The Sea-Gull | Page 7

[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!
SORIN. There won't be anything in twice ten thousand years.
TREPLIEFF. Then let them now show us that nothingness.
ARKADINA. Yes, let them--we are asleep.
The curtain rises. A vista opens across the lake. The moon hangs low
above the horizon and is reflected in the water. NINA, dressed in white,
is seen seated on a great rock.
NINA. All men and beasts, lions, eagles, and quails, horned stags,
geese, spiders, silent fish that inhabit the waves, starfish from the sea,
and creatures invisible to the eye--in one word, life--all, all life,
completing the dreary round imposed upon it, has died out at last. A
thousand years have passed since the earth last bore a living creature on
her breast, and the unhappy moon now lights her lamp in vain. No
longer are the cries of storks heard in the meadows, or the drone of
beetles in the groves of limes. All is cold, cold. All is void, void, void.
All is terrible, terrible-- [A pause] The bodies of all living creatures
have dropped to dust, and eternal matter has transformed them into
stones and water and clouds; but their spirits have flowed together into
one, and that great world-soul am I! In me is the spirit of the great
Alexander, the spirit of Napoleon, of Caesar, of Shakespeare, and of the
tiniest leech that swims. In me the consciousness of man has joined
hands with the instinct of the animal; I understand all, all, all, and each
life lives again in me.
[The will-o-the-wisps flicker out along the lake shore.]
ARKADINA. [Whispers] What decadent rubbish is this?
TREPLIEFF. [Imploringly] Mother!
NINA. I am alone. Once in a hundred years my lips are opened, my
voice echoes mournfully across the desert earth, and no one hears. And

you, poor lights of the marsh, you do not hear me. You are engendered
at sunset in the putrid mud, and flit wavering about the lake till dawn,
unconscious, unreasoning, unwarmed by the breath of life. Satan, father
of eternal matter, trembling lest the spark of life should glow in you,
has ordered an unceasing movement of the atoms that compose you,
and so you shift and change for ever. I, the spirit of the universe, I
alone am immutable and eternal. [A pause] Like a captive in a dungeon
deep and void, I know not where I am, nor what awaits me. One thing
only is not hidden from me: in my fierce and obstinate battle with Satan,
the source of the forces of matter, I am destined to be victorious in the
end. Matter and spirit will then be one at last in glorious harmony, and
the reign of freedom will begin on earth. But this can only come to pass
by slow degrees, when after countless eons the moon and earth and
shining Sirius himself shall fall to dust. Until that hour, oh, horror!
horror! horror! [A pause. Two glowing red points are seen shining
across the lake] Satan, my mighty foe, advances; I see his dread and
lurid eyes.
ARKADINA. I smell sulphur. Is that done on purpose?
TREPLIEFF. Yes.
ARKADINA. Oh, I see; that is part of the effect.
TREPLIEFF. Mother!
NINA. He longs for man--
PAULINA. [To DORN] You have taken off your hat again! Put it on,
you will catch cold.
ARKADINA. The doctor has taken off his hat to Satan father of eternal
matter--
TREPLIEFF. [Loudly and angrily] Enough of this! There's an end to
the performance. Down with the curtain!
ARKADINA. Why, what are you so angry about?

TREPLIEFF. [Stamping his foot] The curtain; down with it! [The
curtain falls] Excuse me, I forgot that only a chosen few might write
plays or act them. I have infringed the monopoly. I-- I---
He would like to say more, but waves his hand instead, and goes out to
the left.
ARKADINA. What is the matter with him?
SORIN. You should not handle youthful egoism so roughly, sister.
ARKADINA. What did I say to him?
SORIN. You hurt his feelings.
ARKADINA. But he told me himself that this was all in fun, so I
treated his play as if it were a comedy.
SORIN. Nevertheless---
ARKADINA. Now it appears that he has produced a masterpiece, if
you please! I suppose it was not meant to amuse us at all, but that he
arranged the performance and fumigated