Why dead?
You must live."
"And is that all?
You've quite lost your flow of words.
I've lived my hour and that's enough.
Do you remember Christopher Ivanovitch?"
"No I don't," he answered, frowning.
"Christopher Ivanovitch at Lausanne?
He bored you dreadfully.
He always used to open the door and say,
'I've come for one minute,' and then stay the whole day.
I don't want to be like Christopher Ivanovitch and stay the whole day."
A look of pain came into his face.
"Liza, it grieves me, this unnatural language.
This affectation must hurt you, too.
What's it for?
What's the object of it?"
His eyes glowed.
"Liza," he cried, "I swear I love you now more than yesterday when you came to me!"
"What a strange declaration!
Why bring in yesterday and to-day and these comparisons?"
"You won't leave me," he went on, almost with despair; "we will go away together, to-day, won't we?
Won't we?"
"Aie, don't squeeze my hand so painfully!
Where could we go together to-day?
To 'rise again' somewhere?
No, we've made experiments enough... and it's too slow for me; and I am not fit for it; it's too exalted for me.
If we are to go, let it be to Moscow, to pay visits and entertain—that's my ideal you know; even in Switzerland I didn't disguise from you what I was like.
As we can't go to Moscow and pay visits since you are married, it's no use talking of that."
"Liza!
What happened yesterday!"
"What happened is over!"
"That's impossible!
That's cruel!"
"What if it is cruel? You must bear it if it is cruel."
"You are avenging yourself on me for yesterday's caprice," he muttered with an angry smile.
Liza flushed.
"What a mean thought!"
"Why then did you bestow on me... so great a happiness?
Have I the right to know?"
"No, you must manage without rights; don't aggravate the meanness of your supposition by stupidity.
You are not lucky to-day.
By the way, you surely can't be afraid of public opinion and that you will be blamed for this 'great happiness'?
If that's it, for God's sake don't alarm yourself.
It's not your doing at all and you are not responsible to anyone.
When I opened your door yesterday, you didn't even know who was coming in.
It was simply my caprice, as you expressed it just now, and nothing more!
You can look every one in the face boldly and triumphantly!"
"Your words, that laugh, have been making me feel cold with horror for the last hour.
That 'happiness' of which you speak frantically is worth... everything to me.