The sea-gull
SORIN. The poor soul is unhappy.
DORN. That is a trifle, your honour.
SORIN. You judge her like a man who has obtained all he wants in life.
ARKADINA. Oh, what could be duller than this dear tedium of the country?
The air is hot and still, nobody does anything but sit and philosophise
about life. It is pleasant, my friends, to sit and listen to you here,
but I had rather a thousand times sit alone in the room of a hotel
learning a role by heart.
NINA. [With enthusiasm] You are quite right. I understand how you feel.
SORIN. Of course it is pleasanter to live in town. One can sit in one’s
library with a telephone at one’s elbow, no one comes in without being
first announced by the footman, the streets are full of cabs, and all---
DORN. [Sings]
“Tell her, oh flowers---”
SHAMRAEFF comes in, followed by PAULINA.
SHAMRAEFF. Here they are. How do you do? [He kisses ARKADINA’S hand and
then NINA’S] I am delighted to see you looking so well. [To ARKADINA] My
wife tells me that you mean to go to town with her to-day. Is that so?
ARKADINA. Yes, that is what I had planned to do.
SHAMRAEFF. Hm--that is splendid, but how do you intend to get there,
madam? We are hauling rye to-day, and all the men are busy. What horses
would you take?
ARKADINA. What horses? How do I know what horses we shall have?
SORIN. Why, we have the carriage horses.
SHAMRAEFF. The carriage horses! And where am I to find the harness for
them? This is astonishing! My dear madam, I have the greatest respect
for your talents, and would gladly sacrifice ten years of my life for
you, but I cannot let you have any horses to-day.
ARKADINA. But if I must go to town? What an extraordinary state of
affairs!
SHAMRAEFF. You do not know, madam, what it is to run a farm.
ARKADINA. [In a burst of anger] That is an old story! Under these
circumstances I shall go back to Moscow this very day. Order a carriage
for me from the village, or I shall go to the station on foot.
SHAMRAEFF. [losing his temper] Under these circumstances I resign my
position. You must find yourself another manager. [He goes out.]
ARKADINA. It is like this every summer: every summer I am insulted here.
I shall never set foot here again.
She goes out to the left, in the direction of the wharf. In a few
minutes she is seen entering the house, followed by TRIGORIN, who
carries a bucket and fishing-rod.
SORIN. [Losing his temper] What the deuce did he mean by his impudence?
I want all the horses brought here at once!
NINA. [To PAULINA] How could he refuse anything to Madame Arkadina, the
famous actress? Is not every wish, every caprice even, of hers, more
important than any farm work? This is incredible.
PAULINA. [In despair] What can I do about it? Put yourself in my place
and tell me what I can do.
SORIN. [To NINA] Let us go and find my sister, and all beg her not to
go. [He looks in the direction in which SHAMRAEFF went out] That man is
insufferable; a regular tyrant.
NINA. [Preventing him from getting up] Sit still, sit still, and let
us wheel you. [She and MEDVIEDENKO push the chair before them] This is
terrible!
SORIN. Yes, yes, it is terrible; but he won’t leave. I shall have a talk
with him in a moment. [They go out. Only DORN and PAULINA are left.]
DORN. How tiresome people are! Your husband deserves to be thrown out of
here neck and crop, but it will all end by this old granny Sorin and his
sister asking the man’s pardon. See if it doesn’t.
PAULINA. He has sent the carriage horses into the fields too. These
misunderstandings occur every day. If you only knew how they excite me!
I am ill; see! I am trembling all over! I cannot endure his rough ways.
[Imploringly] Eugene, my darling, my beloved, take me to you. Our time
is short; we are no longer young; let us end deception and concealment,
even though it is only at the end of our lives. [A pause.]
DORN. I am fifty-five years old. It is too late now for me to change my
ways of living.
PAULINA. I know that you refuse me because there are other women who are
near to you, and you cannot take everybody. I understand. Excuse me--I
see I am only bothering you.
NINA is seen near the house picking a bunch of flowers.
DORN. No, it is all right.
PAULINA. I am tortured by jealousy. Of course you are a doctor and
cannot escape from women. I understand.
DORN. [TO NINA, who comes toward him] How are things in there?
NINA. Madame Arkadina is crying, and Sorin is having an attack of
asthma.
DORN. Let us go and give them both some camomile tea.
NINA. [Hands him the bunch of flowers] Here are some flowers for you.
DORN. Thank you. [He goes into the house.]
PAULINA. [Following him] What pretty flowers! [As they reach the house
she says in a low voice] Give me those flowers! Give them to me!
DORN hands her the flowers; she tears them to pieces and flings them
away. They both go into the house.
NINA. [Alone] How strange to see a famous actress weeping, and for
such a trifle! Is it not strange, too, that a famous author should sit
fishing all day? He is the idol of the public, the papers are full
of him, his photograph is for sale everywhere, his works have been
translated into many foreign languages, and yet he is overjoyed if he
catches a couple of minnows. I always thought famous people were distant
and proud; I thought they despised the common crowd which exalts
riches and birth, and avenged themselves on it by dazzling it with the
inextinguishable honour and glory of their fame. But here I see them
weeping and playing cards and flying into passions like everybody else.
TREPLIEFF comes in without a hat on, carrying a gun and a dead seagull.
TREPLIEFF. Are you alone here?
NINA. Yes.
TREPLIEFF lays the sea-gull at her feet.
NINA. What do you mean by this?
TREPLIEFF. I was base enough to-day to kill this gull. I lay it at your
feet.
NINA. What is happening to you? [She picks up the gull and stands
looking at it.]
TREPLIEFF. [After a pause] So shall I soon end my own life.
NINA. You have changed so that I fail to recognise you.
TREPLIEFF. Yes, I have changed since the time when I ceased to recognise
you. You have failed me; your look is cold; you do not like to have me
near you.
NINA. You have grown so irritable lately, and you talk so darkly and
symbolically that you must forgive me if I fail to follow you. I am too
simple to understand you.
TREPLIEFF. All this began when my play failed so dismally. A woman never
can forgive failure. I have burnt the manuscript to the last page. Oh,
if you could only fathom my unhappiness! Your estrangement is to me
terrible, incredible; it is as if I had suddenly waked to find this
lake dried up and sunk into the earth. You say you are too simple to
understand me; but, oh, what is there to understand? You disliked
my play, you have no faith in my powers, you already think of me as
commonplace and worthless, as many are. [Stamping his foot] How well
I can understand your feelings! And that understanding is to me like
a dagger in the brain. May it be accursed, together with my stupidity,
which sucks my life-blood like a snake! [He sees TRIGORIN, who
approaches reading a book] There comes real genius, striding along like
another Hamlet, and with a book, too. [Mockingly] “Words, words, words.”
You feel the warmth of that sun already, you smile, your eyes melt and
glow liquid in its rays. I shall not disturb you. [He goes out.]
TRIGORIN. [Making notes in his book] Takes snuff and drinks vodka;
always wears black dresses; is loved by a schoolteacher--
NINA. How do you do?
TRIGORIN. How are you, Miss Nina? Owing to an unforeseen development of
circumstances, it seems that we are leaving here today. You and I shall
probably never see each other again, and I am sorry for it. I seldom
meet a young and pretty girl now; I can hardly remember how it feels
to be nineteen, and the young girls in my books are seldom living
characters. I should like to change places with you, if but for an hour,
to look out at the world through your eyes, and so find out what sort of
a little person you are.
NINA. And I should like to change places with you.
TRIGORIN. Why?
NINA. To find out how a famous genius feels. What is it like to be
famous? What sensations does it give you?
TRIGORIN. What sensations? I don’t believe it gives any. [Thoughtfully]
Either you exaggerate my fame, or else, if it exists, all I can say is
that one simply doesn’t feel fame in any way.
NINA. But when you read about yourself in the papers?
TRIGORIN. If the critics praise me, I am happy; if they condemn me, I am
out of sorts for the next two days.
NINA. This is a wonderful world. If you only knew how I envy you! Men
are born to different destinies. Some dully drag a weary, useless life
behind them, lost in the crowd, unhappy, while to one out of a million,
as to you, for instance, comes a bright destiny full of interest and
meaning. You are lucky.
TRIGORIN. I, lucky? [He shrugs his shoulders] H-m--I hear you talking
about fame, and happiness, and bright destinies, and those fine words of
yours mean as much to me--forgive my saying so--as sweetmeats do, which
I never eat. You are very young, and very kind.
NINA. Your life is beautiful.
TRIGORIN. I see nothing especially lovely about it. [He looks at his
watch] Excuse me, I must go at once, and begin writing again. I am in a
hurry. [He laughs] You have stepped on my pet corn, as they say, and I
am getting excited, and a little cross. Let us discuss this bright and
beautiful life of mine, though. [After a few moments’ thought] Violent
obsessions sometimes lay hold of a man: he may, for instance, think day
and night of nothing but the moon. I have such a moon. Day and night I
am held in the grip of one besetting thought, to write, write, write!
Hardly have I finished one book than something urges me to write
another, and then a third, and then a fourth--I write ceaselessly. I am,
as it were, on a treadmill. I hurry for ever from one story to another,
and can’t help myself. Do you see anything bright and beautiful in that?
Oh, it is a wild life! Even now, thrilled as I am by talking to you, I
do not forget for an instant that an unfinished story is awaiting me. My
eye falls on that cloud there, which has the shape of a grand piano; I
instantly make a mental note that I must remember to mention in my story
a cloud floating by that looked like a grand piano. I smell heliotrope;
I mutter to myself: a sickly smell, the colour worn by widows; I must
remember that in writing my next description of a summer evening. I
catch an idea in every sentence of yours or of my own, and hasten to
lock all these treasures in my literary store-room, thinking that some
day they may be useful to me. As soon as I stop working I rush off to
the theatre or go fishing, in the hope that I may find oblivion there,
but no! Some new subject for a story is sure to come rolling through my
brain like an iron cannonball. I hear my desk calling, and have to go
back to it and begin to write, write, write, once more. And so it
goes for everlasting. I cannot escape myself, though I feel that I am
consuming my life. To prepare the honey I feed to unknown crowds, I am
doomed to brush the bloom from my dearest flowers, to tear them from
their stems, and trample the roots that bore them under foot. Am I not
a madman? Should I not be treated by those who know me as one mentally
diseased? Yet it is always the same, same old story, till I begin to
think that all this praise and admiration must be a deception, that I am
being hoodwinked because they know I am crazy, and I sometimes tremble
lest I should be grabbed from behind and whisked off to a lunatic
asylum. The best years of my youth were made one continual agony for me