Up to this point in the play there had not been a syllable to tell us what were the relations between Arkadina and Trigorin, and yet the spectator who sees this play guesses from the first that he is her lover. She refuses to let him go, and by a somewhat histrionic declaration of love cleverly mixed with flattery and common sense she easily brings him round, and he is like wax in her fingers. He settles to go. They leave for Moscow; but before they leave, Trigorin has a short interview with Ina, in which she tells him that she has decided to leave her home to go on the stage, and to follow him to Moscow. Trigorin gives her his address in Moscow. Outside—the whole of this act takes place in the dining-room—we hear the noise and bustle of people going away. Arkadina is already in the carriage. Trigorin and Ina say good-bye to each other, he gives her a long kiss.
Between the third and fourth acts two years elapse. We are once more in the home of Arkadina’s brother. Constantine has become a celebrated writer. Ina has gone on the stage and proved a failure. She went to Moscow; Trigorin loved her for a while, and then ceased to love her. A child was born. He returned to his former love, and in his weakness, played a double game on both sides. She is now in the town, but her father will not receive her. Arkadina arrives with Trigorin. She has been summoned from town because her brother is ill. Everything is going on as it was two years ago. Arkadina, the agent, and the doctor sit down to a game of Lotto before dinner. Arkadina tells of her triumphs in the provincial theatres, of the ovations she received, of the dresses she wore. The doctor asks her if she is proud of her son being an author. “Just fancy,” she replies, “I have not yet read his books, I have never had time!” They go in to supper. Constantine says he is not hungry, and is left alone. Somebody knocks at the glass door opening into the garden. Constantine opens it; it is Ina. Ina tells her story; and now she has got an engagement in some small provincial town, and is starting on the following day. Constantine declares vehemently that he loves her as much as ever. He cursed her, he hated her, he tore up her letters and photographs, but every moment he was forced to admit to himself that he was bound to her for ever. He could never cease to love her. He begs her either to remain, or to let him follow her. She takes up her hat, she must go. She says she is a wandering sea-gull, and that she is very tired. From the dining-room are heard the voices of Arkadina and Trigorin. She listens, rushes to the door, and looks through the keyhole. “He is here, too,” she says, “do not tell him anything. I love him, I love him more than ever.” She goes out through the garden. Constantine tears up all his MSS. and goes into the next room. Arkadina and the others come out of the dining-room, and sit down once more to the card-table to play Lotto. The agent brings to Trigorin the stuffed sea-gull which Constantine had shot two years ago, and which had been the starting-point of Trigorin’s love episode with Ina. He has forgotten all about it; he does not even remember that the sea-gull episode ever took place. A noise like a pistol shot is heard outside. “What is that?” says Arkadina in fright. “It is nothing,” replies the doctor, “one of my medicine bottles has probably burst.” He goes into the next room, and returns half a minute later. “It was as I thought,” he says, “my ether bottle has burst.” “It frightened me,” says Arkadina, “it reminded me of how....” The doctor turns over the leaves of the newspaper. He then says to Trigorin, “Two months ago there was an article in this Review written from America. I wanted to ask you....” He takes Trigorin aside, and then whispers to him, “Take Irina Nikolaievna away as soon as possible. The fact of the matter is that Constantine has shot himself.”
Of all the plays of Tchekov, Chaika is the one which most resembles ordinary plays, or the plays of ordinary dramatists. It has, no doubt, many of Tchekov’s special characteristics, but it does not show them developed to their full extent. Besides which, the subject is more dramatic than that of his other plays; there is a conflict in it—the conflict between the son and the mother, between the older and the younger generation, the older generation represented by Trigorin and the actress, the younger generation by Constantine. The character of the actress is drawn with great subtlety. Her real love for her son is made just as plain as her absolute inability to appreciate his talent and his cleverness. She is a mixture of kindness, common sense, avarice, and vanity. Equally subtle is the character of the author, with his utter want of wit; his absorption in the writing of short stories; his fundamental weakness; his egoism, which prevents him recognising the existence of any work but his own, but which has no tinge of ill-nature or malice in it. When he returns in the last act, he compliments Constantine on his success, and brings him a Review in which there is a story by the young man. Constantine subsequently notices that in the Review the only pages which are cut contain a story by Trigorin himself.
If Chaika is the most dramatically effective of Tchekov’s plays, the most characteristic is perhaps The Cherry Garden. It is notably characteristic in the symbolical and historical sense, for it depicts for us the causes and significance of the decline of the well-born, landed gentry in Russia.
A slightly Bohemian lady belonging to this class, Ranievskaia—I will call her Madame Ranievskaia for the sake of convenience, since her Christian name “Love” has no equivalent, as a name, in English—is returning to her country estate with her brother Leonidas after an absence of five years. She has spent this time abroad in Nice and Paris. Her affairs and those of her brother are in a hopeless state. They are heavily in debt. This country place has been the home of her childhood, and it possesses a magnificent cherry orchard. It is in the south of Russia.
In the first act we see her return to the home of her childhood—she and her brother, her daughter, seventeen years old, and her adopted daughter. It is the month of May. The cherry orchard is in full blossom; we see it through the windows of the old nursery, which is the scene of the first act. The train arrives at dawn, before sunrise. A neighbour is there to meet them, a rich merchant called Lopachin. They arrive with their governess and their servant, and they have been met at the station by another neighbouring landowner. And here we see a thing I have never seen on the stage before: a rendering of the exact atmosphere that hangs about such an event as (a) the arrival of people from a journey, and (b) the return of a family to its home from which it has long been absent. We see at a glance that Madame Ranievskaia and her brother are in all practical matters like children. They are hopelessly casual and vague. They take everything lightly and carelessly, like birds; they are convinced that something will turn up to extricate them from their difficulties.
The merchant, who is a nice, plain, careful, practical, but rather vulgar kind of person, is a millionaire, and, what is more, he is the son of a peasant; he was born in the village, and his father was a serf. He puts the practical situation very clearly before them. The estate is hopelessly overloaded with debt, and unless these debts are paid within six months, the estate will be sold by auction. But there is, he points out, a solution to the matter. “As you already know,” he says to them, “your cherry orchard will be sold to pay your debts. The auction is fixed for the 22nd of August, but do not be alarmed, there is a way out of the difficulty.... This is my plan. Your estate is only 15 miles from the town, the railway is quite close, and if your cherry orchard and the land by the river is cut up into villa holdings, and let for villas, you will get at the least 25,000 roubles (£2500) a year.” To which the brother replies, “What nonsense!” “You will get,” the merchant repeats, “at the very least twenty-five roubles a year a desiatin,”—a desiatin is about two acres and a half: much the same as the French hectare,—“and by the autumn, if you make the announcement now, you will not have a single particle of land left. In a word, I congratulate you; you are saved. The site is splendid, only, of course, it wants several improvements. For instance, all these old buildings must be destroyed, and this house, which is no use at all, the old orchard must be cut down.”
Madame Ranievskaia: Cut down? My dear friend, forgive me, you do not understand anything at all! If in the whole district there is anything interesting, not to say remarkable, it is this orchard.
Lopachin: The orchard is remarkable simply on account of its size.
Leonidas: The orchard is mentioned in the Encyclopædia.