How did you dare to send me a love letter then?"
"A love letter?
My letter—a love letter?
That letter was most respectful, that letter poured from my heart at the most painful moment of my life!
I remembered about you then as of some sort of light23 . . . I . . ."
"Well, all right, all right," she suddenly interrupted, no longer in the same tone at all, but in complete repentance and almost in alarm; she even bent towards him, still trying not to look straight at him, and made as if to touch his shoulder, to ask him more convincingly not to be angry, "all right," she added, terribly shamefaced, "I feel that I used a very stupid expression.
I did it just like that... to test you.
Take it as if I hadn't said it.
And if I offended you, forgive me.
Please don't look straight at me, turn your head.
You said it was a very dirty thought: I said it on purpose to needle you.
Sometimes I myself am afraid of what I want to say, and then suddenly I say it.
You said just now that you wrote that letter at the most painful moment of your life ... I know what moment it was," she said softly, again looking at the ground.
"Oh, if only you could know everything!"
"I do know everything!" she cried with new agitation. "You lived in the same rooms for a whole month then with that loathsome woman you ran away with . . ."
She did not blush now but turned pale as she said it, and she suddenly got up from her place, as if forgetting herself, but, recollecting herself, she at once sat down; her lower lip went on trembling for a long time.
The silence went on for about a minute.
The prince was terribly struck by the suddenness of her outburst and did not know what to ascribe it to.
"I don't love you at all," she suddenly snapped out.
The prince did not reply; again there was a minute of silence.
"I love Gavrila Ardalionovich . . ." she said in a quick patter, but barely audibly and bowing her head still more.
"That's not true," said the prince, almost in a whisper.
"You mean I'm lying?
It is true; I gave him my promise, two days ago, on this same bench."
The prince was alarmed and thought for a moment.
"That's not true," he said resolutely, "you've made it all up."
"How wonderfully polite.
Know that he has mended his ways; he loves me more than life itself.
He burned his hand in front of me just to prove that he loves me more than life itself."
"Burned his hand?"
"Yes, his hand.
Believe it or don't—it's all the same to me."
The prince fell silent again.
There was no joking in Aglaya's words; she was angry.
"What, did he bring a candle here with him, if it happened here?
Otherwise I can't imagine . . ."
"Yes ... a candle.
What's so incredible?"
"Whole or in a candlestick?"
"Well, yes . . . no . . . half a candle ... a candle end ... a whole candle—it's all the same, leave me alone! . . .
And he brought matches, if you like.
He lit the candle and held his finger over the flame for a whole half hour; can't that be?"
"I saw him yesterday; there was nothing wrong with his fingers."
Aglaya suddenly burst out laughing, just like a child.
"You know why I lied to you just now?" she suddenly turned to the prince with the most childlike trustfulness and with laughter still trembling on her lips. "Because when you lie, if you skillfully put in something not quite usual, something eccentric, well, you know, something that happens quite rarely or even never, the lie becomes much more believable.
I've noticed that.
Only with me it came out badly, because I wasn't able to . . ."
Suddenly she frowned again, as if recollecting herself.
"If," she turned to the prince, looking at him gravely and even sadly, "if I read to you that time about the 'poor knight,' it was because I wanted ... to praise you for one thing, but at the same time I wanted to stigmatize you for your behavior and to show you that I know everything ..."
"You're very unfair to me . . . and to that unfortunate woman, of whom you just spoke so terribly, Aglaya."