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‘But you’re shivering, you’re frozen,’ I cried, ‘Look, your shoes are soaked.’

‘Let me be… please…’ she whispered,. and closed her eyes.

A panic seized me.

‘Susanna Ivanovna!’ I almost screamed: ‘do rouse yourself, I entreat you! What is the matter with you? Why such despair? You will see, every thing will be cleared up, some misunderstanding… some unlooked-for chance…. You will see, he will soon be back. I will let him know…. I will write to him to-day…. But I will not repeat your words…. Is it possible!’

‘He will not find me,’ Susanna murmured, still in the same subdued voice. ‘Do you suppose I would have come here, to you, to a stranger, if I had not known I should not long be living? Ah, all my past has been swept away beyond return! You see, I could not bear to die so, in solitude, in silence, without saying to some one, “I’ve lost every thing… and I’m dying…. Look!”‘

She drew back into her cold little corner…. Never shall I forget that head, those fixed eyes with their deep, burnt-out look, those dark, disordered tresses against the pale window-pane, even the grey, narrow gown, under every fold of which throbbed such young, passionate life!

Unconsciously I flung up my hands.

‘You… you die, Susanna Ivanovna! You have only to live…. You must live!’

She looked at me…. My words seemed to surprise her.

‘Ah, you don’t know,’ she began, and she softly dropped both her hands. ‘I cannot live, Too much, too much I have had to suffer, too much! I lived through it…. I hoped… but now… when even this is shattered… when…’

She raised her eyes to the ceiling and seemed to sink into thought. The tragic line, which I had once noticed about her lips, came out now still more clearly; it seemed to spread across her whole face. It seemed as though some relentless hand had drawn it immutably, had set a mark for ever on this lost soul.

She was still silent.

‘Susanna Ivanovna,’ I said, to break that awful silence with anything; ‘he will come back, I assure you!’

Susanna looked at me again.

‘What do you say?’ she enunciated with visible effort.

‘He will come back, Susanna Ivanovna, Alexander will come back!’

‘He will come back?’ she repeated. ‘But even if he did come back, I cannot forgive him this humiliation, this lack of faith….’

She clutched at her head.

‘My God! my God! what am I saying, and why am I here? What is it all? What… what did I come to ask… and whom? Ah, I am going mad!…’

Her eyes came to a rest.

‘You wanted to ask me to write to Alexander,’ I made haste to remind her.

She started.

‘Yes, write, write to him… what you like…. And here…’ She hurriedly fumbled in her pocket and brought out a little manuscript book. ‘This I was writing for him… before he ran away…. But he believed… he believed him!’

I understood that her words referred to Viktor; Susanna would not mention him, would not utter his detested name.

‘But, Susanna Ivanovna, excuse me,’ I began, ‘what makes you suppose that Alexander Daviditch had any conversation… with that person?’

‘What? Why, he himself came to me and told me all about it, and bragged of it… and laughed just as his father laughs! Here, here, take it,’ she went on, thrusting the manuscript into my hand, ‘read it, send it to him, burn it, throw it away, do what you like, as you please…. But I can’t die like this with no one knowing…. Now it is time…. I must go.’

She got up from the window-seat…. I stopped her.

‘Where are you going, Susanna Ivanovna, mercy on us! Listen, what a storm is raging! You are so lightly dressed…. And your home is not near here. Let me at least go for a carriage, for a sledge….’

‘No, no, I want nothing,’ she said resolutely, repelling me and taking up her cloak and shawl. ‘Don’t keep me, for God’s sake! or… I can’t answer for anything! I feel an abyss, a dark abyss under my feet…. Don’t come near me, don’t touch me!’ With feverish haste she put on her cloak, arranged her shawl…. ‘Good-bye… good-bye…. Oh, my unhappy people, for ever strangers, a curse lies upon us! No one has ever cared for me, was it likely he…’ She suddenly ceased. ‘No; one man loved me,’ she began again, wringing her hands, ‘but death is all about me, death and no escape! Now it is my turn…. Don’t come after me,’ she cried shrilly. ‘Don’t come! don’t come!’