Lectures on Russian literature

The doctor explains: just an impression, lives there seemed to meander and fuse—rather in the ways, he adds, as the world-soul in your play—by the way where is she now, that young actress? (A very natural transition.) Treplev tells Dorn about Nina. She had a love affair with Trigorin, had a baby, the baby died; she is not a good actress though quite a professional one by now, plays big parts but acts them coarsely, no taste, gasps, gesticulates. There are moments when one feels talent in some outcry of hers, as in the way she dies, but these are but moments.

Dorn inquires whether she has talent and Treplev answers that it is difficult to say. (Note that Nina is much in the same position as Treplev in their artistic achievements.) He goes on to tell that he has followed her from town to town wherever she played, but she never let him come near. Sometimes she writes. After Trigorin left her she has seemed a little wrong in the head. She signs her letters sea gull. (Note that Treplev has forgotten the connection.) He adds that she is here now, roams about, does not dare come, nor does she want anyone to speak to her.

sorin. She was a charming girl.

dorn. What's that?

sorin. I said she was a charming girl.

Then Arkadina comes back from the station with Trigorin. (Intertwined with these scenes we are shown the pitiful plight of Medvedenko whom his father-in-law bullies.) Trigorin and Treplev manage to shake hands. Trigorin has brought a copy of a monthly review from Moscow with a story by Treplev, and with the flippant geniality of a famous writer to a lesser star tells him that people are interested, find him mysterious.

Presently all of them but Treplev sit down to play a game of lotto as they always do on rainy evenings. Treplev to himself, looking through the monthly : 'Trigorin has read his own stuff but has not even cut the pages of my story.' We follow the lotto game, and this is a very typical and beautiful Chekhov scene. It seems that in order to attain the heights of his genius he must put his people at ease, make them feel at home, make them comfortable, though this does not preclude slight boredom, gloomy little thoughts, stirring recollections, etc. And though here again the characters are shown in their oddities or habits—Sorin again dozes, Trigorin talks of angling, Arkadina recalls her stage successes—this is much more naturally done than in the false dramatic background of the preceding act, because it is quite natural that in the same place, with the same people collected, two years later, the old tricks would be gently and rather pathetically repeated. It is hinted that critics have handled Treplev, the young author, very roughly. The numbers of the lotto are called out. Arkadina has never read a line of her son's stuff. Then they interrupt the game to go and have supper, all except Treplev, who remains brooding over his manuscripts. A monologue—it is so good that we do not mind the convention: 'I have talked so much about new forms—and now I feel that little by little I myself slip into routine.' (This may be applied—like most of the professional observations in the play—to Chekhov himself, in a way certainly, but only when he has lapses as in the previous act.) Treplev reads: ' 'Her pale face framed by her dark hair.' That's rotten, that 'framed,' ' he exclaims and strikes it out. 'I shall begin with the hero being awakened by the sound of rain—and to hell with the rest. The description of the moonshine is much too long and elaborate. Trigorin has created his own tricks; for him it is easy. He will show the neck of a broken bottle glistening on a river-dam and the black shadow under the mill-wheel— that's all and the moonlight is ready; but with me it is all the 'tremulous light' and 'softly twinkling stars' and the distant sounds of a piano, which 'dissolved in the soft intoxicating night air.' It is horrible, awful. . . .' (Here we get, incidentally, a beautifully defined difference between Chekhov's art and that of his contemporaries.)

Next follows the meeting with Nina, which from the point of view of the traditional stage may be considered the main and what I called satisfying scene of the play. Actually it is very fine. Her way of talking is much more in Chekhov's line here, when he is no more concerned with depicting pure, eager, romantic maidens. She is tired, upset, unhappy, a jumble of 181

Vladimir Nabokov: Lectures on Russian literature

recollections and details. She loves Trigorin still and ignores the tremendous emotion of Treplev, who tries for the last time to make her consent to stay with him. 'I am a sea gull,' she says without any special connection. 'Now I'm mixing things up. You remember you once shot a sea gull? A man happened to pass, saw the bird, and killed it. Idea for a short story. No . .

. I'm getting mixed up again.' 'Stay a bit, I shall give you something to eat,' says Treplev, clinging at a last straw. It is all very finely done. She refuses, speaks again of her love for Trigorin who has so grossly dropped her, then switches to the monologue of Treplev's play, in the beginning of the first act, and hurriedly departs. The end of the act is magnificent.

treplev (after a pause). Pity if somebody meets her in the garden and then tells mamma. It may distress mamma. [Note these are his last words, because now after coolly destroying his writings he opens the door on the right and goes out into an inner room, where presently he will shoot himself.]

dorn (struggling to push open the door on the left [against which a few moments ago treplev had moved an armchair so as not to he disturbed while talking to nina]). Queer. . . . The door seems locked. (At last he comes in and pushes away the armchair.) Hm. . . . Kind of a steeplechase. [The others too come back from supper] (arkadina, the shamraevs, masha, trigorin, the servant with the wine and beer. )

arkadina. Place it here. The beer is for Trigorin. We shall drink and go on with the game. Let us sit down. [Candles are lighted.] (shamraev leads trigorin toward a chest of drawers.)

shamraev. Look, here's the bird you asked me to stuff last summer.

trigorin. What bird? I don't remember. (Thinks it over.) No, really, I don't remember. (A shot is heard on the right. They all start.)

arkadina ( frightened). What was that?

dorn. I know. Something has probably exploded in that medicine chest of mine. Don't worry. ( He goes out and half a minute later [ while the rest are settling down to their game] comes back.) Yes, I was right. A bottle of ether has burst. (He hums) 'Oh, maiden, again I am bound by your charms. . . .'

arkadina (as she sits down at the table). Ugh, it gave me a fright. It reminded me of that time when. . . . (She covers her face with her hands. ) It has made me quite faint.

dorn (perusing the review, to trigorin). A month or two ago there was an article here ... a letter from America . . . and I wanted to ask you . . . (He leads trigorin [gently] toward the front of the stage.) . . . because, you see, I am very much interested in the question. (In a slightly lower voice)— Will you, please, take Mrs. Arkadin to some other room? The fact is that her son had shot himself.

Curtain.

This is, I repeat, a remarkable ending. Note that the tradition of the backstage suicide is broken by the chief character concerned not realizing what has happened but imitating, as it were, the real reaction by recalling a former occasion. Note, too, that it is the doctor speaking, and so there is no need to call one in order to have the audience quite satisfied. Note, finally, that whereas before his unsuccessful suicide Treplev spoke of doing it, there has not been a single hint in the scene—and still it is perfectly and completely motivated.*

*

This final paragraph was deleted by VN. Ed.

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Vladimir Nabokov: Lectures on Russian literature

MAXIM GORKI (1868-1936)

A page from Nabokov's lecture on 'On The Rafts,'

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Vladimir Nabokov: Lectures on Russian literature