My God! I cannot be silent, sir, I can’t endure it…. Your behaviour is insane.”
“Hush, hush,” I whispered, trying to calm her excitement, afraid that her cruel reproaches would put him out of patience. I was still trembling with fear for her.
“But, blind woman!” he shouted, “you do not know, you do not see.”
He stopped for a moment.
“Away from her!” he said, addressing me and tearing my hand out of the hands of Alexandra Mihalovna. “I will not allow you to touch my wife; you pollute her, you insult her by your presence. But… but what forces me to be silent when it is necessary, when it is essential to speak?” he shouted, stamping. “And I will speak, I will tell you everything. I don’t know what you know, madam, and with what you tried to threaten me, and I don’t care to know. Listen!” he went oh, addressing Alexandra Mihalovna. “Listen…”
“Be silent!” I cried, darting forward. “Hold your tongue, not a word!”
“Listen!…”
“Hold your tongue in the name of…”
“In the name of what, madam?” he interrupted, with a rapid and piercing glance into my eyes. “In the name of what?” Let me tell you I pulled out of her hands a letter from a lover! So that’s what’s going on in our house! That’s what’s going on at your side! That’s what you have not noticed, not seen!”
I could hardly stand. Alexandra Mihalovna turned white as death.
“It cannot be,” she whispered in a voice hardly audible.
“I have seen the letter, madam; it has been in my hands; I have read the first lines and I am not mistaken: the letter was from a lover. She snatched it out of my hands. It is in her possession now — it is clear, it is so, there is no doubt of it; and if you still doubt it, look at her and then try and hope for a shadow of doubt.”
“Nyetochka!” cried Alexandra Mihalovna, rushing at me. “But no, don’t speak, don’t speak! I don’t understand what it was, how it was…. My God! My God!”
And she sobbed, hiding her face in her hands.
“But no, it cannot be,” she cried again. “You are mistaken. I know… I know what it means,” she said, looking intently at her husband. “You… I… could not… you are not deceiving me, Nyetochka, you cannot deceive me. Tell me all, all without reserve. He has made a mistake? Yes, he has made a mistake, hasn’t he? He has seen something else, he was blind! Yes, wasn’t he, wasn’t he? Why did you not tell me all about it, Nyetochka, my child, my own child?”
“Answer, make haste, make haste!” I heard Pyotr Alexandrovitch’s voice above my head. “Answer: did I or did I not see the letter in your hand?”
“Yes!” I answered, breathless with emotion.
“Is that letter from your lover?”
“Yes!” I answered.
“With whom you are now carrying on an intrigue?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” I said, hardly knowing what I was doing by now, and answering yes to every question, simply to put an end to our agony.
“You hear her. Well, what do you say now? Believe me, you kind, too confiding heart,” he added, taking his wife’s hand; “believe me and distrust all that your sick imagination has created. You see now, what this… young person is. I only wanted to show how impossible your suspicions were. I noticed all this long ago, and am glad that at last I have unmasked her before you. It was disagreeable to me to see her beside you, in your arms, at the same table with us, in my house, in fact, I was revolted by your blindness. That was the reason and the only reason that I observed her, watched her; my attention attracted your notice, and starting from God knows what suspicion, God only knows what you have deduced from it. But now the position is clear, every doubt is at an end, and tomorrow, madam, tomorrow you will leave my house,” he concluded, addressing me.
“Stop!” cried Alexandra Mihalovna, getting up from her chair. “I don’t believe in all this scene. Don’t look at me so dreadfully, don’t laugh at me. I want to judge you now. Anneta, my child, come to me, give me your hand, so. We are all sinners!” she said in a voice that quivered with tears, and she looked meekly at her husband. “And which of us can refuse anyone’s hand? Give me your hand, Anneta, my dear child; I am no worthier, no better than you; you cannot injure me by your presence, for I too, I too am a sinner.”
“Madam!” yelled Pyotr Alexandrovitch in amazement. “Madam! Restrain yourself! Do not forget yourself!…”
“I am not forgetting anything. Do not interrupt me, but let me have my say. You saw a letter in her hand, you even read it, you say, and she… has admitted that this letter is from the man she loves. But does that show that she is a criminal? Does that justify your treating her like this, insulting her like this before your wife? Yes, sir, before your wife? Have you gone into this affair? Do you know how it has happened?”
“The only thing is for me to run and beg her pardon. Is that what you want?” cried Pyotr Alexandrovitch. “It puts me out of all patience listening to you! Think what you are talking about. Do you know what you are talking about? Do you know what and whom you are defending? Why, I see through it all….”
“And you don’t see the very first thing because anger and pride prevent your seeing. You don’t see what I am defending and what I mean. I am not defending vice. But have you considered — and you will see clearly if you do consider — have you considered that perhaps she is as innocent as a child? Yes, I am not defending vice! I will make haste and explain myself, if that will be pleasant to you. Yes; if she had been a wife, a mother, and had forgotten her duties, oh, then I would have agreed with you…. You see I have made a reservation. Notice that and don’t reproach me. But what if she has received this letter thinking no harm? What if in her inexperience she has been carried away by her feelings and had no one to hold her back? If I am more to blame than anyone because I did not watch over her heart? If this letter is the first? If you have insulted her fragrant maidenly feelings with your coarse suspicions? What if you have sullied her imagination with your cynical talk about the letter? If you did not see the chaste maidenly shame which was shining on her face, pure as innocence, which I see now, which I saw when distracted, harassed, not knowing what to say and torn with anguish, she answered yes to all your inhuman questions? Yes, yes! Yes, it is inhuman; it is cruel. I don’t know you; I shall never forgive you this, never!”
“Yes, have mercy on me, have mercy on me!” I cried, holding her in my arms. “Spare me, trust me, do not repulse me….”
I fell on my knees before her.
“What if I had not been beside her,” she went on breathlessly, “and if you had frightened her with your words, and if the poor child had been herself persuaded that she was guilty, if you had confounded her conscience and soul and chattered the peace of her heart? My God! You mean to turn her out of the house! But do you know who are treated like that? You know that if you turn her out of the house, you are turning us out together, both of us. Do you hear me, sir?”
Her eyes flashed; her bosom heaved; her feverish excitement reached a climax….
“Yes, I’ve heard enough, madam!” Pyotr Alexandrovitch shouted at last. “Enough of this! I know that there are Platonic passions, and to my sorrow I know it, madam, do you hear?
