Here lies
Trigorin, a clever writer, but he was not as good as Turgenieff."

NINA. You must excuse me, but I decline to understand what you are
talking about. The fact is, you have been spoilt by your success.

TRIGORIN. What success have I had? I have never pleased myself; as
a writer, I do not like myself at all. The trouble is that I am made
giddy, as it were, by the fumes of my brain, and often hardly know what
I am writing. I love this lake, these trees, the blue heaven; nature's
voice speaks to me and wakes a feeling of passion in my heart, and I
am overcome by an uncontrollable desire to write. But I am not only
a painter of landscapes, I am a man of the city besides. I love my
country, too, and her people; I feel that, as a writer, it is my duty to
speak of their sorrows, of their future, also of science, of the rights
of man, and so forth. So I write on every subject, and the public hounds
me on all sides, sometimes in anger, and I race and dodge like a fox
with a pack of hounds on his trail. I see life and knowledge flitting
away before me. I am left behind them like a peasant who has missed his
train at a station, and finally I come back to the conclusion that all
I am fit for is to describe landscapes, and that whatever else I attempt
rings abominably false.

NINA. You work too hard to realise the importance of your writings. What
if you are discontented with yourself? To others you appear a great and
splendid man. If I were a writer like you I should devote my whole life
to the service of the Russian people, knowing at the same time that
their welfare depended on their power to rise to the heights I had
attained, and the people should send me before them in a chariot of
triumph.

TRIGORIN. In a chariot? Do you think I am Agamemnon? [They both smile.]

NINA. For the bliss of being a writer or an actress I could endure want,
and disillusionment, and the hatred of my friends, and the pangs of my
own dissatisfaction with myself; but I should demand in return fame,
real, resounding fame! [She covers her face with her hands] Whew! My
head reels!

THE VOICE OF ARKADINA. [From inside the house] Boris! Boris!

TRIGORIN. She is calling me, probably to come and pack, but I don't want
to leave this place. [His eyes rest on the lake] What a blessing such
beauty is!

NINA. Do you see that house there, on the far shore?

TRIGORIN. Yes.

NINA. That was my dead mother's home. I was born there, and have lived
al