Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/437

 eleven months and waiting for the trial, I thought about myself and my past, and I understood it. I began to understand it on the third day. On the third day they took me back there—"

He wanted to say something, but stopped, being unable to keep back his sobs. Having collected himself, he continued:

"I began to understand only when she was in her grave—"

He sobbed, but immediately continued in a hurry:

"Only when I saw her dead face I understood all I had done. I understood that it was I who had killed her; that through me she, who had been alive, moving, warm, had become immovable, waxlike, cold; and that this could never, nowhere, in no way, be mended. He who has not passed through it cannot comprehend it. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" he cried several times and grew silent.

We sat for a long time in silence. He sobbed and trembled, sitting silently in front of me. His face grew thin and drawn and his mouth was stretched out to its full width.

"Yes," he suddenly exclaimed, "if I had known then what I know now, things would have been different. I would not have married her for anything— I would not have married at all."

Again we sat for a long time in silence.

"Well, forgive me—" He turned away from me, lay down on the bench, and covered himself with his plaid. At the station where I had to get off,—it was eight o'clock in the morning, I went up to him, to bid him good-bye. I did not know whether he was asleep or only pretended to be, but he did not stir. I touched him with my hand. He uncovered himself, and it was evident that he was not sleeping.

"Good-bye," I said, offering him my hand. He gave