"Why?"
"I can't look at you. I'll kill you! Get out of here!"
His eyes were red. The tears that came out seemed red, and his lips were covered with foam. He tore at my clothes; he scratched and pinched me, anxious to reach my face. I shook him lightly and arose from his chest.
"You wear the garb of a monk," I said, "and yet you are capable of such vileness, you brute! Why?"
He sat in the mud and demanded, obstinately:
"Get out of here! Don't make me lose my soul!"
I did not understand him. Finally I made a guess, and asked him low:
"Perhaps, Misha, you think I told some one about your wretched sin? It is not so. I told no one about it."
He arose, swayed, held on to the tree and looked at me with his wild eyes.
"I wish you had told it to the whole world!" he roared. "It would be easier for me! I could repent before others and they would forgive me. But you, scoundrel, despise every one. I do not want to be under obligations to you, you proud heretic. Get out, or I'll have the sin of blood on me!"