He ties himself a napkin, looks around the table once more, and proceeds to eat without pleasure.

ALYONA (to the viewer, as if to herself): Well, yes… Everything is right. It was high time to get used to the fact that you, Alyonushka, are always in the background. And it's still good if it's on the second one. I suspect that in fact, not even on the third.

Eats slowly. Exhales, shakes his head in displeasure. He puts one of the dishes on his plate.

ALYONA (to the viewer, as if to herself): Why should I be surprised? Well, yes, well, the date, what – no. We've been dating for a year. So what? So this seems to be just a landmark date for me. It probably doesn't mean much to my chosen one. No, I understand, of course, anything can happen and anything can happen, but we have been preparing for this day for three weeks. We agreed on the restaurant, the menu, and the table we ordered. I do not believe that nothing could have been thought up to solve my problems there, in the family, and come here. Since he was so eager to celebrate our grand event. But… It seems that my Tolik has never been mine and never will be. And what will happen? And nothing will happen. He will, just as before, throw dust in my eyes and convince me how much he loves me and how he can not live without me… And I, a fool, will listen and believe… everytime.

Alyona eats, takes the phone in her hand, checks if there is anything there, but throws the phone back on the table completely disappointed.

ALYONA (to the audience, frankly to the audience, turning to the audience, but continuing the meal): You condemn me, don't you?

He pauses, not paying much attention to who is thinking what, and slowly eats his food, turning his eyes back to his plate.

ALYONA (to the viewer, as if to herself): Of course you do. I blame myself, too. And myself and people like me. I never thought it would be like this… I'll be dating a married man. A year ago, I would have scratched out the eyes of someone like me. I am well aware that a family is a family. It's sacred. And you don't have to go in there. Either look for a free man, or die an old maid, but do not interfere with someone else's family!

He eats. It pauses.

ALYONA (to the viewer, as if to herself): But … in fairness, I must say that I did not climb! He came by himself! Ha … yes, yes, like in that old movie with Nikulin. Innocent me …

eating. It pauses.

ALYONA (to the viewer, as if to herself): Yes, guilty. Of course, guilty.

He eats. It pauses.

ALYONA (to the viewer, as if to herself): It just so happened that… I'm like nothing so all. But… as they say, everything would be nothing, but everything is nothing! All sorts of coxcombs just stick together. If you meet a normal man – he is definitely already married. The paradox of life. A normal man becomes only in marriage. In fact, marriage makes a man a full-fledged man, and at this moment he becomes interesting for a woman. Yes, that's just bad luck – he is already married. And what is interesting, this man, he becomes attractive to a woman, having passed a certain path in his family, being married. He becomes attractive to a woman, but not to a wife! Most of them. And the woman, probably, as well. Having squeezed out some of its rough edges, it becomes attractive to a man. But not for her husband. Most of them. That's the truth of life. And there is somehow not so everything is glued as it should be, and here it is as if it is impossible. And what is remarkable… Whether you abuse this "can't" or don't abuse it, whether you allow yourself this "can't" or don't allow it – everything goes wrong somehow. And how should it all go? Who knows… Ah, children's naive fairy tales… Where are you, fairy princes? Not married, not defective, not gamblers, not drunks, not parasites, and not mama's boys… Where are you… the princes of my childhood. My distant and unfulfilled dreams.

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