SASHA. Have you? AST. Some other man was murdered twenty years ago. The murderer said that it was you. SASHA. Ah, he said that it was me, did he? AST. Why did Adámek say that it was you? SASHA. Can you not guess? Adámek murdered no one. AST. He murdered no one? But he was condemned. SASHA. He was never condemned. AST. Never condemned? Then what became of him? SASHA. He died.... Do you not understand? It was I who killed Adámek. AST. You! SASHA. We had quarreled. We were alone in a solitary place. I killed him and stood looking down at him with the knife in my hand dripping scarlet in the snow, frightened at the sudden silence and what I had done. And while I thought I was alone, I turned and saw the police-officer with his revolver leveled at my head. Then amid the confusion and black horror that seized on me, a bright thought shot across my mind. Adámek had no relatives, no friends; he was an outcast. Stained with his flowing blood, I exchanged names with him; that's the old heroic custom of blood-brotherhood, you know. I named myself Adámek; I named my victim Sasha. Ingenious, wasn't it? I had romantic ideas in those days. Adámek has been cursed for a murderer, and my memory has been honored. Alexander Petróvitch has been a hero; my mother has wept for me. I have seen her in the graveyard lamenting on my tomb; I have read my name on the cross. I hardly know whether to laugh or to cry. Evidently she loves me still. AST. And you? SASHA. Do I love her? No. There is no question of that. She is part of a life that was ended too long ago. I have only myself to think of now. What should I gain by loving her? Understand, I am an outlaw, an escaped convict; a word can send me back to the mines. I must hide myself, the patrols are everywhere.... Even here I am not safe. [_Locks the street door._] AST. Why have you returned? Why have you spoilt what you began so well? Having resolved twenty years ago to vanish like a dead man.... SASHA. Ah! if they had killed me then I would have died willingly. But after twenty years remorse goes, pity goes, everything goes; entombed in the mines, but still alive.... I was worn out. I could bear it no longer. Others were escaping, I escaped with them. AST. This will break her heart. She has made an angel of you. The lamp is always burning....