Saturday 12 May 2012

come, dear, let's go

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LUBOV. What truth? You see where truth is, and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn't it because you're young, because you haven't had time to suffer till you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward, isn't it because you cannot foresee or expect anything terrible, because so far life has been hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than we are, but think only, be just a little magnanimous, and have mercy on me. I was born here, my father and mother lived here, my grandfather too, I love this house. I couldn't understand my life without that cherry orchard, and if it really must be sold, sell me with it!







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ANYA. Mother! mother, are you crying? My dear, kind, good mother, my beautiful mother, I love you! Bless you! The cherry orchard is sold, we've got it no longer, it's true, true, but don't cry mother, you've still got your life before you, you've still your beautiful pure soul . . . Come with me, come, dear, away from here, come! We'll plant a new garden, finer than this, and you'll see it, and you'll understand, and deep joy, gentle joy will sink into your soul, like the evening sun, and you'll smile, mother! Come, dear, let's go!

Curtain.




from The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov
Translated by Julius West, 1916



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24 comments:

  1. . . .

    But it did not.

    (exeunt.)

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  2. Ah, from falling spring snow just a few days ago, you've found cherry blossoms for us in abundance which will also fall like snow once the flowers day in the sun is done, both equally poetic under the eye and magic wand of the artist...

    Hoping that after the cherry blooms, there will also be an abundance of cherries in your summer...

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  3. There is a riotous party of joy and celebration in this cherry orchard. I am drunk with delight and cannot help but spin dizzily in circles beneath the dancing branches and tumbling confetti. I will not think of the tale of one's heart's delight being sold for such delight can never be bought or sold but only experienced, savoured, devoured. Like ripe cherries that leave deep stains upon one's lips, this gorgeous orchard colours my heart with freedom.

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  4. this second photo is beautiful (i mean, more beautiful than the rest, if beauty be a comparative term); it's as if it's hiding something from us, the small curve of the back, turned away from us.

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  5. Sweet and touching. I like Chekov and especially that work. My parents had a large orchard...apples. It was on a mountain top. At harvest the whole valley smelled like baked apples. They had to sell the farm eventually and it broke my heart. It was as though I had been expelled from the garden of Eden.

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  6. this is joyful, this froth of white blossoms, as if the spring itself is moving and finding a shape in the air

    and how these moments of transition are also timeless, a single breath of the earth....

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  7. hello my beautiful friend this is sheer beauty this pink frail domination of lifes landscape but then my grandmother would call these flowers flowers of submission.
    thankyou for your beautiful compliment the other day. yes I speak heart to heart with the artist in this land of blossoming beauty.
    These photos of cherry blossoms are a masterpeice of refined beauty in subtle various shades.

    yes trees may represent the various shades of truth but then I think we have set traps for ourselves in using this concept of truth to describe surrounding life and shakespeare's Macbeth reminds us of the impossibility of language when the witches say "fair is foul and foul is fair" and the word trickery of "no man of woman born shall harm macbeth"
    philosophical aims at discovering Truth can only reveal the duck sauce of life it doesnt describe the swimming duck.Truth is the weather forecast of life unable to tame the hurricanes and volcanic eruptions of thought, it has only the ability to measure inaccurately.

    the closest we can come to describing life is through describing perception and impression.
    when your hand touches the red hot flame of the candle of passion you feel the scorching heat and you feel the roughness of the burnt sores and then feel the smoothness smoothed over by time and resurrected through memory-this is truth.
    you feel a soft summer wind and you are under the impression that a benevolent God lives beyond the clouds-this is truth
    you feel the roughness of the soles of your shoes as you scrape them clean with an elaborately designed conscience and you are under the impression that this describes the rough texture of your soul and you are under the further impression that every particle of dirt contains satanic powers as the bhuddists are under the impression that every grain of sand contains a bhudda.
    to continue

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  8. and when you become disinherited and lose the landscape of cherry blossomsthen the cherry blossoms dissolve into a dismayed mist of consciousness and you are under the impression that your life is rained upon by tearful ferocious rains beating against the windows of your mind as you sip from long stemmed vinous glasses of life and you are under the impression that the rains will never cease but they do and you consequently bathe in baptismal waters of purification in an ancient rite listening to the bubbling laughter of life's source and you are under the impression that you have been born again into a redwood forest and this is the truth or rather all of these examples are impressions.
    sending you cherry blossom kisses
    thankyou for this masterpeice beautiful Roxana.
    ps(risking to treat a serious topic frivolously-this was fun writing)

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  9. the first picture makes me think you are in love.

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  10. ANJA: Was haben Sie mit mir gemacht, Petja?

    Wie kommt's, daß ich den Kirschgarten nicht mehr so liebe wie früher? Ich liebte ihn so zärtlich, ich war fest davon überzeugt, daß es keinen schöneren Ort auf Erden gebe, als unseren Garten.

    TROFINOW: Ganz Rußland ist unser Garten.Die Erde ist groß und schön, und es gibt auf ihr gar viele wundervolle Orte.

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  11. ma face sa ma gandesc la livada cu visini a lui cehov.la casa mea de acolo,unde se simte atat de bine mirosul lemnului,nu de putine ori cu desene de mucegai cenusiu,mirosul pamantului.citind si vazand imaginile tale,m-am convins din nou ca acele flori albe au last dare de nesters...

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  12. draga,iarta-ma,acum am vazut,doar eu puteam face asta,e chiar livada de visini:)ma rog,pe langa prostovania condamnabila,e,cumva,mai bine,nu,inseamna ca fac niste asociatii cat de cat de luat in seama:)acele evantaie de flori albe,petalele maturate de rochii de dantela,cui,oare,puteau apartine?...

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  13. 'An old tree smoulders still in middle May to blossom.
    In a bloodless night I live, last year, and wait.
    I think of you, of love, that foreign flower.
    The moon is on fire, mad with harvest.'

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  14. These photos are beautiful. The limited almost washed out palette is perfect. Your decisions, your instincts, are always surprising and fascinating. Always with an edge. And I certainly understand the sense of loss when leaving a home that one loves. It feels like a punishment.

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  15. Chekhov! Who's that? Didn't he write the Flash Gordon film series starring Buster Crabbe? [She's a film historian, so she'll know this off the top of her head]. As for me, it's pretty simple--you take away my trees and i die.

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  16. So very fine, dear Roxana. In every way, perfect.

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  17. anonymous, i am afraid i didn't get your comment. though indeed, exeunt seems to be the only option in front of the beauty of a blossoming orchard :-)




    Owen, after the storms and bad weather we've had these recent days, i doubt very much about the abundance of fruit this summer, unfortunately :-(





    Lynne, i am fascinated with the image of ripe cherries that leave deep stains upon one's lips, now i obsess with making a post with just this title - a summer post, of course :-)




    anonymous, second one, thank you :-) i think that beautiful images always hide something from us (as good poems, too).

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  18. myth, i can't imagine a whole valley smelling like baked apple, how amazing this must have been... i am so taken with this image (unfortunately only an image for me) - how strange olfactory memories can be, and yet how essential to many of us...




    James, you fill me with joy, "as if the spring itself is moving and finding a shape in the air" - ah if only this were true, if only my images could show this...






    dear Madeleine, thank you so much for the long and insightful comments - i had to smile as you even brought, very unexpectedly to me, Macbeth into discussion, and M. happens to be one of my favourite Shakespeare's plays, if not _the_ favourite. i am so happy that you could find the heart of life and eternal rebirth in the pink shades of my blossoming trees :-)

    bises back to you, and many many hugs!

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  19. anonymous, the third one, i am always in love, especially when i take pictures :-)




    flowerywallpaper,
    ja, wir alle haben diese Neigung, nicht wahr, das, was wir lieben, als das Schoenste und Wertvollste ueberhaupt zu sehen. das kann wohl Blindheit sein, aber gewiss auch der Reiz der Liebe :-)





    haha, Cerasela, m-ai dat gata, chiar nu ai recunoscut din prima? :-))))

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  20. billoo, this is so lovely, by whom? i must find a photo for it, next may! (if the bridge survives yet another year! :-)




    Stickup, this time i am afraid it was the decision of the trees, they wouldn't allow any other option, and i tried some others too, but not too long :-)





    Prospero,
    i know.





    Lydia
    :-)
    i am happy you say this...

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  21. Des fleurs aussi douces et legeres que des flocons de neige..
    Des images printanieres qui portent en elles la belle melancolie de l'hiver..il n'y a que toi pour nous transporter dans l'espace temps comme ça...:) c'est un joli coup de baguette magique..
    Des bises..:)

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  22. you are *always* in love?? that's so sad to hear.

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  23. i am sorry for your sadness, anonymous, but yes, as soon as i look through the lens, i fall in love with the world, again and again :-) otherwise the Bridge couldn't exist!!!

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  24. the second last one in particular, as if the trees are conversing with one another :)

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