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‘Susanna Ivanovna,’ I began, ‘how…’

She suddenly clutched my hand in her icy fingers, but her voice failed her. She gave a broken sigh and looked down. Her heavy coils of black hair fell about her face…. The snow had not melted from off it.

‘Please, calm yourself, sit down,’ I began again, ‘see here, on the sofa. What has happened? Sit down, I entreat you.’

‘No,’ she articulated, scarcely audibly, and she sank on to the window-seat. ‘I am all right here…. Let me be…. You could not expect… but if you knew… if I could… if…’

She tried to control herself, but the tears flowed from her eyes with a violence that shook her, and sobs, hurried, devouring sobs, filled the room. I felt a tightness at my heart…. I was utterly stupefied. I had seen Susanna only twice; I had conjectured that she had a hard life, but I had regarded her as a proud girl, of strong character, and all at once these violent, despairing tears…. Mercy! Why, one only weeps like that in the presence of death!

I stood like one condemned to death myself.

‘Excuse me,’ she said at last, several times, almost angrily, wiping first one eye, then the other. ‘It’ll soon be over. I’ve come to you….’ She was still sobbing, but without tears. ‘I’ve come…. You know that Alexander Daviditch has gone away?’

In this single question Susanna revealed everything, and she glanced at me, as though she would say: ‘You understand, of course, you will have pity, won’t you?’ Unhappy girl! There was no other course left her then!

I did not know what answer to make….

‘He has gone away, he has gone away… he believed him!’ Susanna was saying meanwhile. ‘He did not care even to question me; he thought I should not tell him all the truth, he could think that of me! As though I had ever deceived him!’

She bit her lower lip, and bending a little, began to scratch with her nail the patterns of ice that covered the window-pane. I went hastily into the next room, and sending my servant away, came back at once and lighted another candle. I had no clear idea why I was doing all this…. I was greatly overcome. Susanna was sitting as before on the window-seat, and it was at this moment that I noticed how lightly she was dressed: a grey gown with white buttons and a broad leather belt, that was all. I went up to her, but she did not take any notice of me.

‘He believed it,… he believed it,’ she whispered, swaying softly from side to side. ‘He did not hesitate, he dealt me this last… last blow!’ She turned suddenly to me. ‘You know his address?’

‘Yes, Susanna Ivanovna.. I learnt it from his servants… at his house. He told me nothing of his intention; I had not seen him for two days–went to inquire and he had already left Moscow.’

‘You know his address?’ she repeated. ‘Well, write to him then that he has killed me. You are a good man, I know. He did not talk to you of me, I dare say, but he talked to me about you. Write… ah, write to him to come back quickly, if he wants to find me alive!… No! He will not find me!…’

Susanna’s voice grew quieter at each word, and she was quieter altogether. But this calm seemed to me more awful than the previous sobs.

‘He believed him,…’ she said again, and rested her chin on her clasped hands.

A sudden squall of wind beat upon the window with a sharp whistle and a thud of snow. A cold draught passed over the room…. The candles flickered…. Susanna shivered. Again I begged her to sit on the sofa.

‘No, no, let me be,’ she answered, ‘I am all right here. Please.’ She huddled up to the frozen pane, as though she had found herself a refuge in the recesses of the window. ‘Please.’