KATERINA. So you are sorry for me, Varia?

VARVARA (looking away). Of course, I am.

KATERINA. Then you love me, don't you? (Kisses her warmly.)

VARVARA. Love you? Of course.

KATERINA. Thank you! you are so sweet, I love you dearly. (Silence) Do you know what I'm thinking?

VARVARA. What?

KATERINA. What a pity people can't fly!

VARVARA. I don't know what you mean.

KATERINA. What a pity people can't fly like birds. Do you know I sometimes fancy I'm a bird. When one stands on a high hill, one feels a longing to fly. One would take a little run, throw up one's arms, and fly away! Couldn't we try it now? (Makes as though she would run.)

VARVARA. What will you make up next?

KATERINA (sighs). How I used to love play and frolic! But in your house I'm growing old and spiritless.

VARVARA. Do you suppose I don't see it?

KATERINA. How different I used to be! I lived without a care in my heart, as free as a bird. Mother adored me, dressed me up like a doll, and never forced me to work; I could do just as I liked. Do you know how I passed my days as a girl? I'll tell you. I used to get up early; if it was summer I used to go to the spring, and bathe, and bring back water with me, and water all the flowers in the house, every one of them. Then mother and I used to go to church, and all the pilgrim women—our house was simply full of pilgrims and holy women. We used to come back from church, and sit down to some work, often embroidery in gold on velvet, while the pilgrim women would tell us where they had been, what they had seen, and the different ways of living in the world, or else they would sing songs. And so the time would pass till dinner. Then the older women lay down for a nap, while I would run about in the garden. Then evensong, and in the evening, stories and singing again. Ah, those were happy days!

VARVARA. But it's pretty much the same with us, if you come to that.

KATERINA. Yes, but here one feels somehow in a cage. And how passionately I loved being in church! It was like stepping into Paradise, and I saw no one and had no thought of time and did not hear when the service was over. It was just as if it were all in one second. Mother used to say that often everyone looked at me and wondered what had come over me! And you know, on a sunny day, such a column of light streamed down from the golden cupola, and a sort of mist moving in the light, like smoke, and at times I seemed to see angels flying and singing in that bright light. And sometimes, dear girl, I would get up at night—we had lamps always burning all over our house,—and fall down in some corner and pray till morning. Or I would go out into the garden early in the morning, when the sun was just rising, fall on my knees and pray and weep, and not know myself what I prayed and wept for; and so they would find me sometimes. And what I was praying for then, what I besought God for—I couldn't say. I wanted nothing, I had enough of everything. And what dreams I used to have, dear Varia, what lovely dreams! Golden temples or gardens of some wonderful sort, and voices of unseen spirits singing, and the sweet scent of cypress and mountains and trees, not such as we always see, but as they are painted in the holy pictures. And sometimes I seemed to be flying, simply flying in the air. I dream sometimes now, but not often, and never dreams like those.

VARVARA. Why, what then?

KATERINA (after a pause). I shall die soon.

VARVARA. What nonsense!

KATERINA. No, I know I shall die. Oh, dear girl, something not good is happening with me, something strange. It has never been like this with me before. There is something in me so incomprehensible. As though I were beginning to live again, or ... I don't know what.

VARVARA. What is the matter with you?

KATERINA (taking her hand). I'll tell you, Varia; some dreadful sin is coming upon me! I have such a terror in my heart, such terror! As though I am standing on the edge of a precipice and someone is pushing me in, and I have nothing to cling to.

[Clutches her head in her hand.]

VARVARA. What's wrong with you? You can't be well.

KATERINA. Yes, I am well.... It would be better if I were ill, it's worse as it is. A dream keeps creeping into my mind, and I cannot get away from it. I try to think—I can't collect my thoughts, I try to pray—but I can't get free by prayer. My lips murmur the words but my heart is far away; as though the evil one were whispering in my ear, and always of such wicked things. And such thoughts rise up within me, that I'm ashamed of myself. What is wrong with me? There's some trouble, something before me! At night I do not sleep, Varia, a sort of murmur haunts me; someone seems speaking so tenderly to me, as it were cooing to me like a dove. And now I never dream, Varia, those old dreams, of trees and mountains in Paradise; but it's as though someone were clasping me passionately—so passionately and leading me, and I follow him, I follow.

VARVARA. Well?

KATERINA. But what things I am saying to you, a young girl like you.

VARVARA (looking about her). You can tell me! I'm worse than you.

KATERINA. Oh what am I to tell you? I'm ashamed.

VARVARA. You've no need! Tell away.

KATERINA. I am stifling, stifling at home, I should like to run away. And the fancy comes to me that if I were my own mistress, I would float down the Volga now, in a boat, to the singing of songs, or I would drive right away clasped close....

VARVARA. But not with your husband.

KATERINA. How do you know that?

VARVARA. As if I didn't know!

KATERINA. Ah, Varia, there is sin in my heart! Alas, how often I have wept, I have done everything I can think of! I can't get free from this sin. I can't escape. Varia, it is wicked, it is a fearful sin—I love someone else!

VARVARA. I'm not likely to be hard upon you! I've sins enough of my own.

KATERINA. What am I to do? I'm at the end of my strength, where can I find help. I'm so wretched, I shall do something dreadful.

VARVARA. Mercy on us! what is coming to you! Come, wait a bit, brother's going away to-morrow, we'll think of something; maybe, you'll be able to see each other.

KATERINA. No, no, that must not be! What are you saying! God forbid!

VARVARA. Why are you frightened?

KATERINA. If I were once to see and speak with him, I should run away from home, I would not go back home for anything in the world.

VARVARA. Oh well, wait a little, and then we shall see.

KATERINA. No, no, don't talk to me, I don't want to hear!

VARVARA. Why wear yourself out for nothing? You may die of grieving, do you suppose they'll be sorry for you? Come, wait a bit. Why, what's the good of making yourself miserable?

[Enter the Old Lady with a stick and two footmen in three-cornered hats behind her.