talked. If I had been in her place, I should have been frightened at that laugh, I felt that. He suddenly got up from his chair.
“Tell me, how could you consent to come here?” he asked suddenly, as though remembering the real point. “My invitation and my whole letter was absurd. . . . Stay, I can quite imagine how it came to pass that you consented to come, but — why did you come? that’s the question. Can you have come simply from fear?”
“I came to see you,” she said, looking at him with timid caution. Both were silent for half a minute. Versilov sank back in his chair, and in a voice soft but almost trembling and full of intense feeling began:
“It’s so terribly long since I’ve seen you, Katerina Nikolaevna, so long that I scarcely thought it possible I should ever be sitting beside you again as I now am, looking into your face and listening to your voice. . . . For two years we’ve not seen each other, for two years we’ve not talked. I never thought to speak to you again. But so be it, what is past is past, and what is will vanish like smoke to-morrow — so be it! I assent because there is no alternative again, but don’t let your coming be in vain,” he added suddenly, almost imploringly; “since you have shown me this charity and have come, don’t let it be in vain; answer me one question!”
“What question?”
“You know we shall never see each other again, and what is it to you? Tell me the truth for once, and answer me one question which sensible people never ask. Did you ever love me, or was I . . . mistaken?”
She flushed crimson.
“I did love you,” she brought out.
I expected she would say that. Oh, always truthful, always sincere, always honest!
“And now?” he went on.
“I don’t love you now.”
“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 Buring 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.
