[L-IV-1]

[Deemer]

(Treplev comes into the living room. He slowly makes his way to a small piano in the corner.)

TREPLEV (to audience): Do you know the worst thing about being a writer? Language. That the writer's primary tool, my tool, is the same instrument with which I talk to you now, or ask directions to the train station, or speak out in my sleep. It's as if the artist among birds had to rely on melody for his art. This is why I envy the musicians, the composers. They communicate the mundane with language -- but as artists, in their highest mode of communication, they abandon language for music, which is a language in its own right, but one not perverted by association with the mundane. I think all writers envy composers.

(He sits down at the piano. He starts playing a sad waltz, very Russian, very melancholy.)

(He plays for about five minutes. Then he stops.)

TREPLEV (to audience): Why am I so restless today?

(He returns to the study.)

[follow him]