't say "worm" or "dung beetle", which are also needed for metabolism.
And three months later (in the last act, in the final):
TROFIMOV(Lopakhin)
. You have thin, tender fingers, like an artist, you have a thin, tender soul ...
This “you” is completely different, admiring.
Both times Trofimov is absolutely sincere. Petya is not a hypocrite, he speaks out directly and is proud of his directness.
One might suspect that he is flattering the millionaire for some purpose. But Petya does not ask for money. Lopakhin, hearing about the tender soul, immediately melted; offers money and even imposes. Petya refuses resolutely and stubbornly.
LOPAKHIN. Take my money for the journey. I'm offering you a loan because I can. Why tear up your nose? I'm a man... simply. (Pulls out wallet.)
TROFIMOV. Give me at least two hundred thousand, I won't take it.
“Beast of Prey” is not a compliment, it is very insulting and no one can like it. Even a banker, even a bandit. For brutality, predation are not considered positive qualities even now, and even more so a hundred years ago.
"Beast of Prey" excludes "gentle soul" entirely.
Has Lopakhin changed? No, we don't see it. His character does not change at all from beginning to end.
So, Petya's view has changed. Yes, how radical - 180 degrees!
And Chekhov? Maybe the author changed his mind about the character? Did the heroes follow the author?
Chekhov's view of Lopakhin cannot change. For Lopakhin exists in Chekhov's brain. That is, Chekhov knows everything about him. Knows from the start. Knows before the start.
And Petya - learns Lopakhin gradually, on this path he can be mistaken, deceived.
And we?
An illustrative example of the difference between the knowledge of the author, the viewer and the character:
Othello doesn't know that Iago is a scoundrel and a slanderer. Othello will understand this with horror only in the finale, when it is already too late (he has already strangled his wife). Had he known from the very beginning, there would have been no trust, betrayal, there would have been no play.
Shakespeare knows about Iago all the way to the beginning.
The viewer recognizes the essence of Iago very quickly - as quickly as Shakespeare wants.
The author needs the reaction of both the characters and the audience: oh, that's it! Ah, here he is! It happens that they draw a terrible villain on purpose, and in the end - lo and behold - he is a universal benefactor.
* * *
Lopakhin is a merchant, a nouveau riche (a rich man in the first generation). He pretended to be a friend of the family, threw up little by little ...RANEVSKAYA. Yermolai Alekseich, give me another loan!
LOPAKHIN. I'm listening.
... and then - Petya is right - the predator took over, seized the moment and - grabbed it; everyone freaked out.
RANEVSKAYA. Who bought?
LOPAKHIN. I bought! 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 it distinctly! Let everything as I wish! I can pay for everything! My cherry orchard! My!
Correctly Gaev speaks with disgust about Lopakhin: "Ham." (It is strange that Efros took the Poet - Vysotsky - a rude man with the finest, ringing soul for the role of a boor-merchant.)
Lopakhin ingenuously admits:
LOPAKHIN(maid Dunyasha) . I read the book and didn't understand anything. Reading and falling asleep...(Gaev and Ranevskaya) . My dad was a peasant, an idiot, he didn’t understand anything ... In fact, I’m the same blockhead and idiot. Didn't learn anything.
Often a rich man speaks of books with contempt, haughtily. Braves: “I read and did not understand” - it sounds like this: they say, all this is nonsense.
Lopakhin is a predator! At first, of course, he pretended to care, empathized, and then revealed himself - grabbed and swaggered in a frenzy: come, they say, to see how I grab an ax through a cherry orchard.
Subtle soul? And Varya (Ranevskaya's adopted daughter)? He was a generally recognized groom, showed hope and - he deceived, did not marry, and before that, it is possible that he took advantage - there she is, crying ... Subtle soul? No - a beast, a predator, a male.
Maybe there was something good in him, but then instinct, the grabber took over. See how he yells: “My cherry orchard! My!"
Dear Mr. Lopakhin!
In the eyes of my contemporary, you are the present that you brought with you in the era of the last century. We represent today's present. It is possible to compare the present of the “age of the past” and the “age of the present”. Moreover, Ermolai Alekseevich, you and I have a common point of contact - the cherry orchard. It is a kind of moral criterion for us. In relation to it, your creator, A.P. Chekhov, determines not only you, but also tests us.
By the way, cherry trees are visible just through my open window. We have four of them. And outside the window - spring May. Cherries are all in bloom. Every morning I admire this lovely creation of nature. Who once saw a blooming cherry orchard, he will forever keep this miracle of nature in his memory. Remember how sublimely beautiful, but poetically, love Andreevna spoke about him: “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 ... What an amazing garden! White masses of flowers, blue sky ... "
But remember, even you, Mr. Lopakhin, once admitted that sometimes, when you can’t sleep, you think you thank the Lord for having given “enormous forests, vast fields, the deepest horizons.” After all, they sometimes thought. After all, for some reason the Lord gave all this to man.
“The only remarkable thing about this garden is that it is big,” you say, Mr. Lopakhin. It turns out that it is also wonderful for you, but only as a good location, a large space. For you, it is not even cherry, but cherry. But since now the berry does not provide income, you are this piece of nature - in one fell swoop, under the ax.
I fully agree with you, Mr. Lopakhin, when you reproach the former owners of the cherry orchard, accusing them of frivolity and irresponsibility. It is not enough to be disinterested, kind, it is not enough to have honest thoughts, good intentions. You have to feel responsible for every action you take. The former owners are not capable of this.
And now, against the backdrop of this fading landowner's life, you appear, Mr. Lopakhin, carrying with you the present.
But what are your plans? Energetic, tenacious, purposeful, hardworking, you propose a plan from the point of view of practical benefits: “cut down a garden, break it up, into summer cottages and then rent it out for summer cottages ...”
Your present is in the country life. “Until now, there were only gentlemen and peasants in the village, but now there are also summer residents. All towns, even the smallest ones, are now surrounded by dachas. And it can be said that in twenty years the summer resident will multiply to extraordinary extent ... and it may happen that on his one tithe he will take care of the household, and then ... ". And further (I quote you verbatim, Mr. Lopakhin): “We will set up dachas and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here.”
Take a peek into our present. Your vision is in our present. Dacha settlements multiplied in your opinion - beyond recognition. Holiday villages - they are everywhere and everywhere. But our suburban dachas are not plots of land leased out, this is not the exploitation of land for the purpose of generating income. According to the laws of beauty, they are built with us. Work, rest, beauty - everything is combined in our dacha.
And how do you compensate, Mr. Lopakhin, the death of humanity and beauty? What new life will your summer cottages bring? My contemporary will argue with you, Ermolai Alekseevich, because he does not see the breadth of thinking in your perspective.
You think that the present that you are carrying will end the era of "awkward, unhappy" life. And you are already celebrating. You, Mr. Lopakhin, like to "wave your arms" in celebration of your victory. But how! At least twenty-five thousand a year income. “A new landowner is coming, the owner of a cherry orchard!” He walks, accidentally pushes the table, almost knocks over the candelabra. Now he can pay for everything. This is your portrait, dear Ermolai Alekseevich. Portrait of a new owner, carrying the present with him.
And what about your confession: "You just have to start doing something to understand how few honest, decent people are." Are you sure that by engaging in entrepreneurial activity, you will maintain honesty and decency in yourself? With your merchant's acumen, I doubt it.
However, I am more condescending to you, Ermolai Alekseevich, I will say more, I like you, with your appearance, courtesy, for going to the theater; your yellow boots are much better than merchant's boots. Petya Trofimov compared you to a "predatory beast". No, you are capable of sympathy, empathy. You, Mr. Lopakhin, are fulfilling your role in the "circulation of life."
And yet, one Trofimov’s advice will not hurt you: “do not wave your arms!” Break the habit of waving. And that's the same... To build dachas, to expect that individual owners will emerge from the dacha owners over time, to count in this way - this also means waving. Summer resident, that lodger; his soul as a business executive is silent. He is rather an exploiter of the land than a master.
“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 on wood with an ax.
With this remark, your creator, Mr. Lopakhin, informs us that your present is already “knocking”. And I think about you: without beauty, he will manage, without money - no.
And I feel exactly like a sad day in late autumn. And I think about your present, Mr. Lopakhin. What about respect for the past? But what about the cherry orchard - this is a wonderful creation, this symbol of estate life, a symbol of Russia? But what about the strength of traditions, the legacy of fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers with their culture, with their deeds, with their moral virtues and shortcomings? But what about the enduring aesthetic values that unite the spiritual life of people? After all, their loss can fall upon “grandchildren and great-grandchildren” with destructive force. My contemporary addresses these questions to you, Mr. Lopakhin.
And I say goodbye to you. But I will always remember you. Still, you have a “thin tender soul”, and your fingers are like those of an artist.
You were a man of a new formation of a new time. And everything that is new is wrong. Maybe you yourself would like other, new relationships between people.
In our present you remain the hero of classical literature, the hero of Chekhov's works.
