ACT THREE

[B-III-1]

[Deemer]

(Polina and Dorn have just finished rowing on the lake. They stand by the boathouse and kiss. Dorn breaks their embrace.)

POLINA: Let's not go back yet.

DORN: What do you want to do?

POLINA: I don't care. I'm just not ready to go back.

DORN: Kostya amuses himself here by shooting at the seagulls.

POLINA: He's not well.

DORN: He's inflicted with a very common disease. Sentimentalism.

POLINA: Do you suppose I have this disease?

DORN: You tell me.

POLINA: No, I've learned that some things are best left unsaid.

DORN: Yes, they are.

POLINA: Sometimes I wonder if loving you is better than the way I was.

DORN: Do you expect me to reply to that?

POLINA: No. I was thinking aloud.

DORN: I think that was one of those things best left unsaid.

POLINA: Our time together is so fleeting. We don't really have a future, do we?

DORN: We have as much future as people can expect to have.

POLINA: You are such a cynic.

DORN: Or a realist.

POLINA: I applaud Kostya for trying to kill himself. At least he feels passion for her. At least he would die for her.

DORN: Now you are sounding like a sentimentalist.

POLINA: What is wrong with passion? It's better than the dreary life we live.

DORN: Speak for yourself.

POLINA: The great doctor. You're so superior to the rest of us.

DORN: Happier.

POLINA: (laughing) You, happy?

DORN: Yes, I call myself happy. Because the truth about life does not frighten me.

POLINA: At times like this, we seem so far apart.

DORN: Sometimes we are very far apart.

POLINA: Then why continue? Why go to so much trouble for our fleeting moments together?

DORN: We must enjoy them. Or perhaps we've become masochists.

POLINA: Maybe that's it. We prefer our misery together than our misery separately.

DORN: You didn't enjoy our time on the lake?

POLINA: It was lovely.

DORN: I think so.

POLINA: Let's not spoil it.

DORN: I don't think we're spoiling it.

POLINA: Hold me.

DORN: Someone may be watching.

POLINA: I don't care.

(He briefly holds her.)

DORN: I don't understand why he hasn't accosted you when he knows.

POLINA: He doesn't care. Unless there's a scandal. He'd care about a scandal.

DORN: A strange man.

POLINA: Yes.

DORN: And poor Masha, hopelessly in love with Kostya.

POLINA: She is thinking of marrying Semyou.

DORN: Really?

POLINA: She could never be happy with him. She won't listen to me.

DORN: Of course not. It is human nature to reinvent the wheel.

POLINA: What do you mean?

DORN: We never learn from the mistakes of others. We seldom learn from our own mistakes. At any rate, young people do not listen to their parents. They repeat the same mistakes, generation after generation. Reinventing the wheel.

POLINA: She's never listened to me, that's true enough. But what a grim view. What about progress?

DORN: What about it? We invent new tools, new weapons, new machinery. The human soul stays the same.

POLINA: You're depressing me.

DORN: Why should the truth be depressing?

POLINA: I'm going back to the house.

DORN: Good idea.

POLINA: Aren't you coming?

DORN: Part of the way. We don't want to push our luck.

POLINA: Sometimes I think that deep down you are a coward.

DORN: Do I deny it?

(They leave for the house, but will separate along the way.)

[follow Polina]

[follow Dorn]