LIDA (trembling): I'm sorry…, I… I wasn't too different from that schoolgirl in my actions, was I? I'm Sorry, Gregory. You bared your soul to me, and I…

Grisha sighs.

LIDA (trembling): Understand… I've been through a lot. Well … not more than anyone else in the world, that's for sure, but I've seen life on the side of riches and on the side of poverty. Of course, people live very differently.

Of course, the thinking of both is very different, and how many different third parties… But… But there is something that unites them all. And I'm no exception.

Lida looks at Grisha with trepidation.

GRISHA: Go on…

LIDA (trembling): One day I was coming back from work by the back streets. No one was waiting for me at home, so I took my time. I wanted to delay my return to the empty house as long as possible. And I went along an unfamiliar path, by alleys, somehow bypassing, somehow sidetracked.

Grisha listens attentively, very reverently and very seriously regarding this speech.

LIDA (trembling): She went down to the log, crossed the rickety bridge, and looked back.

A small pause, Lida remembers, selects the right words.

LIDA (trembling): There was no free space on the slopes along the small river. Everything was littered with ramshackle houses. Some sheds, buildings. How do people live on these slopes? How do they bridge there? How do they get in there anyway? After all, neither the ambulance nor the fire Department will be able to approach these barracks if anything happens. And they somehow build there, somehow settle, somehow live… After the usual ideas about villas and estates, I was shocked by what I saw. My new life was spent exclusively in apartments, and private sector houses of this type did not come across my eyes. And now, my eyes were drawn to one house. More precisely, not even a house, it was, in fact, no different from the rest of the area. A small fence caught my eye. Quite small. Literally meters and a half wide and in length from the gate to the porch two and a half meters in all. But on this small patch of freedom, a brand-new basketball Hoop was installed. Bench, kennel for the dog. I suddenly realized that Yes… this family lives very poorly, does not have any communications and amenities, which, without thinking about what happens otherwise, are used by residents of large cities. But with all this, the father in this family comes home from work and plays basketball with his son. They just throw a ball together in the same ring, tease a smiling dog and turn around at the call of their wife and mother, who invites their favorite people to dinner.

Lida pauses for a moment. Her face radiates happiness, a certain inner light of openness, affection, kindness and self-denial.

LIDA (trembling): I saw the picture right there. I was suddenly shivering with an inner feeling that was bursting out and gaining momentum. And this feeling was very strong, unusual, unfamiliar to me… I … I suddenly realized what it means to be happy!

GRISHA: That's right… It is happiness generated by the gut, and not external factors that unites us all… And side by side with this very happiness is accompanied by love.

LIDA: Here! But this discovery I made for myself quite recently… literally just now…

Lida and Grisha look at each other warily.

LIDA: do you Know why I just told you about this?

Grisha nods questioningly.

LIDA: Because here with you I experienced the same feeling as I did on the shaky bridge.

Lida looks at Grisha, giving herself up completely in this look. Grisha understands everything, puts his hand to his hair, trying to somehow cope with the excitement.

Lida gets up, goes to a Bush, tears off a blade of grass, twists a ring out of it, and sits down on her knees in front of Grisha, holding out this ring to him.

LIDA: I thought that didn't happen. But it turns out that I still don't know a lot about life. Grisha… I love you, please marry me, please take me…

Lyrical music is playing.

Lida throws herself on the shoulders of Grisha, who gently embraces her, but does not respond.

The music is playing, the couple is embracing, their embrace shows reciprocity.

The music stops.

LIDA (recoiling with hope): Does that mean YES?

GRISHA: That means NO!

LIDA (confused): What? No? Oh, you… YOU!!! Do you know who you are after that?

Lida jumps up from her knees, she is raging.

Grisha tries to say something, quite calmly explain something, but the girl is not up to it. She's raging and raging. Bushes, trees, everything that is nearby in the place of events fall under the attack.

LIDA (angrily): Guys… What a creation! This is simply unbearable. How can I interact with you at all? You… You are somehow strangely distributed. Either suckers, or such that only through the back knee of the third leg something can be understood.

Lida shakes her head in disapproval and rage. He goes to his rope, picks it up, looks at it sorrowfully, throws it on the floor, approaches Grisha with a mute question, wants to ask something, but changes his mind hopelessly. He returns to the rope, picks it up, walks sadly with it to the tree, raises his head to the branch, sighs, begins to try to establish something about his primary idea.

GRISHA (calmly, distantly, as if continuing some friendly warm dialogue): … and I built a small house outside the city. Small, but cozy. Twenty-eight square meters on the first floor, there is a hall and a kitchen. And on the second floor there are two bedrooms of eleven squares. Good place. A plot of land on five acres, the entrance to the house is beautiful, not far from the highway, there is some infrastructure-no. Everyone asked me – why do you need this? That there's nothing to do? You live in a two-bedroom apartment in the center and live, and what is there to do outside the city? Why are you building it? Who is this for?