“And she does not even feel any love for him! A cold-hearted being, made for nothing but to chop logic! And he—for her, for her...! Ah, the cruel wrong! Why has this come to me?”
She put her hands up to her head and sobbed aloud....
Suddenly she snatched the letter from me, and crumpled it up, and tore it all to pieces with angry fingers.
“How I hate, oh, how I hate that woman!”
I brought her a glass of water to calm her nerves, thinking all the time how much, in this, her unjust outburst of fury, she was preferable to the other—the magnanimous, serene, lofty-minded New Woman.
Smilowicz, of all men in the world! was awaiting me outside the office to-day.
Time, I thought, had for an instant run backward; and the Past, so terribly gone and forgotten, was before me.
“What! You!” I exclaimed; “you, back from Siberia? How long have you been here?... I had not been told——”
“The manifesto: an amnesty.... Five years. Yes, five have passed by. I arrived last week, and have seen nobody but Obojanski. He did not even know your address! Was that nice of you?... Oh, how greatly you have changed!... No, I did not expect such backsliding on your part.... I have heard many things said....”
“And what about yourself?”