The sea-gull
are a noble, generous woman!
ARKADINA. [Weeping] I really haven’t the money.
SORIN. If I had any money of course I should let him have some myself,
but I haven’t even a penny. The farm manager takes my pension from me
and puts it all into the farm or into cattle or bees, and in that way it
is always lost for ever. The bees die, the cows die, they never let me
have a horse.
ARKADINA. Of course I have some money, but I am an actress and my
expenses for dress alone are enough to bankrupt me.
SORIN. You are a dear, and I am very fond of you, indeed I am. But
something is the matter with me again. [He staggers] I feel giddy. [He
leans against the table] I feel faint, and all.
ARKADINA. [Frightened ] Peter! [She tries to support him] Peter!
dearest! [She calls] Help! Help!
TREPLIEFF and MEDVIEDENKO come in; TREPLIEFF has a bandage around his
head.
ARKADINA. He is fainting!
SORIN. I am all right. [He smiles and drinks some water] It is all over
now.
TREPLIEFF. [To his mother] Don’t be frightened, mother, these attacks
are not dangerous; my uncle often has them now. [To his uncle] You must
go and lie down, Uncle.
SORIN. Yes, I think I shall, for a few minutes. I am going to Moscow
all the same, but I shall lie down a bit before I start. [He goes out
leaning on his cane.]
MEDVIEDENKO. [Giving him his arm] Do you know this riddle? On four legs
in the morning; on two legs at noon; and on three legs in the evening?
SORIN. [Laughing] Yes, exactly, and on one’s back at night. Thank you, I
can walk alone.
MEDVIEDENKO. Dear me, what formality! [He and SORIN go out.]
ARKADINA. He gave me a dreadful fright.
TREPLIEFF. It is not good for him to live in the country. Mother, if you
would only untie your purse-strings for once, and lend him a thousand
roubles! He could then spend a whole year in town.
ARKADINA. I have no money. I am an actress and not a banker. [A pause.]
TREPLIEFF. Please change my bandage for me, mother, you do it so gently.
ARKADINA goes to the cupboard and takes out a box of bandages and a
bottle of iodoform.
ARKADINA. The doctor is late.
TREPLIEFF. Yes, he promised to be here at nine, and now it is noon
already.
ARKADINA. Sit down. [She takes the bandage off his head] You look as if
you had a turban on. A stranger that was in the kitchen yesterday asked
to what nationality you belonged. Your wound is almost healed. [She
kisses his head] You won’t be up to any more of these silly tricks
again, will you, when I am gone?
TREPLIEFF. No, mother. I did that in a moment of insane despair, when I
had lost all control over myself. It will never happen again. [He kisses
her hand] Your touch is golden. I remember when you were still acting at
the State Theatre, long ago, when I was still a little chap, there was a
fight one day in our court, and a poor washerwoman was almost beaten to
death. She was picked up unconscious, and you nursed her till she was
well, and bathed her children in the washtubs. Have you forgotten it?
ARKADINA. Yes, entirely. [She puts on a new bandage.]
TREPLIEFF. Two ballet dancers lived in the same house, and they used to
come and drink coffee with you.
ARKADINA. I remember that.
TREPLIEFF. They were very pious. [A pause] I love you again, these last
few days, as tenderly and trustingly as I did as a child. I have no one
left me now but you. Why, why do you let yourself be controlled by that
man?
ARKADINA. You don’t understand him, Constantine. He has a wonderfully
noble personality.
TREPLIEFF. Nevertheless, when he has been told that I wish to challenge
him to a duel his nobility does not prevent him from playing the coward.
He is about to beat an ignominious retreat.
ARKADINA. What nonsense! I have asked him myself to go.
TREPLIEFF. A noble personality indeed! Here we are almost quarrelling
over him, and he is probably in the garden laughing at us at this very
moment, or else enlightening Nina’s mind and trying to persuade her into
thinking him a man of genius.
ARKADINA. You enjoy saying unpleasant things to me. I have the greatest
respect for that man, and I must ask you not to speak ill of him in my
presence.
TREPLIEFF. I have no respect for him at all. You want me to think him a
genius, as you do, but I refuse to lie: his books make me sick.
ARKADINA. You envy him. There is nothing left for people with no talent
and mighty pretensions to do but to criticise those who are really
gifted. I hope you enjoy the consolation it brings.
TREPLIEFF. [With irony] Those who are really gifted, indeed! [Angrily] I
am cleverer than any of you, if it comes to that! [He tears the bandage
off his head] You are the slaves of convention, you have seized the
upper hand and now lay down as law everything that you do; all else you
strangle and trample on. I refuse to accept your point of view, yours
and his, I refuse!
ARKADINA. That is the talk of a decadent.
TREPLIEFF. Go back to your beloved stage and act the miserable
ditch-water plays you so much admire!
ARKADINA. I never acted in a play like that in my life. You couldn’t
write even the trashiest music-hall farce, you idle good-for-nothing!
TREPLIEFF. Miser!
ARKADINA. Rag-bag!
TREPLIEFF sits down and begins to cry softly.
ARKADINA. [Walking up and down in great excitement] Don’t cry! You
mustn’t cry! [She bursts into tears] You really mustn’t. [She kisses his
forehead, his cheeks, his head] My darling child, forgive me. Forgive
your wicked mother.
TREPLIEFF. [Embracing her] Oh, if you could only know what it is to have
lost everything under heaven! She does not love me. I see I shall never
be able to write. Every hope has deserted me.
ARKADINA. Don’t despair. This will all pass. He is going away to-day,
and she will love you once more. [She wipes away his tears] Stop crying.
We have made peace again.
TREPLIEFF. [Kissing her hand] Yes, mother.
ARKADINA. [Tenderly] Make your peace with him, too. Don’t fight with
him. You surely won’t fight?
TREPLIEFF. I won’t, but you must not insist on my seeing him again,
mother, I couldn’t stand it. [TRIGORIN comes in] There he is; I am
going. [He quickly puts the medicines away in the cupboard] The doctor
will attend to my head.
TRIGORIN. [Looking through the pages of a book] Page 121, lines 11 and
12; here it is. [He reads] “If at any time you should have need of my
life, come and take it.”
TREPLIEFF picks up the bandage off the floor and goes out.
ARKADINA. [Looking at her watch] The carriage will soon be here.
TRIGORIN. [To himself] If at any time you should have need of my life,
come and take it.
ARKADINA. I hope your things are all packed.
TRIGORIN. [Impatiently] Yes, yes. [In deep thought] Why do I hear a note
of sadness that wrings my heart in this cry of a pure soul? If at any
time you should have need of my life, come and take it. [To ARKADINA]
Let us stay here one more day!
ARKADINA shakes her head.
TRIGORIN. Do let us stay!
ARKADINA. I know, dearest, what keeps you here, but you must control
yourself. Be sober; your emotions have intoxicated you a little.
TRIGORIN. You must be sober, too. Be sensible; look upon what has
happened as a true friend would. [Taking her hand] You are capable of
self-sacrifice. Be a friend to me and release me!
ARKADINA. [In deep excitement] Are you so much in love?
TRIGORIN. I am irresistibly impelled toward her. It may be that this is
just what I need.
ARKADINA. What, the love of a country girl? Oh, how little you know
yourself!
TRIGORIN. People sometimes walk in their sleep, and so I feel as if
I were asleep, and dreaming of her as I stand here talking to you. My
imagination is shaken by the sweetest and most glorious visions. Release
me!
ARKADINA. [Shuddering] No, no! I am only an ordinary woman; you must not
say such things to me. Do not torment me, Boris; you frighten me.
TRIGORIN. You could be an extraordinary woman if you only would. Love
alone can bring happiness on earth, love the enchanting, the poetical
love of youth, that sweeps away the sorrows of the world. I had no time
for it when I was young and struggling with want and laying siege to the
literary fortress, but now at last this love has come to me. I see it
beckoning; why should I fly?
ARKADINA. [With anger] You are mad!
TRIGORIN. Release me.
ARKADINA. You have all conspired together to torture me to-day. [She
weeps.]
TRIGORIN. [Clutching his head desperately] She doesn’t understand me!
She won’t understand me!
ARKADINA. Am I then so old and ugly already that you can talk to me like
this without any shame about another woman? [She embraces and kisses
him] Oh, you have lost your senses! My splendid, my glorious friend, my
love for you is the last chapter of my life. [She falls on her knees]
You are my pride, my joy, my light. [She embraces his knees] I could
never endure it should you desert me, if only for an hour; I should go
mad. Oh, my wonder, my marvel, my king!
TRIGORIN. Some one might come in. [He helps her to rise.]
ARKADINA. Let them come! I am not ashamed of my love. [She kisses his
hands] My jewel! My despair! You want to do a foolish thing, but I don’t
want you to do it. I shan’t let you do it! [She laughs] You are mine,
you are mine! This forehead is mine, these eyes are mine, this silky
hair is mine. All your being is mine. You are so clever, so wise, the
first of all living writers; you are the only hope of your country. You
are so fresh, so simple, so deeply humourous. You can bring out every
feature of a man or of a landscape in a single line, and your characters
live and breathe. Do you think that these words are but the incense of
flattery? Do you think I am not speaking the truth? Come, look into my
eyes; look deep; do you find lies there? No, you see that I alone know
how to treasure you. I alone tell you the truth. Oh, my very dear, you
will go with me? You will? You will not forsake me?
TRIGORIN. I have no will of my own; I never had. I am too indolent, too
submissive, too phlegmatic, to have any. Is it possible that women like
that? Take me. Take me away with you, but do not let me stir a step from
your side.
ARKADINA. [To herself] Now he is mine! [Carelessly, as if nothing
unusual had happened] Of course you must stay here if you really want
to. I shall go, and you can follow in a week’s time. Yes, really, why
should you hurry away?
TRIGORIN. Let us go together.
ARKADINA. As you like. Let us go together then. [A pause. TRIGORIN
writes something in his note-book] What are you writing?
TRIGORIN. A happy expression I heard this morning: “A grove of maiden
pines.” It may be useful. [He yawns] So we are really off again,
condemned once more to railway carriages, to stations and restaurants,
to Hamburger steaks and endless arguments!
SHAMRAEFF comes in.
SHAMRAEFF. I am sorry to have to inform you that your carriage is at the
door. It is time to start, honoured madam, the train leaves at two-five.
Would you be kind enough, madam, to remember to inquire for me where
Suzdaltzeff the actor is now? Is he still alive, I wonder? Is he well?
He and I have had many a jolly time together. He was inimitable in “The
Stolen Mail.” A tragedian called Izmailoff was in the same company, I
remember, who was also quite remarkable. Don’t hurry, madam, you still
have five minutes. They were both of them conspirators once, in the
same melodrama, and one night when in the course of the play they were
suddenly discovered, instead of saying “We have been trapped!” Izmailoff
cried out: “We have been rapped!” [He laughs] Rapped!
While he has been talking JACOB has been busy with the trunks, and the
maid has brought ARKADINA her hat, coat, parasol, and gloves. The cook