[IV-6]

[Chekhov]

(Treplev enters.)

DORN: We're keeping Konstantin from his writing.

TREPLEV (on stool beside Sorin): No, not at all.

(An awkward pause.)

MED.: Doctor, what's your favorite city abroad?

DORN: Genoa.

MED.: Really? Why?

DORN: The streets are so lively. I love the crowds. In the evening, the streets are just swarming with people and you can drift among them, going with the flow of the crowd, and imagine that there really is a single world spirit after all, just like the one Nina portrayed in Konstantin's play. How is Nina doing anyway? Where's she living now?

TREPLEV: I suppose she's fine.

DORN: I heard a rumor she was living a strange life. What do you suppose that means?

TREPLEV: It's a long story, doctor.

DORN: Perhaps you can shorten it.

(A pause.)

TREPLEV: She left home and had an affair with Trigorin. Did you already know that?

DORN: Yes, I did.

TREPLEV: She had a child, and the child died. Trigorin grew tired of her and went back to his old attachments, which could have been predicted. He'd never really left them but went back and forth between Nina and the others, in his cowardly way. So I guess you could say that Nina's personal life hasn't turned out very well.

DORN: And her career on stage?

TREPLEV: Worse. She started out in a summer theater near Moscow, then went on tour through the provinces. I followed her everywhere at the time. She had lead roles, but her acting was crude, over-stated. She could break into tears and she could die. But that's all she was good at.

DORN: Then she has some talent at least.

TREPLEV: It's hard to say. Probably so. I never got to see her in person. They kept me from going into her hotel room, and I didn't push it. I understood how she felt. (Pause.) What more can I say? After I returned home, she started writing me. She never complained but I could tell how unhappy she was. Every line she wrote was like exposing a nerve. And she'd ramble. She always signed herself as "The Sea Gull." In Pushkin's play, "Rusalka," the miller calls himself a raven, and in the same way she kept calling herself a sea gull. And now she's back again.

DORN: You mean, here?

TREPLEV: She's staying at the inn. She's been here for five days but won't see anyone - I tried, and Masha tried. Didn't you say you saw her last night after dinner, in the fields not two miles from here?

MED.: Yes, she was walking toward town. I asked her why she hadn't come to see us yet. She said she would.

TREPLEV: But she won't. (Pause.) Her parents have disowned her. They even put guards on the estate to keep her away. How easy, doctor, to be a philosopher on paper - and how difficult in life!

SORIN: She was such a beautiful girl.

DORN: What's that?

SORIN: I said she was lovely. Yours truly was once a little in love with her himself.

DORN: The dirty old man.

(They hear laughter.)

POLINA: They're back from the station.

TREPLEV: I can hear mother.

(Irina, Trigorin and Ilya enter.)

[continue]