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The Cherry Orchard 291
Mme. Ranevsky is impoverished. The cherry
orchard is
heavily mortgaged and as romance and
sentiment cannot liquidate debts, the beautiful es
tate falls into the cruel hands of commercialism.
The merchant Yermolai Lopakhin buys the
place. He is in ecstasy over his newly acquired
possession. He the owner he who had risen
from the serfs of the former master of the or
chard!
Lopakhin. Just think of it! The cherry orchard is
mine! Mine! Tell me that I m drunk; tell me that I m
off my head; tell me that it s all a dream! ... If only
my father and my grandfather could rise from their
graves and see the whole affair, how their Yermolai, their
flogged and ignorant Yermolai, who used to run about
barefooted in the winter, how this same Yermolai had
bought a property that hasn t its equal for beauty any
where in the whole world! I have bought the property
where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they
weren t even allowed into the kitchen.
A new epoch begins in the cherry orchard. On
the ruins of romanticism and aristocratic ease there
rises commercialism, its iron hand yoking nature,
devastating her beauty, and robbing her of all
radiance.
With the greed of rich returns, Lopakhin cries,
"
Lay the ax to the cherry orchard, come and see
the trees fall down! We ll fill the place with
villas."
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