Act
IV
One of the drawing-rooms in Sorin’s house, which has been turned into a study for Konstantin Treplev. On the right and left, doors leading to inner apartments. In the middle, glass door leading on to the verandah. Besides the usual drawing-room furniture there is, in corner on right, a writing-table, near door on left, a sofa, a bookcase and books in windows and on the chairs. Evening. There is a single lamp alight with a shade on it. It is half dark. There is the sound of the trees rustling, and the wind howling in the chimney. A watchman is tapping. Enter Medvedenko and Masha.
Masha
Calling. Konstantin Gavrilitch! Konstantin Gavrilitch! Looking round. No, there is no one here. The old man keeps asking every minute, where is Kostya, where is Kostya? He cannot live without him. …
Medvedenko
He is afraid of being alone. Listening. What awful weather! This is the second day of it.
Masha
Turns up the lamp. There are waves on the lake. Great big ones.
Medvedenko
How dark it is in the garden! We ought to have told them to break up that stage in the garden. It stands as bare and ugly as a skeleton, and the curtain flaps in the wind. When I passed it yesterday evening, it seemed as though someone were crying in it.
Masha
What next … a pause.
Medvedenko
Let us go home, Masha.
Masha
Shakes her head. I shall stay here for the night.
Medvedenko
In an imploring voice. Masha, do come! Our baby must be hungry.
Masha
Nonsense. Matryona will feed him a pause.
Medvedenko
I am sorry for him. He has been three nights now without his mother.
Masha
You are a bore. In old days you used at least to discuss general subjects, but now it is only home, baby, home, baby—that’s all one can get out of you.
Medvedenko
Come along, Masha!
Masha
Go by yourself.
Medvedenko
Your father won’t let me have a horse.
Masha
Yes, he will. You ask, and he will.
Medvedenko
Very well, I’ll ask. Then you will come tomorrow?
Masha
Taking a pinch of snuff. Very well, tomorrow. How you pester me.
Enter Treplev and Polina Andreyevna; Treplev brings in pillows and a quilt, and Polina Andreyevna sheets and pillowcases; they lay them on the sofa, then Treplev goes to his table and sits down.
Masha
What’s this for, mother?
Polina
Pyotr Nikolayevitch asked us to make a bed for him in Kostya’s room.
Masha
Let me do it makes the bed.
Polina
Sighing. Old people are like children goes up to the writing-table, and leaning on her elbow, looks at the manuscript; a pause.
Medvedenko
Well, I am going then. Goodbye, Masha kisses his wife’s hand. Goodbye, mother tries to kiss his mother-in-law’s hand.
Polina
With vexation. Come, if you are going, go.
Medvedenko
Goodbye, Konstantin Gavrilitch.
Treplev gives him his hand without speaking; Medvedenko goes out.
Polina
Looking at the MS. No one would have guessed or thought that you would have become a real author, Kostya. And now, thank God, they send you money from the magazines. Passes her hand over his hair. And you have grown good-looking too. … Dear, good Kostya, do be a little kinder to my Mashenka!
Masha
As she makes the bed. Leave him alone, mother.
Polina
To Treplev. She is a nice little thing a pause. A woman wants nothing, you know, Kostya, so long as you give her a kind look. I know from myself.
Treplev gets up from the table and walks away without speaking.
Masha
Now you have made him angry. What induced you to pester him?
Polina
I feel so sorry for you, Mashenka.
Masha
Much use that is!
Polina
My heart aches for you. I see it all, you know, I understand it all.
Masha
It’s all foolishness. There is no such thing as hopeless love except in novels. It’s of no consequence. The only thing is one mustn’t let oneself go and keep expecting something, waiting for the tide to turn. … When love gets into the heart there is nothing to be done but to clear it out. Here they promised to transfer my husband to another district. As soon as I am there, I shall forget it all … I shall tear it out of my heart.
Two rooms away a melancholy waltz is played.
Polina
That’s Kostya playing. He must be depressed.
Masha
Noiselessly dances a few waltz steps. The great thing, mother, is not to have him before one’s eyes. If they only give my Semyon his transfer, trust me, I shall get over it in a month. It’s all nonsense.
Door on left opens. Dorn and Medvedenko wheel in Sorin in his chair.
Medvedenko
I have six of them at home now. And flour is two kopeks per pound.
Dorn
You’ve got to look sharp to make both ends meet.
Medvedenko
It’s all very well for you to laugh. You’ve got more money than you know what to do with.
Dorn
Money? After thirty years of practice, my boy, troublesome work during which I could not call my soul my own by day or by night, I only succeeded in saving two thousand roubles, and that I spent not long ago abroad. I have nothing.
Masha
To her husband. You have not gone?
Medvedenko
Guiltily. Well, how can I when they won’t let me have a horse?
Masha
With bitter vexation in an undertone. I can’t bear the sight of you.
The wheelchair remains in the left half of the room; Polina Andreyevna, Masha and Dorn sit down beside it, Medvedenko moves mournfully to one side.
Dorn
What changes there have been here! The drawing-room has been turned into a study.
Masha
It is more convenient for Konstantin Gavrilitch to work here. Whenever he likes, he can walk out into the garden and think there.
A watchman taps.
Sorin
Where is my sister?
Dorn
She has gone to the station to meet Trigorin. She will be back directly.
Sorin
Since you thought it necessary to send for my sister, I must be dangerously ill. After a silence. It’s a queer thing, I am dangerously ill and here they don’t give me any medicines.
Dorn
Well, what would you like to have? Valerian drops? Soda? Quinine?
Sorin
Ah, he is at his moralising again! What an infliction it is! With a motion of his head towards the sofa. Is that bed for me?
Polina
Yes, it’s for you, Pyotr Nikolayevitch.
Sorin
Thank you.
Dorn
Hums. “The moon is floating in the midnight sky.”
Sorin
I want to give Kostya a subject for a story. It ought to be called “The Man Who Wished”—L’homme qui a voulu. In my youth I wanted to become a literary man—and didn’t; I wanted to speak well—and I spoke horribly badly, mimicking himself “and all the rest of it, and all that, and so on, and so forth” … and I would go plodding on and on, trying to sum up till I was in a regular perspiration; I wanted to get married—and I didn’t; I always wanted to live in town and here I am ending my life in the country—and so on.
Dorn
I wanted to become an actual civil councillor—and I have.
Sorin
Laughs. That I had no hankerings after. That happened of itself.
Dorn
To be expressing dissatisfaction with life at sixty-two is really ungracious, you know.
Sorin
What a persistent fellow he is! You might understand that one wants to live!
Dorn
That’s just frivolity. It’s the law of nature that every life must have an end.
Sorin
You argue like a man who has had enough. You are satisfied and so you are indifferent to life, nothing matters to you. But even you will be afraid to die.
Dorn
The dread of death is an animal fear. One must overcome it. A rational fear of death is only possible for those who believe in eternal life and are conscious of their sins. And you, in the first place, don’t believe, and, in the second, what sins have you to worry about? You have served in the courts of justice for twenty-five years—that’s all.
Sorin
Laughs. Twenty-eight.
Treplev comes in and sits down on a stool at Sorin’s feet. Masha never takes her eyes off him.
Dorn
We are hindering Konstantin Gavrilitch from working.
Treplev
Oh no, it doesn’t matter a pause.
Medvedenko
Allow me to ask you, doctor, what town did you like best abroad?
Dorn
Genoa.
Treplev
Why Genoa?
Dorn
The life in the streets is so wonderful there. When you go out of the hotel in the evening, the whole street is packed with people. You wander aimlessly zigzagging about among the crowd, backwards and forwards; you live with it, are psychologically at one with it and begin almost to believe that a world-soul is really possible, such as was acted by Nina Zaretchny in your play. And, by the way, where is she now? How is she getting on?
Treplev
I expect she is quite well.
Dorn
I was told that she was leading a rather peculiar life. How was that?
Treplev
That’s a long story, doctor.
Dorn
Well, tell it us shortly a pause.
Treplev
She ran away from home and had an affair with Trigorin. You know that?
Dorn
I know.
Treplev
She had a child. The child died. Trigorin got tired of her and went back to his old ties, as might have been expected. Though, indeed, he had never abandoned them, but in his weak-willed way contrived to keep both going. As far as I can make out from what I have heard, Nina’s private life was a complete failure.
Dorn
And the stage?
Treplev
I fancy that was worse still. She made her debut at some holiday place near Moscow, then went to the provinces. All that time I did not lose sight of her, and wherever she went I followed her. She always took big parts, but she acted crudely, without taste, screamingly, with violent gestures. There were moments when she uttered a cry successfully or died successfully, but they were only moments.
Dorn
Then she really has some talent?
Treplev
It was difficult to make it out. I suppose she has. I saw her but she would not see me, and the servants would not admit me at the hotel. I understood her state of mind and did not insist on seeing her a pause. What more can I tell you? Afterwards, when I was back at home, I had some letters from her—warm, intelligent, interesting letters. She did not complain, but I felt that she was profoundly unhappy; every line betrayed sick overstrained nerves. And her imagination is a little unhinged. She signed herself the Seagull. In Pushkin’s “Mermaid” the miller says that he is a raven, and in the same way in her letters she kept repeating that she was a seagull. Now she is here.
Dorn
Here? How do you mean?
Treplev
In the town, staying at an inn. She has been there for five days. I did go to see her, and Marya Ilyinishna here went too, but she won’t see anyone. Semyon Semyonitch declares he saw her yesterday afternoon in the fields a mile and a half from here.
Medvedenko
Yes, I saw her. She went in that direction, towards the town. I bowed to her and asked her why she did not come to see us. She said she would come.
Treplev
She won’t come a pause. Her father and stepmother refuse to recognise her. They have put watchmen about so that she may not even go near the house walks away with the doctor towards the writing table. How easy it is to be a philosopher on paper, doctor, and how difficult it is in life!
Sorin
She was a charming girl.
Dorn
What?
Sorin
She was a charming girl, I say. Actual Civil Councillor Sorin was positively in love with her for a time.
Dorn
The old Lovelace.
Shamraev’s laugh is heard.
Polina
I fancy our people have come back from the station. …
Treplev
Yes, I hear mother.
Enter Madame Arkadin, Trigorin and with them Shamraev.
Shamraev
As he enters. We all grow old and dilapidated under the influence of the elements, while you, honoured lady, are still young … a light blouse, sprightliness, grace. …
Madame Arkadin
You want to bring me ill-luck again, you tiresome man!
Trigorin
How do you do, Pyotr Nikolayevitch! So you are still poorly? That’s bad! Seeing Masha, joyfully. Marya Ilyinishna!
Masha
You know me, do you? Shakes hands.
Trigorin
Married?
Masha
Long ago.
Trigorin
Are you happy? Bows to Dorn and Medvedenko, then hesitatingly approaches Treplev. Irina Nikolayevna has told me that you have forgotten the past and are no longer angry.
Treplev holds out his hand.
Madame Arkadin
To her son. Boris Alexeyevitch has brought the magazine with your new story in it.
Treplev
Taking the magazine, to Trigorin. Thank you, you are very kind. They sit down.
Trigorin
Your admirers send their greetings to you. … In Petersburg and Moscow there is great interest in your work and I am continually being asked questions about you. People ask what you are like, how old you are, whether you are dark or fair. Everyone imagines, for some reason, that you are no longer young. And no one knows your real name, as you always publish under a pseudonym. You are as mysterious as the Iron Mask.
Treplev
Will you be able to make a long stay?
Trigorin
No, I think I must go back to Moscow tomorrow. I am obliged to. I am in a hurry to finish my novel, and besides, I have promised something for a collection of tales that is being published. It’s the old story, in fact.
While they are talking Madame Arkadin and Polina Andreyevna put a card-table in the middle of the room and open it out. Shamraev lights candles and sets chairs. A game of loto is brought out of the cupboard.
Trigorin
The weather has not given me a friendly welcome. There is a cruel wind. If it has dropped by tomorrow morning I shall go to the lake to fish. And I must have a look at the garden and that place where—you remember?—your play was acted. I’ve got a subject for a story, I only want to revive my recollections of the scene in which it is laid.
Masha
To her father. Father, let my husband have a horse! He must get home.
Shamraev
Mimicking. Must get home—a horse! Sternly. You can see for yourself: they have just been to the station. I can’t send them out again.
Masha
But there are other horses. Seeing that her father says nothing, waves her hand. There’s no doing anything with you.
Medvedenko
I can walk, Masha. Really. …
Polina
With a sigh. Walk in such weather … sits down to the card-table. Come, friends.
Medvedenko
It is only four miles. Goodbye kisses his wife’s hand. Goodbye, mother. His mother-in-law reluctantly holds out her hand for him to kiss. I wouldn’t trouble anyone, but the baby … bows to the company. Goodbye … goes out with a guilty step.
Shamraev
He can walk right enough. He’s not a general.
Polina
Tapping on the table. Come, friends. Don’t let us waste time, we shall soon be called to supper.
Shamraev, Masha and Dorn sit down at the table.
Madame Arkadin
To Trigorin. When the long autumn evenings come on, they play loto here. Look, it’s the same old loto that we had when our mother used to play with us, when we were children. Won’t you have a game before supper? Sits down to the table with Trigorin. It’s a dull game, but it is not so bad when you are used to it deals three cards to everyone.
Treplev
Turning the pages of the magazine. He has read his own story, but he has not even cut mine puts the magazine down on the writing-table, then goes towards door on left; as he passes his mother he kisses her on the head.
Madame Arkadin
And you, Kostya?
Treplev
Excuse me, I would rather not … I am going out goes out.
Madame Arkadin
The stake is ten kopeks. Put it down for me, doctor, will you?
Dorn
Right.
Masha
Has everyone put down their stakes? I begin … Twenty-two.
Madame Arkadin
Yes.
Masha
Three!
Dorn
Right!
Masha
Did you play three? Eight! Eighty-one! Ten!
Shamraev
Don’t be in a hurry!
Madame Arkadin
What a reception I had in Harkov! My goodness! I feel dizzy with it still.
Masha
Thirty-four!
A melancholy waltz is played behind the scenes.
Madame Arkadin
The students gave me an ovation. … Three baskets of flowers … two wreaths and this, see unfastens a brooch on her throat and lays it on the table.
Shamraev
Yes, that is a thing. …
Masha
Fifty!
Dorn
Exactly fifty?
Madame Arkadin
I had a wonderful dress. … Whatever I don’t know, I do know how to dress.
Polina
Kostya is playing the piano; he is depressed, poor fellow.
Shamraev
He is awfully abused in the newspapers.
Masha
Seventy-seven!
Madame Arkadin
As though that mattered!
Trigorin
He never quite comes off. He has not yet hit upon his own medium. There is always something queer and vague, at times almost like delirium. Not a single living character.
Masha
Eleven!
Madame Arkadin
Looking round at Sorin. Petrusha, are you bored? A pause. He is asleep.
Dorn
The actual civil councillor is asleep.
Masha
Seven! Ninety!
Trigorin
If I lived in such a place, beside a lake, do you suppose I should write? I should overcome this passion and should do nothing but fish.
Masha
Twenty-eight!
Trigorin
Catching perch is so delightful!
Dorn
Well, I believe in Konstantin Gavrilitch. There is something in him! There is something in him! He thinks in images; his stories are vivid, full of colour and they affect me strongly. The only pity is that he has not got definite aims. He produces an impression and that’s all, but you can’t get far with nothing but an impression. Irina Nikolayevna, are you glad that your son is a writer?
Madame Arkadin
Only fancy, I have not read anything of his yet. I never have time.
Masha
Twenty-six!
Treplev comes in quietly and sits down at his table.
Shamraev
To Trigorin. We have still got something here belonging to you, Boris Alexeyevitch.
Trigorin
What’s that?
Shamraev
Konstantin Gavrilitch shot a seagull and you asked me to get it stuffed for you.
Trigorin
I don’t remember! Pondering. I don’t remember!
Masha
Sixty-six! One!
Treplev
Flinging open the window, listens. How dark it is! I don’t know why I feel so uneasy.
Madame Arkadin
Kostya, shut the window, there’s a draught.
Treplev shuts the window.
Masha
Eighty-eight!
Trigorin
The game is mine!
Madame Arkadin
Gaily. Bravo, bravo!
Shamraev
Bravo!
Madame Arkadin
That man always has luck in everything gets up. And now let us go and have something to eat. Our great man has not dined today. We will go on again after supper. To her son. Kostya, leave your manuscripts and come to supper.
Treplev
I don’t want any, mother, I am not hungry.
Madame Arkadin
As you like. Wakes Sorin. Petrusha, supper! Takes Shamraev’s arm. I’ll tell you about my reception in Harkov.
Polina Andreyevna puts out the candles on the table. Then she and Dorn wheel the chair. All go out by door on left; only Treplev, sitting at the writing-table, is left on the stage.
Treplev
Settling himself to write; runs through what he has written already. I have talked so much about new forms and now I feel that little by little I am falling into a convention myself. Reads. “The placard on the wall proclaimed. … The pale face in its setting of dark hair.” Proclaimed, setting. That’s stupid scratches out. I will begin where the hero is awakened by the patter of the rain, and throw out all the rest. The description of the moonlight evening is long and over elaborate. Trigorin has worked out methods for himself, it’s easy for him now. … With him the broken bottle neck glitters on the dam and the mill-wheel casts a black shadow—and there you have the moonlight night, while I have the tremulous light, and the soft twinkling of the stars, and the faraway strains of the piano dying away in the still fragrant air. … It’s agonising a pause. I come more and more to the conviction that it is not a question of new and old forms, but that what matters is that a man should write without thinking about forms at all, write because it springs freely from his soul. There is a tap at the window nearest to the table. What is that? Looks out of window. There is nothing to be seen … opens the glass door and looks out into the garden. Someone ran down the steps. Calls. Who is there? Goes out and can be heard walking rapidly along the verandah; returns half a minute later with Nina Zaretchny. Nina, Nina!
Nina lays her head on his breast and weeps with subdued sobs.
Treplev
Moved. Nina! Nina! It’s you … you. … It’s as though I had foreseen it, all day long my heart has been aching and restless takes off her hat and cape. Oh, my sweet, my precious, she has come at last! Don’t let us cry, don’t let us!
Nina
There is someone here.
Treplev
No one.
Nina
Lock the doors, someone may come in.
Treplev
No one will come in.
Nina
I know Irina Nikolayevna is here. Lock the doors.
Treplev
Locks the door on right, goes to door on left. There is no lock on this one, I’ll put a chair against it puts an armchair against the door. Don’t be afraid, no one will come.
Nina
Looking intently into his face. Let me look at you. Looking round. It’s warm, it’s nice. … In old days this was the drawing-room. Am I very much changed?
Treplev
Yes. … You are thinner and your eyes are bigger. Nina, how strange it is that I should be seeing you. Why would not you let me see you? Why haven’t you come all this time? I know you have been here almost a week … I have been to you several times every day; I stood under your window like a beggar.
Nina
I was afraid that you might hate me. I dream every night that you look at me and don’t know me. If only you knew! Ever since I came I have been walking here … by the lake. I have been near your house many times and could not bring myself to enter it. Let us sit down. They sit down. Let us sit down and talk and talk. It’s nice here, it’s warm and snug. Do you hear the wind? There’s a passage in Turgenev, “Well for the man on such a night who sits under the shelter of home, who has a warm corner in safety.” I am a seagull. … No, that’s not it rubs her forehead. What was I saying? Yes … Turgenev … ”And the Lord help all homeless wanderers!” … It doesn’t matter sobs.
Treplev
Nina, you are crying again. … Nina!
Nina
Never mind, it does me good … I haven’t cried for two years. Yesterday, late in the evening, I came into the garden to see whether our stage was still there. It is still standing. I cried for the first time after two years and it eased the weight on my heart and made it lighter. You see, I am not crying now takes him by the hand. And so now you are an author. … You are an author, I am an actress. … We too have been drawn into the whirlpool. I lived joyously, like a child—I woke up singing in the morning; I loved you and dreamed of fame, and now? Early tomorrow morning I must go to Yelets third-class … with peasants, and at Yelets the cultured tradesmen will pester me with attentions. Life is a coarse business!
Treplev
Why to Yelets?
Nina
I have taken an engagement for the whole winter. It is time to go.
Treplev
Nina, I cursed you, I hated you, I tore up your letters and photographs, but I was conscious every minute that my soul is bound to yours forever. It’s not in my power to leave off loving you, Nina. Ever since I lost you and began to get my work published my life has been unbearable—I am wretched. … My youth was, as it were, torn away all at once and it seems to me as though I have lived for ninety years already. I call upon you, I kiss the earth on which you have walked; wherever I look I see your face, that tender smile that lighted up the best days of my life. …
Nina
Distractedly. Why does he talk like this, why does he talk like this?
Treplev
I am alone in the world, warmed by no affection. I am as cold as though I were in a cellar, and everything I write is dry, hard and gloomy. Stay here, Nina, I entreat you, or let me go with you!
Nina rapidly puts on her hat and cape.
Treplev
Nina, why is this? For God’s sake, Nina! Looks at her as she puts her things on; a pause.
Nina
My horses are waiting at the gate. Don’t see me off, I’ll go alone. … Through her tears. Give me some water. …
Treplev
Gives her some water. Where are you going now?
Nina
To the town a pause. Is Irina Nikolayevna here?
Treplev
Yes. … Uncle was taken worse on Thursday and we telegraphed for her.
Nina
Why do you say that you kissed the earth on which I walked? I ought to be killed. Bends over the table. I am so tired! If I could rest … if I could rest! Raising her head. I am a seagull. … No, that’s not it. I am an actress. Oh, well! Hearing Madame Arkadin and Trigorin laughing, she listens, then runs to door on left and looks through the keyhole. He is here too. … Turning back to Treplev. Oh, well … it doesn’t matter … no. … He did not believe in the stage, he always laughed at my dreams and little by little I left off believing in it too, and lost heart. … And then I was fretted by love and jealousy, and continually anxious over my little one. … I grew petty and trivial, I acted stupidly. … I did not know what to do with my arms, I did not know how to stand on the stage, could not control my voice. You can’t understand what it feels like when one knows one is acting disgracefully. I am a seagull. No, that’s not it. … Do you remember you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw it and, just to pass the time, destroyed it. … A subject for a short story. … That’s not it, though rubs herforehead. What was I saying? I am talking of the stage. Now I am not like that. I am a real actress, I act with enjoyment, with enthusiasm, I am intoxicated when I am on the stage and feel that I am splendid. And since I have been here, I keep walking about and thinking, thinking and feeling that my soul is getting stronger every day. Now I know, I understand, Kostya, that in our work—in acting or writing—what matters is not fame, not glory, not what I dreamed of, but knowing how to be patient. To bear one’s cross and have faith. I have faith and it all doesn’t hurt so much, and when I think of my vocation I am not afraid of life.
Treplev
Mournfully. You have found your path, you know which way you are going, but I am still floating in a chaos of dreams and images, not knowing what use it is to anyone. I have no faith and don’t know what my vocation is.
Nina
Listening. ’Sh‑sh … I am going. Goodbye. When I become a great actress, come and look at me. Will you promise? But now … Presses his hand it’s late. I can hardly stand on my feet. … I am worn out and hungry. …
Treplev
Stay, I’ll give you some supper.
Nina
No, no. … Don’t see me off, I will go by myself. My horses are close by. … So she brought him with her? Well, it doesn’t matter. When you see Trigorin, don’t say anything to him. … I love him! I love him even more than before. … A subject for a short story … I love him, I love him passionately, I love him to despair. It was nice in old days, Kostya! Do you remember? How clear, warm, joyous and pure life was, what feelings we had—feelings like tender, exquisite flowers. … Do you remember? Recites. “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, have 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 …” Impulsively embraces Treplev and runs out of the glass door.
Treplev
After a pause. It will be a pity if someone meets her in the garden and tells mother. It may upset mother. …
He spends two minutes in tearing up all his manuscripts and throwing them under the table; then unlocks the door on right and goes out.
Dorn
Trying to open the door on left. Strange. The door seems to be locked … comes in and puts the armchair in its place. An obstacle race.
Enter Madame Arkadin and Polina Andreyevna, behind them Yakov carrying a tray with bottles; Masha; then Shamraev and Trigorin.
Madame Arkadin
Put the claret and the beer for Boris Alexeyevitch here on the table. We will play as we drink it. Let us sit down, friends.
Polina
To Yakov. Bring tea too at the same time lights the candles and sits down to the card table.
Shamraev
Leads Trigorin to the cupboard. Here’s the thing I was speaking about just now takes the stuffed seagull from the cupboard. This is what you ordered.
Trigorin
Looking at the seagull. I don’t remember it. Musing. I don’t remember.
The sound of a shot coming from right of stage; everyone starts.
Madame Arkadin
Frightened. What’s that?
Dorn
That’s nothing. It must be something in my medicine-chest that has gone off. Don’t be anxious goes out at door on right, comes back in half a minute. That’s what it is. A bottle of ether has exploded. Hums. “I stand before thee enchanted again. …”
Madame Arkadin
Sitting down to the table. Ough, how frightened I was. It reminded me of how … hides her face in her hands. It made me quite dizzy. …
Dorn
Turning over the leaves of the magazine, to Trigorin. There was an article in this two months ago—a letter from America—and I wanted to ask you, among other things puts his arm round Trigorin’s waist and leads him to the footlights as I am very much interested in the question. … In a lower tone, dropping his voice. Get Irina Nikolayevna away somehow. The fact is, Konstantin Gavrilitch has shot himself. …
Curtain.