"Be silent! Be silent! If you only heard with what delight I called him
scoundrel!"

She burst into laughter, frightening me by the wild expression on her
face.

"Just think of it! All his life he embraced only a lie. And when,
deceived, happy, he fell asleep, I looked at him with wide-open eyes, I
gnashed my teeth softly, and I felt like pinching him, like sticking him
with a pin."

She burst into laughter again. It seemed to me that she was driving
wedges into my brain. Clasping my head, I cried:

"You lie! You lie to me!"

Indeed, it was easier for me to speak to the ghost than to the woman.
What could I say to her? My mind was growing dim. And how could I
repulse her when she, full of love and passion, kissed my hands, my
eyes, my face? It was she, my love, my dream, my bitter sorrow!

"I love you! I love you!"

And I believed her--I believed her love. I believed everything. And once
more I felt that my locks were black, and I saw myself young again. And
I knelt before her and wept for a long time, and whispered to her about
my sufferings, about the pain of solitude, about a heart cruelly broken,
about offended, disfigured, mutilated thoughts. And, laughing and
crying, she stroked my hair. Suddenly she noticed that it was grey, and
she cried strangely:

"What is it? And life? I am an old woman already."

On leaving me she demanded that I escort her to the threshold, like a
young man; and I did. Before going she said to me:

"I am coming back to-morrow. I know my children will deny me--my
daughter is to marry soon. You and I will go away. Do you love me?"

"I do."

"We will go far, far away, my dear. You wanted to deliver some lectures.
You should not do it. I don't like what you say about that iron grate.
You are exhausted, you need a rest. Shall it be so?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I forgot my veil. Keep it, keep it as a remembrance of this day. My
dear!"

In the vestibule, in the presence of the sleepy porter, she kissed me.
There was the odour of some new perfume, unlike the perfume with which
her letter was scented. And her coquettish laugh was like a sob as she
disappeared behind the glass door.

That night I aroused my servant, ordered him to pack our things, and
we went away. I shall not say where I am at present, but last night
and to-night trees were rustling over my head and the rain was beating
against my windows. Here the windows are small, and I feel much better.
I wrote her a rather long le