The baby was born dead.
I’d suffered too much.
You see, I loved him.
He was my first love and my last love.
When he was sentenced they wanted me to divorce him, transportation is a sufficient reason in French law; they told me that the wives of convicts always divorced and they were angry with me when I wouldn’t.
The lawyer who defended him was very kind to me.
He said that I’d done everything I could, and that I’d had a bad time, but I’d stood by him to the end and now I ought to think of myself, I was young and must remake my life, I was making it even more difficult if I stayed tied to a convict.
He was impatient with me when I said that I loved Robert and Robert was the only thing in the world that mattered to me, and that whatever he did I’d love him, and that if ever I could go out to him, and he wanted me, I’d go and gladly.
At last he shrugged his shoulders and said there was nothing to be done with us Russians, but if ever I changed my mind and wanted a divorce I was to come to him and he’d help me.
And Evgenia and Alexey, poor drunken, worthless Alexey, they gave me no peace.
They said Robert was a scoundrel, they said he was wicked, they said it was disgraceful that I should love him.
As if one could stop loving because it’s disgraceful to love!
It’s so easy to call a man a scoundrel.
What does it mean?
He murdered and he suffered for his crime.
None of them knew him as I knew him.
You see, he loved me.
They didn’t know how tender he was, how charming, how gay, how boyish.
They said he came near killing me as he killed Teddie Jordan; they didn’t see that it only made me love him more.”
It was almost impossible for Charley, knowing nothing of the circumstances, to get anything coherent out of what she was saying.
“Why should he have killed you?” he asked.
“When he came home—after he’d killed Jordan, it was very late and I’d gone to bed, but his mother was waiting up for him.
We lived with her.
He was in high spirits, but when she looked at him she knew he’d done something terrible.
You see, for weeks she’d been expecting it and she’d been frantic with anxiety.
“ ‘Where have you been all this time?’ she asked him.
“ ‘I?
Nowhere,’ he said.
‘Round with the boys.’
He chuckled and gently patted her cheek.
‘It’s so easy to kill a man, mother,’ he said.
‘It’s quite ridiculous, it’s so easy.’
“Then she knew what he’d done and she burst out crying.
“ ‘Your poor wife,’ she said.
‘Oh, how desperately unhappy you’re going to make her.’
“He looked down and sighed.
“ ‘Perhaps it would be better if I killed her too,’ he said.
“ ‘Robert!’ she cried.
“He shook his head.
“ ‘Don’t be afraid, I shouldn’t have the courage,’ he said.
‘And yet, if I did it in her sleep, she’d know nothing.’
“ ‘My God, why did you do it?’ she cried.
“Suddenly he laughed.
He had a wonderfully gay, infectious laugh.
You couldn’t hear it without feeling happy.
“ ‘Don’t be so silly, mother, I was only joking,’ he said.
‘I’ve done nothing.
Go to bed and to sleep.’
“She knew he was lying.
But that’s all he would say.