Ina tells him that whatever he may appear to himself, to others he appears great and wonderful. For the joy of being a writer or an artist, she says, she would bear the hate of her friends, want, disappointment; she would live in an attic and eat dry crusts. “I would suffer from my own imperfections, but in return I should demand fame, real noisy fame.” Here the voice of Arkadina is heard calling Trigorin. He observes the sea-gull; she tells him that Constantine killed it. Trigorin makes a note in his notebook. “What are you writing?” she says. “An idea has occurred to me,” he answers, “an idea for a short story: On the banks of a lake a young girl lives from her infancy onwards. She loves the lake like a sea-gull, she is happy and free like a sea-gull; but unexpectedly a man comes and sees her, and out of mere idleness kills her, just like this sea-gull.” Here Arkadina again calls out that they are not going to Moscow after all. This is the end of the second act. At the third act, Arkadina is about to leave the country for Moscow. Things have come to a crisis. Ina has fallen in love with the author, and Constantine’s jealousy and grief have reached such a point that he has tried to kill himself and failed, and now he has challenged Trigorin to a duel. The latter has taken no notice of this, and is about to leave for Moscow with Arkadina. Ina begs him before he goes to say good-bye to her. Arkadina discusses with her brother her son’s strange and violent behaviour. He points out that the youth’s position is intolerable. He is a clever boy, full of talent, and he is obliged to live in the country without any money, without a situation. He is ashamed of this, and afraid of his idleness. In any case, he tells his sister, she ought to give him some money, he has not even got an overcoat; to which she answers that she has not got any money. She is an artist, and needs every penny for her own expenses. Her brother scoffs at this, and she gets annoyed. A scene follows between the mother and the son, which begins by an exchange of loving and tender words, and which finishes in a violent quarrel. The mother is putting a new bandage on his head, on the place where he had shot himself. “During the last few days,” says Constantine, “I have loved you as tenderly as when I was a child; but why do you submit to the influence of that man?”--meaning Trigorin. And out of this the quarrel arises. Constantine says, “You wish me to consider him a genius. His works make me sick.” To which his mother answers, “That is jealousy. People who have no talent and who are pretentious, have nothing better to do than to abuse those who have real talent.” Here Constantine flies into a passion, tears the bandage off his head, and cries out, “You people only admit and recognise what you do yourselves. You trample and stifle everything else!” Then his rage dies out, he cries and asks forgiveness, and says, “If you only knew, I have lost everything. She