[G-II-2]

[Deemer]

(Masha enters the garden and speaks to the audience.)

MASHA: Sometimes I ask myself why I go on living. It is so hopeless, my love for Kostya. He will never love me. I know that. And yet I can't stop loving him. Love is a curse.

I could be so good for him. No one understands him like I do. Certainly not Nina. He is hopelessly infatuated with her - and for what? All she will do is drive him to depression and despair.

She doesn't care for him like I do. She doesn't understand his work like I do.

Only I believe that Kostya will become a great writer! I know he will. He'll be remembered long after Trigorin is forgotten.

But will he give me the time of day? It's almost as if he is afraid of me.

So that's my predicament. Unrequited love. I read about it in books but I never imagined it would happen to me, that I'd be living the life of a tragic heroine in a novel. You read about these things but don't believe they happen to real people. Just to people in books.

Well, I'm now a woman in a novel - and the novel is my life!

(She heads inside to the kitchen.)

[follow her]