Page:Andreyev - The Little Angel (Knopf, 1916).djvu/70

64 know it. Maybe I shall die when I know it, but death rather than ignorance of the truth. In your kisses and embraces I feel a lie. In your eyes I see it. Tell me the truth and I will leave you forever," said I.

But she was silent. Her coldly searching look penetrated my inmost depths, and drawing out my soul, regarded it with strange curiosity.

And I cried: "Answer, or I will kill you!"

"Yes, do!" she quietly replied; "sometimes life is so wearisome. But the truth is not to be extracted by threat."

And then I knelt to her. Clasping her hand I wept, and prayed for pity and the truth.

"Poor fellow!" said she, putting her hand on my head, "poor fellow!"

"Pity me," I prayed, "I want so much to know the truth."

And as I looked at her pure forehead, I thought that truth must be there behind that slender barrier. And I madly wished to smash the skull to get at the truth. There, too, behind a white bosom beat a heart, and I madly wished to tear her bosom with my nails, to see but for once an unveiled human heart. And the pointed, motionless flames of the expiring candle burnt yellow —and the walls grew dark and seemed farther apart—and it felt so sad, so lonely, so eery.

"Poor fellow!" she said. "Poor fellow!"

And the yellow flame of the candle shivered spasmodically, burnt low, and became blue.