You are beginning to reckon up my mysterious phrases!" she laughed.
"Do you remember I told you I was a dead woman when I came in yesterday?
That you thought fit to forget. To forget or not to notice."

"I don't remember, Liza. Why dead? You must live."

"And is that all? You've quite lost your flow of words. I've lived my
hour and that's enough. Do you remember Christopher Ivanovitch?"

"No I don't," he answered, frowning.

"Christopher Ivanovitch at Lausanne? He bored you dreadfully. He always
used to open the door and say, 'I've come for one minute,' and then stay
the whole day. I don't want to be like Christopher Ivanovitch and stay
the whole day." A look of pain came into his face.

"Liza, it grieves me, this unnatural language. This affectation must
hurt you, too. What's it for? What's the object of it?"

His eyes glowed.

"Liza," he cried, "I swear I love you now more than yesterday when you
came to me!"

"What a strange declaration! Why bring in yesterday and to-day and these
comparisons?"

"You won't leave me," he went on, almost with despair; "we will go away
together, to-day, won't we? Won't we?"

"Aie, don't squeeze my hand so painfully! Where could we go together
to-day? To 'rise again' somewhere? No, we've made experiments enough...
and it's too slow for me; and I am not fit for it; it's too exalted
for me. If we are to go, let it be to Moscow, to pay visits and
entertain--that's my ideal you know; even in Switzerland I didn't
disguise from you what I was like. As we can't go to Moscow and pay
visits since you are married, it's no use talking of that."

"Liza! What happened yesterday!"

"What happened is over!"

"That's impossible! That's cruel!"

"What if it is cruel? You must bear it if it is cruel."

"You are avenging yourself on me for yesterday's caprice," he muttered
with an angry smile. Liza flushed.

"What a mean thought!"

"Why then did you bestow on me... so great a happiness? Have I the right
to know?"

"No, you must manage without rights; don't aggravate the meanness of
your supposition by stupidity. You are not lucky to-day. By the way, you
surely can't be afraid of public opinion and that you will be blamed
for this 'great happiness'? If that's it, for God's sake don't alarm
yourself. It's not your doing at all and you are not responsible to
anyone. When I opened your door yesterday, you didn't even know who was
coming in. It was simply my caprice, as you expressed it j