Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - In Vain.djvu/106

94 confession had cost me, and besides she had enticed me on, to begin with. She went at once with a complaint to her 'mamma.'"

"Well, what did the mamma do?"

"The 'mamma' told me first that I was a scrub, whereupon I bowed to her; second she told me to go my way, and third she threw a five-ruble note on the floor before me. I picked up the note, for it belonged to me, and from it I got drunk that evening and next morning also."

"And then?"

"Then the next evening and the third morning."

"And so on?"

"No. On the fourth day I had an immense cry, and later, when I had cured myself a little, not of drinking, but of love, I tried to fall in love with the first woman I met; but I could not love any more, I give thee my word of honor."

"And hast thou no hope for the future?

"Augustinovich thought a moment, and answered,—"

No, I have no respect now for women. As much as I believed in them before, as much as I honored and loved them as the highest reward of toil and effort, that much do I like