VARVARA. Well?

KATERINA. But what things I am saying to you, a young girl like you.

VARVARA (looking about her). You can tell me! I'm worse than you.

KATERINA. Oh what am I to tell you? I'm ashamed.

VARVARA. You've no need! Tell away.

KATERINA. I am stifling, stifling at home, I should like to run away. And the fancy comes to me that if I were my own mistress, I would float down the Volga now, in a boat, to the singing of songs, or I would drive right away clasped close....

VARVARA. But not with your husband.

KATERINA. How do you know that?

VARVARA. As if I didn't know!

KATERINA. Ah, Varia, there is sin in my heart! Alas, how often I have wept, I have done everything I can think of! I can't get free from this sin. I can't escape. Varia, it is wicked, it is a fearful sin—I love someone else!