ints.
You have in you the things that she saw--you are honest, you are
brave.... You are like a good English clergyman. But she!... I should
have had some one with wit, with humour, with a sense of life about her.
All the things, all the little things--the way she walked, her clothes,
her smile--when she was cross! Ah, she was divine when she was cross!...
Ivan Andreievitch, be kind to me! Think for a moment less of your
morals, less of your principles--and talk to me of her! Talk to me of
her!"

He had drawn quite close to me; he looked like a madman--I have no doubt
that, at that moment, he was one.

"I can't!... I won't!" I answered, drawing away. "She is the most sacred
memory I have in my life. I hate to think of her with you. And that
because you smirch everything you touch. I have no feeling of
jealousy...."

"You? Jealousy!" he said, looking at me scornfully. "Why should you be
jealous?"

"I loved her too," I said.

He looked at me. In spite of myself the colour flooded my face. He
looked at me from head to foot--my plainness, my miserable physique, my
lameness, my feeble frame--everything was comprehended in the scorn of
that glance.

"No," I said, "you need not suppose that she ever realised. She did not.
I would have died rather than have spoken of it. But I will not talk
about her. I will not."

He drew away from me. His face was grave; the mockery had left it.

"Oh, you English, how strange you are!... In trusting, yes.... But the
things you miss! I understand now many things. I give up my desire. You
shan't smirch your precious memories.... And you, too, must understand
that there has been all this time a link that has bound us.... Well,
that link has snapped. I must go. Meanwhile, after I am gone, remember
that there is more in life, Ivan Andreievitch, than you will ever
understand. Who am I?... Rather ask, what am I? I am a Desire, a
Purpose, a Pursuit--what you like. If another suffer for that I cannot
help it, and if human nature is so weak, so stupid, it is right that it
should suffer. But perhaps I am not myself at all, Ivan Andreievitch.
Perhaps this is a ghost that you see.... What if the town has changed in
the night and strange souls have slipped into our old bodies?

"Isn't there a stir about the town? Is it I that pursue Nicholas, or is
it my ghost that pursues myself? Is it Nicholas that I pursue? Is not
Nicholas dead, and is it not my hope of release that I follow?... Don't
be so