TRIGORIN

A famous writer, asked what his life is like, confesses that the compulsion to write never once lets him simply live it.

1:06Dramatic30s–40sAdvanced

The speech124 words · 3 beats

0:00 / 1:06

Off-book

I see a cloud shaped like a grand piano, and I think: I must put that in a story somewhere — a cloud went by shaped like a grand piano. Every sentence, every word I say or hear, I lock away in my storeroom: it might come in useful.

I have no rest from myself. I feel I am eating up my own life — that for the honey I give away to strangers I strip the pollen from my best flowers and tear the flowers up by the roots. Am I mad? Do the people who love me talk to me like a sane man? "What are you writing now? What have you got for us next?" Always the same, always.turn

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Speaking to: Nina, a young woman who idolizes the writing life.
What just happened: Nina has just told Trigorin his life must be glorious. He almost laughs — and then, honestly, tries to tell her what it actually is.
Objective: To puncture her worship without losing her — to be truly seen for once.
The turn: The catalogue of a working writer's habits tips into the confession that he is eating his own life for the honey he gives strangers.
Watch out for: It can play as glamour or as complaint; it's neither. It's a man describing a beautiful affliction he would not give up.

Full work: The Seagull New to the vocabulary? What’s a beat? →

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TRIGORIN

The Seagull · Anton Chekhov · 1:06 · 124 words

Day and night I am held in the grip of one thought: I must be writing, I must be writing, I must. Here I am talking to you, I'm excited — and not for one second do I forget that there's an unfinished story waiting for me on my desk. I see a cloud shaped like a grand piano, and I think: I must put that in a story somewhere — a cloud went by shaped like a grand piano. Every sentence, every word I say or hear, I lock away in my storeroom: it might come in useful. I have no rest from myself. I feel I am eating up my own life — that for the honey I give away to strangers I strip the pollen from my best flowers and tear the flowers up by the roots. Am I mad? Do the people who love me talk to me like a sane man? "What are you writing now? What have you got for us next?" Always the same, always.

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