“Afrossinia my love, what does all this mean? Good heavens! is this a time for us two to quarrel? Why should you speak like this? I know you won’t do it; I know you won’t forsake me in my distress; or if you have no pity for me at least think of the little one.”
She neither answered, nor looked, nor even moved, but remained passive, like a dead thing.
“Or don’t you love me?” he continued, with mad, entreating caress, the pathetic cunning of a lover. “Well, if it is so, then leave me. God be with you! I won’t keep you back, only say you don’t love me.”
She suddenly started up and looked at him with a jeering smile which almost made his heart stand still.
“And you thought I loved you? When you made game of me, a foolish girl, used her with violence, threatened her with a knife, then was the time to ask whether I loved you or not!”
“Afrossinia, what is the matter with you? Don’t you trust me? I will marry you and cover up the sin by wedlock. I look upon you now already as my wife.”
“I thank your lordship for his gracious favour! a favour indeed! The Tsarevitch condescends to marry a serf-girl! And yet look at her, the fool is not glad of the honour! I have endured it all these years; I can no longer. Marry you! I would as soon be hanged or drowned. I would you had straight away killed me that time. ‘You shall be Tsaritsa,’—is that your allurement? Maybe my maiden honour and freedom are more to me than your kingdom! At court you live like wolves, each ready to devour the other. Your father is the old wolf, you are the young one; the old one will swallow the young one in the end. How can you stand against him? The Tsar did wisely when he took the inheritance from you. How can you govern? Go and be a monk, and pray for your sins, you hypocrite! You killed your wife, neglected your children, so entangled yourself with a woman that you can’t leave her. You have become feeble, hopelessly feeble, wearied out, degenerate. Look at your self now, when a woman insults you, you remain silent, afraid to say a word. Eh, my fine fellow! I cudgel you like a dog, and then just sign to you, whistle to you, and you will be again after me, tongue hanging out, like a dog after a bitch; and yet he asks me for love! Is it possible to love a cur like you?”
He started, unable to recognise her. Her pale face, lit up with an almost insufferable brightness in an aureole of fiery-red hair, was terrible, yet more beautiful than ever. The witch! he thought. All at once she seemed the cause of all the storm outside her. The wild shrieking of the storm was but an echo to her words.
“Wait a little, you will see how I love you! I will repay you! I would rather die myself than shield you. I will tell your father how you asked the Emperor for an army to make war on him; how you rejoiced at the mutiny in the army, and planned to side with the rebels, how you even wished your father’s death, you villain! I will report everything, you won’t be able to get out of it! The Tsar will torture you, flog you to death, and I shall be looking on and asking: ‘Well, dear Alexis! will you remember Afrossinia’s love?’ And as for your brat, the moment he is born I will with my own hands——”