Medviedenko.  Of all the cities you visited when you were abroad, Doctor, which one did you like the best?

Dorn.  Genoa.

TREPLIEFF.  Why Genoa?

Dorn.  Because there is such a splendid crowd in its streets.  When you leave the hotel in the evening, and throw yourself into the heart of that throng, and move with it without aim or object, swept along, hither and thither, their life seems to be yours, their soul flows into you, and you begin to believe at last in a great world spirit, like the one in your play that Nina Zarietchnaya acted.  By the way, where is Nina now?  Is she well?

TREPLIEFF.  I believe so.

Dorn.  I hear she has led rather a strange life; what happened?

TREPLIEFF.  It is a long story, Doctor.

Dorn.  Tell it shortly. [A pause.]

TREPLIEFF.  She ran away from home and joined Trigorin; you know that?

Dorn.  Yes.

TREPLIEFF.  She had a child that died.  Trigorin soon tired of her and returned to his former ties, as might have been expected.  He had never broken them, indeed, but out of weakness of character had always vacillated between the two.  As far as I can make out from what I have heard, Nina’s domestic life has not been altogether a success.

Dorn.  What about her acting?

TREPLIEFF.  I believe she made an even worse failure of that.  She made her debut on the stage of the Summer Theatre in Moscow, and afterward made a tour of the country towns.  At that time I never let her out of my sight, and wherever she went I followed.  She always attempted great and difficult parts, but her delivery was harsh and monotonous, and her gestures heavy and crude.  She shrieked and died well at times, but those were but moments.

Dorn.  Then she really has a talent for acting?

TREPLIEFF.  I never could make out.  I believe she has.  I saw her, but she refused to see me, and her servant would never admit me to her rooms.  I appreciated her feelings, and did not insist upon a meeting. [A pause] What more can I tell you?  She sometimes writes to me now that I have come home, such clever, sympathetic letters, full of warm feeling.  She never complains, but I can tell that she is profoundly unhappy; not a line but speaks to me of an aching, breaking nerve.  She has one strange fancy; she always signs herself “The Sea-gull.”  The miller in “Rusalka” called himself “The Crow,” and so she repeats in all her letters that she is a sea-gull.  She is here now.

Dorn.  What do you mean by “here?”

TREPLIEFF.  In the village, at the inn.  She has been there for five days.  I should have gone to see her, but Masha here went, and she refuses to see any one.  Some one told me she had been seen wandering in the fields a mile from here yesterday evening.

Medviedenko.  Yes, I saw her.  She was walking away from here in the direction of the village.  I asked her why she had not been to see us.  She said she would come.