TRIGORIN (staring at the gull). Don’t remember! (Thinking about it.) Don’t remember!
A shot offstage right; everyone shudders.
ARKADINA (alarmed). What’s that?
DORN. Nothing. I suppose something exploded in my first-aid kit. Don’t worry. (Exits through the door right, returns in a few seconds.) That’s what it is. A vial of ether exploded. (Sings.) “Once again I stand bewitched before thee . . .”
ARKADINA (sitting at the table). Phew, I was terrified. It reminded me of the time . . . (Hides her face in her hands.) Things even went black before my eyes . . .
DORN (leafing through the magazine, to Trigorin). About two months ago there was a certain article published in here . . . a letter from America, and I wanted to ask you, among other things . . . (takes Trigorin round the waist and leads him down to the footlights) because I’m very interested in this matter . . . (Lowering his voice.) Take Irina Nikolaevna somewhere away from here. The fact is, Konstantin Gavrilovich has shot himself . . .
Curtain
VARIANTS TO
The Seagull
These lines appeared in the censorship’s copy (Cens.), the first publication in the journal Russian Thought (Russkaya Mysl, 1896) (RT), and the 1897 edition of Chekhov’s plays (1897).
ACT ONE
page 744 / After: And tobacco? — Yesterday, ma’am, I had to get some flour, we look for the bag, high and low, and beggars had stolen it. Had to pay fifteen kopeks for another one. (Cens.)
page 745 / Before: Talk to my father yourself, because I won’t. —
MASHA. Tell him yourself. The barn is full of millet now, and he says that if it weren’t for the dogs thieves would carry it off.
TREPLYOV. To hell with him and his millet! (Cens.)
page 745 / After: I never get my way in the country — it’s all millet one time, dogs another, no horses another, because they’ve gone to the mill and so on and so forth. (Cens.)
page 747 / Before: You’ve got it in your head — Horace said: genus irritabile vatum.1 (Cens., RT)
page 748 / After: when all’s said and done . . . — Once, about ten years ago, I published an article about trial lawyers, I just remembered, and, you know, it was pleasant, and meanwhile when I begin to remember that I worked twenty-eight years in the Justice Department, it’s the other way round, I’d rather not think about it . . . (Yawns.) (Cens.)
page 752 / Before: TREPLYOV enters from behind the platform.
MEDVEDENKO (to Sorin). And before Europe achieves results, humanity, as Flammarion2 writes, will perish as a consequence of the cooling of the earth’s hemispheres.
SORIN. God bless us.
MASHA (offering her snuffbox to Trigorin). Do have some! You’re always so silent, or do you ever talk?
TRIGORIN. Yes, I talk sometimes. (Takes snuff.) Disgusting. How can you!
MASHA. Well, you’ve got a nice smile. I suppose you’re a simple man. (Cens.)
page 756 / After: I didn’t mean to offend him. —
NINA (peering out from behind the curtain). Is it over already? We won’t be going on?
ARKADINA. The author left. I suppose it is over. Come on out, my dear, and join us.
NINA. Right away. (Disappears.)
MEDVEDENKO (to Masha). It all depends on the substantiality of psychic matter and there’s no basis. (Cens.)
page 756 / After: but in those days he was irresistible. —
Polina Andreevna weeps quietly.
SHAMRAEV (reproachfully). Polina, Polina . . .
POLINA ANDREEVNA. Never mind . . . Forgive me . . . I suddenly got so depressed! (Cens.)
page 757 / After: Yes. —
SHAMRAEV. Bream and pike, for the most part. There are pike-perch as well, but not many. (Cens.)
page 758 / After: Credit where credit’s due. —
MEDVEDENKO. A deplorable manifestation of atavism, worthy of the attention of Lombroso.3
DORN (teasing). “Lombroso” . . . You can’t live without pedantic words. (Cens.)
page 758 / After: (Takes him by the arm.) — In some play there’s a line: “Come to your senses, old man!” (Cens.)
page 760 / Replace: And will you all please leave me in peace! Stay here! Don’t come after me!
with: MASHA. On what? My father will tell you that all the horses are busy.
TREPLYOV (angrily). He hasn’t got the right! I don’t keep anyone from living, so they can leave me in peace. (Cens.)
ACT TWO
page 762 / After: you don’t live . . . —
MASHA. My mamma brought me up like that girl in the fairy tale who lived in a flower. I don’t know how to do anything. (Cens.)
page 763 / After: just consider me and Trigorin. — I didn’t pick out Boris Alekseevich, didn’t lay siege, didn’t enthrall, but when we met, everything in my head went topsy-turvy, my dears, and things turned green before my eyes. I used to stand and look at him and cry. I mean it, I’d howl and howl. What kind of master plan is that? (Cens.)
page 763 / After: “At Sea” by Maupassant, sweetheart. —
MEDVEDENKO. Never read it.
DORN. You only read what you don’t understand.
MEDVEDENKO. Whatever books I can get I read.
DORN. All you read is Buckle and Spencer,4 but you’ve got no more knowledge than a night watchman. According to you, the heart is made out of cartilage and the earth is held up by whales.
MEDVEDENKO. The earth is round.
DORN. Why do you say that so diffidently?
MEDVEDENKO (taking offense). When there’s nothing to eat, it doesn’t matter if the earth is round or square. Stop pestering me, will you please.
ARKADINA (annoyed). Stop it, gentlemen. (Cens.)
page 763 / After: It’s so uninteresting! — (Recites.) Humans, lions, eagles and partridges, antlered deer, geese, spiders, silent fishes that inhabit the waters, starfish, and those beings invisible to the naked eye,—in short, all living things, all living things, all living things, having completed the doleful cycle, are now extinct . . . Already thousands of centuries have passed since the earth bore any living creature, and this pale moon to no avail doth light her lamp. No more does the meadow awake to the cries of cranes, and the may flies are no longer to be heard in the linden groves. (Cens.)
page 764 / After: stop smoking. —
DORN. You should have done it long ago. Tobacco and wine are so disgusting! (Cens.)