gry long, and didn't
seem to remember my offence at all. I was surprised, for she is a
vindictive, resentful woman--but then I thought that perhaps she
despised me too much to feel any resentment against me. And that's the
truth.

"She came up to me and said, 'Do you know who the Pope of Rome is?'
'I've heard of him,' I said. 'I suppose you've read the Universal
History, Parfen Semeonovitch, haven't you?' she asked. 'I've learned
nothing at all,' I said. 'Then I'll lend it to you to read. You must
know there was a Roman Pope once, and he was very angry with a certain
Emperor; so the Emperor came and neither ate nor drank, but knelt before
the Pope's palace till he should be forgiven. And what sort of vows do
you think that Emperor was making during all those days on his knees?
Stop, I'll read it to you!' Then she read me a lot of verses, where it
said that the Emperor spent all the time vowing vengeance against the
Pope. 'You don't mean to say you don't approve of the poem, Parfen
Semeonovitch,' she says. 'All you have read out is perfectly true,' say
I. 'Aha!' says she, 'you admit it's true, do you? And you are making
vows to yourself that if I marry you, you will remind me of all this,
and take it out of me.' 'I don't know,' I say, 'perhaps I was thinking
like that, and perhaps I was not. I'm not thinking of anything just
now.' 'What are your thoughts, then?' 'I'm thinking that when you rise
from your chair and go past me, I watch you, and follow you with my
eyes; if your dress does but rustle, my heart sinks; if you leave the
room, I remember every little word and action, and what your voice
sounded like, and what you said. I thought of nothing all last night,
but sat here listening to your sleeping breath, and heard you move a
little, twice.' 'And as for your attack upon me,' she says, 'I suppose
you never once thought of THAT?' 'Perhaps I did think of it, and perhaps
not,' I say. And what if I don't either forgive you or marry, you'
'I tell you I shall go and drown myself.' 'H'm!' she said, and then
relapsed into silence. Then she got angry, and went out. 'I suppose
you'd murder me before you drowned yourself, though!' she cried as she
left the room.

"An hour later, she came to me again, looking melancholy. 'I will marry
you, Parfen Semeonovitch,' she says, not because I'm frightened of you,
but because it's all the same to me how I ruin myself. And how can I do
it better? Sit down; they'll bring you some dinner