The Seagull: Nina and Treplev

Treplev

Nina! Nina! It’s you... you... I knew it, I could feel it, all day my heart was aching, I couldn’t bear it. Oh, my sweet one, my darling, she’s come! We won’t cry, we won’t.

Nina

There’s someone here.

Treplev

No one.

Nina

Lock the doors, or they’ll come in.

Treplev

No one will come in.

Nina

I know Irina Nikolayevna is here. Lock the doors...

Treplev

There’s no lock. I’ll put a chair against it. Don’t be afraid, no one will come in.

Nina

Let me look at you. It’s warm, it’s nice... This used to be the drawing room. Have I changed very much?

Treplev

Yes... You’re thinner, and your eyes have grown bigger. Nina, it’s so strange to be seeing you. Why wouldn’t you let me come to you? Why haven’t you come before now? I know you’ve been staying here almost a week... Every day I went to where you were staying, several times a day, and stood under your window like a beggar.

Nina

I was afraid you hated me. Every night I dream that you’re looking at me and you don’t know who I am. If only you knew! Ever since I came I’ve been walking about here... by the lake. I came up to your house so many times and couldn’t bring myself to come in. Let’s sit down. Let’s sit down and talk and talk. It’s good here, warm, cozy... Do you hear? The wind? There’s a passage in Turgenev: “Happy is the man who on a night like this has a roof over his head, who has a warm corner of his own.” I’m a seagull... No, that’s not it. What was I saying? Yes... Turgenev... “And may the Lord help all homeless wanderers...” It’s nothing.

Treplev

Nina, you’re doing it again... Nina!

Nina

It’s nothing, it makes me feel better... I haven’t cried for two years. Late last night I went into the garden to see if our theater was still there. And it’s still standing. I cried for the first time in two years, and something lifted, my heart felt clearer. You see, I’m not crying now. So. You’ve become a writer... You’re a writer, I’m an actress... We’ve both been pulled into the whirlpool... I used to live so happily, like a child: you wake up in the morning and start to sing. I loved you, I dreamed of being famous, and now? Early tomorrow morning I go to Yelets, third class... with the peasants, and in Yelets the educated merchants will pester me with their compliments. Life is coarse!

Treplev

Why Yelets?

Nina

I’ve taken an engagement for the whole winter. It’s time to go.

Treplev

Nina, I cursed you, I hated you, I tore up your letters and your photographs, but every minute I knew my soul was bound to you forever. I can’t stop loving you, Nina. Ever since I lost you and started to be published, life has been unbearable. I’m in agony... It’s as if my youth had been torn away all at once, and I feel as though I’ve already lived ninety years on this earth. I call out to you, I kiss the ground you walked on; wherever I look I see your face, that tender smile that shone on me in the best years of my life...

Nina

Why does he talk like that, why does he talk like that?

Treplev

I’m alone, no one’s affection warms me, I’m cold, as cold as if I lived underground, and whatever I write is all dry, hard, gloomy. Stay here, Nina, I’m begging you, or let me go with you! Nina, why? For God’s sake, Nina...