I’m telling you all this because you’re...

I’m telling you all this because you’re a writer and can use it. Quite honestly, if he’d wounded himself seriously I couldn’t have gone on living one minute. I’m quite brave, though, so I simply decided to wrench this love out of my heart and uproot it. By getting married. To Medvedenko. To be hopelessly in love, just waiting, waiting for years on end --. But when I’m married I shan’t bother about love, new worries will drive out old, and anyway it’ll make a change, won’t it? Shall we have another? Don’t look at me like that, women drink a lot more than you think. A few do it openly like me, but most keep quiet about it. Oh yes they do. And it’s always vodka or brandy. [Clinks glasses] All the best. You’re a decent sort, I’m sorry we shan’t see each other again. My schoolmaster’s not all that bright, but he is kind. He’s poor and very much in love with me. I’m sorry for him, and for his old mother too. Ah well, let me wish you all the best. Remember me kindly. [Shakes him firmly by the hand] Thanks for being so nice. Send me your books, and mind you write something in them, not ‘with respects’. Just put: ‘To Masha, who doesn’t know where she comes from or what she’s doing on this earth’. Good-bye.