[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.)