“Do not make us both suffer,” she said in a gentle, friendly tone. “Spare me; you see how I am.”
He tried not to meet her eyes, and she again lay down on the divan.
“What a blow I dealt you,” he whispered in horror. “You see my punishment, Vera!”
“Your blow gave me a minute’s pain, and then I understood that it was not delivered with an indifferent hand, that you loved me. And it became clear to me how you must have suffered ... yesterday.”
“Don’t justify my crime, Vera. A knife is a knife, and I aimed a knife at you.”
“You brought me to myself. I was as if I slept, and you, Grandmother, Marfinka and the whole house I saw as if in a dream.”
“What am I to do, Vera? Fly from here? In what a state of mind I should leave! Let me endure my penance here, and be reconciled, as far as is possible, with myself, with all that has happened here.”
“Your imagination paints what was only a fault as a crime. Remember your condition when you did it, your agitation!” She gave him her hand, and continued, “I know now what one is capable of doing in the fever of emotion.”
She set herself to calm him in spite of her own weariness.
“You are good, Vera, and, womanlike, judge not with your brain, but with your heart.”