[D-IV-3]
[Deemer]
(Dorn wheels in Sorin.)
SORIN: We're out of herring again.
IRINA: We could have smoked trout if you'd ever catch any.
SORIN: I don't have the patience to fish.
TRIGORIN: I'd fish every day if I lived here.
SORIN: You're a writer, you think up stories when you're alone. I get bored.
DORN: To each his own.
IRINA: I get bored easily, too. That's why I could never live here.
TRIGORIN: I'd move out here in a minute.
IRINA: You can say that now. In a week you'd miss your literary teas and all your fawning fans who stop you in the street.
TRIGORIN: The fact is, I get tired of them.
ILYA: How can you say that? Without your fans, you'd be nowhere.
TRIGORIN: I respect them, I'm always kind to them -- but I'd be happy never signing another autograph. It's exciting when you're young. Then it just gets tedious and pointless.
IRINA: Hardly pointless to them, Boris. My fans live to catch a moment with me, and so do yours.
SORIN: I had a fan once. She tried to marry me for my money. You ever have a fan, Dorn?
DORN: In medicine, we call them patients.
IRINA: They amount to the same thing.
TRIGORIN: I hate thinking of my readers as patients. It sounds like my books contain advice and prescriptions.
IRINA: They contain advice about how to live, about life!
TRIGORIN: Not intentionally.
ILYA: Why do you write if not to give advice about living?
TRIGORIN: I write to keep myself from getting bored.
(Masha and Polina enter with supper.)