The sea-gull
made a tour of the country towns. At that time I never let her out of my
sight, and wherever she went I followed. She always attempted great
and difficult parts, but her delivery was harsh and monotonous, and her
gestures heavy and crude. She shrieked and died well at times, but those
were but moments.
DORN. Then she really has a talent for acting?
TREPLIEFF. I never could make out. I believe she has. I saw her, but she
refused to see me, and her servant would never admit me to her rooms. I
appreciated her feelings, and did not insist upon a meeting. [A pause]
What more can I tell you? She sometimes writes to me now that I have
come home, such clever, sympathetic letters, full of warm feeling. She
never complains, but I can tell that she is profoundly unhappy; not a
line but speaks to me of an aching, breaking nerve. She has one strange
fancy; she always signs herself “The Sea-gull.” The miller in “Rusalka”
called himself “The Crow,” and so she repeats in all her letters that
she is a sea-gull. She is here now.
DORN. What do you mean by “here?”
TREPLIEFF. In the village, at the inn. She has been there for five days.
I should have gone to see her, but Masha here went, and she refuses to
see any one. Some one told me she had been seen wandering in the fields
a mile from here yesterday evening.
MEDVIEDENKO. Yes, I saw her. She was walking away from here in the
direction of the village. I asked her why she had not been to see us.
She said she would come.
TREPLIEFF. But she won’t. [A pause] Her father and stepmother have
disowned her. They have even put watchmen all around their estate to
keep her away. [He goes with the doctor toward the desk] How easy it is,
Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper, and how difficult in real life!
SORIN. She was a beautiful girl. Even the State Councillor himself was
in love with her for a time.
DORN. You old Lovelace, you!
SHAMRAEFF’S laugh is heard.
PAULINA. They are coming back from the station.
TREPLIEFF. Yes, I hear my mother’s voice.
ARKADINA and TRIGORIN come in, followed by SHAMRAEFF.
SHAMRAEFF. We all grow old and wither, my lady, while you alone, with
your light dress, your gay spirits, and your grace, keep the secret of
eternal youth.
ARKADINA. You are still trying to turn my head, you tiresome old man.
TRIGORIN. [To SORIN] How do you do, Peter? What, still ill? How silly of
you! [With evident pleasure, as he catches sight of MASHA] How are you,
Miss Masha?
MASHA. So you recognised me? [She shakes hands with him.]
TRIGORIN. Did you marry him?
MASHA. Long ago.
TRIGORIN. You are happy now? [He bows to DORN and MEDVIEDENKO, and then
goes hesitatingly toward TREPLIEFF] Your mother says you have forgotten
the past and are no longer angry with me.
TREPLIEFF gives him his hand.
ARKADINA. [To her son] Here is a magazine that Boris has brought you
with your latest story in it.
TREPLIEFF. [To TRIGORIN, as he takes the magazine] Many thanks; you are
very kind.
TRIGORIN. Your admirers all send you their regards. Every one in Moscow
and St. Petersburg is interested in you, and all ply me with questions
about you. They ask me what you look like, how old you are, whether you
are fair or dark. For some reason they all think that you are no longer
young, and no one knows who you are, as you always write under an
assumed name. You are as great a mystery as the Man in the Iron Mask.
TREPLIEFF. Do you expect to be here long?
TRIGORIN. No, I must go back to Moscow to-morrow. I am finishing another
novel, and have promised something to a magazine besides. In fact, it is
the same old business.
During their conversation ARKADINA and PAULINA have put up a card-table
in the centre of the room; SHAMRAEFF lights the candles and arranges the
chairs, then fetches a box of lotto from the cupboard.
TRIGORIN. The weather has given me a rough welcome. The wind is
frightful. If it goes down by morning I shall go fishing in the
lake, and shall have a look at the garden and the spot--do you
remember?--where your play was given. I remember the piece very well,
but should like to see again where the scene was laid.
MASHA. [To her father] Father, do please let my husband have a horse. He
ought to go home.
SHAMRAEFF. [Angrily] A horse to go home with! [Sternly] You know the
horses have just been to the station. I can’t send them out again.
MASHA. But there are other horses. [Seeing that her father remains
silent] You are impossible!
MEDVIEDENKO. I shall go on foot, Masha.
PAULINA. [With a sigh] On foot in this weather? [She takes a seat at the
card-table] Shall we begin?
MEDVIEDENKO. It is only six miles. Good-bye. [He kisses his wife’s
hand;] Good-bye, mother. [His mother-in-law gives him her hand
unwillingly] I should not have troubled you all, but the baby--[He bows
to every one] Good-bye. [He goes out with an apologetic air.]
SHAMRAEFF. He will get there all right, he is not a major-general.
PAULINA. Come, let us begin. Don’t let us waste time, we shall soon be
called to supper.
SHAMRAEFF, MASHA, and DORN sit down at the card-table.
ARKADINA. [To TRIGORIN] When the long autumn evenings descend on us we
while away the time here by playing lotto. Look at this old set; we used
it when our mother played with us as children. Don’t you want to take a
hand in the game with us until supper time? [She and TRIGORIN sit down
at the table] It is a monotonous game, but it is all right when one gets
used to it. [She deals three cards to each of the players.]
TREPLIEFF. [Looking through the pages of the magazine] He has read his
own story, and hasn’t even cut the pages of mine.
He lays the magazine on his desk and goes toward the door on the right,
stopping as he passes his mother to give her a kiss.
ARKADINA. Won’t you play, Constantine?
TREPLIEFF. No, excuse me please, I don’t feel like it. I am going to
take a turn through the rooms. [He goes out.]
MASHA. Are you all ready? I shall begin: twenty-two.
ARKADINA. Here it is.
MASHA. Three.
DORN. Right.
MASHA. Have you put down three? Eight. Eighty-one. Ten.
SHAMRAEFF. Don’t go so fast.
ARKADINA. Could you believe it? I am still dazed by the reception they
gave me in Kharkoff.
MASHA. Thirty-four. [The notes of a melancholy waltz are heard.]
ARKADINA. The students gave me an ovation; they sent me three baskets of
flowers, a wreath, and this thing here.
She unclasps a brooch from her breast and lays it on the table.
SHAMRAEFF. There is something worth while!
MASHA. Fifty.
DORN. Fifty, did you say?
ARKADINA. I wore a perfectly magnificent dress; I am no fool when it
comes to clothes.
PAULINA. Constantine is playing again; the poor boy is sad.
SHAMRAEFF. He has been severely criticised in the papers.
MASHA. Seventy-seven.
ARKADINA. They want to attract attention to him.
TRIGORIN. He doesn’t seem able to make a success, he can’t somehow
strike the right note. There is an odd vagueness about his writings
that sometimes verges on delirium. He has never created a single living
character.
MASHA. Eleven.
ARKADINA. Are you bored, Peter? [A pause] He is asleep.
DORN. The Councillor is taking a nap.
MASHA. Seven. Ninety.
TRIGORIN. Do you think I should write if I lived in such a place as
this, on the shore of this lake? Never! I should overcome my passion,
and give my life up to the catching of fish.
MASHA. Twenty-eight.
TRIGORIN. And if I caught a perch or a bass, what bliss it would be!
DORN. I have great faith in Constantine. I know there is something in
him. He thinks in images; his stories are vivid and full of colour,
and always affect me deeply. It is only a pity that he has no definite
object in view. He creates impressions, and nothing more, and one cannot
go far on impressions alone. Are you glad, madam, that you have an
author for a son?
ARKADINA. Just think, I have never read anything of his; I never have
time.
MASHA. Twenty-six.
TREPLIEFF comes in quietly and sits down at his table.
SHAMRAEFF. [To TRIGORIN] We have something here that belongs to you,
sir.
TRIGORIN. What is it?
SHAMRAEFF. You told me to have the sea-gull stuffed that Mr. Constantine
killed some time ago.
TRIGORIN. Did I? [Thoughtfully] I don’t remember.
MASHA. Sixty-one. One.
TREPLIEFF throws open the window and stands listening.
TREPLIEFF. How dark the night is! I wonder what makes me so restless.
ARKADINA. Shut the window, Constantine, there is a draught here.
TREPLIEFF shuts the window.
MASHA. Ninety-eight.
TRIGORIN. See, my card is full.
ARKADINA. [Gaily] Bravo! Bravo!
SHAMRAEFF. Bravo!
ARKADINA. Wherever he goes and whatever he does, that man always has
good luck. [She gets up] And now, come to supper. Our renowned guest did
not have any dinner to-day. We can continue our game later. [To her son]
Come, Constantine, leave your writing and come to supper.
TREPLIEFF. I don’t want anything to eat, mother; I am not hungry.
ARKADINA. As you please. [She wakes SORIN] Come to supper, Peter. [She
takes SHAMRAEFF’S arm] Let me tell you about my reception in Kharkoff.
PAULINA blows out the candles on the table, then she and DORN roll
SORIN’S chair out of the room, and all go out through the door on the
left, except TREPLIEFF, who is left alone. TREPLIEFF prepares to write.
He runs his eye over what he has already written.
TREPLIEFF. I have talked a great deal about new forms of art, but I feel
myself gradually slipping into the beaten track. [He reads] “The
placard cried it from the wall--a pale face in a frame of dusky
hair”--cried--frame--that is stupid. [He scratches out what he has
written] I shall begin again from the place where my hero is wakened by
the noise of the rain, but what follows must go. This description of a
moonlight night is long and stilted. Trigorin has worked out a process
of his own, and descriptions are easy for him. He writes that the neck
of a broken bottle lying on the bank glittered in the moonlight, and
that the shadows lay black under the mill-wheel. There you have a
moonlight night before your eyes, but I speak of the shimmering light,
the twinkling stars, the distant sounds of a piano melting into the
still and scented air, and the result is abominable. [A pause] The
conviction is gradually forcing itself upon me that good literature is
not a question of forms new or old, but of ideas that must pour freely
from the author’s heart, without his bothering his head about any forms
whatsoever. [A knock is heard at the window nearest the table] What was
that? [He looks out of the window] I can’t see anything. [He opens the
glass door and looks out into the garden] I heard some one run down
the steps. [He calls] Who is there? [He goes out, and is heard walking
quickly along the terrace. In a few minutes he comes back with NINA
ZARIETCHNAYA] Oh, Nina, Nina!
NINA lays her head on TREPLIEFF’S breast and stifles her sobs.
TREPLIEFF. [Deeply moved] Nina, Nina! It is you--you! I felt you would
come; all day my heart has been aching for you. [He takes off her hat
and cloak] My darling, my beloved has come back to me! We mustn’t cry,
we mustn’t cry.
NINA. There is some one here.
TREPLIEFF. No one is here.
NINA. Lock the door, some one might come.
TREPLIEFF. No one will come in.
NINA. I know your mother is here. Lock the door.
TREPLIEFF locks the door on the right and comes back to NINA.
TREPLIEFF. There is no lock on that one. I shall put a chair against
it. [He puts an arm-chair against the door] Don’t be frightened, no one
shall come in.
NINA. [Gazing intently into his face] Let me look at you. [She looks
about her] It is warm and comfortable in here. This used to be a
sitting-room. Have I changed much?