En Tjechovmonolog i engelsk översättning som jag tyvärr forfarande minns. Det är mycket annat jag mycket hellre skulle vilja minnas. Dessvärre väljer man inte sina minnen.
NINA:
Why do you say that you have kissed the ground I walked on?
You should kill me rather. [She bends over the table]
I am so tired. If I could only rest--rest. [She raises her head]
I am a seagull. No, no, I am an actress. [She hears ARKADINA and TRIGORIN laughing in the distance, runs to the door on the left and looks through the keyhole]
He is there too. [She goes back to TREPLIEFF]
Ah, well, no matter. He does not believe in the theatre.
He used to laugh at my dreams, so that little by little I became downhearted and ceased to believe in it too.
Then came all the cares of love, the continual anxiety about my littleone, so that I soon grew trivial and spiritless, and played my parts without meaning.
I never knew what to do with my hands, and I could notwalk properly or control my voice.
You cannot imagine the state of mind of one who knows as he goes through a play how terribly badly he is acting.
I am a seagull. No, no, that is not what I meant to say.
Do you remember how you shot a seagull once?
A man chanced to pass that way and destroyed it out of idleness.
That is an idea for a short story, but it is not what I meant to say. [She passes her hand across her forehead]
What was I saying? Oh, yes, the stage.
I have changed now. Now I am a real actress.
I act with joy, with exaltation, I am intoxicated by it, and feel that I am superb.
I have been walking and walking, and thinking and thinking, ever since I have been here, and I feel the strength of my spirit growing in me every day.
I know now, I understand at last, Constantine, that for us, whether we write or act, it is not the honour and glory of which I have dreamt that is important, it is the strength to endure.
One must know how to bear one's cross, and one must have faith.
I believe, and so do not suffer so much, and when I think of my calling I do not fear life.
ur: Anton Checkov (1895) The Seagull
