He said something about “self-sacrifice,” and she answered by words that he afterwards remembered.
“It is the only way of happiness, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “I’m an egoist.”
She refused to believe that.
“You have come out here to help poor Russia. Even at the risk of your life. That is not egoism.”
“Mixed with egoism,” he said. “To acquire knowledge for myself. To kill boredom. To heal what I’m pleased to call a broken heart! Infernal selfishness—all that!”
“You have a broken heart?” she asked, with great surprise.
The snow was falling on them at the corner of the Arbat where they stood, and they both wore white crowns and mantles, but paid no heed to it, because of this talk.
“I call it that in a romantic, sentimentalising way. My wife ran away from me not long ago. It hurt damnably. Wounded pride, perhaps. One never knows.”
“I am sorry,” she said gravely. “You loved her very much?”