I had grown lukewarm when your enthusiasm warmed me and set me on fire again. I don't believe in it! I don't believe in it!'
He laid the hand that was free over his eyes and was silent for an instant. Marianna too uttered not a word and looked down. . . . She felt that he had told her nothing new.
'I used to think,' Nezhdanov went on, taking his hand away from his eyes, but not looking again at Marianna, 'that I did believe in the cause itself, and only doubted of myself, my own power, my own fitness; my abilities, I thought, do not correspond with my convictions.. . . But it seems these two things can't be separated, and what's the object of deceiving oneself? No, I don't believe in the cause itself. And you do believe in it, Marianna?'
Marianna sat up and raised her head.
'Yes, Alexey, I do believe in it. I believe in it with all the strength of my soul, and I will devote all my life to this cause! To my last breath!'
Nezhdanov turned towards her and scanned her from head to foot in a touched and envious glance.
'Yes, yes; I expected that answer. So you see that there is nothing for us to do in common; you have severed our tie yourself at one blow.'
227
