Barbara Character Analysis

GAYEF: I’ll go [to the bank] on Tuesday and talk [the loan] over again. (To BARBARA) Don’t howl! (To ANYA) Your mamma shall have a talk with Lopakhin. Of course he won’t refuse her. And as soon as you are rested you must go to see your grandmother, the Countess, at Yaroslav. We’ll operate from three points, and the trick is done. We’ll pay the interest, I’m certain of it. (Taking sugar candy.) I swear on my honor, or whatever you will, the property shall not be sold. (Excitedly.) I swear by my hope of eternal happiness! There’s my hand on it. Call me a base, dishonorable man if I let it go to auction. I swear by my whole being.

PISHTCHIK: The worst of it is, I’ve got no money. A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat. (Snoring and waking up again at once.) I’m just the same… it’s nothing but money, money with me.

[…]

(A sound of billiards being played in the next room. BARBARA appears in the drawing-room beyond the arch.)

TROPHIMOF (teasing her): Madame Lopakhin! Madame Lopakhin!

BARBARA (angrily): Mouldy gentleman!

TROPHIMOF: Yes, I’m a mouldy gentleman, and I’m proud of it.

BARBARA (bitterly): We’ve hired the band, but where’s the money to pay for it?

(Exit BARBARA.)

TROPHIMOF (to PISHTCHIK): If the energy which you have spent in the course of your whole life in looking for money to pay the interest on your loans had been diverted to some other purpose, you would have had enough of it, I dare say, to turn the world upside down.

BARBARA: Haven’t you gone yet, Simeon? You seem to pay no attention to what you’re told. […]

EPHIKHODOF: Allow me to inform you that it’s not your place to call me to account.

BARBARA: I’m not calling you to account; I’m merely talking to you. All you can do is walk about from one place to another, without ever doing a stroke of work; and why on earth we keep a clerk at all heaven only knows.

EPHIKHODOF (offended): Whether I work, or whether I walk, or whether I eat, or whether I play billiards is a question to be decided only by my elders and people who understand.

BARBARA (furious): How dare you talk to me like that! How dare you! I don’t understand things, don’t I? You clear out of here this minute! Do you hear me? This minute!

EPHIKHODOF (flinching): I must beg you to express yourself in genteeler language.

BARBARA (beside herself): You clear out this instant second! Out you go! Twenty-two misfortunes! Make yourself scarce! Get out of my sight!

MADAME RANEVSKY: Who bought it?

LOPAKHIN: […] I bid nine thousand more than the mortgage, and got it; and now the cherry orchard is mine! Mine! (Laughing.) Heaven’s alive! Just think of it! The cherry orchard is 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 around barefooted in the winter, how this same Yermolai had bought a property that hasn’t its equal for beauty anywhere 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. I’m asleep, it’s only a vision, it isn’t real… ‘Tis the fruit of imagination, wrapped in the mists of ignorance. […] Come everyone and see Yermolai Lopakhin lay his axe to the cherry orchard, come and see the trees fall down! We’ll fill the place with villas; our grandsons and great-grandsons shall see a new life here […] Here comes the new squire, the owner of the cherry orchard!

GAYEF: I’ll go [to the bank] on Tuesday and talk [the loan] over again. (To BARBARA) Don’t howl! (To ANYA) Your mamma shall have a talk with Lopakhin. Of course he won’t refuse her. And as soon as you are rested you must go to see your grandmother, the Countess, at Yaroslav. We’ll operate from three points, and the trick is done. We’ll pay the interest, I’m certain of it. (Taking sugar candy.) I swear on my honor, or whatever you will, the property shall not be sold. (Excitedly.) I swear by my hope of eternal happiness! There’s my hand on it. Call me a base, dishonorable man if I let it go to auction. I swear by my whole being.

PISHTCHIK: The worst of it is, I’ve got no money. A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat. (Snoring and waking up again at once.) I’m just the same… it’s nothing but money, money with me.

[…]

(A sound of billiards being played in the next room. BARBARA appears in the drawing-room beyond the arch.)

TROPHIMOF (teasing her): Madame Lopakhin! Madame Lopakhin!

BARBARA (angrily): Mouldy gentleman!

TROPHIMOF: Yes, I’m a mouldy gentleman, and I’m proud of it.

BARBARA (bitterly): We’ve hired the band, but where’s the money to pay for it?

(Exit BARBARA.)

TROPHIMOF (to PISHTCHIK): If the energy which you have spent in the course of your whole life in looking for money to pay the interest on your loans had been diverted to some other purpose, you would have had enough of it, I dare say, to turn the world upside down.

BARBARA: Haven’t you gone yet, Simeon? You seem to pay no attention to what you’re told. […]

EPHIKHODOF: Allow me to inform you that it’s not your place to call me to account.

BARBARA: I’m not calling you to account; I’m merely talking to you. All you can do is walk about from one place to another, without ever doing a stroke of work; and why on earth we keep a clerk at all heaven only knows.

EPHIKHODOF (offended): Whether I work, or whether I walk, or whether I eat, or whether I play billiards is a question to be decided only by my elders and people who understand.

BARBARA (furious): How dare you talk to me like that! How dare you! I don’t understand things, don’t I? You clear out of here this minute! Do you hear me? This minute!

EPHIKHODOF (flinching): I must beg you to express yourself in genteeler language.

BARBARA (beside herself): You clear out this instant second! Out you go! Twenty-two misfortunes! Make yourself scarce! Get out of my sight!

MADAME RANEVSKY: Who bought it?

LOPAKHIN: […] I bid nine thousand more than the mortgage, and got it; and now the cherry orchard is mine! Mine! (Laughing.) Heaven’s alive! Just think of it! The cherry orchard is 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 around barefooted in the winter, how this same Yermolai had bought a property that hasn’t its equal for beauty anywhere 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. I’m asleep, it’s only a vision, it isn’t real… ‘Tis the fruit of imagination, wrapped in the mists of ignorance. […] Come everyone and see Yermolai Lopakhin lay his axe to the cherry orchard, come and see the trees fall down! We’ll fill the place with villas; our grandsons and great-grandsons shall see a new life here […] Here comes the new squire, the owner of the cherry orchard!