LUBOV. Let's go, it's time. And Varya, we've settled your affair; I
congratulate you.

VARYA. [Crying] You shouldn't joke about this, mother.

LOPAKHIN. Oh, feel me, get thee to a nunnery.

GAEV. My hands are all trembling; I haven't played billiards for a long
time.

LOPAKHIN. Oh, feel me, nymph, remember me in thine orisons.

LUBOV. Come along; it'll soon be supper-time.

VARYA. He did frighten me. My heart is beating hard.

LOPAKHIN. Let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen, on August 22 the
cherry orchard will be sold. Think of that!... Think of that!...

[All go out except TROFIMOV and ANYA.]

ANYA. [Laughs] Thanks to the tramp who frightened Barbara, we're alone
now.

TROFIMOV. Varya's afraid we may fall in love with each other and won't
get away from us for days on end. Her narrow mind won't allow her to
understand that we are above love. To escape all the petty and deceptive
things which prevent our being happy and free, that is the aim and
meaning of our lives. Forward! We go irresistibly on to that bright star
which burns there, in the distance! Don't lag behind, friends!

ANYA. [Clapping her hands] How beautifully you talk! [Pause] It is
glorious here to-day!

TROFIMOV. Yes, the weather is wonderful.

ANYA. What have you done to me, Peter? I don't love the cherry orchard
as I used to. I loved it so tenderly, I thought there was no better
place in the world than our orchard.

TROFIMOV. All Russia is our orchard. The land is great and beautiful,
there are many marvellous places in it. [Pause] Think, Anya, your
grandfather, your great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were
serf-owners, they owned living souls; and now, doesn't something human
look at you from every cherry in the orchard, every leaf and every
stalk? Don't you hear voices...? Oh, it's awful, your orchard is
terrible; and when in the evening or at night you walk through the
orchard, then the old bark on the trees sheds a dim light and the old
cherry-trees seem to be dreaming of all that was a hundred, two hundred
years ago, and are oppressed by their heavy visions. Still, at any
rate, we've left those two hundred years behind us. So far we've gained
nothing at all--we don't yet know what the past is to be to us--we only
philosophize, we complain that we are dull, or we drink vodka. For it's
so clear that in order to begin to live in the present we must first
redeem the past, and that can only be done by suffering, by strenuous,
u