"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 ..."

"You're very unfair to me . . . and to that unfortunate woman, of whom you just spoke so terribly, Aglaya."

"Because I know everything, everything, that's why I spoke like that! I know that, six months ago, you offered her your hand in front of everybody. Don't interrupt, you can see I'm speaking without commentaries. After that she ran away with Rogozhin; then you lived with her in some village or town, and she left you for

someone else." (Aglaya blushed terribly.) "Then she went back to Rogozhin, who loves her like . . . like a madman. Then you, who are also a very intelligent man, came galloping after her here, as soon as you learned she was back in Petersburg. Yesterday evening you rushed to her defense, and just now you saw her in a dream . . . You see, I know everything; isn't it for her, for her, that you came here?"

"Yes, for her," the prince replied softly, bowing his head sadly and pensively, and not suspecting with what flashing eyes Aglaya glanced at him, "for her, just to find out... I don't believe she can be happy with Rogozhin, though ... in short, I don't know what I could do for her here and how I could help, but I came."

He gave a start and looked at Aglaya; she was listening to him with hatred.

"If you came without knowing why, you must love her very much," she said at last.

"No," replied the prince, "no, I don't love her. Oh, if you knew with what horror I remember the time I spent with her!"

A shudder even went through his body at these words.

"Tell me everything," said Aglaya.

"There's nothing in it that you shouldn't hear. Why it is precisely you that I wanted to tell it to, and you alone—I don't know; maybe because I indeed loved you very much. This unfortunate woman is deeply convinced that she is the most fallen, the most depraved being in all the world. Oh, don't disgrace her, don't cast a stone.²⁴ She has tormented herself all too much with the awareness of her undeserved disgrace! And what is she guilty of, oh my God! Oh, in her frenzy she cries constantly that she does not acknowledge her guilt, that she is the victim of people, the victim of a debaucher and a villain; but whatever she tells you, know that she is the first not to believe it herself and that, on the contrary, she believes with all her conscience that she herself ... is the guilty one. When I tried to dispel this darkness, her suffering reached such a degree that my heart will never be healed as long as I remember that terrible time. It's as if my heart was pierced through forever. She ran away from me, and do you know why? Precisely to prove to me alone that she is base. But the most terrible thing here is that she herself may not have known that she wanted to prove it to me alone, but ran away because inwardly she felt she absolutely had to do something disgraceful, in order to tell herself then and there: 'So now you've committed some new disgrace, that means you're a

base creature!' Oh, perhaps you won't understand this, Aglaya! You know, there may be some terrible, unnatural pleasure for her in this constant awareness of disgrace, a sort of revenge on someone. Sometimes I managed to bring her to a point where she seemed to see light around her; but she would become indignant at once and go so far as to reproach me bitterly for putting myself far above her (when it never entered my mind), and she finally told me straight out, in response to my proposal of marriage, that she asked no one for supercilious compassion, or for help, or to be 'raised up to his level.' You saw her yesterday; do you really think she's happy with that company, that it's her kind of society? You don't know how developed she is and what she can understand! She even surprised me sometimes!"

"And did you also preach her such . . . sermons?"

"Oh, no," the prince went on pensively, not noticing the tone of the question, "I was silent most of the time. I often wanted to speak, but I really didn't know what to say. You know, on certain occasions it's better not to speak at all. Oh, I loved her; oh, I loved her very much . . . but then . . . then . . . then she guessed everything."

"What did she guess?"

"That I only pitied her and ... no longer loved her."

"How do you know, maybe she really fell in love with that . . . landowner she went off with?"

"No, I know everything; she only laughed at him."

"And did she ever laugh at you?"

"N-no. She laughed out of spite; oh, she reproached me terribly then, in anger—and suffered herself! But . . . then . . . oh, don't remind me, don't remind me of it!"

He covered his face with his hands.

"And do you know that she writes me letters almost every day?"

"So it's true!" the prince cried in anxiety. "I heard it, but I still didn't want to believe it."

"Who did you hear it from?" Aglaya roused herself fearfully.

"Rogozhin told me yesterday, only not quite clearly."

"Yesterday? Yesterday morning? When yesterday? Before the music or after?"

"After, in the evening, past eleven o'clock."

"Ahh, well, if it's Rogozhin . . . And do you know what she writes to me in those letters?"