"Oh, not at all."
"That's a pity, and I thought . . . what made me think that? You'll guide me all the same, because I've chosen you."
"This is absurd, Aglaya Ivanovna."
"I want it, I want to run away from home!" she cried, and again her eyes flashed. "If you don't agree, then I'll marry Gavrila Ardalionovich. I don't want to be considered a loathsome woman at home and be accused of God knows what."
"Are you out of your mind?" the prince nearly jumped up from his place. "What do they accuse you of? Who accuses you?"
"At home, everybody, my mother, my sisters, my father, Prince Shch., even your loathsome Kolya! If they don't say it outright, they think it. I told them all so to their faces, my mother and my father. Mamanwas ill for the whole day; and the next day Alexandra and papa told me I didn't understand what I was babbling myself and what kind of words I'd spoken. At which point I just snapped at them that I already understood everything, all the words, that I was not a little girl, that I had read two novels by Paul de Kock 22on purpose two years ago in order to learn about everything. When she heard that, mamannearly fainted."
A strange thought suddenly flashed in the prince's head. He looked intently at Aglaya and smiled.
It was even hard for him to believe that this was the same haughty girl sitting before him who had once so proudly and arrogantly read Gavrila Ardalionovich's letter to him. He could not understand how such an arrogant, stern beauty could turn out to be such a child, who even nowmight actually not understand all the words.
"Have you always lived at home, Aglaya Ivanovna?" he asked. "I mean to say, you haven't gone anywhere, to any kind of school, never studied at an institute?"
"I've never gone anywhere; I've always sat at home, bottled up, and I'll get married right out of the bottle. Why are you smiling again? I notice that you, too, seem to be laughing at me and to be on their side," she added, with a menacing frown. "Don't make me angry, I don't know what's the matter with me as it is . . . I'm sure you've come here completely convinced that I'm in love with you and was inviting you to a tryst," she snapped irritably.
"I actually was afraid of that yesterday," the prince blurted out simple-heartedly (he was very embarrassed), "but today I'm sure that you . . ."
"What!" Aglaya cried, and her lower lip suddenly trembled. "You were afraid that I . . . you dared to think that I . . . Lord! Maybe you suspected that I invited you here in order to lure you into my nets, and then they would find us here and force you to marry me . . ."
"Aglaya Ivanovna! Aren't you ashamed? How could such a dirty thought be born in your pure, innocent heart? I'll bet you yourself don't believe a word you've said and . . . you don't know what you're saying!"
Aglaya sat stubbornly looking down, as if she herself was frightened at what she had said.
"I'm not ashamed at all," she murmured. "How do you know my heart is innocent? How did you dare to send me a love letter then?"
"A love letter? My letter—a love letter? That letter was most respectful, that letter poured from my heart at the most painful moment of my life! I remembered about you then as of some sort of light 23. . . I . . ."
"Well, all right, all right," she suddenly interrupted, no longer in the same tone at all, but in complete repentance and almost in alarm; she even bent towards him, still trying not to look straight at him, and made as if to touch his shoulder, to ask him more convincingly not to be angry, "all right," she added, terribly shamefaced, "I feel that I used a very stupid expression. I did it just like that... to test you. Take it as if I hadn't said it. And if I offended you, forgive me. Please don't look straight at me, turn your head. You said it was a very dirty thought: I said it on purpose to needle you. Sometimes I myself am afraid of what I want to say, and then suddenly I say it. You said just now that you wrote that letter at the most painful moment of your life ... I know what moment it was," she said softly, again looking at the ground.
"Oh, if only you could know everything!"
"I do know everything!" she cried with new agitation. "You lived in the same rooms for a whole month then with that loathsome woman you ran away with . . ."
She did not blush now but turned pale as she said it, and she suddenly got up from her place, as if forgetting herself, but, recollecting herself, she at once sat down; her lower lip went on trembling for a long time. The silence went on for about a minute. The prince was terribly struck by the suddenness of her outburst and did not know what to ascribe it to.
"I don't love you at all," she suddenly snapped out.
The prince did not reply; again there was a minute of silence.
"I love Gavrila Ardalionovich . . ." she said in a quick patter, but barely audibly and bowing her head still more.
"That's not true," said the prince, almost in a whisper.
"You mean I'm lying? It is true; I gave him my promise, two days ago, on this same bench."
The prince was alarmed and thought for a moment.
"That's not true," he said resolutely, "you've made it all up."
"How wonderfully polite. Know that he has mended his ways; he loves me more than life itself. He burned his hand in front of me just to prove that he loves me more than life itself."
"Burned his hand?"
"Yes, his hand. Believe it or don't—it's all the same to me."
The prince fell silent again. There was no joking in Aglaya's words; she was angry.
"What, did he bring a candle here with him, if it happened here? Otherwise I can't imagine . . ."
"Yes ... a candle. What's so incredible?"
"Whole or in a candlestick?"
"Well, yes . . . no . . . half a candle ... a candle end ... a whole candle—it's all the same, leave me alone! . . . And he brought matches, if you like. He lit the candle and held his finger over the flame for a whole half hour; can't that be?"
"I saw him yesterday; there was nothing wrong with his fingers."
Aglaya suddenly burst out laughing, just like a child.
"You know why I lied to you just now?" she suddenly turned to the prince with the most childlike trustfulness and with laughter still trembling on her lips. "Because when you lie, if you skillfully put in something not quite usual, something eccentric, well, you know, something that happens quite rarely or even never, the lie becomes much more believable. I've noticed that. Only with me it came out badly, because I wasn't able to . . ."
Suddenly she frowned again, as if recollecting herself.
"If," she turned to the prince, looking at him gravely and even sadly, "if I read to you that time about the 'poor knight,' it was because I wanted ... to praise you for one thing, but at the same time I wanted to stigmatize you for your behavior and to show you that I know everything ..."