With his profile outlined more and more sharply on the window-pane, which grew darker from the gloom, he answered, after a moment of silence:
"I have not the strength for it. I am very sorry; but in me is not stuff to make the hero of a Christian romance. Thou hast perfect freedom of movement; Krynichna belongs to thy daughter. Thou mayst vanish with her in that 'lonely corner,' in which I cannot wish pleasant lives to you, or remain and live here as hitherto, which I could understand better; but in no case—"
He stopped suddenly, and was silent.
While speaking with that woman he had felt beneath his throat a coil of snakes stifling him, but in his brain certain memories were sounding, as it were voices, the echo of something distant. This echo issued from that woman's features, changed and faded, though the same in which on a time he had fixed his eyes with rapture, from the sound of her voice, which, at all times, had possessed for him a charm beyond description. His head, as if pressed by something above him and invisible, dropped with an almost indiscernible movement. Shall he forgive? And what would the result be? An idyl? Harmony? A return to family happiness? Folly!
That can never be. Only one thing in this world is undoubted and indestructible: a fact. A fact has taken place, and there is no power in existence to cause that fact not to be. All views except this are exaltation! After a moment of silence he finished coldly and with deliberation:
"In no case can my feelings, or our relations be subject to change."
She rested her hand against the table more firmly, and bent her head lower—through that head were still wandering certain thoughts of a return to pure womanly honor through expiation, through yielding obediently to the will of the offended.
Then she began in a very low voice:
"Can I aid thee in any way?"
After a moment of silence he answered: