He wished to say something to reassure her, but his tongue seemed grown fast to his palate.
“Am I to blame?” she continued with ghastly vehemence, sobs ringing in her voice. “Who asked you to come? Did I lure you from her, then? I should sooner have thrown myself into the river than taken away somebody else’s husband. You say yourself that you would not live with her, anyvay. But now it is all gone. Just try to leave me now!” And giving vent to her tears, she added, “Do you think my heart is no heart?”
A thrill of joyous pity shot through his frame. Once again he caught her to his heart, and in a voice quivering with tenderness he murmured: “Don’t be uneasy, my dear, my gold, my pearl, my consolation! I will let my throat be cut, into fire or water will I go, for your sake.”
“Dot’s all right,” she returned, musingly. “But how are you going to get rid of her? You von’t go back on me, vill you?” she asked in English.
“Me? May I not be able to get away from this spot. Can it be that you still distrust me?”
“Swear!”
“How else shall I swear?”
“By your father, peace upon him.”
“May my father as surely have a bright paradise,” he said, with a show of alacrity, his mind fixed on the loosened pillowcase. “Vell, are you shatichfied now?”
“All right,” she answered, in a matter-of-fact way, and as if only half satisfied. “But do you think she will take money?”