for you to come here in order to catch you in atrap, so that they should find us here together, and make you marryme--”
“Aglaya Ivanovna, aren’t you ashamed of saying such a thing? How couldsuch a horrible idea enter your sweet, innocent heart? I am certain youdon’t believe a word of what you say, and probably you don’t even knowwhat you are talking about.”
Aglaya sat with her eyes on the ground; she seemed to have alarmed evenherself by what she had said.
“No, I’m not; I’m not a bit ashamed!” she murmured. “And how do youknow my heart is innocent? And how dared you send me a love-letter thattime?”
“_Love-letter?_ My letter a love-letter? That letter was the mostrespectful of letters; it went straight from my heart, at what wasperhaps the most painful moment of my life! I thought of you at the timeas a kind of light. I--”
“Well, very well, very well!” she said, but quite in a different tone.She was remorseful now, and bent forward to touch his shoulder, thoughstill trying not to look him in the face, as if the more persuasivelyto beg him not to be angry with her. “Very well,” she continued, lookingthoroughly ashamed of herself, “I feel that I said a very foolish thing.I only did it just to try you. Take it as unsaid, and if I offended you,forgive me. Don’t look straight at me like that, please; turn your headaway. You called it a ‘horrible idea’; I only said it to shock you.Very often I am myself afraid of saying what I intend to say, and out itcomes all the same. You have just told me that you wrote that letter atthe most painful moment of your life. I know what moment that was!” sheadded softly, looking at the ground again.
“Oh, if you could know all!”
“I _do_ know all!” she cried, with another burst of indignation. “You wereliving in the same house as that horrible woman with whom you ran away.” She did not blush as she said this; on the contrary, she grew pale,and started from her seat, apparently oblivious of what she did, andimmediately sat down again. Her lip continued to tremble for a longtime.
There was silence for a moment. The prince was taken aback by thesuddenness of this last reply, and did not know to what he shouldattribute it.
“I don’t love you a bit!” she said suddenly, just as though the wordshad exploded from her mouth.
The prince did not answer, and there was silence again. “I love GavrilaArdalionovitch,” she said, quickly; but hardly audibly, and with herhead bent lower than ever.
“That is _not_ true,” said the prince, in an equally low voice.
“What! I tell stories, do I? It is true! I gave him my promise a coupleof days ago on this very seat.”
The prince was startled, and reflected for a moment.
“It is not true,” he repeated, decidedly; “you have just invented it!”
“You are wonderfully polite. You know he is greatly improved. He lovesme better than his life. He let his hand burn before my very eyes inorder to prove to me that he loved me better than his life!”
“He burned his hand!”
“Yes, believe it or not! It’s all the same to me!”
The prince sat silent once more. Aglaya did not seem to be joking; shewas too angry for that.
“What! he brought a candle with him to this place? That is, if theepisode happened here; otherwise I can’t.”
“Yes, a candle! What’s there improbable about that?”
“A whole one, and in a candlestick?”
“Yes--no--half a candle--an end, you know--no, it was a whole candle;it’s all the same. Be quiet, can’t you! He brought a box of matches too,if you like, and then lighted the candle and held his finger in it forhalf an hour and more!--There! Can’t that be?”
“I saw him yesterday, and his fingers were all right!”
Aglaya suddenly burst out laughing, as simply as a child.
“Do you know why I have just told you these lies?” She appealed to theprince, of a sudden, with the most childlike candour, and with thelaugh still trembling on her lips. “Because when one tells a lie, if oneinsists on something unusual and eccentric--something too ‘out of theway’ for anything, you know--the more impossible the thing is, the moreplausible does the lie sound. I’ve noticed this. But I managed it badly;I didn’t know how to work it.” She suddenly frowned again at this pointas though at some sudden unpleasant recollection.
“If”--she began, looking seriously and even sadly at him--“if when Iread you all that about the ‘poor knight,’ I wished to-to praise youfor one thing--I also wished to show you that I knew all--and did notapprove of your conduct.”
“You are very unfair to me, and to that unfortunate woman of whom youspoke just now in such dreadful terms, Aglaya.”
“Because I know all, all--and that is why I speak so. I know very wellhow you--half a year since--offered her your hand before everybody.Don’t interrupt me. You see, I am merely stating facts without anycomment upon them. After that she ran away with Rogojin. Then you livedwith her at some village or town, and she ran away from you.” (Aglayablushed dreadfully.) “Then she returned to Rogojin again, who lovesher like a madman. Then you--like a wise man as you are--came back hereafter her as soon as ever you heard that she had returned to Petersburg.Yesterday evening you sprang forward to protect her, and just now youdreamed about her. You see, I know all. You did come back here for her,for her--now didn’t you?”
“Yes--for her!” said the prince softly and sadly, and bending his headdown, quite unconscious of the fact that Aglaya was gazing at him witheyes which burned like live coals. “I came to find out something--Idon’t believe in her future happiness as Rogojin’s wife, although--in aword, I did not know how to help her or what to do for her--but I came,on the chance.”
He glanced at Aglaya, who was listening with a look of hatred on herface.
“If you came without knowing why, I suppose you love her very muchindeed!” she said at last.
“No,” said the prince, “no, I do not love her. Oh! if you only knew withwhat horror I recall the time I spent with her!”
A shudder seemed to sweep over his whole body at the recollection.
“Tell me about it,” said Aglaya.
“There is nothing which you might not hear. Why I should wish to tellyou, and only you, this experience of mine, I really cannot say;perhaps it really is because I love you very much. This unhappy woman ispersuaded that she is the most hopeless, fallen creature in the world.Oh, do not condemn her! Do not cast stones at her! She has suffered toomuch already in the consciousness of her own undeserved shame.
“And she is not guilty--oh God!--Every moment she bemoans and bewailsherself, and cries out that she does not admit any guilt, that she isthe victim of circumstances--the victim of a wicked libertine.
“But whatever she may say, remember that she does not believe itherself,--remember that she will believe nothing but that she is aguilty creature.
“When I tried to rid her soul of this gloomy fallacy, she suffered soterribly that my heart will never be quite at peace so long as I canremember that dreadful time!--Do you know why she left me? Simply toprove to me what is not true--that she is base. But the worst of it is,she did not realize herself that that was all she wanted to prove byher departure! She went away in response to some inner prompting todo something disgraceful, in order that she might say toherself--‘There--you’ve done a new act of shame--you degraded creature!’
“Oh, Aglaya--perhaps you cannot understand all this. Try to realize thatin the perpetual admission of guilt she probably finds some dreadfulunnatural satisfaction--as though she were revenging herself uponsomeone.
“Now and then I was able to persuade her almost to see light aroundher again; but she would soon fall, once more, into her old tormentingdelusions, and would go so far as to reproach me for placing myself on apedestal above her (I never had an idea of such a thing!), and informedme, in reply to my proposal of marriage, that she ‘did not wantcondescending sympathy or help from anybody.’ You saw her last night.You don’t suppose she can be happy among such people as tho
se--youcannot suppose that such society is fit for her? You have no idea howwell-educated she is, and what an intellect she has! She astonished mesometimes.”
“And you preached her sermons there, did you?”
“Oh no,” continued the prince thoughtfully, not noticing Aglaya’smocking tone, “I was almost always silent there. I often wished tospeak, but I really did not know what to say. In some cases it is bestto say nothing, I think. I loved her, yes, I loved her very much indeed;but afterwards--afterwards she guessed all.”
“What did she guess?”
“That I only _pitied_ her--and--and loved her no longer!”
“How do you know that? How do you know that she is not really in lovewith that--that rich cad--the man she eloped with?”
“Oh no! I know she only laughs at him; she has made a fool of him allalong.”
“Has she never laughed at you?”
“No--in anger, perhaps. Oh yes! she reproached me dreadfully in anger;and suffered herself, too! But afterwards--oh! don’t remind me--don’tremind me of that!”
He hid his face in his hands.
“Are you aware that she writes to me