Page 644 - the-idiot

bound, it is your DUTY to ‘raise’ her; you must go off some-
where again to soothe and pacify her. Why, you love her,
you know!’
‘I cannot sacrifice myself so, though I admit I did wish to
do so once. Who knows, perhaps I still wish to! But I know
for CERTAIN, that if she married me it would be her ruin;
I know this and therefore I leave her alone. I ought to go to
see her today; now I shall probably not go. She is proud, she
would never forgive me the nature of the love I bear her, and
we should both be ruined. This may be unnatural, I don’t
know; but everything seems unnatural. You say she loves
me, as if this were LOVE! As if she could love ME, after
what I have been through! No, no, it is not love.’
‘How pale you have grown!’ cried Aglaya in alarm.
Oh, it’s nothing. I haven’t slept, that’s all, and I’m rather
tired. I—we certainly did talk about you, Aglaya.’
‘Oh, indeed, it is true then! YOU COULD ACTUALLY
TALK ABOUT ME WITH HER; and—and how could you
have been fond of me when you had only seen me once?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it was that I seemed to come upon
light in the midst of my gloom. I told you the truth when I
said I did not know why I thought of you before all others.
Of course it was all a sort of dream, a dream amidst the hor-
rors of reality. Afterwards I began to work. I did not intend
to come back here for two or three years—‘
‘Then you came for her sake?’ Aglaya’s voice trembled.
‘Yes, I came for her sake.’
There was a moment or two of gloomy silence. Aglaya
rose from her seat.