Nina.  You must excuse me, but I decline to understand what you are talking about.  The fact is, you have been spoilt by your success.

Trigorin.  What success have I had?  I have never pleased myself; as a writer, I do not like myself at all.  The trouble is that I am made giddy, as it were, by the fumes of my brain, and often hardly know what I am writing.  I love this lake, these trees, the blue heaven; nature’s voice speaks to me and wakes a feeling of passion in my heart, and I am overcome by an uncontrollable desire to write.  But I am not only a painter of landscapes, I am a man of the city besides.  I love my country, too, and her people; I feel that, as a writer, it is my duty to speak of their sorrows, of their future, also of science, of the rights of man, and so forth.  So I write on every subject, and the public hounds me on all sides, sometimes in anger, and I race and dodge like a fox with a pack of hounds on his trail.  I see life and knowledge flitting away before me.  I am left behind them like a peasant who has missed his train at a station, and finally I come back to the conclusion that all I am fit for is to describe landscapes, and that whatever else I attempt rings abominably false.

Nina.  You work too hard to realise the importance of your writings.  What if you are discontented with yourself?  To others you appear a great and splendid man.  If I were a writer like you I should devote my whole life to the service of the Russian people, knowing at the same time that their welfare depended on their power to rise to the heights I had attained, and the people should send me before them in a chariot of triumph.

Trigorin.  In a chariot?  Do you think I am Agamemnon? [They both smile.]

Nina.  For the bliss of being a writer or an actress I could endure want, and disillusionment, and the hatred of my friends, and the pangs of my own dissatisfaction with myself; but I should demand in return fame, real, resounding fame! [She covers her face with her hands] Whew!  My head reels!

The voice of Arkadina. [From inside the house] Boris!  Boris!

Trigorin.  She is calling me, probably to come and pack, but I don’t want to leave this place. [His eyes rest on the lake] What a blessing such beauty is!

Nina.  Do you see that house there, on the far shore?

Trigorin.  Yes.

Nina.  That was my dead mother’s home.  I was born there, and have lived all my life beside this lake.  I know every little island in it.

Trigorin.  This is a beautiful place to live. [He catches sight of the dead sea-gull] What is that?

Nina.  A gull.  Constantine shot it.

Trigorin.  What a lovely bird!  Really, I can’t bear to go away.  Can’t you persuade Irina to stay? [He writes something in his note-book.]

Nina.  What are you writing?