"No."
"For whose, then?"
"For the sake of the czar."
"Ah! You would join only to betray them all into the hands of the police! That is what you mean."
Zara leaped to her feet. Her whole manner underwent a change and for the instant she was completely dominated by a furious scorn which found its expression in every single pose of the attitude she assumed. Her eyes blazed with the sudden anger she felt at me, brought about more by the thought which came to her that I, whom she had stooped to admire, was nothing but a spy. A torrent of words rushed to her lips, at least her appearance was that she was on the point of denouncing me most bitterly; but I raised a hand and interrupted her, bending slightly forward, and speaking with sharp decision, although coolly, and with studied conciseness of expression.
"No," I said. "If I should become a nihilist, it would be to protect the emperor, not to betray your friends."
Again her entire manner underwent a change. As if she thoroughly believed me, the fury of scorn left her eyes, the angry glitter of them ceased, the rigidity of her attitude relaxed, and I saw that she was regarding me with an expression of wondering amazement, in which pity, and longing, not unmixed with admiration, were dominant. She was silent for the moment, but she kept her eyes fixed upon mine, and gradually they began to glow with that fire of enthusiasm which no argument can ever hope to overcome. Looking upon her I realized that if she were not a nihilist at heart, she had become one by reason of some great mental cataclysm through which she had passed. I believed then, and I was to know later, that I was correct, and that nothing at present apparent could swerve her from her set purpose, or could influence her against the cause she had undertaken, and was now upholding, so valiantly. The spasms of remorse that rushed upon her at times, and such feelings of repugnance as I had heard her express in the garden, were only oases in the desert of her perverted judgment, engendered in her very soul by some terrible calamity through which she had personally passed, or regarding which she had been a close observer. When she spoke again, it was with low-toned softness, and she glided a step or two nearer to me, raising her beautiful eyes, now softened to an appealing quality, and clasping her hands in front of her with a gesture of suppliant helplessness that was almost overwhelming.
"Do you think that we have no wrongs to right?" she demanded.
"I think you have many, princess, judging from your standpoint; but you cannot right them by committing greater ones. Nothing can dignify or ennoble deliberate assassination, or wanton, cruel, secret murder. The nihilists are assassins, murderers, cutthroats."
"You do not know! You do not know!"