KATERINA. Yes, but here one feels somehow in a cage. And how passionately I loved being in church! It was like stepping into Paradise, and I saw no one and had no thought of time and did not hear when the service was over. It was just as if it were all in one second. Mother used to say that often everyone looked at me and wondered what had come over me! And you know, on a sunny day, such a column of light streamed down from the golden cupola, and a sort of mist moving in the light, like smoke, and at times I seemed to see angels flying and singing in that bright light. And sometimes, dear girl, I would get up at night—we had lamps always burning all over our house,—and fall down in some corner and pray till morning. Or I would go out into the garden early in the morning, when the sun was just rising, fall on my knees and pray and weep, and not know myself what I prayed and wept for; and so they would find me sometimes. And what I was praying for then, what I besought God for—I couldn't say. I wanted nothing, I had enough of everything. And what dreams I used to have, dear Varia, what lovely dreams! Golden temples or gardens of some wonderful sort, and voices of unseen spirits singing, and the sweet scent of cypress and mountains and trees, not such as we always see, but as they are painted in the holy pictures. And sometimes I seemed to be flying, simply flying in the air. I dream sometimes now, but not often, and never dreams like those.
VARVARA. Why, what then?
KATERINA (after a pause). I shall die soon.
VARVARA. What nonsense!
KATERINA. No, I know I shall die. Oh, dear girl, something not good is happening with me, something strange. It has never been like this with me before. There is something in me so incomprehensible. As though I were beginning to live again, or ... I don't know what.
VARVARA. What is the matter with you?
KATERINA (taking her hand). I'll tell you, Varia; some dreadful sin is coming upon me! I have such a terror in my heart, such terror! As though I am standing on the edge of a precipice and someone is pushing me in, and I have nothing to cling to.
[Clutches her head in her hand.]
VARVARA. What's wrong with you? You can't be well.
KATERINA. Yes, I am well.... It would be better if I were ill, it's worse as it is. A dream keeps creeping into my mind, and I cannot get away from it. I try to think—I can't collect my thoughts, I try to pray—but I can't get free by prayer. My lips murmur the words but my heart is far away; as though the evil one were whispering in my ear, and always of such wicked things. And such thoughts rise up within me, that I'm ashamed of myself. What is wrong with me? There's some trouble, something before me! At night I do not sleep, Varia, a sort of murmur haunts me; someone seems speaking so tenderly to me, as it were cooing to me like a dove. And now I never dream, Varia, those old dreams, of trees and mountains in Paradise; but it's as though someone were clasping me passionately—so passionately and leading me, and I follow him, I follow.