The words came from her inmost heart, and I felt guilty before her. I was sorry for her, and also a little afraid. She seemed half insane. I did not know whether to believe her or not.
But she continued her whispering, which was broken by sobs:
"I want a child. As soon as I am with child, they will drive me away from here. I need a child, since the first one died. I want to give birth to another, and this time I will not let them take it away from me, nor let them rob my soul. I beg pity and help from you. You, who are good, aid me with your strength, help me get back that which was taken from me. Believe me, in Christ's name, I am a mother, not a loose woman. I do not want to sin, but I want a child. It is not pleasure I seek, but motherhood."
I was in a dream. I believed her. It was impossible not to believe when a woman stood on her rights and called a stranger to her, and said openly to him:
"They have forbidden me to create man. Help me."
I thought of my mother, whom I had never known. Perhaps it was in this same way that she threw her strength into the power of my father. I embraced her and said:
"Pardon me. I have judged you wrongly. Forgive me in the name of the Mother of God."
While lost in self-forgetfulness in accomplishing the holy sacrament of marriage, an impious doubt arose in my mind.
"Perhaps she is deceiving me, and I am not the first man with whom she is playing this game."
Then she told me her life story. Her father was a locksmith and her uncle was a machinist's apprentice. Her uncle drank and was cruel. In summer he worked on steamboats, in 'winter on docks. She had nowhere to live, for her father and mother were drowned while there was a fire on a boat, and she became an orphan at thirteen. At seventeen she became the mother of a child by a young nobleman.