‘Yes, I must go away,’ she murmured in the same soft voice. ‘I only asked you to come here to say good-bye.’
‘And do you suppose,’ I retorted, ‘it will be easy for me to part with you?’
‘But what did you tell my brother for?’ Acia said, in perplexity.
‘I tell you—I could not do otherwise. If you had not yourself betrayed yourself.…’
‘I locked myself in my room,’ she answered simply. ‘I did not know the landlady had another key.…’
This innocent apology on her lips at such a moment almost infuriated me at the time … and now I cannot think of it without emotion. Poor, honest, truthful child!
‘And now everything’s at an end!’ I began again, ‘everything. Now we shall have to part.’ I stole a look at Acia.… Her face had quickly flushed crimson. She was, I felt it, both ashamed and afraid. I went on walking and talking as though in delirium. ‘You did not let the feeling develop which had begun to grow; you have broken off our relations yourself; you had no confidence in me; you doubted me.…’
While I was talking, Acia bent more and more forward, and suddenly slid on her knees, dropped her head on her arms, and began sobbing. I ran up to her and tried to lift her up, but she would not let me. I can’t bear women’s tears; at the sight of them I am at my wits’ end at once.
‘Anna Nikolaevna, Acia,’ I kept repeating, ‘please, I implore you, for God’s sake, stop.…’ I took her hand again.…
But, to my immense astonishment she suddenly jumped up, rushed with lightning swiftness to the door, and vanished.…