DORN (sings). “Tell her of love, flowers of mine . . .”
Enter SHAMRAEV, followed by POLINA ANDREEVNA.
SHAMRAEV. Here’s our crowd. Good morning! (Kisses Arkadina’s hand, then Nina’s.) The wife tells me you’re planning to drive with her into town today. Is that right?
ARKADINA. Yes, that’s our plan.
SHAMRAEV. Hm . . . That’s just great, but how you do expect to get there, dear lady? Our rye is being carted today, all the hired hands are busy. And which horses will you take, may I ask?
ARKADINA. Which? How should I know which?
SORIN. We’ve still got the carriage horses.
SHAMRAEV (getting excited). Carriage horses? And where am I to get harnesses? Where am I to get harnesses? This is marvelous! This is incredible! Dear, dear lady! Forgive me, I bow down to your talent, I’m ready to give up ten years of my life for your sake, but horses I cannot give you.
ARKADINA. And what if I have to go? A fine how-do-you-do!
SHAMRAEV. Dear lady! You don’t know what it means to run a farm!
ARKADINA (flaring up). Here we go again! In that case, I shall leave for Moscow this very day. Have them hire horses for me in town, or else I’ll go to the station on foot!
SHAMRAEV (flaring up). In that case I tender my resignation! Go find yourself another overseer. (Exits.)
ARKADINA. Every summer it’s the same thing, every summer I’m exposed to insults. I’ll never set foot in this place again! (Exits left, where the swimming hole is supposed to be; in a minute she can be seen crossing into the house; TRIGORIN follows her with fishing poles47 and a pail.)
SORIN (flaring up). This is a disgrace! This is who the hell knows what! This is going to make me lose my temper, when all’s said and done. Bring all the horses here this very minute!
NINA (to Polina Andreevna). To refuse Irina Nikolaevna, a famous actress! Isn’t every one of her wishes, even her whims, more important than your farming? It’s just incredible!
POLINA ANDREEVNA (in despair). What can I do? Put yourself in my position: what can I do?
SORIN (to Nina). Let’s go in to my sister . . . We’ll all plead with her not to leave. Isn’t that the thing? (Looking in the direction of Shamraev’s exit.) Insufferable fellow! Dictator!
NINA (helping him to rise). Sit down, sit down . . . We’ll wheel you . . . (She and MEDVEDENKO wheel the armchair.) Oh, this is just awful!
SORIN. Yes, yes, this is awful . . . But he won’t leave, I’ll talk it over with him.
They leave; only DORN and POLINA ANDREEVNA remain.
DORN. People are so predictable. Ultimately the right thing would simply be to toss your husband out on his ear, but in fact it’ll end up with that old fusspot Pyotr Nikolaevich and his sister begging him for forgiveness. Wait and see!
POLINA ANDREEVNA. He even sent the carriage horses into the fields. And every day there are squabbles like that. If you only knew how it upsets me! It’s making me ilclass="underline" you see, I’m trembling . . . I can’t put up with his crude-ness. (Beseeching.) Yevgeny, dearest, light of my life, take me with you . . . Time’s running out for us, we aren’t young any more, now at least when our lives are over, let’s stop hiding, stop lying . . . (Pause.)
DORN. I’m fifty-five years old, it’s too late for me to change my way of life.
POLINA ANDREEVNA. I know, you’re rejecting me because there are other women you’re intimate with too. You can’t possibly take all of them in. I understand. Forgive me, I’m getting on your nerves.
NINA appears near the house; she is plucking flowers.
DORN. No, not at all.
POLINA ANDREEVNA. I’m sick with jealousy. Of course, you’re a doctor, there’s no way you can avoid women. I understand . . .
DORN (to Nina, who walks by). How are things indoors?
NINA. Irina Nikolaevna’s crying and Pyotr Nikolaevich is having an asthma attack.
DORN (rises). I’ll go give them both some aspirin . . .
NINA (offers him the flowers). Please take these!
DORN. Merci bien. (Goes into the house.)
POLINA ANDREEVNA (going with him). What adorable little flowers! (Near the house, in a muffled voice.) Give me those flowers! Give me those flowers! (Once she gets the flowers, she tears them up and throws them aside. They both go into the house.)
NINA (alone). How odd to see a famous actress crying, and over such a trivial matter! And isn’t it odd, a best-selling author, a favorite with the reading public, written up in all the papers, his portrait on sale, translated into foreign languages, yet he spends the whole day fishing and he’s overjoyed when he catches a couple of perch. I thought that famous people were proud, inaccessible, that they despised the public and their own fame, their celebrity was a kind of revenge for blue blood and wealth being considered more respectable . . . But here they are crying, fishing, playing cards, laughing, and losing their tempers, like anybody else . . .
TREPLYOV (enters bare-headed, carrying a rifle and a slain gull). You’re alone here?
NINA. Alone. (TREPLYOV lays the gull at her feet.) What does this mean?
TREPLYOV. I did something nasty, I killed this gull today. I lay it at your feet.
NINA. What’s wrong with you? (Picks up the gull and stares at it.)
TREPLYOV (after a pause). I’ll soon kill myself the very same way.
NINA. I don’t know who you are any more.
TREPLYOV. Yes, ever since I stopped knowing who you are. You’ve changed toward me, your eyes are cold, my being here makes you tense.
NINA. Lately you’ve been so touchy, and you talk in code, symbols of some kind. And this gull is obviously a symbol too, but, forgive me, I don’t understand it . . . (Lays the gull on the bench.) I’m too ordinary to understand you.
TREPLYOV. It started that night when my play was a stupid fiasco. Women don’t forgive failure. I burned everything, everything to the last scrap of paper. If only you knew how unhappy I am! Your coolness to me is horrible, incredible, it’s like waking up and seeing that the lake has suddenly dried up or sunk into the ground. You say you’re too ordinary to understand me. Oh, what’s there to understand? You didn’t like my play, you despise my ideas, you’ve started thinking of me as a mediocrity, a nobody, like all the rest . . . (Stamping his foot.) That’s something I understand, oh, I understand all right! There’s a kind of spike stuck in my brain, damn it and damn my vanity, which sucks my blood, sucks it like a snake . . . (Catching sight of TRIGORIN, who is walking and reading a notebook.) There goes the real genius; he paces the ground like Hamlet, and with a book too. (Mimicking.) “Words, words, words . . .”48 His sun hasn’t even shone on you yet, but already you’re smiling, your eyes are thawing in his rays. I won’t stand in your way. (He exits quickly.)