"I know. The compact of a tyrant with a slave." "Be you the tyrant; I will be the slave." "With these words as many women have been deceived as there are grains of sand on the sea-shore." "I swear to you, my life, my very soul, are yours." "By whom do you swear? By Venus, so inconstant; by Allah, who denies that women have souls, and divides the heart of man in four parts; by Brahma, who burns the widow on the funereal pyre; or by the great Cosmos?" "There is nothing so formidable as a woman who takes to philosophizing!" "That is why I do so." "You kill every iota of poetry with it." "Then speak prose." "Well, then, I ask nothing of you--I give. I give you my soul, my hand, my name!" "Ah, your name! That is a gift. A woman like me has diamonds, horses, houses, given her; but he who would offer her his name is indeed rare to meet with. And yet a name is the most precious ornament. Without such a name, I am nobody. Were I to marry my groom of the chambers to-morrow, I should be a woman of respectability. My poor good Bogumil never dreams that in his fur-lined gloves, besides his own red hands, lies my reputation! So you would give me your name?--a name which, so far, has been written on nothing else than overdue bills and ale-house doors. You silly boy! Why, people would not call me 'Frau Pushkin,' but you 'Herr Ilmarinen.' But once let your name be written in the fiery letters of fame, instead of chalked on innkeepers' slates, would you then unite it to another whose every letter is besmeared with--" "With calumny!" broke in Pushkin, vehemently. "It is but just. There is nothing so bad that can be said of me that I cannot fill in. I am selfish, unfeeling; I have no faith in religion, nor in honor. Both are sophistries, contradicting each other, according as the ethnographical relations change about. The only good is, what benefits mankind. Virtue is folly. The sole use of good men is to be the tools of their more clever fellows." "Do not say such things," cried Pushkin. "When I hear you speak so, you seem to me as if you had smeared your face with hideous colors." Was it not her calling to do so? Zeneida drew her wrap about her shoulders. "You will not see me such as I am. I am sorry for it; but I cannot deceive. Have you no eyes for the magnificence which surrounds me? Do you know whence it all comes? Would you have me forsake it all--for what?" "For another world before whose splendor all you see around you must fall into dust. The world into which I would lead you is filled with more magnificent palaces than even yours, Zeneida. It is Paradise!" "Find yourself another Eve. Did I love you, I should kill you with _my_ jealousy; did I not love you, with _yours_. To-day with one, to-morrow with another, for my caprices are boundless. I know no law, no oath, no shame. Go; save yourself from me! Now you are but ice, do not wait until you are aflame. I can be his only who loves me not!"