page 765 / Replace: You’ve lived in your lifetime, but what about me? I worked in the Department of Justice for twenty-eight years, but I still haven’t lived.
with: You’ve lived your life, your room is full of embroidered pillows, slippers and all that, like some kind of museum, but I still haven’t lived. (Cens.)
page 765 / Replace: So there and all the rest.
with: Everyone’s right according to his own lights, everyone goes wherever his inclinations lead him. (Cens.)
page 765 / Before: A man should take life seriously, — It’s precisely because everyone is right according to his own lights, that everyone suffers. (Cens.)
page 765 / After: ridiculous. — It’s time to think about eternity.
TREPLYOV walks past the house without a hat, a gun in one hand, and a dead gull in the other.
ARKADINA (to her son). Kostya, come join us!
TREPLYOV glances at them and exits.
DORN (singing quietly). “Tell her of love, flowers of mine . . .”
NINA. You’re off-key, doctor.
DORN. It doesn’t matter. (To Sorin.) As I was saying, Your Excellency. It’s time to think about eternity. (Pause.) (Cens.)
page 765 / Replace: DORN (sings ). “Tell her of love, flowers of mine . . .”
with: DORN. Well, say what you like, I cannot do without nature.
ARKADINA. What about books? In poetic images nature is more moving and refined than as is. (Cens.)
page 766 / Replace: Carriage horses?
with: A carriage horse? Did you say: a carriage horse? Go out there and see for yourself: the roan is lame, Cossack Lass is bloated with water . . . (Cens.)
page 766 / After: This is incredible! —
POLINA ANDREEVNA (to her husband). Stop it, I implore you.
ARKADINA. Horse-collars or rye are nothing to do with me . . . I am going and that’s that.
SHAMRAEV. Irina Nikolaevna, have a heart, on what? (Cens.)
page 767 / After: What can I do? —
SORIN. He’s going. He’s leaving the farmwork at the busiest time and so on. I won’t let him do it! I’ll force him to stay!
DORN. Pyotr Nikolaevich, have at least a penny’s worth of character! (Cens.)
page 767 / Replace: He even sent the carriage horses . . . his crudeness.
with: You know, he even sent the carriage horses into the fields. He does what he likes. His third year here he told the old man to mortgage the estate . . . What for? What was the need? He bought pedigreed turkeys and suckling pigs and they all died on his hands. He set up expensive beehives and in winter all the bees froze to death. The entire income from the estate he wastes on building, and on top of that takes the old man’s pension away and sends Irina Nikolaevna six hundred rubles a year out of the old man’s money, as if it were part of the income, and she’s delighted, because she’s stingy.
DORN (distractedly). Yes. (Pause.) (Cens.)
page 767 / Replace: stop lying . . . (Pause.)
with: stop lying . . . Twenty years I’ve been your wife, your friend . . . Take me into your home.
page 767 / Replace: Forgive me, I’m getting on your nerves . . . DORN (to Nina, who walks by)
with: DORN (sings quietly). “At the hour of parting, at the hour of farewell. . .”
NINA appears near the house; she picks flowers.
POLINA ANDREEVNA (to Dorn, in an undertone). You spent all morning again with Irina Nikolaevna!
DORN. I have to be with somebody.
POLINA ANDREEVNA. I’m suffering from jealousy. Forgive me. You’re sick and tired of me.
DORN. No, not at all.
POLINA ANDREEVNA. Of course, you’re a doctor, there’s no way you can avoid women. That’s how it is. But you know that this is torture. Be with women, but at least try so that I don’t notice it.
DORN. I’ll try. (To Nina.) (Cens.)
page 768 / After: like anybody else . . . — They’re modest. Yesterday I asked him for an autograph, and he was naughty and wrote me bad poetry, deliberately bad, so that everyone would laugh . . . (Cens.)
ACT THREE
page 778 / After: I can never get any horses . . . — Enter MEDVEDENKO. (Cens.)
page 778 / Replace: SORIN. You’re kind, affectionate . . . I respect you . . . Yes . . . (Staggers)
with: MEDVEDENKO (smokes a fat hand-rolled cigarette; addressing no one in particular). The schoolteacher at Telyatyev bought hay at a very good price. Thirty-five pounds for nine kopeks, delivery included. And just last week I paid eleven. It gets you going in circles. (Noticing the star on Sorin’s chest.) What’s that you’ve got? Hm . . . I received a medal too, but they should have given me money.
ARKADINA. Semyon Semyonych, be so kind, allow me to talk with my brother. We would like to be left in private.
MEDVEDENKO. Ah, fine! I understand . . . I understand . . . (Exits.)
SORIN. He comes here at the crack of dawn. Keeps coming and talking about something. (Laughs.) A kind man, but already a bit . . . makes you sick and tired. (Staggers.) (Cens.)
ACT FOUR
page 791 / Replace: MEDVEDENKO. Might I ask, Doctor, which town abroad you liked most?
with: MEDVEDENKO (to Dorn). Allow me to ask you, Doctor, how much does a ream of writing paper cost abroad?
DORN. I don’t know, I never bought any.
MEDVEDENKO. And what town did you like most? (Cens.)
page 795 / After: the setting of the action. —
SHAMRAEV (to Arkadina). Are they alive?
ARKADINA. I don’t know.
SHAMRAEV. She was a highly talented actress, I must remark. Her like is not around nowadays! In The Murder of Coverley5 she was just . . . (Kisses the tips of his fingers.) I’d give ten years of my life. (Cens.)
page 795 / After: with either of you . . . —
SHAMRAEV (flaring up, in an undertone). Well, cut my throat! Hang me! Let him go on foot! (Cens.)
page 795 / After: He’s nobody special. —
DORN. You get married — you change. What’s happened to atoms, substantiality, Flammarion.
Sits at the card table. (Cens.)
page 797 / After the stage direction: TREPLYOV closes the window. —
SHAMRAEV. The wind’s up. The wind’s getting up . . . A certain young lady is standing by a window, conversing with an amorous young man, and her mamma says to her: “Come away from the window, Dashenka, or else you’ll get the wind up . . .” The wind up! (Roars with laughter.)