A minute later he said, looking at me in despair:
"I am ruined!
Cher"—he sat down suddenly beside me and looked piteously into my face—"cher, it's not Siberia I am afraid of, I swear. Oh, je vous jure!" (Tears positively stood in his eyes.) "It's something else I fear."
I saw from his expression that he wanted at last to tell me something of great importance which he had till now refrained from telling.
"I am afraid of disgrace," he whispered mysteriously.
"What disgrace? On the contrary!
Believe me, Stepan Trofimovitch, that all this will be explained to-day and will end to your advantage...."
"Are you so sure that they will pardon me?"
"Pardon you? What!
What a word!
What have you done?
I assure you you've done nothing."
"Qu'en savez-vous; all my life has been... cher... They'll remember everything... and if they find nothing, it will be worse still," he added all of a sudden, unexpectedly.
"How do you mean it will be worse?"
"It will be worse."
"I don't understand."
"My friend, let it be Siberia, Archangel, loss of rights—if I must perish, let me perish!
But... I am afraid of something else." (Again whispering, a scared face, mystery.)
"But of what? Of what?"
"They'll flog me," he pronounced, looking at me with a face of despair.
"Who'll flog you?
What for?
Where?" I cried, feeling alarmed that he was going out of his mind.
"Where?
Why there... where 'that's' done."
"But where is it done?"
"Eh, cher," he whispered almost in my ear. "The floor suddenly gives way under you, you drop half through.... Every one knows that."
"Legends!" I cried, guessing what he meant. "Old tales. Can you have believed them till now?"
I laughed.
"Tales!
But there must be foundation for them; flogged men tell no tales.
I've imagined it ten thousand times."
"But you, why you?
You've done nothing, you know."
"That makes it worse. They'll find out I've done nothing and flog me for it."
"And you are sure that you'll be taken to Petersburg for that."
"My friend, I've told you already that I regret nothing, ma carriere est finie.
From that hour when she said good-bye to me at Skvoreshniki my life has had no value for me... but disgrace, disgrace, que dira-t-elle if she finds out?"
He looked at me in despair. And the poor fellow flushed all over.
I dropped my eyes too.
"She'll find out nothing, for nothing will happen to you.
I feel as if I were speaking to you for the first time in my life, Stepan Trofimovitch, you've astonished me so this morning."
"But, my friend, this isn't fear.
For even if I am pardoned, even if I am brought here and nothing is done to me—then I am undone.
Elle me soupconnera toute sa vie—me, me, the poet, the thinker, the man whom she has worshipped for twenty-two years!"
"It will never enter her head."
"It will," he whispered with profound conviction.
"We've talked of it several times in Petersburg, in Lent, before we came away, when we were both afraid.... Elle me soupconnera toute sa vie... and how can I disabuse her?
It won't sound likely.
And in this wretched town who'd believe it, c'est invraisemblable.... Et puis les femmes, she will be pleased.