THE CHERRY ORCHARD
A monologue from the
play by Anton
Chekhov
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Two Plays of Tchekhof. Trans. George Calderon. London:
Grant Richards Ltd., 1912. |
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MADAME RANEVSKY: Please don't go; I want you. At any
rate it's gayer when you're here. [A pause] I keep expecting
something to happen, as if the house were going to tumble down
about our ears. We have been very, very sinful! Oh, the sins
that I have committed . . . I've always squandered money at random
like a madwoman; I married a man who made nothing but debts.
My husband drank himself to death on champagne; he was a fearful
drinker. Then for my sins I fell in love and went off with another
man; and immediately--that was my first punishment--a blow full
on the head . . . here, in this very river . . . my little boy
was drowned; and I went abroad, right, right away, never to come
back any more, never to see this river again. . . . I shut my
eyes and ran, like a mad thing, and he came after me,
pitiless and cruel. I bought a villa at Mentone, because he fell
ill there, and for three years I knew no rest day or night; the
sick man tormented and wore down my soul. Then, last year, when
my villa was sold to pay my debts, I went off to Paris, and he
came and robbed me of everything, left me and took up with another
woman, and I tried to poison myself. . . . It was all so stupid,
so humiliating. . . . Then suddenly I longed to be back in Russia,
in my own country, with my little girl. . . . [Wiping away
her tears] Lord, Lord, be merciful to me; forgive my sins!
Do not punish me any more! [Taking a telegram from her pocket.]
I got this to-day from Paris. . . . He asks to be forgiven, begs
me to come back. . . .
MORE
MONOLOGUES BY ANTON CHEKHOV |
