Color quickly poured over her face.
“Don’t answer yet, Katerina Nikolaevna, but listen to everything and then tell me the whole truth.”
I broke all the barriers at once and flew off into space.
II
“TWO MONTHS AGO I stood here behind the curtain . . . you know . . . and you were talking with Tatyana Pavlovna about the letter. I ran out, beside myself, and said too much. You knew at once that I knew something . . . you couldn’t help understanding . . . you were looking for an important document and were apprehensive about it . . . Wait, Katerina Nikolaevna, hold off from speaking yet. I declare to you that there were grounds for your suspicions: this document exists . . . that is, it did . . . I saw it; it’s your letter to Andronikov, right?”
“You saw that letter?” she asked quickly, embarrassed and agitated. “Where did you see it?”
“I saw it . . . I saw it at Kraft’s . . . the one who shot himself . . .”
“Really? You saw it yourself? What happened to it?”
“Kraft tore it up.”
“In your presence? You saw it?”
“In my presence. He tore it up, probably, before his death . . . I didn’t know then that he was going to shoot himself . . .”
“So it’s destroyed, thank God!” she said slowly, with a sigh, and crossed herself.
I didn’t lie to her. That is, I did lie, because the document was with me and had never been with Kraft, but that was merely a detail, while in the main thing I didn’t lie, because the moment I lied, I promised myself to burn the letter that very evening. I swear, if I’d had it in my pocket at that moment, I’d have taken it out and given it to her; but I didn’t have it with me, it was at home. However, maybe I wouldn’t have given it to her, because I would have been very ashamed to confess to her then that I had it and that I had been watching her for so long, waiting and not giving it to her. It’s all one: I’d have burned it at home in any case, and I wasn’t lying! I was pure at that moment, I swear.
“And if so,” I went on, almost beside myself, “then tell me, did you attract me, treat me nicely, receive me, because you suspected I had knowledge of the document? Wait, Katerina Nikolaevna, don’t speak for one more little minute, but let me finish everything. All the while I’ve been visiting you, all this time I’ve suspected that you were being nice to me only in order to coax this letter out of me, to drive me to a point where I’d confess . . . Wait one more minute: I suspected, but I suffered. Your duplicity was unbearable for me, because . . . because in you I found the noblest of beings! I’ll say it straight out, straight out: I was your enemy, but in you I found the noblest of beings! Everything was vanquished at once. But the duplicity, that is, the suspicion of duplicity, tormented me . . . Now everything must be resolved, must be explained, the time has come; but wait a little more, don’t speak, learn how I myself look at all this, precisely now, at the present moment. I’ll say it straight out: even if it was so, I won’t be angry . . . that is, I meant to say—won’t be offended, because it’s all so natural, I do understand. What could be unnatural and bad here? You’re suffering over a letter, you suspect that so-and-so knows everything, why, then you might very well wish that so-and-so would speak . . . There’s nothing bad in that, nothing at all. I say it sincerely. But all the same I need you to tell me something now . . . to confess (forgive me the word). I need the truth. For some reason I need it! And so, tell me, were you being nice to me just to coax the document out of me . . . Katerina Nikolaevna!”
I spoke as if I were plunging down, and my forehead was burning. She listened to me without alarm now; on the contrary, there was feeling in her face, but she looked somehow shy, as if ashamed.
“Just for that,” she said slowly and softly. “Forgive me, I was to blame,” she suddenly added, raising her hands towards me slightly. I had never expected that. I had expected anything but those words, even from her whom I already knew.
“And you say to me, ‘I’m to blame!’ Straight out like that: ‘I’m to blame!’” I cried.
“Oh, long ago I began to feel that I was to blame before you . . . and I’m even glad that it’s come out now . . .”
“Felt it long ago? Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
“I didn’t know how to say it,” she smiled. “That is, I did know,” she smiled again, “but I somehow came to feel ashamed . . . because, actually, in the beginning I ‘attracted’ you, as you put it, only for that, but then very soon it became disgusting to me . . . and I was tired of all this pretending, I assure you!” she added with bitter feeling. “And of all this fuss as well!”
“And why, why wouldn’t you ask then in a direct way? You should have said, ‘You know about the letter, why are you pretending?’ And I’d have told you everything at once, I’d have confessed at once!”
“I was . . . a little afraid of you. I confess, I also didn’t trust you. And it’s true: if I was sly, you were, too,” she added with a smile.
“Yes, yes, I was unworthy!” I cried, astounded. “Oh, you don’t know yet all the abysses of my fall!”
“Well, now it’s abysses! I recognize your style.” She smiled quietly. “That letter,” she added sadly, “was the saddest and most thoughtless act of my life. The awareness of that act has always been a reproach to me. Under the influence of circumstances and apprehensions, I doubted my dear, magnanimous father. Knowing that this letter might fall . . . into the hands of wicked people . . . having all the grounds for thinking so,” she added hotly, “I trembled for fear they might make use of it, show it to
“No, you have nothing to be ashamed of !” I cried.
“I was actually counting . . . on your ardor . . . and I admit it,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“Katerina Nikolaevna! Who, tell me, who is forcing you to make such confessions to me aloud?” I cried as if drunk. “Well, what would it have cost you to stand up and prove to me, like two times two, in the choicest expressions and in the subtlest way, that while it did happen, all the same it didn’t happen—you understand, the
