. [Thoughtfully]
Either you exaggerate my fame, or else, if it exists, all I can say is
that one simply doesn't feel fame in any way.

NINA. But when you read about yourself in the papers?

TRIGORIN. If the critics praise me, I am happy; if they condemn me, I am
out of sorts for the next two days.

NINA. This is a wonderful world. If you only knew how I envy you! Men
are born to different destinies. Some dully drag a weary, useless life
behind them, lost in the crowd, unhappy, while to one out of a million,
as to you, for instance, comes a bright destiny full of interest and
meaning. You are lucky.

TRIGORIN. I, lucky? [He shrugs his shoulders] H-m--I hear you talking
about fame, and happiness, and bright destinies, and those fine words of
yours mean as much to me--forgive my saying so--as sweetmeats do, which
I never eat. You are very young, and very kind.

NINA. Your life is beautiful.

TRIGORIN. I see nothing especially lovely about it. [He looks at his
watch] Excuse me, I must go at once, and begin writing again. I am in a
hurry. [He laughs] You have stepped on my pet corn, as they say, and I
am getting excited, and a little cross. Let us discuss this bright and
beautiful life of mine, though. [After a few moments' thought] Violent
obsessions sometimes lay hold of a man: he may, for instance, think day
and night of nothing but the moon. I have such a moon. Day and night I
am held in the grip of one besetting thought, to write, write, write!
Hardly have I finished one book than something urges me to write
another, and then a third, and then a fourth--I write ceaselessly. I am,
as it were, on a treadmill. I hurry for ever from one story to another,
and can't help myself. Do you see anything bright and beautiful in that?
Oh, it is a wild life! Even now, thrilled as I am by talking to you, I
do not forget for an instant that an unfinished story is awaiting me. My
eye falls on that cloud there, which has the shape of a grand piano; I
instantly make a mental note that I must remember to mention in my story
a cloud floating by that looked like a grand piano. I smell heliotrope;
I mutter to myself: a sickly smell, the colour worn by widows; I must
remember that in writing my next description of a summer evening. I
catch an idea in every sentence of yours or of my own, and hasten to
lock all these treasures in my literary store-room, thinking that some
day they may be useful to me. As soon as I stop working I rush off