"No, you'd better let me go to the other room, sir," she murmured, "or else people might think something."
She finally tore herself away; he let her go, giving his word that he would go to bed at once. As he was saying good night, he complained of a bad headache. Sofya Matveevna had left her bag and things in the first room when she came in, intending to spend the night with the proprietors; but she did not manage to get any rest.
During the night, Stepan Trofimovich had an attack of that cholerine so well known to me and to all his friends—the usual outcome with him of any nervous strain or moral shock. Poor Sofya Matveevna did not sleep all night. Since, in tending to the sick man, she had to go in and out of the cottage fairly often through the proprietors' room, the guests and the mistress who were sleeping there kept grumbling and finally even began to curse when she decided towards morning to start the samovar. Stepan Trofimovich was half oblivious throughout the attack; at times he as if fancied that the samovar was being prepared, that he was being given something to drink (raspberry tea), that something warm was being put on his stomach, his chest. But he felt almost every moment that she was there by him; that it was she coming and going getting him out of bed and putting him back in. By three o'clock in the morning he felt better; he sat up, lowered his legs from the bed, and, not thinking of anything, collapsed on the floor in front of her. This was no longer the former kneeling; he simply fell at her feet and kissed the hem of her dress...
"You mustn't, sir, I'm not worthy at all," she murmured, trying to lift him back into bed.
"My savior," he clasped his hands reverently before her. "Vous êtes noble comme une marquise![cciii] I—I am a blackguard! Oh, I have been dishonest all my life ..."
"Calm yourself," Sofya Matveevna pleaded.
"What I told you earlier was all lies—for glory, for magnificence, out of idleness—all, all, to the last word, oh, blackguard, blackguard!"
The cholerine thus turned into another attack, one of hysterical self-condemnation. I have already mentioned these attacks in speaking of his letters to Varvara Petrovna. He suddenly remembered Lise, their meeting the previous morning: "It was so terrible and—there must have been some misfortune, and I didn't ask, I didn't find out! I thought only of myself! Oh, what happened to her, do you know what happened to her?" he besought Sofya Matveevna.
Then he swore that he "would not betray," that he would return to her (that is, to Varvara Petrovna). "We shall go up to her porch" (all this, that is, with Sofya Matveevna) "every day, as she's getting into her carriage to go for a morning promenade, and secretly watch... Oh, I wish her to strike me on the other cheek; it delights me to wish it! I'll turn my other cheek to her comme dans votre livre![cciv] Now, only now do I understand what it means to... offer the other cheek.[203] I never understood before!"
For Sofya Matveevna there followed two of the most frightful days of her life; even now she shudders to recall them. Stepan Trofimovich became so seriously ill that he could not go on the steamer, which this time came on schedule at two o'clock in the afternoon; to leave him alone was more than she could do, so she did not go to Spasov either. By her account, he was even very glad when the steamer left.
"Well, that's fine, that's wonderful," he muttered from the bed, "and I kept being afraid we would have to go. It's so nice here, it's better than anywhere... You won't leave me? Oh, you haven't left me!"
"Here," however, was not so nice at all. He did not want to know anything about her difficulties; his head was filled with nothing but fantasies. His illness he considered a fleeting thing, a trifle, and he gave no thought to it, but thought only of how they would go and sell "these books." He asked her to read him the Gospel.
"It's a long time since I've read it ... in the original. Otherwise someone may ask and I'll make a mistake; one must also be prepared, after all."
She sat down beside him and opened the book.
"You read beautifully," he interrupted her at the very first line. "I see, I see, I was not mistaken!" he added obscurely but rapturously. And generally he was in a constant state of rapture. She read the Sermon on the Mount.[204]
"Assez, assez, mon enfant,[ccv] enough... You can't think that that is not enough!"
And he closed his eyes strengthlessly. He was very weak, but did not yet lose consciousness. Sofya Matveevna moved to get up, thinking he wanted to sleep. But he stopped her:
"My friend, I've been lying all my life. Even when I was telling the truth. I never spoke for the truth, but only for myself, I knew that before, but only now do I see... Oh, where are those friends whom I have insulted with my friendship all my life? And everyone, everyone! Savez-vous,[ccvi] perhaps I'm lying now; certainly I'm also lying now. The worst of it is that I believe myself when I lie. The most difficult thing in life is to live and not lie... and ... and not believe one's own lie, yes, yes, that's precisely it! But wait, that's all for later... You and I together, together!" he added with enthusiasm.
"Stepan Trofimovich," Sofya Matveevna asked timidly, "shouldn't we send to the 'big town' for a doctor?"
He was terribly struck.
"What for? Est-ce que je suis si malade? Mais rien de sérieux.[ccvii] And what do we need strangers for? People will find out and—what will happen then? No, no, no strangers, you and I together, together!"