ARKADINA. What about you, Kostya?
TREPLYOV. Sorry, I don’t feel up to it . . . I’m going for a walk. (Exits.)
ARKADINA. The stakes are ten kopeks. Ante up for me, Doctor.
DORN. Your wish is my command.
MASHA. Everyone’s ante’d up? I’m starting . . . Twenty-two!
ARKADINA. Got it.
MASHA. Three! . . .
DORN. Righto.
MASHA. Got three? Eight! Eighty-one! Ten!
SHAMRAEV. Not so fast.
ARKADINA. The reception they gave me in Kharkov, goodness gracious, my head’s still spinning from it!
MASHA. Thirty-four!
A melancholy waltz is played offstage.
ARKADINA. The students organized an ovation . . . Three baskets of flowers, two bouquets, and look at this . . . (Unpins a brooch from her bosom and throws it on the table.)
SHAMRAEV. Yes, that’s something, all right . . .
MASHA. Fifty! . . .
DORN. Just plain fifty?
ARKADINA. I was wearing a gorgeous outfit . . . Say what you like, when it comes to dressing I’m nobody’s fool.
POLINA ANDREEVNA. Kostya’s playing. The poor boy’s depressed.
SHAMRAEV. The newspaper reviewers give him a hard time.
MASHA. Seventy-seven!
ARKADINA. Who cares about them.
TRIGORIN. He hasn’t had any luck. His writing still can’t manage to find its proper voice. There’s something odd, indefinite about it, sometimes it’s like gibberish . . . Not one living character.
MASHA. Eleven!
ARKADINA (looking round at Sorin). Petrusha, are you bored? (Pause.) He’s asleep.
DORN. Sleep comes to the senior civil servant.
MASHA. Seven! Ninety!
TRIGORIN. If I lived on an estate like this, by a lake, you think I’d write? I’d kick this addiction and do nothing but fish.
MASHA. Twenty-eight!
TRIGORIN. To catch a chub or a perch — that’s my idea of heaven!
DORN. Well, I have faith in Konstantin Gavrilych. There’s something there! There’s something there! He thinks in images, his stories are colorful, striking, and I have a real fondness for them. It’s just a pity he doesn’t have well-defined goals. He creates an impression, and leaves it at that, and of course by itself an impression doesn’t get you very far. Irina Nikolaevna, are you glad your son’s a writer?
ARKADINA. Imagine, I still haven’t read him. Never any time.
MASHA. Twenty-six!
TREPLYOV quietly enters and goes to his desk.
SHAMRAEV (to Trigorin). Hey, Boris Alekseevich, that thing of yours is still here.
TRIGORIN. What thing?
SHAMRAEV. A while back Konstantin Gavrilych shot a gull, and you asked me to have it stuffed.
TRIGORIN. Don’t remember. (Thinking about it.) Don’t remember!
MASHA. Sixty-six! One!
TREPLYOV (throws open the window, listens). So dark! I can’t understand how it is I feel so uneasy.
ARKADINA. Kostya, shut the window, it’s drafty.
TREPLYOV closes the window.
MASHA. Eighty-eight!
TRIGORIN. It’s my game, ladies and gentlemen.
ARKADINA (merrily). Bravo! Bravo!
SHAMRAEV. Bravo!
ARKADINA. This man has the most incredible luck, any time, any place. (Rises.) And now let’s have a bite to eat. Our celebrity didn’t have dinner today. After supper we’ll resume our game. (To her son.) Kostya, put down your writing, we’re eating.
TREPLYOV. I don’t want any, Mama. I’m not hungry.
ARKADINA. You know best. (Wakes Sorin.) Petrusha, suppertime! (Takes Shamraev’s arm.) I’ll tell you about my reception in Kharkov . . .
POLINA ANDREEVNA blows out the candles on the table, then she and DORN wheel out the armchair. Everyone goes out the door left. Only TREPLYOV remains alone on stage at the writing desk.
TREPLYOV (prepares to write; scans what he’s already written). I’ve talked so much about new forms, but now I feel as if I’m gradually slipping into routine myself. (Reads.) “The poster on the fence proclaimed . . . A pale face, framed by dark hair . . .” Proclaimed, framed . . . It’s trite.84 (Scratches it out.) I’ll start with the hero waking to the sound of rain, and get rid of all the rest. The description of the moonlit night’s too long and contrived. Trigorin has perfected a technique for himself, it’s easy for him . . . He has a shard of broken bottle glisten on the dam and a black shadow cast by the millwheel — and there’s your moonlit night readymade.85 But I’ve got to have the flickering light, and the dim twinkling of the stars, and the distant strains of a piano, dying away in the still, fragrant air . . . It’s excruciating. (Pause.) Yes, I’m more and more convinced that the point isn’t old or new forms, it’s to write and not think about form, because it’s flowing freely out of your soul. (Someone knocks at the window closest to the desk.) What’s that? (Looks out the window.) Can’t see anything . . . (Opens the glass door and looks into the garden.) Somebody’s running down the steps. (Calls out.) Who’s there? (Goes out; he can be heard walking rapidly along the veranda; in a few seconds he returns with NINA ZARECHNAYA.) Nina! Nina! (NINA lays her head on his chest and sobs with restraint.) (Moved.) Nina! Nina! it’s you . . . you . . . I had a premonition, all day my heart was aching terribly. (Removes her hat and knee-length cloak.)86 Oh, my sweet, my enchantress, she’s here! We won’t cry, we won’t.
NINA. There’s somebody here.
TREPLYOV. Nobody.
NINA. Lock the doors, or they’ll come in.
TREPLYOV. No one will come in.
NINA. I know Irina Nikolaevna is here. Lock the doors.
TREPLYOV (locks the door at right with a key, crosses left). This one has no lock. I’ll put a chair against it. (Sets a chair against the door.) Don’t be afraid, no one will come in.
NINA (stares fixedly at his face). Let me look at you. (Looking round.) Warm, pleasant . . . This used to be a drawing-room. Have I changed a great deal?
TREPLYOV. Yes . . . You’ve lost weight, and your eyes are bigger. Nina, it feels so strange to be seeing you. How come you didn’t let me in? How come you didn’t show up before now? I know you’ve been living here almost a week . . . I’ve been over to your place several times every day, stood beneath your window like a beggar.
NINA. I was afraid you hated me. Every night I have the same dream that you look at me and don’t recognize me. If you only knew! Ever since my arrival I keep coming here . . . to the lake. I was at your house lots of times and couldn’t make up my mind to go in. Let’s sit down. (They sit.) We’ll sit and we’ll talk and talk. It’s nice here, warm, cozy . . . Do you hear—the wind? There’s a passage in Turgenev: “Happy he who on such a night sits beneath his roof, and has a warm corner.”87 I’m a gull . . . No, that’s wrong. (Rubs her forehead.) What was I on about? Yes . . . Turgenev . . . “And the Lord help all homeless wanderers . . .” Never mind. (Sobs.)