TROFIMOV. [Teasing] Madame Lopakhin! Madame Lopakhin!
VARYA. [Angry] Decayed gentleman!
TROFIMOV. Yes, I am a decayed gentleman, and I’m proud of it!
VARYA. [Bitterly] We’ve hired the musicians, but how are they to be paid? [Exit.]
TROFIMOV. [To PISCHIN] If the energy which you, in the course of your life, have spent in looking for money to pay interest had been used for something else, then, I believe, after all, you’d be able to turn everything upside down.
PISCHIN. Nietzsche... a philosopher... a very great, a most celebrated man... a man of enormous brain, says in his books that you can forge bank-notes.
TROFIMOV. And have you read Nietzsche?
PISCHIN. Well... Dashenka told me. Now I’m in such a position, I wouldn’t mind forging them... I’ve got to pay 310 roubles the day after to-morrow... I’ve got 130 already.... [Feels his pockets, nervously] I’ve lost the money! The money’s gone! [Crying] Where’s the money? [Joyfully] Here it is behind the lining... I even began to perspire.
[Enter LUBOV ANDREYEVNA and CHARLOTTA IVANOVNA.]
LUBOV. [Humming a Caucasian dance] Why is Leonid away so long? What’s he doing in town? [To DUNYASHA] Dunyasha, give the musicians some tea.