“That makes it worse. They’ll find out I’ve done nothing and flog me for it.”
“And you are sure that you’ll be taken to Petersburg for that.”
“My friend, I’ve told you already that I regret nothing, ma carrière est finie. From that hour when she said good-bye to me at Skvoreshniki my life has had no value for me … but disgrace, disgrace, que dira-t-elle if she finds out?”
He looked at me in despair. And the poor fellow flushed all over. I dropped my eyes too.
“She’ll find out nothing, for nothing will happen to you. I feel as if I were speaking to you for the first time in my life, Stepan Trofimovitch, you’ve astonished me so this morning.”
“But, my friend, this isn’t fear. For even if I am pardoned, even if I am brought here and nothing is done to me—then I am undone. Elle me soupçonnera toute sa vie—me, me, the poet, the thinker, the man whom she has worshipped for twenty-two years!”
“It will never enter her head.”
“It will,” he whispered with profound conviction. “We’ve talked of it several times in Petersburg, in Lent, before we came away, when we were both afraid.… Elle me soupçonnera toute sa vie … and how can I disabuse her? It won’t sound likely. And in this wretched town who’d believe it, c’est invraisemblable.… Et puis les femmes, she will be pleased. She will be genuinely grieved like a true friend, but secretly she will be pleased.… I shall give her a weapon against me for the rest of my life. Oh, it’s all over with me! Twenty years of such perfect happiness with her … and now!” He hid his face in his hands.
“Stepan Trofimovitch, oughtn’t you to let Varvara Petrovna know at once of what has happened?” I suggested.
“God preserve me!” he cried, shuddering and leaping up from his place. “On no account, never, after what was said at parting at Skvoreshniki—never!”