TREPLIEFF. [Kissing her hands] No, no, no!
NINA. I have been in a fever all day, I was so afraid my father would prevent my coming, but he and my stepmother have just gone driving. The sky is clear, the moon is rising. How I hurried to get here! How I urged my horse to go faster and faster! [Laughing] I am so glad to see you! [She shakes hands with SORIN.]
SORIN. Oho! Your eyes look as if you had been crying. You mustn’t do that.
NINA. It is nothing, nothing. Do let us hurry. I must go in half an hour. No, no, for heaven’s sake do not urge me to stay. My father doesn’t know I am here.
TREPLIEFF. As a matter of fact, it is time to begin now. I must call the audience.
SORIN. Let me call them—and all—I am going this minute. [He goes toward the right, begins to sing “The Two Grenadiers,” then stops.] I was singing that once when a fellow-lawyer said to me: “You have a powerful voice, sir.” Then he thought a moment and added, “But it is a disagreeable one!” [He goes out laughing.]
NINA. My father and his wife never will let me come here; they call this place Bohemia and are afraid I shall become an actress. But this lake attracts me as it does the gulls. My heart is full of you. [She glances about her.]
TREPLIEFF. We are alone.
NINA. Isn’t that some one over there?
TREPLIEFF. No. [They kiss one another.]