knew how to beg, as my mother
begged kneeling before me! No one could curse as my terrible grandmother
had done, and no one knew the wickedness of my character as well as I
did myself.

Let them only give me peace! I could not tell them.

Last of all Fanny came to me: leaned upon my shoulder, and began to
stroke my hair.

"Dear Desi."

I jerked my shoulder to be rid of her.

"'Dear Desi,' indeed!--Call me 'wicked, bad, cursed Desi!'--that is what
I am."

"But why?"

"Because no other name is possible. I promised because I was _obliged_
to promise: and now I am keeping my word, because I promised."

"Your poor mother says she will die, if you do not tell her where Lorand
is."

"And Lorand told me he will die if I do tell her. He told me that, when
I discovered his whereabouts to mother or grandmother, he will either
report himself at the nearest military station, or will shoot himself,
according as he feels inclined. And in our family such promises are not
wont to dissolve in thin air."

"What might have been his reason for exacting such a promise from you?"

"I do not know. But I know he would not have done it without cause. I
beg you to leave me."

"Wait a moment," said Fanny, standing before me. "You said Lorand made
you swear not to tell your mother or grandmother where he had gone to.
He did not forbid you to tell another?"

"Naturally not," I answered with irritated pride. "He knew all along
that there has not yet been born into the world that other who could
force the truth out of me with red-hot pincers."

"But that other has been born," interrupted Fanny with wild earnestness.
"Just twelve years, eight months and five days ago."

I looked at her.

"I should tell you? is that what you think?"

I admired her audacity.

"Certainly, me. For your parole forbids you to speak only to your mother
and grandmother. You can tell me: and I shall tell them. You will not
have told anybody anything, and they still will know it."

"Well, and are you 'nobody?'"

Fanny gazed into my eyes, became serious, and with trembling lips said:

"If you wish it--I am nobody. As if I had never been born."

From that moment Fanny began to be "someone," in my eyes.

Her little sophism pleased me. Perhaps on these terms we might come to
an agreement.

"You have asked something very difficult of me, Fanny; but it is not
impossible. Only you must wait a little: give me time to think it over.
Until I have done so,