Dolly cannot understand. No one can. I saw Kitty. So what? I despise everything and everyone. How dare she treat me like I didn’t have a right to be there- to see Dolly? I have a right to be loved, to have friends. I am a good woman. This is ludicrous. They would all just be glad for my unhappiness. No. They do not love me. No one does. My son does not. My daughter is not even my child. Alexei doesn’t love me anymore. I have no one. I don’t want anyone. No one knows me. I don’t even know myself.
What did he want from me? Did he ever love me? No, he just saw a beautiful success, the silent respect for this scandal. I just complimented his vanity- an accessory to his youth. He was proud of me. I was an accomplishment. A notch on the bedpost. For who would think that someone so young, so daring, would come along and sweep me off my feet? He captured a chaste, seemingly loving wife and mother. He tore her world away from her- no, I gave it. Willingly. And that is his triumph. I lost everything, EVERYTHING for him. He just grows farther apart from me. He would be glad to be rid of me.
I’m not ridiculous. I’m not jealous. I just can’t get the satisfaction. I deserve it! Everyone deserves to be loved. It isn’t unreasonable to want to be left weak in the knees, to have someone tell me they need me. Everyone should feel this way. Why is it that I, I who have paid the ultimate price, it elludes me? If he loves me it should be so easy, so so easy. But he is on autopilot. His gestures of love are old and choreographed. We dance around eachother because we know how the steps should look but it isn’t real. It is habit. It is duty. It is obligation. It is not love. It is not real.