[K-I-1]

[Deemer]

(Polina tries to embrace Dorn after they enter the kitchen but he moves away.)

POLINA: What's the matter?

DORN: I think your husband is suspicious.

POLINA: Ilya doesn't pay attention to anything I do.

DORN: I think you're wrong.

POLINA: Are you rejecting me?

DORN: Of course not.

POLINA: Then why can't I embrace you?

DORN: Because someone could walk in at any moment.

POLINA: I get so tired of this.

DORN: I know, darling. But what choice do we have?

POLINA: I can think of one.

DORN: I'm too old to run away with a woman.

POLINA: Or too old to run away with this woman?

DORN: Any woman.

POLINA: You're not as old as you like to think.

DORN: I usually feel older than I am.

POLINA: You use that as an excuse.

DORN: Think what you like.

POLINA: I don't want to fight.

DORN: Then try to live in the situation the way it is.

POLINA: You don't think we can change our situation?

DORN: Not as much as you like to believe.

POLINA: Then why go on, if we have no freedom?

DORN: I didn't say we have no freedom. Our freedom is limited.

POLINA: By what? What we dare to do, I think.

DORN: No. By what is usually called reality. I'm not a bird. I can't fly. I am not a young man who has the energy to sweep a woman off her feet and race off into the uncertain future with her. I am a retired doctor. Who gets older by the day.

POLINA: Then what do we do?

DORN: We've been doing well enough.

POLINA: For you, maybe.

DORN: For both of us. Unless it's you who wants to stop. Is it?

POLINA: Of course not.

DORN: If the wheel's not broken, don't fix it.

POLINA: But it is broken.

DORN: There you go again. Will you accept our fate or not?

POLINA: Fate? That's an impressive word.

DORN: The reality of our situation. Call it what you want.

POLINA: I'm tired of sneaking around, is all I'm trying to say.

DORN: Which is a matter of attitude. You could as easily find sneaking around dangerous and exciting. It could lend romance to what we're doing.

POLINA: I feel tired and frustrated, not romantic.

DORN: Your attiutude alone, my dear. You create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

POLINA: This kind of talk is giving me a headache.

DORN: All the better, if it gets rid of some of the nagging ideas that make you unhappy.

POLINA: Sometimes I listen to what you say and think you are talking in circles.

DORN: Maybe you are confusing these circles with something else. If you think you've heard all this before, maybe that's because the old cliche is true: "There's nothing new beneath the sun."

POLINA: Which is another depressing idea of yours.

DORN: I am not depressed, my dear! I am trying to live in the real world the way it presents itself to me.

POLINA: Let's talk about something else.

DORN: Fine.

(A silence.)

POLINA: I wish we didn't have to watch Konstantin's play. Do you think it will be any good?

DORN: Sshh, someone's coming.

(Ilya and Trigorin enter.)

[continue]