_Treplef._ She is a psychological curiosity, is my mother. A clever and gifted woman, who can cry over a novel, will reel you off all Nekrassov's poems by heart, and is the perfection of a sick nurse; but venture to praise Eleonora Duse before her! Oho! ho! You must praise nobody but her, write about her, shout about her, and go into ecstasies over her wonderful performance in _La Dame aux Camélias_, or _The Fumes of Life_; but as she cannot have these intoxicating pleasures down here in the country, she's bored and gets spiteful.... She loves the stage; she thinks that she is advancing the cause of humanity and her sacred art; but I regard the stage of to-day as mere routine and prejudice. When the curtain goes up and the gifted beings, the high priests of the sacred art, appear by electric light, in a room with three sides to it, representing how people eat, drink, love, walk and wear their jackets; when they strive to squeeze out a moral from the flat, vulgar pictures and the flat, vulgar phrases, a little tiny moral, easy to comprehend and handy for home consumption, when in a thousand variations they offer me always the same thing over and over and over again--then I take to my heels and run, as Maupassant ran from the Eiffel Tower, which crushed his brain by its overwhelming vulgarity.... We must have new formulæ. That's what we want. And if there are none, then it's better to have nothing at all. With _Mme. Arcadina_ is her lover, _Trigorin_, a successful writer. When he began his literary career, he possessed originality and strength. But gradually writing became a habit: the publishers constantly demand new books, and he supplies them. Oh, the slavery of being an "arrived" artist, forging new chains for oneself with every "best seller"! Such is the position of _Trigorin_: he hates his work as the worst drudgery. Exhausted of ideas, all life and human relations serve him only as material for copy. _Nina_, innocent of the ways of the world and saturated with the false romanticism of _Trigorin's_ works, does not see the man but the celebrated artist. She is carried away by his fame and stirred by his presence; an infatuation with him quickly replaces her affection for _Constantine_. To her _Trigorin_ embodies her dream of a brilliant and interesting life. _Nina._ How I envy you, if you but knew it! How different are the lots of different people! Some can hardly drag on their tedious, insignificant existence; they are all alike, all miserable; others, like you, for instance--you are one in a million--are blessed with a brilliant, interesting life, all full of meaning.... You are happy.... What a delightful life yours is!