Belyaev is agitated, wants to say something, and cannot.

You’re not going?

BELYAEV

(Bows, makes as if to leave, and, after some struggle with himself, comes back) No, I can’t go . . .

Natalya Petrovna glances at him for the first time.

I can’t go like this! . . . Listen, Natalya Petrovna, you just told me . . . you don’t want me to go away with a bad memory of you, but I also don’t want you to remember me as a man who . . . My God! I don’t know how to say it . . . Forgive me, Natalya Petrovna . . . I don’t know how to talk with ladies . . . Up to now I’ve known . . . a very different sort of women. You say we weren’t fated to know each other, but, for pity’s sake, could I, a simple, almost uneducated boy, even dream of becoming close to you? Think who you are and who I am! Think, could I dare to dream . . . Refined as you are . . . But what do I mean, refined . . . Look at me . . . this old jacket, and your scented dresses . . . Good God! Yes, I was afraid of you. I’m afraid of you even now . . . I looked at you, I’m not exaggerating, as a higher being, and yet . . . you, you tell me that you love me . . . you, Natalya Petrovna! Me! . . . I feel my heart beating as it’s never beaten in all my life. It’s beating not just because I’m amazed, it’s not because I feel flattered . . . no! . . . it’s something else now . . . But I . . . whatever you like, but I can’t just go like this!

NATALYA

(After a pause, as if to herself) What have I done!

BELYAEV

Natalya Petrovna, for God’s sake, believe me . . .

NATALYA

(In a changed voice) Alexei Nikolaich, if I didn’t know you to be an honorable man, a man incapable of lying, I might think God knows what. I might regret having been so frank. But I trust you. I don’t want to hide my feelings from you: I’m grateful to you for what you’ve just said to me. I now know why we didn’t become closer . . . It wasn’t that you found me personally repellent . . . It was only my position . . . (Stops) It’s better this way, of course . . . now it will be easier for me to give you up . . . Good-bye.

She makes as if to leave.

BELYAEV

(After a pause) Natalya Petrovna, I know I can’t stay here . . . but I can’t tell you all that’s going on inside me. You love me . . . it frightens me even to say those words . . . it’s all so new to me . . . it’s as if I’m seeing you and hearing you for the first time, but one thing I do feel: I must leave . . . I feel that anything can happen . . .