Original subtitles

Konstantin: Well, that's all there is to the theatre.

The curtain and the first wing,

and after that just space.

No decor, just the lake and the horizon.

We'll raise the curtain

sharply at half past nine.

The moon shall be out by then.

Sorin: Splendid!

Konstantin: If Nina is late the whole effect will be ruined.

She ought to be here by now.

Her father and stepmother keep her

under lock and key.

She might as well be in prison

it's so difficult for her to get out of the house.

Your hair and beard are very untidy.

Oughtn't you to go to a barber?

Sorin: It's a tragedy of my life.

When I was young,

I always looked as if I'd been drinking heavily,

you know what I mean?

I never had any success with women.

No indeed.

Why is my sister in such a bad mood?

Konstantin: Why?

Because she's bored.

She's jealous.

She's against me, against the performance,

against my play because

she isn't acting in it and Nina is.

She hasn't even read it yet

and she hates it already.

She's upset because here on this tiny stage

it will be Nina who will be having the success

and not her.

She's a psychological phenomenon, my mother.

She has talent, there's no doubt about that.

She's intelligent.

She's quite likely to break her heart

over a novel.

She nurses the sick like an angel.

But you just try saying one word of praise

about the great Duse when she's around -

Oh! You mustn't praise anyone but her.

She's the one you've got to write about.

You've got to be amazed at her

remarkable performance in "La Dame aux Camelias"

and the fallacy of life.

You see here we are in the country

and there's none of this fuss and flurry,

so she's bored, infructuous.

We're her enemies, every one of us.

She ends up by disliking everything around her.

And she's superstitious.

She's scared to death of three candles

and number thirteen.

And she's miserly.

She has 75,000 rubles in the bank.

I know that for a fact.

But you ask her for a loan,

she'll cry her heart out.

Sorin: You have it fixed in your head

that your mother doesn't like your play,

and that makes you anxious,

and so on and so forth.

You mustn't worry like that.

You're mother adores you.

Konstantin: She loves me.

She loves me not.

She loves me.

She loves me not.

She loves me.

She loves me not.

There you are, you see?

My mother doesn't love me.

Well, of course she doesn't.

She wants to live, to love, to wear bright clothes.

I'm already 25 and I'm a constant reminder

to her that she's no longer young.

When I'm not there, she's 32.

But when I am, she has to admit to 48.

She can test me for that.

She knows very well that theatricalities

means nothing to me.

She adores it.

She sees herself serving humanity.

She thinks of the theatre as some kind of

sacred art.

Well, as far as I'm concerned

the theatre as it is today is dead.

A mere convention.

When the curtain goes up on a room

with three walls,

lit by artificial light

and these great artists,

these high priests of art

start imitating people eating, drinking, loving,

moving about, wearing their humdrum clothes,

when out of a few vulgar images and sentences

they try to extract a moral,

just a very little one.

And that's got to be adaptable and convenient

and safe for domestiques.

Well, I'm offered the same old thing

over and over and over again

in a thousand variations.

I just take to my heels and run like

Maupassant from the Eiffel Tower

because of his vulgarity.

Sorin: You can't do without it.

Without the theatre, I mean.

Konstantin: We need change.

We need new forms.

And if we can't find them,

we better to have nothing at all.

I love my mother.

I love her deeply,

but she leads an absurd life.

She's always drifting around with that novelist.

There's always something about her

in the gossip columns

and it all wears me out.

Sometimes I'm overcome by the sheer egotism

of a simple soul.

I bitterly regret that my mother's a famous actress.

And it seems to me that I would far happier

if she were just an ordinary woman.

Uncle, can you think of any situation

more desperate and detestable?

There she is,

surrounded by a great crowd of celebrities,

artists, writers.

And out of the whole lot

I am the only non-entity.

What am I?

Who am I?

I walked out of my third year at the university

because of circumstances as they say,

over which the editor accepts no responsibility

with no talent without a penny to my name.

According to my passport I am a tradesman

of the city of Kiev,

like my father was

though he was a famous actor as well.

So, when all these famous artists and writers

finally did come descend to pay some attention to me,

it was as if they were measuring my mediocrity.

I could see what they were thinking.

The humiliation was unbearable.

Sorin: Anyway, do tell me

what do you think of that novelist?

I can't make him out somehow.

Hardly opens his mouth.

Konstantin: He's intelligent.

Naive.

Perhaps a little inclined to melancholy.

He's decent enough.

He's not 45 and he's already famous

and bored stiff of the whole thing.

His writing, I'd say is pleasant

and not without talent.

But after Tolstoy and Zola,

I wouldn't want to start reading Trigorin.

Sorin: I must admit, dear boy,

I'm rather drawn to literary men myself.

There was a time in my youth

when there were two things I wanted passionately:

to get married,

and to be a man of writers.

But I did neither. No indeed.

Would have been nice to have been a mediocre writer even, you know.

[Woman yells in the background]

Konstantin: I can hear someone coming.

I can't live without her.

Even the sound of her footsteps is music to me.

I'm so happy, so wonderfully happy.

Nina: I'm not late! No! No! I'm not late!

Konstantin: No, no! You're not late!

Nina: [breathing heavily] I've been so nervous all day.

I was terrified for them to let me come.

Can you just imagine that my stepmother -

and I rode like the wind. [laughs]

But I'm so happy to be here!

Sorin: A little red about the eyes aren't we?

You mustn't do that.

Nina: It's nothing. [laughs]

You see how out of breath I am.

We have to go now if I must hurry.

For God's sake don't let me stay longer.

I can't. I simply can't. Father doesn't know I'm here.

Konstantin: Yes, we ought to be going now. I've--

Sorin: [indecipherable] [starts singing in Russian]

One day I started singing like that,

and an assistant public prosecutor said to me,

"I say, your excellency, you've got a powerful voice."

And he paused and added,

"But an unpleasant one!" [laughs]

Nina: Father and his wife don't like my coming here.

They say the atmosphere's too bohemian.

And they're frightened I want to become an actress.

But I'm drawn here to the lake. I --

-- like a seagull.

My heart belongs to you.

Konstantin: We're alone.

Nina: I thought I heard someone.

Konstantin: No, no, no. There's nobody.

Nina: What kind of tree is that?

Konstantin: An elm.

Nina: Why is it so dark?

Konstantin: Well, it's almost night time.

All things grow dark by now.

Don't leave early, I implore you.

Nina: What can I do? How can I help it?

Konstantin: Shall I come back for you, dear Nina?

I'll stand in the garden all night

looking up at your window.

Nina: [laughs] No, it's impossible!

The watchman would see you.

Treasure isn't used to you yet.

He'd start barking.

Konstantin: I love you.