In "The Seagull" the young artist, _Constantine Treplef_, seeks new
forms, new modes of expression. He is tired of the old academic ways,
the beaten track; he is disgusted with the endless imitative methods, no
one apparently capable of an original thought.
_Constantine_ has written a play; the principal part is to be acted by
_Nina_, a beautiful girl with whom _Constantine_ is in love. He arranges
the first performance to take place on the occasion of his mother's
vacation in the country.
She herself--known as _Mme. Arcadina_--is a famous actress of the old
school. She knows how to show off her charms to advantage, to parade her
beautiful gowns, to faint and die gracefully before the footlights; but
she does not know how to live her part on the stage. _Mme. Arcadina_ is
the type of artist who lacks all conception of the relation between art
and life. Barren of vision and empty of heart, her only criterion is
public approval and material success. Needless to say, she cannot
understand her son. She considers him decadent, a foolish rebel who
wants to undermine the settled canons of dramatic art. _Constantine_
sums up his mother's personality in the following manner:
_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!
_Trigorin._ What is there so fine about it? Day and night I am
obsessed by the same persistent thought; I must write, I must write,
I must write.... No sooner have I finished one story than I am
somehow compelled to write another, then a third, and after the
third a fourth.... I have no rest for myself; I feel that I am
devouring my own life.... I've never satisfied _myself_.... I have
the feeling for nature; it wakes a passion in me, an irresistible
desire to write. But I am something more than a landscape painter;
I'm a citizen as well; I love my country, I love the people; I feel
that if I am a writer I am bound to speak of the people, of its
suffering, of its future, to speak of science, of the rights of man,
etc., etc.; and I speak about it all, volubly, and am attacked
angrily in return by everyone; I dart from side to side like a fox
run down by hounds; I see that life and science fly farther and
farther ahead of me, and I fall farther and farther behind, like the
countryman running after the train; and in the end I feel that the
only thing I can write of is the landscape, and in everything else I
am untrue to life, false to the very marrow of my bones.
_Constantine_ realizes that _Nina_ is slipping away from him. The
situation is aggravated by the constant friction with his mother and his
despair at the lack of encouragement for his art. In a fit of
despondency he attempts suicide, but without success. His mother,
although nursing him back to health, is infuriated at her son's
"foolishness," his inability to adapt himself to conditions, his
impractical ideas. She decides to leave, accompanied by _Trigorin_. On
the day of their departure _Nina_ and _Trigorin_ meet once more. The
girl tells him of her ambition to become an actress, and, encouraged by
him, follows him to the city.
Two years later _Mme. Arcadina_, still full of her idle triumphs,
returns to her estate. _Trigorin_ is again with her still haunted by the
need of copy.
_Constantine_ has in the interim matured considerably. Although he has
made himself heard as a writer, he nevertheless feels that life to-day
has no place for such as he: that sincerity in art is not wanted. His
mother is with him, but she only serves to emphasize the flatness of his
surroundings. He loves her, but her ways jar him and drive him into
seclusion.
_Nina_, too, has returned to her native place, broken in body and
spirit. Partly because of the memory of her past affection for
_Constantine_, and mainly because she learns of _Trigorin's_ presence,
she is drawn to the place where two years before she had dreamed of the
beauty of an artistic career. The cruel struggle for recognition, the
bitter disappointment in her relation with _Trigorin_, the care of a
child and poor health have combined to change the romantic child into a
sad woman.
_Constantine_ still loves her. He pleads with her to go away with him,
to begin a new life. But it is too late. The lure of the footlights is
beckoning to _Nina_; she returns to the stage. _Constantine_, unable to
stand the loneliness of his life and the mercenary demands upon his art,
kills himself.
* * * * *
To the Anglo-Saxon mind such an ending is pessimism,--defeat. Often,
however, apparent defeat is in reality the truest success. For is not
success, as commonly understood, but too frequently bought at the
expense of character and idealism?
"The Seagull" is not defeat. As long as there is still such material in
society as the Constantines--men and women who would rather die than
compromise with the sordidness of life--there is hope for humanity. If
the Constantines perish, it is the social fault,--our indifference to,
and lack of appreciation of, the real values that alone advance the
fuller and more complete life of the race.