The Seagull

halfpenny laughs. My steward takes all my pension and spends it all on the land and the cattle and the bees, and my money is all wasted. The bees die, and the cows die, they never let me have horses.⁠ ⁠… Madame Arkadin Yes, I have money, but you see I am an actress; my dresses alone are enough to ruin me. Sorin You are a kind, good creature⁠ ⁠… I respect you.⁠ ⁠… Yes⁠ ⁠… but there, I got a touch of it again⁠ ⁠… staggers. I feel dizzy clutches at the table. I feel ill and all that. Madame Arkadin Alarmed. Petrusha! Trying to support him. Petrusha, my dear! Calling. Help! help! Enter Treplev with a bandage round his head and Medvedenko. Madame Arkadin He feels faint! Sorin It’s all right, it’s all right! Smiles and drinks some water. It’s passed off⁠ ⁠… and all that. Treplev To his mother. Don’t be frightened, mother, it’s not serious. Uncle often has these attacks now. To his uncle. You must lie down, uncle. Sorin For a little while, yes.⁠ ⁠… But I am going to the town all the same.⁠ ⁠… I’ll lie down a little and then set off.⁠ ⁠… It’s quite natural goes out leaning on his stick. Medvedenko Gives him his arm. There’s a riddle: in the morning on four legs, at noon on two, in the evening on three.⁠ ⁠… Sorin Laughs. Just so. And at night on the back. Thank you, I can manage alone.⁠ ⁠… Medvedenko Oh come, why stand on ceremony! Goes out with Sorin. Madame Arkadin How he frightened me! Treplev It is not good for him to live in the country. He gets depressed. If you would be generous for once, mother, and lend him fifteen hundred or two thousand roubles, he could spend a whole year in town. Madame Arkadin I have no money. I am an actress, not a banker a pause. Treplev Mother, change my bandage. You do it so well. Madame Arkadin Takes out of the medicine cupboard some iodoform and a box with bandaging material. The doctor is late. Treplev He promised to be here at ten, and it is midday already. Madame Arkadin Sit down takes the bandage off his head. It’s like a turban. Yesterday a stranger asked in the kitchen what nationality you were. But you have almost completely healed. There is the merest trifle left kisses him on the head. You won’t do anything naughty again while I am away, will you? Treplev No, mother. It was a moment of mad despair when I could not control myself. It won’t happen again. Kisses her hand. You have such clever hands. I remember, long ago, when you were still acting at the Imperial Theatre⁠—I was little then⁠—there was a fight in our yard and a washerwoman, one of the tenants, was badly beaten. Do you remember? She was picked up senseless⁠ ⁠… you looked after her, took her remedies and washed her children in a tub. Don’t you remember? Madame Arkadin No puts on a fresh bandage. Treplev Two ballet dancers lived in the same house as we did at the time.⁠ ⁠… They used to come to you and have coffee.⁠ ⁠… Madame Arkadin I remember that. Treplev They were very pious a pause. Just lately, these last days, I have loved you as tenderly and completely as when I was a child. I have no one left now but you. Only why, why do you give yourself up to the influence of that man? Madame Arkadin You don’t understand him, Konstantin. He is a very noble character.⁠ ⁠… Treplev And yet when he was told I was going to challenge him, the nobility of his character did not prevent him from funking it. He is going away. Ignominious flight! Madame Arkadin What nonsense! It is I who am asking him to go. Treplev A very noble character! Here you and I are almost quarrelling over him, and at this very moment he is somewhere in the drawing-room or the garden laughing at us⁠ ⁠… developing Nina, trying to convince her finally that he is a genius. Madame Arkadin You take a pleasure in saying unpleasant things to me. I respect that man and beg you not to speak ill of him before me. Treplev And I don’t respect him. You want me to think him a genius too, but forgive me, I can’t tell lies, his books make me sick. Madame Arkadin That’s envy. There’s nothing left for people who have pretension without talent but to attack real talent. Much comfort in that, I must say! Treplev Ironically. Real talent! Wrathfully. I have more talent them all of you put together if it comes to that! Tears the bandage off his head. You, with your hackneyed conventions, have usurped the supremacy in art and consider nothing real and legitimate but what you do yourselves; everything else you stifle and suppress. I don’t believe in you! I don’t believe in you or in him! Madame Arkadin Decadent! Treplev Get away to your charming theatre and act there in your paltry, stupid plays! Madame Arkadin I have never acted in such plays. Let me alone! You are not capable of writing even a wretched burlesque! You are nothing but a Kiev shopman! living on other people! Treplev You miser! Madame Arkadin You ragged beggar! Treplev sits down and weeps quietly. Madame Arkadin Nonentity! Walking up and down in agitation. Don’t cry. You mustn’t cry weeps. Don’t⁠ ⁠… kisses him on the forehead, on the cheeks and on the head. My dear child, forgive me.⁠ ⁠… Forgive your sinful mother. Forgive me, you know I am wretched. Treplev Puts his arms round her. If only you knew! I have lost everything! She does not love me, and now I cannot write⁠ ⁠… all my hopes are gone.⁠ ⁠… Madame Arkadin Don’t despair⁠ ⁠… Everything will come right. He is going away directly, she will love you again wipes away his tears. Give over. We have made it up now. Treplev Kisses her hands. Yes, mother. Madame Arkadin Tenderly. Make it up