Day 17 of 125

Day 17: Asleep Through the Second Act

In the buffet of the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, during the interval of Chekhov's The Seagull, an engineer and his friend, a literature teacher, talk about the play.

How to study this lesson 3 steps
  1. Read the situation under the title.
  2. Read the dialogue and its translation. The audio for this lesson is coming soon.
  3. Spend at least 30 minutes listening to native Russian audio, for example from the Resources page. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it yet.

Dialogue

Audio for this lesson is coming soon. For now, read the dialogue and its translation.

Keys: E hide English · ← → previous / next day

  1. A

    Бери бутерброды с сёмгой, пока очередь небольшая, антракт короткий. Постановка, конечно, сильная, в целом очень... глубокая.

    Grab the salmon sandwiches while the queue's short, the interval isn't long. The production's powerful, of course, very... profound, on the whole.

  2. B

    Согласен. А как тебе сцена с чайкой во втором акте? По-моему, в ней ключ ко всей пьесе.

    Agreed. And what did you make of the seagull scene in the second act? To my mind, it's the key to the whole play.

  3. A

    Сцена с чайкой... Неоднозначная, я бы сказал, в каком-то смысле там всё сказано без слов.

    The seagull scene... Ambiguous, I'd say; in a sense, everything is said there without words.

  4. B

    Ну-ну. Без слов, значит. А кто, по-твоему, её убил и зачем?

    Oh, sure. Without words, you say. And who, in your view, killed it, and why?

  5. A

    Это же Чехов, у него всё символично. Её убил... в каком-то смысле сам автор, как художник убивает мечту.

    It's Chekhov, everything's symbolic with him. It was killed... in a sense, by the author himself, the way an artist kills a dream.

  6. B

    Глубоко копаешь. А что Тригорин записал себе в книжечку, когда её увидел?

    You're digging deep. And what did Trigorin jot down in his little notebook when he saw it?

  7. A

    Что-то про жизнь, дословно не вспомню. Меня гораздо больше тронуло, когда Нина сказала: «Я чайка».

    Something about life, I can't remember it word for word. I was much more moved when Nina said, 'I am a seagull.'

  8. B

    Эти слова она скажет только в четвёртом акте, мой дорогой, а мы посмотрели два. Не лукавь, ты носом клевал.

    She only says that in the fourth act, my dear fellow, and we've seen two. Don't fib, you were nodding off.

  9. A

    Ну задремал, каюсь, но на минутку. А «Я чайка» я ещё со школы помню, это все знают.

    All right, I dozed off, I confess, but only for a minute. And 'I am a seagull' I remember from school, everybody knows that.

  10. B

    Вот оно, чеховское ружьё: висело со школы и выстрелило в самый неподходящий момент. Третий акт смотришь с открытыми глазами.

    There you go, Chekhov's gun: it's been hanging there since school and went off at the worst possible moment. You're watching the third act with your eyes open.

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