autumn;
they'll all go. In a word, you're saved. I congratulate you. Only,
of course, you'll have to put things straight, and clean up.... For
instance, you'll have to pull down all the old buildings, this house,
which isn't any use to anybody now, and cut down the old cherry
orchard....

LUBOV. Cut it down? My dear man, you must excuse me, but you don't
understand anything at all. If there's anything interesting or
remarkable in the whole province, it's this cherry orchard of ours.

LOPAKHIN. The only remarkable thing about the orchard is that it's very
large. It only bears fruit every other year, and even then you don't
know what to do with them; nobody buys any.

GAEV. This orchard is mentioned in the "Encyclopaedic Dictionary."

LOPAKHIN. [Looks at his watch] If we can't think of anything and don't
make up our minds to anything, then on August 22, both the cherry
orchard and the whole estate will be up for auction. Make up your mind!
I swear there's no other way out, I'll swear it again.

FIERS. In the old days, forty or fifty years back, they dried the
cherries, soaked them and pickled them, and made jam of them, and it
used to happen that...

GAEV. Be quiet, Fiers.

FIERS. And then we'd send the dried cherries off in carts to Moscow and
Kharkov. And money! And the dried cherries were soft, juicy, sweet, and
nicely scented.... They knew the way....

LUBOV. What was the way?

FIERS. They've forgotten. Nobody remembers.

PISCHIN. [To LUBOV ANDREYEVNA] What about Paris? Eh? Did you eat frogs?

LUBOV. I ate crocodiles.

PISCHIN. To think of that, now.

LOPAKHIN. Up to now in the villages there were only the gentry and the
labourers, and now the people who live in villas have arrived. All towns
now, even small ones, are surrounded by villas. And it's safe to say
that in twenty years' time the villa resident will be all over the
place. At present he sits on his balcony and drinks tea, but it may well
come to pass that he'll begin to cultivate his patch of land, and then
your cherry orchard will be happy, rich, splendid....

GAEV. [Angry] What rot!

[Enter VARYA and YASHA.]

VARYA. There are two telegrams for you, little mother. [Picks out a key
and noisily unlocks an antique cupboard] Here they are.

LUBOV. They're from Paris.... [Tears them up without reading them] I've
done with Paris.

GAEV. And do you know, Luba, how old this case is? A week ago I took out
the bottom drawer; I looked and saw