With her arrives her daughter, Anya, and Anya's German governess, Charlotte. Amidst her recollections of her girlhood nursery, Madame Ranevsky is reminded that the estate will be sold to clear debts in August, unless the family can raise sufficient funds. Generous and distracted, she seems incapable of recognizing and acting on her desperate situation.
Nothing is resolved.
Later in the summer, courtship seems to preclude business. In the midst of this, Lopakhin tries vainly to get the family to be more practical, but Ranevsky confesses that she squandered her fortune on her unfaithful lover in Paris and is probably not capable of practical dealing with the immediate problem. He is glad the estate will be sold, for to him every leaf in the cherry orchard tells of a serf's complaints and sufferings. August arrives, and the estate must be auctioned to meet the mortgage payments. Gayev attends the sale, hopeful that the great-aunt's money will be enough to satisfy the creditors.