I don't ask you to say yes... I just ask you to give me a chance... a hope. If I thought I might win you, I'd do anything... anything! I'd wait for you... I'd work for you... I'd worship you! Oceana! (He stops.) May I... May I take your hand? (She does not give it.) Ah, no! I have no right! Oceana, listen to me! I have thought that I was in love before... but it was just childish, it was nothing like this. This has been a revelation to me... it makes all the world seem different to me. And just see how suddenly it's come... why, yesterday I was a boy! Yesterday I thought some things were interesting... and to-day I wonder how I could have cared about them. Nothing seems the same to me. And it all happened at once, it was like an explosion... the first instant I laid eyes on you I knew that you were the one woman I could ever love. And I said to myself, she will laugh at you. (He hesitates.) (OCEANA: No, I won't laugh at you.) I tried to keep it to myself, but I couldn't... not if I were to be hanged for it. I'm just... just torn out of myself. I'm trembling with delight, and then I'm plunged into despair, and then I stop to think and I'm terrified. For I don't know what I can do. Everything in my life is gone--I won't know how to live if you send me away. (OCEANA: Freddy, come sit down here. Be rational now.) Yes. (He sits watching her, in a kind of daze.)

Freddy Monologue from The Naturewoman

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