SCENE X KATERINA (alone, holding the key in her hand). The things she thinks of doing! Ah, she's a mad girl, really mad! Here is ruin! Here it is! Fling it away, fling it far away, drop it into the river, that it may never be found. It burns the hand like fire. (Musing) This is how we women come to ruin. How can anyone be happy in bondage? One may be driven to anything. Many a one is glad if she gets the chance; she flings herself headlong. But how can they, without thinking, without reflecting! Easy is the path that leads to misfortune! And then tears and anguish all your life: your bondage is bitterer than ever. (Silence) But bitter is a life of bondage, ah, how bitter! Who does not weep in it! Most of all, we women. Here am I now! I am fretting away my life, and I see no loophole of light and hope before me! And I never shall see it, that's certain! It'll be worse as it goes on. And now this wickedness too has come upon me. (Muses) If it were not for my mother-in-law! ... She is crushing me.... She has made the house hateful to me.... I loathe the very walls because of her. (Looks dreamily at the key) Throw it away? Of course, I must throw it away. And how came it into my hands? For my temptation, for my undoing. (Listens) Ah, someone is coming. How my heart is beating! (hides the key in her pocket) No! ... No one! ... Why was I so frightened? And I have put away the key.... Well, that's a sign it is to be! Fate itself, it seems, wills it! And where is the sin if I do look at him just once, from a distance. Even if I speak to him, still there's no harm in that! But what I said to Tihon ... why, he would not have it himself. And maybe, such a chance will not come again all my life long. Then I may well weep to myself-that there was a chance and I had not sense to seize it. But why talk, why cheat myself? If I...

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