BORIS.
Calm yourself. (
KATERINA.
Why do you wish for my ruin?
BORIS. How can I wish to injure you, when I love you more than anything in the world, more than myself?
KATERINA.
No, no! You have been the undoing of me.
BORIS.
Am I such a wicked wretch?
KATERINA (
I am lost, lost, lost!
BORIS.
God forbid! I'd rather perish myself!
KATERINA.
Have I not forsaken my home, and come out to you in the night?
BORIS.
You came of your own free will.
KATERINA. I have no will. If I had had any will left of my own, I would not have come to you. (
BORIS (
My life!
KATERINA.
Ah, if death would come quickly now!
BORIS.
Why die when life is so sweet for us?
KATERINA.
No, life is not for me! I know it is not for me!
BORIS.
Don't say such things, please, don't torture me.
KATERINA.
Yes, you are happy, you are free as the air, but I! …
BORIS.
No one shall know of our love. Do you think I have no feeling for you?
KATERINA. Ah! Why feel for me, it's no one's fault. I have come to this of myself. Don't think of me! Anyone may know, anyone may see what I do! (
BORIS.
Come, why think of that, when we are happy now!
KATERINA.
Why, truly! I shall have long years to weep enough hereafter.
BORIS.
And I was so frightened, I thought you would send me away.
KATERINA (
Send you away! How could I? Not with my heart. If you had not come, think
I should have gone to you myself.
BORIS.
I never even guessed you loved me.
KATERINA. I have loved you for so long. It's as though, for my sins, you came here to torment me. Directly I saw you I ceased to belong to myself. From the first moment, I believe, if you had beckoned to me, I would have followed you; to the ends of the earth I would have followed you, and never looked back.
BORIS.
Has your husband gone away for long?
KATERINA.
