“And you are laughing?”
“No, I laughed just now by accident, because I knew you would ask, ‘And now.’ And I smiled at that, because when one guesses right one always does smile. . . .”
It seemed quite strange to me; I had never seen her so much on her guard, almost timid, indeed, and embarrassed.
His eyes devoured her.
“I know that you don’t love me . . . and — you don’t love me at all?”
“Perhaps not at all. I don’t love you,” she added firmly, without smiling or flushing. “Yes, I did love you, but not for long. I very soon got over it.”
“I know, I know, you saw that it was not what you wanted, but . . . what do you want? Explain that once more. . . .”
“Have I ever explained that to you? What do I want? Why, I’m the most ordinary woman; I’m a peaceful person. I like . . . I like cheerful people.”
“Cheerful?”
“You see, I don’t know even how to talk to you. I believe that if you could have loved me less, I should have loved you then,” she smiled timidly again. The most absolute sincerity was transparent in her answer; and was it possible she did not realise that her answer was the most final summing up of their relations, explaining everything. Oh, how well he must have understood that! But he looked at her and smiled strangely.
“Is Büring a cheerful person?” he went on, questioning her.
“He ought not to trouble you at all,” she answered with some haste. “I’m marrying him simply because with him I shall be most at peace. My whole heart remains in my own keeping.”
“They say that you have grown fond of society, of the fashionable world again?”
“Not fond of it. I know that there is just the same disorderliness in good society as everywhere else; but the outer forms are still attractive, so that if one lives only to pass the time, one can do it better there than anywhere.”
“I’ve often heard the word ‘disorderliness’ of late; you used to be afraid of my disorderliness, too — chains, ideas, and imbecilities!”
“No, it was not quite that. . . .”
“What then, for God’s sake tell me all, frankly.”
“Well, I’ll tell you frankly, for I look on you as a man of great intellect. . . . I always felt there was something ridiculous about you.” When she had said this she suddenly flushed crimson, as though she feared she had said something fearfully indiscreet.
“For what you have just said I can forgive you a great deal,” he commented strangely.
“I hadn’t finished,” she said hurriedly, still flushing. “It’s I who am ridiculous to talk to you like a fool.”
“No, you are not ridiculous, you are only a depraved, worldly woman,” he said, turning horribly white. “I did not finish either, when I asked you why you had come. Would you like me to finish? There is a document, a letter in existence, and you’re awfully afraid of it, because if that letter comes into your father’s hands, he may curse you, and cut you out of his will. You’re afraid of that letter, and you’ve come for that letter,” he brought out. He was shaking all over, and his teeth were almost chattering. She listened to him with a despondent and pained expression of face.
“I know that you can do all sorts of things to harm me,” she said, as if warding off his words, “but I have come not so much to persuade you not to persecute me, as to see you yourself. I’ve been wanting to meet you very much for a long time. But I find you just the same as ever,” she added suddenly, as though carried away by a special and striking thought, and even by some strange sudden emotion.
“Did you hope to see me different, after my letter about your depravity? Tell me, did you come here without any fear?”
“I came because I once loved you; but do you know, I beg you not to threaten me, please, with anything. While we are now together, don’t remind me of my evil thoughts and feelings. If you could talk to me of something else I should be very glad. Let threats come afterwards; but it should be different now. . . . I came really to see you for a minute and to hear you. Oh, well, if you can’t help it, kill me straight off, only don’t threaten me and don’t torture yourself before me,” she concluded, looking at him in strange expectation, as though she really thought he might kill her. He got up from his seat again, and looking at her with glowing eyes, said resolutely:
“While you are here you will suffer not the slightest annoyance.”
“Oh yes, your word of honour,” she said, smiling.
“No, not only because I gave my word of honour in my letter, but because I want to think of you all night. . . .”
“To torture yourself?”
“I picture you in my mind whenever I’m alone. I do nothing but talk to you. I go into some squalid, dirty hole, and as a contrast you appear to me at once. But you always laugh at me as you do now. . . .” He said this as though he were beside himself. . . .
“I have never laughed at you, never!” she exclaimed in a voice full of feeling, and with a look of the greatest compassion in her face. “In coming here I tried my utmost to do it so that you should have no reason to be mortified,” she added suddenly. “I came here to tell you that I almost love you. . . . Forgive me, perhaps I used the wrong words,” she went on hurriedly.
He laughed.
“How is it you cannot dissemble? Why is it you are such a simple creature? Why is it you’re not like all the rest? . . . Why, how can you tell a man you are turning away that you ‘almost love him’?”
“It’s only that I could not express myself,” she put in hurriedly. “I used the wrong words; it’s because I’ve always felt abashed and unable to talk to you from the first time I met you, and if I used the wrong words, saying that I almost love you, in my thought it was almost so — so that’s why I said so, though I love you with that . . . well, with that GENERAL love with which one loves every one and which one is never ashamed to own. . . .”
He listened in silence, fixing his glowing eyes upon her.
“I am offending you, of course,” he went on, as though beside himself. “This must really be what they call passion. . . . All I know is that in your presence I am done for, in your absence, too. It’s just the same whether you are there or not, wherever you may be you are always before me. I know, too, that I can hate you intensely, more than I can love you. But I’ve long given up thinking about anything now — it’s all the same to me. I am only sorry I should love a woman like you.”
His voice broke; he went on, as it were, gasping for breath.
“What is it to you? You think it wild of me to talk like that!” He smiled a pale smile. “I believe, if only that would charm you, I would be ready to stand for thirty years like a post on one leg. . . . I see you are sorry for me; your face says ‘I would love you if I could but I can’t. . . .’ Yes? Never mind, I’ve no pride. I’m ready to take any charity from you like a beggar — do you hear, any . . . a beggar has no pride.”
She got up and went to him. “Dear friend,” she said, with inexpressible feeling in her face, touching his shoulder with her hand, “I can’t hear you talk like that! I shall think of you all my life as some one most precious, great-hearted, as some thing most sacred of all that I respect and Love. Andrey Petrovitch, understand what I say. Why, it’s not for nothing I’ve come here now, dear friend . . . dear to me then and now: I shall never forget how deeply you stirred my mind when first we met. Let us part as friends, and you will be for me the most earnest and dearest thought in my whole life.”
“Let us part and then I will love you; I will love you — only let us part. Listen,” he brought out, perfectly white, “grant me one charity more: don’t love me, don’t live with me, let us never meet; I will be your slave if you summon me, and I will vanish at once if you don’t want to see me, or hear me, only . . . ONLY DON’T MARRY ANYONE!”
It sent a pang to my heart to hear those words. That naïvely humiliating entreaty was the more pitiful, the more heartrending for being so flagrant and impossible. Yes, indeed, he was asking charity! Could he imagine she would consent? Yet he had humbled himself to put it to the test; he had tried entreating her! This depth of spiritual degradation was insufferable to watch. Every feature in her face seemed suddenly distorted with pain, but before she had time to utter a word, he suddenly realised what he had done.