"It makes no difference how or why it came to you; you cannot help it. Now there is only one choice: either you should suffer, and I suffer also through it, or that you cease to suffer, and I too."
"But, my dear,[1] I am not going to suffer; this will pass away; you will see this pass."
"Thank you for your efforts; I appreciate them, because you show a will to fulfil what you deem your duty. But know, Viérotchka, that it seems necessary only to you, and not to me. I am looking upon it as a stranger; and your position is clearer to me than it is to yourself. I know that this will be useless. Struggle as long as your strength holds out, but don't think that you are going to wrong me. For you know how I look upon this; you know that my view of this matter cannot be shaken, and is founded in the nature of things: you know all this. Can you deceive me? Will you ever cease to respect me? I can say further: even if your disposition towards me changed its nature, will it grow weaker? Isn't the contrary true? would it not grow stronger from the very fact that you did not find in me an enemy? Don't pity me; my fate will not be in the least pitiful because you will not be deprived of happiness on my account. But that's enough. It is hard to say much about it, and for you to hear is harder still. Only remember, Viérotchka, what I am saying now. Forgive me, Viérotchka. Go to your room and think it over, or, rather, go to sleep. Don't think about me, but think about yourself. Only by thinking about yourself, you may not cause me useless sorrow."
XXVI.
At the end of two weeks, while Lopukhóf was sitting in the counting-room of his factory, Viéra Pavlovna was spending the whole morning in extraordinary excitement. She threw herself down on her bed, she covered her face with her hands; and at the end of a quarter of an hour she jumped up, walked up and down the room, threw herself into one chair after another, and again walked with quick, unsteady steps, and then again threw herself on her bed, and then walked again; and several times she went to the writing-desk, and stood by it, and turned away, and finally she sat
- ↑ Moï milui.
