Lopahin: “I have bought it!” (Lopahin’s speech)

What is happening, what every line means, how to perform it, and how to use it in an audition, with the full text.

The Offbook team

Oct 8, 2026

What is happening

This is the end of Act 3 of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, in Constance Garnett’s translation. Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya has come home from Paris to her family estate, which is so deep in debt that it is to be sold at auction on the 22nd of August. Lopahin is a rich merchant whose father and grandfather worked the estate as serfs. Since Act 1 he has begged her to save it by cutting down the famous cherry orchard and leasing the land for summer villas. She and her brother Gaev would not hear of it.

On the day of the auction Lyubov gives a party with a hired band, waiting for news. Gaev has gone to the sale with 15,000 roubles sent by an aunt, not even enough to cover the arrears. Late in the evening Lopahin comes back with him, smelling of cognac. Chekhov’s stage direction says he is embarrassed and afraid of betraying his joy. Lyubov asks: “Is the cherry orchard sold?” “It is sold.” “Who has bought it?” “I have bought it.”

There is a pause. Lyubov is crushed and would fall if she were not standing by a chair. Varya, her adopted daughter, who runs the house and whom everyone expects Lopahin to marry, takes the household keys from her waistband, throws them on the floor and walks out. Then Lopahin speaks. As soon as he finishes, he sees Lyubov weeping in a chair and turns to her, first in reproach and then in tears.

Lines: 31
Words: 281
At 150 wpm: 1.9 min
Form: Prose

The speech, beat by beat

The full text in 6 beats. Under each beat: what it means in plain English, and a note for playing it.

Lines 1–3 · I have bought it!

1I have bought it!
Wait a bit, ladies and gentlemen, pray.
My head’s a bit muddled, I can’t speak.

In plain English I bought it! Wait a moment, ladies and gentlemen, please. My head’s in a muddle, I can’t speak.

Acting note He has just said “I have bought it” quietly; now it comes out again with an exclamation mark. Chekhov has him laugh at the end of line 3. The room is silent and Lyubov is barely standing.

Lines 4–12 · The auction

4We came to the auction.
5Deriganov was there already.
Leonid Andreyevitch only had fifteen thousand and Deriganov bid thirty thousand, besides the arrears, straight off.
I saw how the land lay.
I bid against him.
I bid forty thousand, he bid forty-five thousand, I said fifty-five, and so he went on, adding five thousands and I adding ten.
10Well …
So it ended.
I bid ninety, and it was knocked down to me.

In plain English We got to the auction. Deriganov was already there. Leonid Andreyevitch only had fifteen thousand, and Deriganov bid thirty thousand on top of the debts straight away. I saw how things stood, so I bid against him. I bid forty thousand, he bid forty-five, I said fifty-five, and so it went on, him adding five thousand and me adding ten. Well … that’s how it ended. I bid ninety, and it was knocked down to me.

Acting note He relives the bidding like a race he has just won, and the numbers climb with his excitement. “Well …” is the place where he can hardly say the last part out loud.

Lines 13–17 · Mine!

13Now the cherry orchard’s mine!
Mine!
15My God, the cherry orchard’s mine!
Tell me that I’m drunk, that I’m out of my mind, that it’s all a dream.
Don’t laugh at me!

In plain English Now the cherry orchard is mine! Mine! My God, the cherry orchard is mine! Tell me I’m drunk, that I’m out of my mind, that it’s all a dream. Don’t laugh at me!

Acting note The stage directions give him a chuckle after “Mine!” and have him stamp his feet in line 16. Nobody is laughing; he is braced for the mockery he grew up with.

Lines 18–21 · My father and grandfather

18If my father and my grandfather could rise from their graves and see all that has happened!
How their Yermolay, ignorant, beaten Yermolay, who used to run about barefoot in winter, how that very Yermolay has bought the finest estate in the world!── 60-second cut ends here ──
20I have bought the estate where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they weren’t even admitted into the kitchen.
I am asleep, I am dreaming!

In plain English If only my father and grandfather could rise from their graves and see what has happened! Their Yermolay, ignorant, beaten Yermolay, who used to run around barefoot in winter, that same Yermolay has bought the finest estate in the world! I have bought the estate where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they weren’t even allowed into the kitchen. I must be asleep, I must be dreaming!

Acting note This is the heart of the speech, and it is about them, not the money. Line 20 can be said very simply. The 60-second cut on this page ends at line 19.

Lines 22–24 · The keys

22It is all fancy, it is the work of your imagination plunged in the darkness of ignorance.
She threw away the keys; she means to show she’s not the housewife now.
Well, no matter.── 90-second cut ends here ──

In plain English It’s all a fancy, a fantasy of your imagination wrapped in the darkness of ignorance. She threw away the keys; she wants to show she isn’t the housekeeper here any more. Well, never mind.

Acting note The odd, high-flown phrase in line 22 sounds like him mocking his own disbelief. Then he picks up Varya’s keys “smiling fondly,” Chekhov says, and jingles them. Decide what he feels about her. The 90-second cut ends at line 24.

Lines 25–31 · Play!

25Hey, musicians!
Play!
I want to hear you.
Come, all of you, and look how Yermolay Lopahin will take the axe to the cherry orchard, how the trees will fall to the ground!
We will build houses on it and our grandsons and great-grandsons will see a new life springing up there.
30Music!
Play up!

In plain English Hey, musicians, play! I want to hear you. Come here, all of you, and watch Yermolay Lopahin take the axe to the cherry orchard, watch the trees come crashing down! We’ll build houses on it, and our grandsons and great-grandsons will see a new life springing up there. Music! Play up!

Acting note The band, hired by the family, starts tuning up just before line 25. He gives it orders as the new master and names himself in full. The vision of the future is real, and it is also being shouted at a woman losing her home.

Hard words

Word	Line	Meaning
pray	2	please
Leonid Andreyevitch	6	Gaev, Lyubov’s brother (a polite way of naming him)
the arrears	6	the overdue debt owed on the mortgaged estate
I saw how the land lay	7	I saw how things stood
knocked down to me	12	sold to me by the auctioneer’s hammer
slaves	20	serfs, peasants who belonged to the estate until Russia freed them in 1861
fancy	22	something imagined
plunged in the darkness of ignorance	22	a pompous, bookish phrase; roughly “none of this is really happening”
housewife	23	the woman who keeps the house and its keys (Varya)
Play up!	31	Strike up! Play louder!

How to perform it

Know who is in the room. Lyubov is close to collapse beside a chair, Pishtchik is there, guests are in the next room and the band is waiting. Varya has just walked out. Whoever else you picture, the person who matters is Lyubov. In an audition, place her clearly, near you.
Play the struggle in him. Chekhov first describes him as afraid of betraying his joy, and then the joy wins. Underneath it is the boy whose father was a peasant, and right after the speech he turns to Lyubov with reproach and then tears. He is not simply gloating, so don’t play a villain. Wikipedia notes that Lopahin is often played as unpleasant, though nothing in the play itself demands it.
Use Chekhov’s stage directions, even though they are not printed in the text on this page: he laughs (line 3), chuckles (after line 14), stamps his feet (line 16), picks up the keys smiling fondly (line 22), jingles them (line 23), and the band tunes up before line 25. They chart the swings between triumph, disbelief and tenderness.
Remember the play is not a straight tragedy. Chekhov called it a comedy and was unhappy when Stanislavski staged it as a tragedy. A drunk, giddy man stamping his feet at his own luck is partly funny, and the speech is stronger when the laughter and the cruelty sit side by side.
Handle the prose by sentence. Most are short, which gives you speed. The two long ones, lines 19 and 20, need a breath before them and a clear line of thought through them. Let the bidding in line 9 build like the auction it describes.
Common mistakes: shouting the whole thing at one high level; skipping the moments of disbelief; and losing Lyubov. The speech lands hardest when the audience can see what each line costs her.

Using it in an audition

This is a useful classical piece that is not Shakespeare, with a big arc in under two minutes. The full speech runs about 1.9 minutes at 150 words a minute, over a 90-second limit. The 60-second cut on this page ends at line 19, on Yermolay buying “the finest estate in the world,” a strong place to stop that keeps the father and grandfather. The 90-second cut ends at line 24, “Well, no matter,” which can work if you play it as him pushing his feelings aside; otherwise the full speech, with the music and the axe, is the better ending. The play does not give Lopahin’s age, so it suits a wide range of adult actors who can play power and shame together. The text is Constance Garnett’s translation; other translations word it differently, so learn one version and stick to it. If you also need Shakespeare, pair it with Edmund’s “Thou, nature, art my goddess” from King Lear, another man shut out by birth who means to take what he was denied, but in tightly controlled verse.

Lopahin, The Cherry Orchard, Act 3. Anton Chekhov. Public domain text.

How long it runs

Pace	Words a minute	Run time
Deliberate	130	2.2 minutes
Conversational	150	1.9 minutes
Brisk	170	1.7 minutes

These are speech times before pauses. To time your own run, paste the text into the monologue timer. The cut marks in the text stop at a full sentence near 60 seconds (line 19) and 90 seconds (line 24).

Practice it: first-letter version

Each word is cut to its first letter. Say the whole line from the letters, then check the text. Make cues from any script with the first-letter memorizer.

I h b i!

W a b, l a g, p.

M h a b m, I c s.

W c t t a.

D w t a.

L A o h f t a D b t t, b t a, s o.

I s h t l l.

I b a h.

I b f t, h b f-f t, I s f-f, a s h w o, a f t a I a t.

W …

S i e.

I b n, a i w k d t m.

N t c o m!

M G, t c o m!

T m t I d, t I o o m m, t i a a d.

D l a m!

I m f a m g c r f t g a s a t h h!

H t Y, i, b Y, w u t r a b i w, h t v Y h b t f e i t w!

I h b t e w m f a g w s, w t w e a i t k.

I a a, I a d!

I i a f, i i t w o y i p i t d o i.

S t a t k; s m t s s n t h n.

W, n m.

H, m!

I w t h y.

C, a o y, a l h Y L w t t a t t c o, h t t w f t t g!

W w b h o i a o g a g-g w s a n l s u t.

P u!

More lists: Monologues for men, Dramatic monologues, Monologues from modern classics.

Sources

Questions actors ask

How long is Lopahin’s I have bought it! (Lopahin’s speech) speech?

31 lines and 281 words. At 150 words a minute it runs about 1.9 minutes; a slower, more deliberate delivery at 130 takes about 2.2 minutes. Pauses add time, so time a full run out loud.

Is it a good audition monologue?

What is the fastest way to memorize it?

Learn it in sense units, not line by line: say each thought out loud until you can do it without looking, then add the next. The first-letter version below keeps the shape of every line in view while you test yourself.