How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Act.Line). Every time a character talks counts as one line, even if what they say turns into a long monologue. We used Julius West's translation.
Quote #1
LOPAKHIN. Lubov Andreyevna, as I remember her now, was still young, and very thin, and she took me to the washstand here in this very room, the nursery. (1.5)
Lopakhin may be a businessman, but he is almost as sentimental as Lubov. His devotion to her stems from this one memory, when she comforted him as a little boy.
Quote #2
LUBOV. My dear nursery, oh, you beautiful room. ... I used to sleep here when I was a baby. (1.26)
For Lubov, each present moment in the house – each encounter with a room or an object – reminds her of the past. It's almost as though the house is haunted.
Quote #3
ANYA. [Thoughtfully] Father died six years ago, and a month later my brother Grisha was drowned in the river--such a dear little boy of seven! Mother couldn't bear it; she went away, away, without looking round. (1.75)
Lubov once fled her home in grief, fearing to encounter memories of her husband and son. Now she fears losing those memories with the loss of the estate.
Quote #4
GAEV. Once upon a time you and I used both to sleep in this room, and now I'm fifty-one; it does seem strange. (1.82)
Gaev and Lubov feed each other's obsessions with the past.
Quote #5
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 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. (1.115)
Fiers represents the past that is perishing. He remembers the vitality of the cherry orchard. But he can't remember the recipe for the jam – the practical knowledge that made the orchard sustainable.
Quote #6
LUBOV. [Looks out into the garden] Oh, my childhood, days of my innocence! In this nursery I used to sleep; I used to look out from here into the orchard. Happiness used to wake with me every morning, and then it was just as it is now; nothing has changed. (1.162)
Wake up, Lubov! Everything has changed. Serfs have been freed, the trees don't yield fruit, the estate is about to be sold.
Quote #7
LUBOV. Look, there's my dead mother going in the orchard ...dressed in white! [Laughs from joy] That's she. (1.164)
Just when we want to strangle Lubov for refusing to face reality, Chekhov gives her a heartbreaking moment like this.
Quote #8
TROFIMOV. 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, uninterrupted labour. Understand that, Anya. (2.149)
Trofimov's view of the past is completely contrary to Lubov's. Life on the estate was not beautiful and idyllic – it was unjust.