“You lie!”

“I swear to you.  For a whole year he followed me and spoke only of you.  One day he even cried when I told him about you, about your sufferings, about your love.”

“But he was lying!”

“Of course he was lying.  But at that time he seemed so dear to me, so kind that I kissed him on the forehead.  Then we used to bring you flowers to the prison.  One day as we were returning from you—­listen—­he suddenly proposed that we should go out driving.  The evening was so beautiful—­”

“And you went!  How did you dare go out with him?  You had just seen my prison, you had just been near me, and yet you dared go with him.  How base!”

“Be silent.  Be silent.  I know I am a criminal.  But I was so exhausted, so tired, and you were so far away.  Understand me.”

She began to cry, wringing her hands.

“Understand me.  I was so exhausted.  And he—­he saw how I felt—­and yet he dared kiss me.”

“He kissed you!  And you allowed him ?  On the lips?”

“No, no!  Only on the cheek.”

“You lie!”

“No, no.  I swear to you.”

I began to laugh.

“You responded?  And you were driving in the forest—­you, my fiancee, my love, my dream!  And all this for my sake?  Tell me!  Speak!”

In my rage I wrung her arms, and wriggling like a snake, vainly trying to evade my look, she whispered: 

“Forgive me; forgive me.”

“How many children have you?”

“Forgive me.”

But my reason forsook me, and in my growing rage I cried, stamping my foot: 

“How many children have you?  Speak, or I will kill you!”

I actually said this.  Evidently I was losing my reason completely if I could threaten to kill a helpless woman.  And she, surmising apparently that my threats were mere words, answered with feigned readiness: 

“Kill me!  You have a right to do it!  I am a criminal.  I deceived you.  You are a martyr, a saint!  When you told me—­is it true that even in your thoughts you never deceived me—­even in your thoughts!”

And again an abyss opened before me.  Everything trembled, everything fell, everything became an absurd dream, and in the last effort to save my extinguishing reason I shouted: 

“But you are happy!  You cannot be unhappy; you have no right to be unhappy!  Otherwise I shall lose my mind.”

But she did not understand.  With a bitter laugh, with a senseless smile, in which her suffering mingled with bright, heavenly joy, she said: 

“I am happy!  I—­happy!  Oh, my friend, only near you I can find happiness.  From the moment you left the prison I began to despise my home.  I am alone there; I am a stranger to all.  If you only knew how I hate that scoundrel!  You are sensible; you must have felt that you were not alone in prison, that I was always with you there—­”