ABSTRACT
After the magnificently worked-up climax of the third act with the brief interval between the first and second acts, the fourth act opens two years later. The great changes in the lives of most of the characters during this time can be perceived immediately on the rise of the curtain: a large drawing-room has been converted into Konstantin’s study: a writing desk, books on windowsills and chairs, a bookcase—all bear signs of a writer who is busy at work. Nina's affair with Trigorin had ended in disaster and Trigorin’s ‘idea for a short story’, which had filled her with dread foreboding, was to be enacted in life. The only change that has taken place in the lives of the other characters before the beginning of the fourth act has been Masha’s expected marriage to Medvedenko and the birth of their child for whom Masha did not display any perceptible maternal affection.
