“Like me?”
“No—not like you.”
“How?”
She turned away suddenly.
“Oh! Don’t you understand what you have become for me, and what I am feeling at this moment?”
Nejdanov’s heart beat violently; he looked down. This girl who loved him—a poor, homeless wretch, who trusted him, who was ready to follow him, pursue the same cause together with him—this wonderful girl—Mariana—became for Nejdanov at this moment the incarnation of all earthly truth and goodness—the incarnation of the love of mother, sister, wife, all the things he had never known; the incarnation of his country, happiness, struggle, freedom!
He raised his head and encountered her eyes fixed on him again.
Oh, how this sweet, bright glance penetrated to his very soul!
“And so,” he began in an unsteady voice, “I am going away tomorrow.... And when I come back, I will tell ... you—” (he suddenly felt it awkward to address Mariana as “you”) “tell you everything that is decided upon. From now on everything that I do and think, everything, I will tell thee first.”
“Oh, my dear!” Mariana exclaimed, seizing his hand again. “I promise thee the same!”