[LR-I-1]

[Deemer]

(Sorin, Trigorin and Medvedenko enter the living room.)

SORIN: You're a writer, Boris. Can my nephew write or not?

TRIGORIN: It's hard to say. He's still looking for his voice.

MED.: He's temperamental enough to be a writer. Nothing personal, understand. I've just met a lot of writers who can't take criticism.

TRIGORIN: A writer must learn to become his own best - and worst - critic.

MED.: In which case, he has a long way to go.

TRIGORIN: He's really no different from any other beginning writer. In the beginning, no one believes in you and your talent isn't developed enough to demand a following anyway - so you are faced with the task of believing in yourself despite all evidence to the contrary. So one is hypersensitive.

MED.: You had success from the beginning, didn't you?

TRIGORIN: Yes. I'm one of the lucky ones.

SORIN: Surely talent has something to do with it.

TRIGORIN: But what is talent? Sometimes I think talent - real talent, lasting talent - is a commodity only dead writers enjoy. Even when critics praise me to the sky, they point out that, of course, I'm not Tolstoy. We like our real literary heroes buried six feet under.

MED.: I've never looked at it that way but you may have a point.

SORIN: Is Polina bringing us cake?

MED.: She said she was.

(Irina enters.)

[continue]