better I should know, far better!”
He looked at her with anguish.
“What if it were really that?” he said, as though reaching a conclusion. “Yes, that’s what it was! I wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I killed her. … Do you understand now?”
“N-no,” Sonia whispered naively and timidly. “Only speak, speak, I shall understand, I shall understand in myself !” she kept begging him.
“You’ll understand? Very well, we shall see!” He paused and was for some time lost in meditation.
“It was like this: I asked myself one day this question—what if Napoleon, for instance, had happened to be in my place, and if he had not had Toulon nor Egypt nor the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his career with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental things, there had simply been some ridiculous old hag,