Dorn. [Sings]

“Oh, tell me not that youth is wasted.”

Paulina.  You were so enchanted by the conversation of Madame Arkadina that you did not even notice the cold.  Confess that you admire her.

Dorn.  I am fifty-five years old.

Paulina.  A trifle.  That is not old for a man.  You have kept your looks magnificently, and women still like you.

Dorn.  What are you trying to tell me?

Paulina.  You men are all ready to go down on your knees to an actress, all of you.

Dorn. [Sings]

“Once more I stand before thee.”

It is only right that artists should be made much of by society and treated differently from, let us say, merchants.  It is a kind of idealism.

Paulina.  When women have loved you and thrown themselves at your head, has that been idealism?

Dorn. [Shrugging his shoulders] I can’t say.  There has been a great deal that was admirable in my relations with women.  In me they liked, above all, the superior doctor.  Ten years ago, you remember, I was the only decent doctor they had in this part of the country—­and then, I have always acted like a man of honour.

Paulina. [Seizes his hand] Dearest!

Dorn.  Be quiet!  Here they come.

Arkadina comes in on SORIN’S arm; also Trigorin, Shamraeff, Medviedenko, and Masha.

Shamraeff.  She acted most beautifully at the Poltava Fair in 1873; she was really magnificent.  But tell me, too, where Tchadin the comedian is now?  He was inimitable as Rasplueff, better than Sadofski.  Where is he now?

Arkadina.  Don’t ask me where all those antediluvians are!  I know nothing about them. [She sits down.]

Shamraeff. [Sighing] Pashka Tchadin!  There are none left like him.  The stage is not what it was in his time.  There were sturdy oaks growing on it then, where now but stumps remain.

Dorn.  It is true that we have few dazzling geniuses these days, but, on the other hand, the average of acting is much higher.

Shamraeff.  I cannot agree with you; however, that is a matter of taste, de gustibus.

Enter TREPLIEFF from behind the stage.

Arkadina.  When will the play begin, my dear boy?

TREPLIEFF.  In a moment.  I must ask you to have patience.

Arkadina. [Quoting from Hamlet] My son,

     “Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul;
     And there I see such black grained spots
     As will not leave their tinct.”

[A horn is blown behind the stage.]

TREPLIEFF.  Attention, ladies and gentlemen!  The play is about to begin. [A pause] I shall commence. [He taps the door with a stick, and speaks in a loud voice] O, ye time-honoured, ancient mists that drive at night across the surface of this lake, blind you our eyes with sleep, and show us in our dreams that which will be in twice ten thousand years!