"Billy," he said, "I come to obtain certainty from you." He was silent, but Billy could say nothing, and waited. The event whose noiseless advance she had felt now stood before her.
"Look, Billy," continued Boris, and his voice sounded a trifle dry and pedagogical, "I must know whether you are in my life that on which I can absolutely rely. I cannot imagine my life without you, but for that very reason I must not delude myself, for if I should be deluded in this, it might be my destruction."
He waited again.
"But Boris, you surely know--" began Billy, but he interrupted her irritably:
"No, I don't know, I can't know. You don't understand me, all that is quite different."
Billy was ready to weep; the stern voice that challenged her out of the darkness was torturing her unspeakably. "I do understand, certainly I do. Why should I not understand you? Why do you say that? Go and talk to papa tomorrow: they are all getting engaged, why must it be so terribly sad in our case?" She was ready to weep; wearily she sat down on the old box. Then she heard Boris laugh softly, it was the quick, proud laugh with which he loved to conceal his agitation. Now he too sat down on the box, took Billy's hand, this cold girlish hand, into his own, as if it were something fragile and precious, and began to speak again.
"No, no, you don't understand me. Of course I shall speak with your father, for I want to be correct; but what good will it do?--your father hates me. I have always had to fight for my happiness, and that is what I want and you must want the same. Everything is immaterial, do you hear?--everything: only one thing matters, that you and I may be united. I see only you, and you must see only me, and what comes of it must not affect us, only you and I, you and I." He was still speaking softly, but his voice resumed its passionately singing tone. He intoxicated himself again with his own words, his own Self. "If you cannot do that, then say so at once, for then it is better for me to go away, no matter what becomes of me. I can die, but to be deceived, that goes beyond my strength. Can you do it? Speak, speak!" And he pressed her hand and shook it.
"Yes, I can," replied Billy obediently.
"Then," continued Boris, "we are going toward each other on the same road: on both sides there are high walls and we can see nothing but this road, and you see me and I see you and we are going toward each other, that is all. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Billy, and she actually saw this yellow road between the gray walls under a pale-gray sky, and two solitary figures going toward each other.