Now, whenever I come to this point in my story, I always feel horribly awkward and idiotic. Well, well! "Listen to me," I said. She leaped from her seat, came towards me with flashing eyes, and laying her hands on my shoulders began to whisper, or rather to hum in her peculiar bass voice: "Look you, now! It's like this. There's no Bolés, at all, and there's no Teresa either. But what's that to you? Is it a hard thing for you to draw your pen over paper? Eh? Ah, and _you,_ too! Still such a little fair-haired boy! There's nobody at all, neither Bolés, nor Teresa, only me. There you have it, and much good may it do you!" "Pardon me!" said I, altogether flabbergasted by such a reception, "what is it all about? There's no, Bolés, you say?" "No. So it is." "And no Teresa either?" "And no Teresa. I'm Teresa." I didn't understand it at all. I fixed my eyes upon her, and tried to make out which of us was taking leave of his or her senses. But she went again to the table, searched about for something, came back to me, and said in an offended tone: "If it was so hard for you to write to Bolés, look, there's your letter, take it! Others will write for me." I looked. In her hand was my letter to Bolés. Phew! "Listen, Teresa! What is the meaning of all this? Why must you get others to write for you when I have already written it, and you haven't sent it." "Sent it where?" "Why, to this--Bolés." "There's no such person." I absolutely did not understand it. There was nothing for me but to spit and go. Then she explained. "What is it?" she said, still offended. "There's no such person, I tell you," and she extended her arms as if she herself did not understand why there should be no such person. "But I wanted him to be.... Am I then not a human creature like the rest of them? Yes, yes, I know, I know, of course.... Yet no harm was done to anyone by my writing to him that I can see...." "Pardon me--to whom?" "To Bolés, of course." "But he doesn't exist." "Alas! alas! But what if he doesn't? He doesn't exist, but he _might!_ I write to him, and it looks as if he did exist. And Teresa--that's me, and he replies to me, and then I write to him again...." I understood at last. And I felt so sick, so miserable, so ashamed, somehow. Alongside of me, not three yards away, lived a human creature who had nobody in the world to treat her kindly, affectionately, and this human being had invented a friend for herself! "Look, now! you wrote me a letter to Bolés, and I gave it to someone else to read it to me; and when they read it to me I listened and fancied that Bolés was there. And I asked you to write me a letter from Bolés to Teresa--that is to me. When they write such a letter for me, and read it to me, I feel quite sure that Bolés is there. And life grows easier for me in consequence." "Deuce take thee for a blockhead!" said I to myself when I heard this.