You have to lease out the cherry orchard and your land for summer cottages—right now—as soon as you can. The auction is coming and soon. Get that into your heads! The moment you give the word, you’ll get all the money you want, and you’ll be saved.

LIUBOVSummer cottages and weekenders . . . I’m sorry but it’s all so tawdry.

GAEVCouldn’t agree more.

LOPAKHINI’m going to scream or burst into tears, or faint clean away—I can’t do it anymore, you’re driving me crazy. (to Gaev) You old woman!

GAEVWho?

LOPAKHIN (going)You! I said you’re an old woman!

LIUBOV (frightened)Oh—don’t go away, please don’t go, my dear. Perhaps we’ll think of something!

LOPAKHINWhat more is there to think about!

LIUBOVPlease, please stay! You cheer me up somehow, despite yourself. (pause) I keep expecting something to happen, as though the house were to fall around our ears.

GAEV (deep in thought)Screw back off the cushion into the corner pocket—cross over for the middle pocket . . .

LIUBOVWe must be paying for our sins . . . so many sins . . .

LOPAKHINOh, yes? And what sins would they be?

GAEV (putting a sweet in his mouth)They say I’ve consumed my patrimony in lemon drops . . . (laughs)

LIUBOVOh, my sins! I’ve always squandered money without a thought like some madwoman, and then I married a man who did nothing but run up debts. My husband died of champagne, he was a terrible drinker. Then I had the misfortune to fall in love and take up with someone else just at the moment when . . . and this was my first punishment, like a blow to the head—it “was here—here in this river, my little boy drowned, and I went abroad, I didn’t pause—I meant never to return, to see this river ever again. I shut my eyes and fled, not knowing where I was going, and he came after me, he wouldn’t give up, he was merciless. I bought a little house near Menton when he fell ill there, and for the next three years I had no rest day or night, he wore me out, my soul dried up. Then last year when the house had to go to pay the debts, I went to Paris, and there he robbed me of everything. He threw me over and went off with another woman, and I tried to poison myself. It was all so stupid and humiliating.