The Seagull - Act I

Act I

Part of the park on Sorin’s estate. Wide avenue leading away from the spectators into the depths of the park towards the lake is blocked up by a platform roughly put together for private theatricals, so that the lake is not visible. To right and left of the platform, bushes. A few chairs, a little table.

	The sun has just set. Yakov and other labourers are at work on the platform behind the curtain; there is the sound of coughing and hammering. Masha and Medvedenko enter on the left, returning from a walk.
Medvedenko	Why do you always wear black?
Masha	I am in mourning for my life. I am unhappy.
Medvedenko	Why? Pondering. I don’t understand.⁠ ⁠… You are in good health; though your father is not very well off, he has got enough. My life is much harder than yours. I only get twenty-three roubles a month, and from that they deduct something for the pension fund, and yet I don’t wear mourning. They sit down.
Masha	It isn’t money that matters. A poor man may be happy.
Medvedenko	Theoretically, yes; but in practice it’s like this: there are my two sisters and my mother and my little brother and I, and my salary is only twenty-three roubles. We must eat and drink, mustn’t we? One must have tea and sugar. One must have tobacco. It’s a tight fit.
Masha	Looking round at the platform. The play will soon begin.
Medvedenko	Yes. Miss Zaretchny will act: it is Konstantin Gavrilitch’s play. They are in love with each other and today their souls will be united in the effort to realise the same artistic effect. But your soul and mine have not a common point of contact. I love you. I am so wretched I can’t stay at home. Every day I walk four miles here and four miles back and I meet with nothing but indifference from you. I can quite understand it. I am without means and have a big family to keep.⁠ ⁠… Who would care to marry a man who hasn’t a penny to bless himself with?
Masha	Oh, nonsense! Takes a pinch of snuff. Your love touches me, but I can’t reciprocate it⁠—that’s all. Holding out the snuffbox to him. Help yourself.
Medvedenko	I don’t feel like it a pause.
Masha	How stifling it is! There must be a storm coming.⁠ ⁠… You’re always discussing theories or talking about money. You think there is no greater misfortune than poverty, but to my mind it is a thousand times better to go in rags and be a beggar than⁠ ⁠… But you wouldn’t understand that, though.⁠ ⁠…
	Sorin and Treplev enter on the right.
Sorin	Leaning on his walking-stick. I am never quite myself in the country, my boy, and, naturally enough, I shall never get used to it. Last night I went to bed at ten and woke up this morning at nine feeling as though my brain were glued to my skull, through sleeping so long laughs. And after dinner I accidentally dropped off again, and now I am utterly shattered and feel as though I were in a nightmare, in fact.⁠ ⁠…
Treplev	Yes, you really ought to live in town. Catches sight of Masha* and Medvedenko.* When the show begins, my friends, you will be summoned, but you mustn’t be here now. You must please go away.
Sorin	To Masha. Marya Ilyinishna, will you be so good as to ask your papa to tell them to take the dog off the chain?⁠—it howls. My sister could not sleep again last night.
Masha	Speak to my father yourself; I am not going to. Please don’t ask me. To Medvedenko. Come along!
Medvedenko	To Treplev. So you will send and let us know before it begins. Both go out.
Sorin	So I suppose the dog will be howling all night again. What a business it is! I have never done as I liked in the country. In old days I used to get leave for twenty-eight days and come here for a rest and so on, but they worried me so with all sorts of trifles that before I had been here two days I was longing to be off again laughs. I’ve always been glad to get away from here.⁠ ⁠… But now I am on the retired list, and I have nowhere else to go, as a matter of fact. I’ve got to live here whether I like it or not.⁠ ⁠…
Yakov	To Treplev. We are going to have a bathe, Konstantin Gavrilitch.
Treplev	Very well; but don’t be more than ten minutes looks at his watch. It will soon begin.
Yakov	Yes, sir goes out.
Treplev	Looking round the stage. Here is our theatre. The curtain, then the first wing, then the second, and beyond that⁠—open space. No scenery of any sort. There is an open view of the lake and the horizon. We shall raise the curtain at exactly half-past eight, when the moon rises.
Sorin	Magnificent.
Treplev	If Nina is late it will spoil the whole effect. It is time she was here. Her father and her stepmother keep a sharp eye on her, and it is as hard for her to get out of the house as to escape from prison puts his uncle’s cravat straight. Your hair and your beard are very untidy. They want clipping or something.⁠ ⁠…
Sorin	Combing out his beard. It’s the tragedy of my life. Even as a young man I looked as though I had been drinking for days or something of the sort. I was never a favourite with the ladies sitting down. Why is your mother out of humour?
Treplev	Why? Because she is bored sitting down beside him. She is jealous. She is set against me, and against the performance, and against my play because Nina is acting in it, and she is not. She does not know my play, but she hates it.
Sorin	Laughs. What an idea!
Treplev	She is annoyed to think that even on this little stage Nina will have a triumph and not she looks at his watch. My mother is a psychological freak. Unmistakably talented, intelligent, capable of sobbing over a book, she will reel off all Nekrassov by heart; as a sick nurse she is an angel; but just try praising Duse in her presence! O‑ho! You must praise no one but herself, you must write about her, make a fuss over her, be in raptures over her extraordinary acting in La Dame aux Camélias or the Ferment of Life; but she has none of this narcotic in the country, she is bored and cross, and we are all her enemies⁠—we are all in fault. Then she is superstitious⁠—she is afraid of three candles, of the number thirteen. She is stingy. She has got seventy thousand roubles in a bank at Odessa⁠—I know that for a fact⁠—but ask her to lend you some money, and she will burst into tears.
Sorin	You imagine your mother does not like your play, and you are already upset and all that. Don’t worry; your mother adores you.
Treplev	Pulling the petals off a flower. Loves me, loves me not; loves me, loves me not; loves me, loves me not laughs. You see, my mother does not love me. I should think not! She wants to live, to love, to wear light blouses; and I am twenty-five, and I am a continual reminder that she is no longer young. When I am not there she is only thirty-two, but when I am there she is forty-three, and for that she hates me. She knows, too, that I have no belief in the theatre. She loves the stage, she fancies she is working for humanity, for the holy cause of art, while to my mind the modern theatre is nothing but tradition and conventionality. When the curtain goes up, and by artificial light, in a room with three walls, these great geniuses, the devotees of holy art, represent how people eat, drink, love, move about, and wear their jackets; when from these commonplace sentences and pictures they try to draw a moral⁠—a petty moral, easy of comprehension and convenient for domestic use; when in a thousand variations I am offered the same thing over and over again⁠—I run away as Maupassant ran away from the Eiffel Tower which weighed upon his brain with its vulgarity.
Sorin	You can’t do without the stage.
Treplev	We need new forms of expression. We need new forms, and if we can’t have them we had better have nothing looks at his watch. I love my mother⁠—I love her very much⁠—but she leads a senseless sort of life, always taken up with this literary gentleman, her name is always trotted out in the papers⁠—and that wearies me. And sometimes the simple egoism of an ordinary mortal makes me feel sorry that my mother is a celebrated actress, and I fancy that if she were an ordinary woman I should be happier. Uncle, what could be more hopeless and stupid than my position? She used to have visitors, all celebrities⁠—artists and authors⁠—and among them all I was the only one who was nothing, and they only put up with me because I was her son. Who am I? What am I? I left the University in my third year⁠—owing to circumstances “for which we accept no responsibility,” as the editors say; I have no talents, I haven’t a penny of my own, and on my passport I am described as an artisan of Kiev. You know my father was an artisan of Kiev, though he too was a well-known actor. So, when in her drawing-room all these artists and authors graciously noticed me, I always fancied from their faces that they were taking the measure of my insignificance⁠—I guessed their thoughts and suffered from the humiliation.⁠ ⁠…
Sorin	And, by the way, can you tell me, please, what sort of man this literary gentleman is? There’s no making him out. He never says anything.
Treplev	He is an intelligent man, good-natured and rather melancholy, you know. A very decent fellow. He is still a good distance off forty, but he is already celebrated and has enough and to spare of everything. As for his writings⁠ ⁠… what shall I say? They are charming, full of talent, but⁠ ⁠… after Tolstoy or Zola you do not care to read Trigorin.
Sorin	Well, I am fond of authors, my boy. At one time I had a passionate desire for two things: I wanted to get married, and I wanted to become an author; but I did not succeed in doing either. Yes, it is pleasant to be even a small author, as a matter of fact.
Treplev	Listens. I hear steps⁠ ⁠… embraces his uncle. I cannot live without her.⁠ ⁠… The very sound of her footsteps is lovely.⁠ ⁠… I am wildly happy goes quickly to meet Nina Zaretchny* as she enters*. My enchantress⁠—my dream.⁠ ⁠…
Nina	In agitation. I am not late.⁠ ⁠… Of course I am not late.⁠ ⁠…
Treplev	Kissing her hands. No, no, no!
Nina	I have been uneasy all day. I was so frightened. I was afraid father would not let me come.⁠ ⁠… But he has just gone out with my stepmother. The sky is red, the moon is just rising, and I kept urging on the horse laughs. But I am glad shakes Sorin’s* hand warmly*.
Sorin	Laughs. Your eyes look as though you have been crying.⁠ ⁠… Fie, fie! That’s not right!
Nina	Oh, it was nothing.⁠ ⁠… You see how out of breath I am. I have to go in half an hour. We must make haste. I can’t stay, I can’t! For God’s sake don’t keep me! My father doesn’t know I am here.
Treplev	It really is time to begin. We must go and call the others.
Sorin	I’ll go this minute goes to the right, singing “To France Two Grenadiers.” Looks round. Once I sang like that, and a deputy prosecutor said to me, “You have a powerful voice, your Excellency”; then he thought a little and added, “but not a pleasant one.” Laughs and goes off.
Nina	My father and his wife won’t let me come here. They say it is so Bohemian here⁠ ⁠… they are afraid I shall go on the stage.⁠ ⁠… But I feel drawn to the lake here like a seagull.⁠ ⁠… My heart is full of you looks round.
Treplev	We are alone.
Nina	I fancy there is someone there.
Treplev	There’s nobody. They kiss.
Nina	What tree is this?
Treplev	An elm.
Nina	Why is it so dark?
Treplev	It’s evening; everything is getting dark. Don’t go away early, I entreat you!
Nina	I must.
Treplev	And if I come to you, Nina, I’ll stand in the garden all night, watching your window.
Nina	You can’t; the watchman would notice you. Trésor is not used to you, and he would bark.
Treplev	I love you!
Nina	Sh‑h.⁠ ⁠…
Treplev	Hearing footsteps. Who is there? You, Yakov?
Yakov	Behind the stage. Yes, sir.
Treplev	Take your places. It’s time to begin. Is the moon rising?
Yakov	Yes, sir.
Treplev	Have you got the methylated spirit? Have you got the sulphur? When the red eyes appear there must be a smell of sulphur. To Nina. Go, it’s all ready. Are you nervous?
Nina	Yes, awfully! Your mother is all right⁠—I am not afraid of her⁠—but there’s Trigorin⁠ ⁠… I feel frightened and ashamed of acting before him⁠ ⁠… a celebrated author.⁠ ⁠… Is he young?
Treplev	Yes.
Nina	How wonderful his stories are.
Treplev	Coldly. I don’t know. I haven’t read them.
Nina	It is difficult to act in your play. There are no living characters in it.
Treplev	Living characters! One must depict life not as it is, and not as it ought to be, but as we see it in our dreams.
Nina	There is very little action in your play⁠—nothing but speeches. And to my mind there ought to be love in a play. Both go behind the stage.
	Enter Polina Andreyevna* and Dorn.*
Polina	It is getting damp. Go back and put on your goloshes.
Dorn	I am hot.
Polina	You don’t take care of yourself. It’s obstinacy. You are a doctor, and you know perfectly well that damp air is bad for you, but you want to make me miserable; you sat out on the verandah all yesterday evening on purpose.⁠ ⁠…
Dorn	Hums. “Do not say that youth is ruined.”
Polina	You were so absorbed in conversation with Irina Nikolayevna⁠ ⁠… you did not notice the cold. Own up⁠ ⁠… you are attracted by her.
Dorn	I am fifty-five.
Polina	Nonsense! That’s not old for a man. You look very young for your age, and are still attractive to women.
Dorn	Well, what would you have?
Polina	All you men are ready to fall down and worship an actress, all of you!
Dorn	Hums. “Before thee once again I stand.” If artists are liked in society and treated differently from merchants, for example, that’s only in the nature of things. It’s idealism.
Polina	Women have always fallen in love with you and thrown themselves on your neck. Is that idealism too?
Dorn	Shrugs his shoulders. Well, in the attitude of women to me there has been a great deal that was good. What they principally loved in me was a first-rate doctor. You remember that ten or fifteen years ago I was the only decent accoucheur in the district. Then, too, I have always been an honest man.
Polina	Seizes him by the hand. Dearest!
Dorn	Sh‑h! They are coming.
	Enter Madame Arkadin* arm in arm with Sorin, Trigorin, Shamraev, Medvedenko and Masha.*
Shamraev	In the year 1873 she acted marvellously at the fair at Poltava. It was a delight! She acted exquisitely! Do you happen to know, madam, where Pavel Semyonitch Tchadin, a comic actor, is now? His Rasplyuev was inimitable, even finer than Sadovsky’s, I assure you, honoured lady. Where is he now?
Madame Arkadin	You keep asking me about antediluvians. How should I know? Sits down.
Shamraev	With a sigh. Pashka Tchadin! There are no such actors now. The stage has gone down, Irina Nikolayevna! In old days there were mighty oaks, but now we see nothing but stumps.
Dorn	There are few actors of brilliant talents nowadays, that’s true; but the average level of acting is far higher than it was.
Shamraev	I can’t agree with you. But, of course, it’s a matter of taste. De gustibus aut bene aut nihil.
	Treplev comes out from behind the stage.
Madame Arkadin	To her son. My dear son, when is it going to begin?
Treplev	In a minute. I beg you to be patient.
Madame Arkadin	Recites from Hamlet. “Oh, Hamlet, speak no more! Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul; And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct.”
Treplev	From Hamlet. And let me wring your heart, for so I shall, If it be made of penetrable stuff.”
	A horn is sounded behind the stage.
Treplev	Ladies and gentlemen, we begin! I beg you to attend a pause. I begin taps with a stick and recites aloud. Oh, you venerable old shadows that float at nighttime over this lake, lull us to sleep and let us dream of what will be in two hundred thousand years!
Sorin	There will be nothing in two hundred thousand years.
Treplev	Then let them present that nothing to us.
Madame Arkadin	Let them. We are asleep.
	The curtain rises; the view of the lake is revealed; the moon is above the horizon, its reflection in the water; Nina Zaretchny, all in white, is sitting on a big stone.
Nina	Men, lions, eagles and partridges, horned deer, geese, spiders, silent fish that dwell in the water, starfishes and creatures which cannot be seen by the eye⁠—all living things, all living things, all living things, having completed their cycle of sorrow, are extinct.⁠ ⁠… For thousands of years the earth has borne no living creature on its surface, and this poor moon lights its lamp in vain. On the meadow the cranes no longer waken with a cry, and there is no sound of the May beetles in the lime trees. It is cold, cold, cold! Empty, empty, empty! Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful! A pause. The bodies of living creatures have vanished into dust, and eternal matter has transformed them into rocks, into water, into clouds, while the souls of all have melted into one. That world-soul I am⁠—I⁠ ⁠… In me is the soul of Alexander the Great, of Caesar, of Shakespeare and of Napoleon, and of the lowest leech. In me the consciousness of men is blended with the instincts of the animals, and I remember all, all, all! And I live through every life over again in myself! Will-of-the-wisps appear.
Madame Arkadin	Softly. It’s something decadent.
Treplev	In an imploring and reproachful voice. Mother!
Nina	I am alone. Once in a hundred years I open my lips to speak, and my voice echoes mournfully in the void, and no one hears.⁠ ⁠… You too, pale lights, hear me not.⁠ ⁠… The stagnant marsh begets you before daybreak and you wander until dawn, but without thought, without will, without the tremor of life. For fear that life should spring up in you the father of eternal matter, the devil, keeps the atoms in you, as in the stones and in the water, in continual flux, and you are changing perpetually. For in all the universe nothing remains permanent and unchanged but the spirit a pause. Like a prisoner cast into a deep, empty well I know not where I am and what awaits me. All is hidden from me but that in the cruel, persistent struggle with the devil⁠—the principle of the forces of matter⁠—I am destined to conquer, and, after that, matter and spirit will be blended in glorious harmony and the Kingdom of the Cosmic Will will come. But that will come only little by little, through long, long thousands of years when the moon and the bright Sirius and the earth are changed to dust.⁠ ⁠… Till then⁠—terror, terror⁠ ⁠… a pause; two red spots appear upon the background of the lake. Here my powerful foe, the devil, is approaching. I see his dreadful crimson eyes.⁠ ⁠…
Madame Arkadin	There’s a smell of sulphur. Is that as it should be?
Treplev	Yes.
Madame Arkadin	Laughs. Oh, it’s a stage effect!
Treplev	Mother!
Nina	He is dreary without man⁠—
Polina	To Dorn. You have taken your hat off. Put it on or you will catch cold.
Madame Arkadin	The doctor has taken his hat off to the devil, the father of eternal matter.
Treplev	Firing up, aloud. The play is over! Enough! Curtain!
Madame Arkadin	What are you cross about?
Treplev	Enough! The curtain! Let down the curtain! Stamping. Curtain! The curtain falls. I am sorry! I lost sight of the fact that only a few of the elect may write plays and act in them. I have infringed the monopoly. I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… tries to say something more, but with a wave of his hand goes out on left.
Madame Arkadin	What’s the matter with him?
Sorin	Irina, you really must have more consideration for youthful vanity, my dear.
Madame Arkadin	What did I say to him?
Sorin	You hurt his feelings.
Madame Arkadin	He told us beforehand that it was a joke, and I regarded his play as a joke.
Sorin	All the same⁠ ⁠…
Madame Arkadin	Now it appears that he has written a great work. What next! So he has got up this performance and smothered us with sulphur not as a joke but as a protest.⁠ ⁠… He wanted to show us how to write and what to act. This is getting tiresome! These continual sallies at my expense⁠—these continual pinpricks would put anyone out of patience, say what you like. He is a vain, whimsical boy!
Sorin	He meant to give you pleasure.
Madame Arkadin	Really? He did not choose an ordinary play, however, but made us listen to this decadent delirium. For the sake of a joke I am ready to listen to delirium, but here we have pretensions to new forms and a new view of art. To my thinking it’s no question of new forms at all, but simply bad temper.
Trigorin	Everyone writes as he likes and as he can.
Madame Arkadin	Let him write as he likes and as he can, only let him leave me in peace.
Dorn	Jupiter! you are angry.⁠ ⁠…
Madame Arkadin	I am not Jupiter⁠—I am a woman lights a cigarette. I am not angry⁠—I am only vexed that a young man should spend his time so drearily. I did not mean to hurt his feelings.
Medvedenko	Νο one has any grounds to separate spirit from matter, seeing that spirit itself may be a combination of material atoms. With animation, to Trigorin. But you know someone ought to write a play on how we poor teachers live, and get it acted. We have a hard, hard life.
Madame Arkadin	That’s true, but don’t let us talk either of plays or of atoms. It is such a glorious evening! Do you hear? There is singing! Listens. How nice it is!
Polina	It’s on the other side of the lake a pause.
Madame Arkadin	To Trigorin. Sit down beside me. Ten or fifteen years ago there were sounds of music and singing on that lake continually almost every night. There are six country houses on the shores of the lake. I remember laughter, noise, shooting, and love affairs without end.⁠ ⁠… The jeune premier and the idol of all those six households was in those days our friend here, the doctor motions with her head towards Dorn, Yevgeny Sergeitch. He is fascinating still, but in those days he was irresistible. But my conscience is beginning to trouble me. Why did I hurt my poor boy’s feelings? I feel worried. Aloud. Kostya! Son! Kostya!
Masha	I’ll go and look for him.
Madame Arkadin	Please do, my dear.
Masha	Going to the left. Aa‑oo! Konstantin Gavrilitch! Aa‑oo! Goes off.
Nina	Coming out from behind the stage. Apparently there will be no going on, and I may come out. Good evening! Kisses Madame Arkadin* and Polina Andreyevna.*
Sorin	Bravo! Bravo!
Madame Arkadin	Bravo! Bravo! We admired you. With such an appearance, with such a lovely voice, you really cannot stay in the country; it is a sin. You must have talent. Do you hear? It’s your duty to go on the stage.
Nina	Oh, that’s my dream! Sighing. But it will never be realised.
Madame Arkadin	Who knows? Here, let me introduce Boris Alexyevitch Trigorin.
Nina	Oh, I am so glad⁠ ⁠… overcome with embarrasment. I am always reading your⁠ ⁠…
Madame Arkadin	Making her sit down beside them. Don’t be shy, my dear. He is a celebrity, but he has a simple heart. You see, he is shy himself.
Dorn	I suppose we may raise the curtain; it’s rather uncanny.
Shamraev	Aloud. Yakov, pull up the curtain, my lad. The curtain goes up.
Nina	To Trigorin. It is a queer play, isn’t it?
Trigorin	I did not understand it at all. But I enjoyed it. You acted so genuinely. And the scenery was delightful a pause. There must be a lot of fish in that lake.
Nina	Yes.
Trigorin	I love angling. There is nothing I enjoy so much as sitting on the bank of a river in the evening and watching the float.
Nina	But I should have thought that for anyone who has known the enjoyment of creation, no other enjoyment can exist.
Madame Arkadin	Laughing. Don’t talk like that. When people say nice things to him he is utterly floored.
Shamraev	I remember one evening in the opera theatre in Moscow the celebrated Silva took the lower C! As it happened, there was sitting in the gallery the bass of our church choir, and all at once⁠—imagine our intense astonishment⁠—we heard from the gallery “Bravo, Silva!” a whole octave lower⁠—like this: in a deep bass “Bravo, Silva!” The audience sat spellbound a pause.
Dorn	The angel of silence as flown over us.
Nina	It’s time for me to go. Goodbye.
Madame Arkadin	Where are you off to? Why so early? We won’t let you go.
Nina	My father expects me.
Madame Arkadin	What a man, really⁠ ⁠… kisses her. Well, there is no help for it. I am sorry⁠—I am sorry to let you go.
Nina	If you knew how grieved I am to.
Madame Arkadin	Someone ought to see you home, my little dear.
Nina	Frightened. Oh, no, no!
Sorin	To her, in an imploring voice. Do stay!
Nina	I can’t, Pyotr Nikolayevitch.
Sorin	Stay for an hour. What is there in that?
Nina	Thinking a minute, tearfully. I can’t! Shakes hands and hurriedly goes off.
Madame Arkadin	Unfortunate girl she is, really. They say her mother left her father all her immense property⁠—every farthing of it⁠—and now the girl has got nothing, as her father has already made a will leaving everything to his second wife. It’s monstrous!
Dorn	Yes, her father is a pretty thorough scoundrel, one must do him the justice to say so.
Sorin	Rubbing his cold hands. Let us go too, it’s getting damp. My legs ache.
Madame Arkadin	They seem like wooden legs, you can hardly walk. Let us go, unlucky old man! Takes his arm.
Shamraev	Offering his arm to his wife. Madame?
Sorin	I hear that dog howling again. To Shamraev. Be so kind, Ilya Afanasyitch, as to tell them to let it off the chain.
Shamraev	It’s impossible, Pyotr Nikolayevitch, I am afraid of thieves getting into the barn. Our millet is there. To Medvedenko* who is walking beside him.* Yes, a whole octave lower: “Bravo, Silva!” And he not a singer⁠—simply a church chorister!
Medvedenko	And what salary does a chorister get? All go out except Dorn.
Dorn	Alone. I don’t know, perhaps I know nothing about it, or have gone off my head, but I liked the play. There is something in it. When that girl talked about loneliness and afterwards when the devil’s eyes appeared, I was so excited that my hands trembled. It is fresh, naive.⁠ ⁠… Here he comes, I believe. I want to say all the nice things I can to him.
Treplev	Enters. They have all gone.
Dorn	I am here.
Treplev	Mashenka is looking for me all over the park. Insufferable creature she is!
Dorn	Konstantin Gavrilitch, I liked your play extremely. It’s a strange thing, and I haven’t heard the end, and yet it made a strong impression! You are a gifted man⁠—you must persevere.
	Treplev presses his hand warmly and embraces him impulsively.
Dorn	Fie, what an hysterical fellow! There are tears in his eyes! What I mean is this. You have taken a subject from the realm of abstract ideas. So it should be, for a work of art ought to express a great idea. A thing is only fine when it is serious. How pale you are!
Treplev	So you tell me to persevere?
Dorn	Yes.⁠ ⁠… But write only of what is important and eternal. You know, I have had varied experiences of life, and have enjoyed it; I am satisfied, but if it had been my lot to know the spiritual heights which artists reach at the moment of creation, I should, I believe, have despised my bodily self and all that appertains to it and left all things earthly as far behind as possible.
Treplev	Excuse me, where is Nina?
Dorn	And another thing. In a work of art there ought to be a clear definite idea. You ought to know what is your aim in writing, for if you go along that picturesque route without a definite goal you will be lost and your talent will be your ruin.
Treplev	Impatiently. Where is Nina?
Dorn	She has gone home.
Treplev	In despair. What am I to do? I want to see her⁠ ⁠… I must see her⁠ ⁠… I must go.⁠ ⁠…
	Enter Masha.
Dorn	To Treplev. Calm yourself, my boy.
Treplev	But I am going all the same. I must go.
Masha	Come indoors, Konstantin Gavrilitch. Your mother wants you. She is worried.
Treplev	Tell her that I have gone away. And I beg you⁠—all of you⁠—leave me in peace! Let me alone! Don’t follow me about!
Dorn	Come, come, come, dear boy.⁠ ⁠… You can’t go on like that.⁠ ⁠… That’s not the thing.
Treplev	In tears. Goodbye, doctor. Thank you⁠ ⁠… goes off.
Dorn	With a sigh. Youth! youth!
Masha	When people have nothing better to say, they say, “Youth! youth!”⁠ ⁠… takes a pinch of snuff.
Dorn	Takes her snuffbox from her and flings it into the bushes. That’s disgusting! A pause. I believe they are playing the piano indoors. We must go in.
Masha	Wait a little.
Dorn	What is it?
Masha	I want to tell you once more. I have a longing to talk⁠ ⁠… growing agitated. I don’t care for my father⁠ ⁠… but I feel drawn to you. For some reason I feel with all my heart that you are very near me.⁠ ⁠… Help me. Help me, or I shall do something silly, I shall make a mock of my life and ruin it.⁠ ⁠… I can’t go on.⁠ ⁠…
Dorn	What is it? Help you in what?
Masha	I am miserable. No one, no one knows how miserable I am! Laying her head on his breast, softly. I love Konstantin!
Dorn	How hysterical they all are! How hysterical! And what a lot of love.⁠ ⁠… Oh, the sorcery of the lake! Tenderly. But what can I do, my child? What? What?
	Curtain.