‘Humiliation even?’ I queried.
‘Yes. The pride of man, haughtiness, presumption—that is what must be utterly rooted up. You spoke of the will—that’s what must be broken.’
I scanned the whole figure of the young girl who was uttering such sentences.... ‘My word, the child’s in earnest, too,’ was my thought. I glanced at our neighbours in the mazurka; they, too, glanced at me, and I fancied that my astonishment amused them; one of them even smiled at me sympathetically, as though he would say: ‘Well, what do you think of our queer young lady? every one here knows what she’s like.’
‘Have you tried to break your will?’ I said, turning to Sophie again.
‘Every one is bound to do what he thinks right,’ she answered in a dogmatic tone. ‘Let me ask you,’ I began, after a brief silence, ‘do you believe in the possibility of calling up the dead?’
Sophie softly shook her head.
‘There are no dead.’
‘What?’
‘There are no dead souls; they are undying and can always appear, when they like.... They are always about us.’
‘What? Do you suppose, for instance, that an immortal soul may be at this moment hovering about that garrison major with the red nose?’