Nina and Trigorin

by Olha Kolesnyk  

Nina: Are you sure in what you are talking about? Maybe you are just too concentrated on yourself? You behave like a mouse. You are always seeing what you want to see.

Trigorin: Nina, dear, what are you talking about?
Nina [takes his hand and pulls Trigorin with her to the doors out of his house] Let me try to persuade you.
Trigorin: Do you think that I can see something can deny me, lame duck?
[They are running out of the house to Channel of Griboyedova and streets around it]
Nina [readjusts her hair] No, do you see that old man with a dark beard?
Trigorin [screws up his eye] Where? [Pause] Oh, that one who sales flowers? [A man in dirty cloth and long nails sales flowers in bucket]
Nina: Yes. Do you think he lives much better life than yours?
Trigorin: I didn’t tell you about my style of life. I tried to describe my addiction to papers, to novels, to stories. But all these are nothing! Nobody thinks I am talented, no, everything was written by someone else before me. I mean not only Tolstoy or Turgenev. It seems to me there is nothing I can contribute to world’s literature. Maybe I was born in wrong time, in wrong city, wrong day? Why does everything I wrote described as clever but always there are a lot of “but…”?
Nina: Maybe your readers and critics just can not accept that you are really talented? Maybe they are jealous of you? Maybe it is hard to understand depth of your thought and ideas.
Trigorin: Dear Nina, I am pleased that you try to help me. But I am old enough to make my own decisions. Look to all these people around us [waves his hand on people around]! I am completely sure nobody knows about author Trigorin. Moreover they tell you they don’t need writers! They need bread and milk, warm blanket and firewood in the winter. They wont mention about literature.
Nina: At the same time, who knows if they will like more Dostoevskiy’s work or yours? If we give those flower-seller two books, yours one and, for instance, Tolstoy’s one, without signatures by writers, will he like Tolstoy’s or yours more? I think it is  a real hard question.
Trigorin [looks at Nina surprised] Oh, Nina…
Nina: [angrily] May I end? Why do you think people think Tolstoy and Dostoevskiy are talented? Don’t be so a babe in arms to think these people read their books and found there a treasure with eternal ideas. Editors, professors in the universities and other creators just found a pearl to their minds in books by Tolstoy and Dostoevskyi. Then critics looked more attentively to all these books and found also deep thought and statements. Only after all these things ordinary person from the street is going to read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Moreover, these ordinary people (I also called that flower-seller ordinary person) know that books by Turgenev, Tolstoy are famous and upper-class read all these books before these ordinary people. And our workers and flower-seller know about this fact before reading these books. Even if these ordinary people are not able to find deep concerned ideas in books by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, they will be proud of reading these books and tell everyone they what they did it. Why? I think there are several answers. First, they are educated much enough to read serious as they think books so they look more like upper-class and nobles. Second one is connected with first, reading books, which are popular in rich and famous world made these ordinary people closer to upper-class, nobility. If they say someone, for example, to their neighbors, they had read Tolstoy and found there deep ideas or descriptions, they will get better authority inside their circle of communication. But if these ordinary people, workers in little markets, this flowers-seller get a book with not so readable author in upper-class or nobility, they won’t pay attention on it. Why? Because this author has no connection with something higher, nobody said that books by this author are genius. So, do you understand what I want to tell you? These ordinary people will be prejudice about your book as less successful than Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, deeper in sense than Turgenev’s and so on before they will read it. Question is not what is written by all mentioned writers including you. Question is in your readers, in human psychology.
Trigorin: Well…
Nina [exclaimed] I am still not disposed. Look, if somebody after reading story or novel by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky don’t like story or novel in general, people will call him uneducated. [imitates harsh voice] “How, he doesn’t like Tolstoy? He must be silly!” The same reaction will be if someone likes your book more than Tolstoy’s. [again in harsh voice\manner] “He had no taste, he just don’t know anything! What a silly person!” Therefore, don’t be disappointed with all you told me earlier. This is human nature and laws of our society. We need some examples and heroes to follow. But you have your own way to follow. Don’t be worried. [holds him]
Trigorin: [embarrasses] Nina, thank you.
Nina: [almost whispered] I show you that flower-seller in order to prove my ideas.
Trigorin: [alerted] Nina, don’t do nothing.
Nina: [smiles] I have a book by Tolstoy right now in my bag. But I have also yours one, which you’re going to publish next week. I am positive that flower-seller hasn’t ever read more than schoolbooks in his parochial school. I will propose him to read these two books and tell us which one he’ll like more and explain why.
Trigorin: [shocked] For God’s sake! Don’t do it!
Nina: [doesn’t react] I will through off the folder so he will not know who writers were! Yes [destroyed folders from the books she take out from her bag] Come take the walk with me to flower-seller.
[Pause]
Trigorin: Sorry, I can’t.
[Scene in the Trigorin’s house]
Nina: Look in the mirror, are you proud of all you’ve done?
Trigorin: [nervously] Flower-seller agreed to read books?
Nina: Yes, he agreed. We’ll know his thoughts about the books in next Tuesday.
Trigorin: [gives a deep sigh] Will I sleep at nights next seven days?