“Give me credit for good intentions,” he urged. “In any case the letter was evidence only of my care for your happiness--of the fact that I was thinking of it in advance, and was ready to sacrifice myself on its account. Do you think that I wrote the message callously--that inwardly I was not shedding tears the whole time? Why should I have acted as I did?” “Why, indeed?” she interrupted. “For the reason that you wished to surprise me here, and to see whether I was weeping, and how bitterly. Had you _really_ meant the letter as you say, you would be making preparations to go abroad instead of meeting me as you are now doing. Last night you wanted my ‘I love you’; to-day you want to see my tears; and to-morrow, I daresay, you will be wishing that I were dead!” “How can you wrong me like that? Believe me, I would give half my life to see smiles on your face instead of tears.” “Yes--now that you have seen a woman weeping on your account. But no; you have no heart. You say that you had no desire to make me weep. Had that been so, you would not have acted as you have done.” “Then what ought I to do?” he asked tenderly. “Will you let me beg your pardon?” “No; only children beg pardon, or persons who have jostled some one in a crowd. Moreover, even when granted, such pardon is worth nothing.” “But what if the letter should be true, and your affection for me all a mistake?” he suggested. “You are _afraid_, then?--you are afraid of falling into a well?--you are afraid lest some day I should hurt you by ceasing to be fond of you?” “Would I could sink into the ground!” he reflected. The pain was increasing in proportion as he divined Olga’s thoughts. “On the other hand,” she went on, “suppose you were to weary of love, even as you have wearied of books, of work, and of the world in general? Suppose that, fearing no rival, you were to go to sleep by my side (as you do on your sofa at home), and that my voice were to become powerless to wake you? Suppose that your present swelling of heart were to pass away, and your dressing-gown come to acquire more value in your eyes than myself? Often and often do such questions prevent my sleeping; yet I do not, on that account, trouble _you_ with conjectures as to the future. Always I hope for better things, for, with me, happiness has cast out fear. Only for one thing have I long been sitting and waiting--namely, for happiness; until at length I had come to believe that I had found it.... Even if I _have_ made a mistake, at least this”--and she laid her hand upon her heart--“does not convict me of guilt. God knows that I never desired such a fate! And I had been so happy!” She broke off abruptly. “Then be happy again,” urged Oblomov. “No. Rather, go you whither you have always been wishing to go,” she said softly. “You are wiser than I am,” he murmured, twisting a sprig of acacia between his fingers.