"To my life!" the man echoed.
"Yes," replied the girl, "I mean your life is worth something. But she... but I... I have lost so much last night. I have lost... I have lost everything. But you... everything remains to you. You have lost nothing."
The man made an abrupt gesture with both hands.
"Lost nothing!" he repeated. Then he said the words over slowly, like one stating an absurd, incredible accusation before he answers it, each word distinctly, softly, as though it stood apart from its fellow.
"Lost nothing!"
He took a step or two nearer to the girl. The moon fell on his tall athletic body, projecting a black, distorted shadow on the road. The half of his face was in the light, and it was contracted with despair. The tendons in his hands were visible, moving the doubled fingers. His voice was low, distinct, compact.
"I have lost," he said, "everything, beginning from the day I was born. All the care and labor that my mother took when I was little is lost; all the bread that I have eaten, all the water that I have drunk, all the sun that has warmed me is lost. And the loss does not stop with that. I have lost whatever things the days, arriving one after the other, were bringing to me, except the blessed gift that the last one will bring. I am utterly and wholly ruined."
The man's words followed, one after the other, as though they were material things, having dimensions and weight.
"Death is nothing. It is life now, that is awful. I shall have to go on when it is no use to go on. I shall have to go on seeing you, hearing your voice, remembering every word you have said, the tone and expression with which you have said it, and every little unimportant gesture you have made. Every day that I live, I shall see and understand more vividly all that I have lost. And it will not get better. It will get worse. Every day I shall see you a little more clearly than I did the day before; I shall remember your words a little more distinctly; I shall understand a little more completely all that you would have been to me. And all of this time I shall be alone. So utterly alone that my mind staggers at the thought of it. I love you! I love you! Don't you see, don't you understand how I love you?"
The girl had not moved while the man was speaking.