Enter Fédya and Sásha.
SÁSHA [confused] Fédya, forgive me if it's unpleasant—but for God's sake hear me!… [Her voice trembles].
Fédya walks up and down the room. Sásha sits down, and follows him with her eyes.
SÁSHA. Fédya! Come home!
FÉDYA. Just listen to me, Sásha … I quite understand you, Sásha dear, and in your place I should do the same—I should try to find some way to bring back the old state of affairs. But if you were me, if—strange as it sounds—you, dear sensitive girl, were in my place … you would certainly have done as I did, and have gone away and ceased to spoil someone else's life.
SÁSHA. Spoil? How? As if Lisa could live without you!
FÉDYA. Oh, Sásha dear! Dear heart!… She can, she can! And she will yet be happy—far happier than with me.
SÁSHA. Never!
FÉDYA. It seems so to you [Takes her hand] … But that's not the point. The chief thing is, that I can't!… You know, one folds a piece of thick paper this way and that a hundred times and still it holds together; but fold it once more, and it comes in half.… So it was with Lisa and me. It hurts me too much to look into her eyes—and she feels the same, believe me!
SÁSHA. No, no!