The Cherry Orchard

Full Text and Introduction (NHB Drama Classics)

Anton Chekhov

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781780016788
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Théâtre européen

The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding.

The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov's classic tragicomedy, translated and introduced by Stephen Mulrine.

Ranevskaya can no longer afford to keep her childhood home with its beautiful but barren cherry orchard. She rejects the compromise offered by Lopakhin, a local businessman, to cut down the orchard and sell the land for holiday homes. Eventually Ranevskaya and her family are forced to leave the estate which Lopakhin has now bought.

Act One

The action takes place on Mme RANEVSKAYA’s estate, and the scene is a room still referred to as the nursery. One of the doors leads to ANYA’s room. It is daybreak, the sun is just coming up, a fine May morning with the cherry trees in blossom, but a little chilly yet, and all the windows are closed. DUNYASHA enters holding a candle, and LOPAKHIN with a book.

LOPAKHIN. The train’s arrived, thank goodness. What time is it?

DUNYASHA. Nearly two. (Extinguishes the candle.) It’s getting light.

LOPAKHIN. So what does that make the train? A couple of hours late at least. (Yawns and stretches.) Well, I’m a fine one to talk, I’ve made a proper ass of myself. Rode over here specifically to meet them at the station, and just dozed off … Fell asleep in the chair. Damn nuisance … you might’ve wakened me.

DUNYASHA. I thought you’d already left. (Pauses to listen.) That’ll be them now.

LOPAKHIN (also listens). No, they’ll have to get their luggage out and so on.

A pause.

Madame Ranevskaya’s lived abroad five years now, I’ve no idea what she’ll be like … She’s a fine woman. Straightforward, easy-going. I remember when I was a lad of about fifteen, my late father – he had a little shop in the village at that time – well, he hit me with his fist so hard my nose started bleeding. We’d come up here to the yard for something or other, and he’d been drinking. Anyway, Madame Ranevskaya – I remember even now – she was just a slip of a girl, she took me over to the wash-basin in this very room, in the nursery. ‘Now don’t cry, little peasant, ‘she said, ‘It’ll heal up in time for your wedding.’

A pause.

‘Little peasant’ … Well, true enough, my father was a peasant, but here I am now in a white waistcoat, and tan leather shoes. A silk purse out of a sow’s ear, you might say. Plain fact is I’m rich, I’ve pots of money, but when you get right down to it, I’m a peasant through and through. (Leafs through his book.) Yes, I was reading this book, didn’t understand a word of it. Fell asleep reading.

A pause.

DUNYASHA. Well, the dogs certainly got no sleep, they can sense their masters are coming.

LOPAKHIN. Dunyasha, what’s up? You look as if you …

DUNYASHA. My hands are trembling. I think I’m going to faint.

LOPAKHIN. You’re too sensitive, Dunyasha, that’s your trouble. And you dress like a young lady. The way you do your hair, too. You shouldn’t, you know – you’ve got to remember your place.

YEPIKHODOV enters with a bunch of flowers. He is wearing a jacket, and highly-polished boots which squeak all the time. On entering, he drops the flowers.

YEPIKHODOV (picking up the flowers). The gardener sent these over, he says to put them in the dining-room. (Hands them to DUNYASHA.)

LOPAKHIN. And you can bring me some kvas.

DUNYASHA. Yes, sir. (Exits.)

YEPIKHODOV. There’s a frost this morning, three degrees below, and the cherry trees are in flower. I can’t approve of this climate of ours. (Sighs.) No, not at all. Our climate isn’t exactly conducive, I’m afraid. And if I might append, Mr Lopakhin, I bought these shoes two days ago, and I can assure you, sir, that they squeak beyond the bounds of possibility. What should I oil them with?

LOPAKHIN. Oh, go away. You get on my nerves.

YEPIKHODOV. You know, some disaster happens to me every day. But I’m not complaining. I’m used to it, I can even smile.

DUNYASHA enters, gives LOPAKHIN his kvas.

All right, I’m going. (Bumps into a chair, which topples over.) You see? (With a note of triumph.) There you have it, if you’ll excuse the expression … I mean, that’s the sort of circumstance … It’s quite extraordinary, there’s no other word for it. (Exits.)

DUNYASHA. Actually, Mr Lopakhin … to tell you the truth, Yepikhodov’s proposed to me.

LOPAKHIN. Oh?

DUNYASHA. I just don’t know … I mean, he’s harmless enough, but sometimes when he gets going, you just can’t understand a word he says. It sounds fine, quite touching really, but it doesn’t make any sense. I think I like him. And he loves me to distraction. He’s a terribly unlucky man, some mishap or other every day. They all pull his leg about it: the walking disaster, they call him.

LOPAKHIN (strains to listen). That’s them coming now, I think.

DUNYASHA. It’s them! Oh, what’s the matter with me? I’ve gone cold all over …

LOPAKHIN. Yes, it’s them. We’ll go and meet them. I wonder if she’ll recognise me? We haven’t seen each other for five years.

DUNYASHA (agitated). Oh God, I’m going to faint, I know I am!

Two carriages are heard drawing up outside. LOPAKHIN and DUNYASHA hurriedly exit, leaving the stage empty. There is noisy activity in the outer room, and old FIRS, who has been to the station to greet Mme RANEVSKAYA, hobbles across the stage, leaning on a walking-stick. He is dressed in old-fashioned livery, and wearing a top hat, He is muttering to himself, but it is impossible to distinguish what he is saying. The noises offstage grow louder. A voice is heard: ‘Let’s go in this way … ’. Mme RANEVSKAYA, ANYA, and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA, leading a little dog on a leash, all enter in outdoor clothes. VARYA enters wearing an overcoat and headscarf, and GAEV, SIMEONOV-PISHCHIK, LOPAKHIN and DUNYASHA, carrying a parcel and an umbrella, and servants with luggage, all cross the stage.

ANYA. We’ll go through this way. You remember, Mama, what this room used to be?

RANEVSKAYA (joyfully, deeply moved). The nursery!

VARYA. It’s so cold, my hands are quite numb. (To RANEVSKAYA.) Your rooms are just the way you left them, Mama, the violet and the white.

RANEVSKAYA. Ah yes, the nursery, my darling wonderful nursery! This is where I used to sleep, when I was little. (Begins to weep.) And now I’m like a little girl again … (Kisses her brother and VARYA, then her brother again.) And Varya hasn’t changed a bit, she still looks like a nun. And I even recognise Dunyasha … (Kisses DUNYASHA.)

GAEV. The train was two hours late. What do you make of that, eh? Some organisation.

CHARLOTTA (to PISHCHIK). My little dog even eats nuts.

PISHCHIK (astonished). Fancy that!

All exit, save ANYA and DUNYASHA.

DUNYASHA. The time we’ve been waiting … (Helps ANYA off with her coat and hat.)

ANYA. I haven’t slept the past four nights … now I’m freezing.

DUNYASHA. You left before Easter, and there was snow and frost then, and now look at it. Oh, dearest Anya! (Laughs, kisses her.) I’ve waited so long for you, my precious darling … I must tell you this now, I can’t hold back another second …

ANYA (listlessly). Not again …

DUNYASHA. Yepikhodov, the clerk, proposed to me just after Easter.

ANYA. The same old story … (Fixing her hair.) I’ve lost all my hairpins … (She is very fatigued, almost staggering.)

DUNYASHA. I mean, I don’t know what to think. He’s very much in love with me.

ANYA (gazing fondly at her bedroom door). My own room, my own windows, just as if I’d never left. I’m home! I’ll get up tomorrow morning, and run into the garden … Oh, if only I could get to sleep! I haven’t slept a wink the whole road, I’m worn out with worry.

DUNYASHA. Mr Trofimov arrived the day before yesterday.

ANYA (joyfully). Trofimov!

DUNYASHA. He’s sleeping in the bath-house, that’s where he’s staying. He didn’t want to put anybody out, he said. (Glances at her pocket-watch.) I really ought to wake him, but Miss Varya told me not to. Don’t you dare wake him up, she says.

VARYA enters, with a bunch of keys at her waist.

VARYA. Dunyasha, what about that coffee? Mama’s asking for coffee.

DUNYASHA. Right this minute. (Exits.)

VARYA. Well, thank heavens you’re back. You’re home again. (Hugs her.) My little darling’s home again! My lovely girl’s home!

ANYA. You’ve no idea what I’ve been through.

VARYA. I can imagine.

ANYA. I left here just before Easter, it was cold then. Charlotta never stopped talking the whole way, doing her card tricks. What on earth possessed you to hang Charlotta round my neck?

VARYA. Well, I couldn’t let you travel alone, my darling, not at seventeen.

ANYA. Anyway, when we got to Paris it was cold there too, snowing. My French is abysmal. Mama was staying on the fourth floor, and when I went to see her she had all these French gentlemen with her, and ladies, and some old Catholic priest with his little book, and the whole place was full of tobacco smoke, very uncomfortable. I suddenly felt so sorry for Mama, so terribly sorry, that I put my arms round her, pressed her head to my breast, and couldn’t let go. And Mama couldn’t stop hugging and kissing me, and crying …

VARYA (tearfully). Don’t … I don’t want to hear …

ANYA. She’s sold her villa at Menton, she’s got nothing left, absolutely nothing. And I haven’t a kopeck either, we barely mana...