] The train... the station.... Cross
in the middle, a white double in the corner....

LUBOV. Let's go!

LOPAKHIN. Are you all here? There's nobody else? [Locks the side-door on
the left] There's a lot of things in there. I must lock them up. Come!

ANYA. Good-bye, home! Good-bye, old life!

TROFIMOV. Welcome, new life! [Exit with ANYA.]

[VARYA looks round the room and goes out slowly. YASHA and CHARLOTTA,
with her little dog, go out.]

LOPAKHIN. Till the spring, then! Come on... till we meet again! [Exit.]

[LUBOV ANDREYEVNA and GAEV are left alone. They might almost have been
waiting for that. They fall into each other's arms and sob restrainedly
and quietly, fearing that somebody might hear them.]

GAEV. [In despair] My sister, my sister....

LUBOV. My dear, my gentle, beautiful orchard! My life, my youth, my
happiness, good-bye! Good-bye!

ANYA'S VOICE. [Gaily] Mother!

TROFIMOV'S VOICE. [Gaily, excited] Coo-ee!

LUBOV. To look at the walls and the windows for the last time.... My
dead mother used to like to walk about this room....

GAEV. My sister, my sister!

ANYA'S VOICE. Mother!

TROFIMOV'S VOICE. Coo-ee!

LUBOV. We're coming! [They go out.]

[The stage is empty. The sound of keys being turned in the locks is
heard, and then the noise of the carriages going away. It is quiet. Then
the sound of an axe against the trees is heard in the silence sadly and
by itself. Steps are heard. FIERS comes in from the door on the right.
He is dressed as usual, in a short jacket and white waistcoat; slippers
on his feet. He is ill. He goes to the door and tries the handle.]

FIERS. It's locked. They've gone away. [Sits on a sofa] They've
forgotten about me.... Never mind, I'll sit here.... And Leonid
Andreyevitch will have gone in a light overcoat instead of putting on
his fur coat.... [Sighs anxiously] I didn't see.... Oh, these young
people! [Mumbles something that cannot be understood] Life's gone on as
if I'd never lived. [Lying down] I'll lie down.... You've no strength
left in you, nothing left at all.... Oh, you... bungler!

[He lies without moving. The distant sound is heard, as if from the sky,
of a breaking string, dying away sadly. Silence follows it, and only the
sound is heard, some way away in the orchard, of the axe falling on the
trees.]

Curtain.

End of Project Gutenberg's Plays by Chekhov, Second Series, by Anton Chekhov

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS BY CHE