etting that I was grey, that my shoulders were
bent, that the voice of passion sounds strangely when it comes from old
lips--I burst into impetuous reproaches and complaints.

"Yes, I did deceive you!" her deathly pale lips uttered. "I knew that
you were innocent--"

"Be silent. Be silent."

"Everybody laughed at me--even your friends, your mother whom I despised
for it--all betrayed you. Only I kept repeating: 'He is innocent!'"

Oh, if this woman knew what she was doing to me with her words! If the
trumpet of the angel, announcing the day of judgment, had resounded at
my very ear, I would not have been so frightened as now. What is the
blaring of a trumpet calling to battle and struggle to the ear of the
brave? It was as if an abyss had opened at my feet. It was as if an
abyss had opened before me, and as though blinded by lightning, as
though dazed by a blow, I shouted in an outburst of wild and strange
ecstasy:

"Be silent! I--"

If that woman were sent by God, she would have become silent. If she
were sent by the devil, she would have become silent even then. But
there was neither God nor devil in her, and interrupting me, not
permitting me to finish the phrase, she went on:

"No, I will not be silent. I must tell you all. I have waited for you so
many years. Listen, listen!"

But suddenly she saw my face and she retreated, seized with horror.

"What is it? What is the matter with you? Why do you laugh? I am afraid
of your laughter! Stop laughing! Don't! Don't!"

But I was not laughing at all, I only smiled softly. And then I said
very seriously, without smiling:

"I am smiling because I am glad to see you. Tell me about yourself."

And, as in a dream, I saw her face and I heard her soft terrible
whisper:

"You know that I love you. You know that all my life I loved you alone.
I lived with another and was faithful to him. I have children, but you
know they are all strangers to me--he and the children and I myself.
Yes, I deceived you, I am a criminal, but I do not know how it happened.
He was so kind to me, he made me believe that he was convinced of your
innocence--later I learned that he did not tell the truth, and with
this, just think of it, with this he won me."

"You lie!"

"I swear to you. For a whole year he followed me and spoke only of you.
One day he even cried when I told him about you, about your sufferings,
about your love."

"But he was lying!"

"Of course he was lying. But at