He runs his eye over what he has already written.

TREPLIEFF. I have talked a great deal about new forms of art, but I feel
myself gradually slipping into the beaten track. [He reads] "The
placard cried it from the wall--a pale face in a frame of dusky
hair"--cried--frame--that is stupid. [He scratches out what he has
written] I shall begin again from the place where my hero is wakened by
the noise of the rain, but what follows must go. This description of a
moonlight night is long and stilted. Trigorin has worked out a process
of his own, and descriptions are easy for him. He writes that the neck
of a broken bottle lying on the bank glittered in the moonlight, and
that the shadows lay black under the mill-wheel. There you have a
moonlight night before your eyes, but I speak of the shimmering light,
the twinkling stars, the distant sounds of a piano melting into the
still and scented air, and the result is abominable. [A pause] The
conviction is gradually forcing itself upon me that good literature is
not a question of forms new or old, but of ideas that must pour freely
from the author's heart, without his bothering his head about any forms
whatsoever. [A knock is heard at the window nearest the table] What was
that? [He looks out of the window] I can't see anything. [He opens the
glass door and looks out into the garden] I heard some one run down
the steps. [He calls] Who is there? [He goes out, and is heard walking
quickly along the terrace. In a few minutes he comes back with NINA
ZARIETCHNAYA] Oh, Nina, Nina!

NINA lays her head on TREPLIEFF'S breast and stifles her sobs.

TREPLIEFF. [Deeply moved] Nina, Nina! It is you--you! I felt you would
come; all day my heart has been aching for you. [He takes off her hat
and cloak] My darling, my beloved has come back to me! We mustn't cry,