You have abandoned your mother and your sister already. He has abandoned them already! Oh, God!” she cried, “why, he knows it all himself. How, how can he live by himself! What will become of you now?”
“Don’t be a child, Sonia,” he said softly.
“What wrong have I done them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That’s only a phantom. … They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as a virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them.
And what should I say to them—that I murdered her, but did not dare to take the money and hid it under a stone?” he added with a bitter smile. “Why, they would laugh at me, and would call me a fool for not getting it. A coward and a fool! They wouldn’t understand and they don’t deserve to understand. Why should I go to them? I won’t. Don’t be a child, Sonia. …”
“It will be too much for you to bear, too much!” she repeated, holding out her hands in despairing supplication.
“Perhaps I’ve been unfair to myself,” he observed gloomily, pondering, “perhaps after all I am a man and not a louse and I’ve been in too great a hurry to condemn myself. I’ll make another fight for it.”
A haughty smile appeared on his lips.
“What a burden to bear! And your whole life, your whole life!”
“I shall get used to it,” he said grimly and thoughtfully. “Listen,” he began a minute later, “stop crying, it’s time to talk of the facts: I’ve come to tell you that the police are after me, on my track. …”
“Ach!” Sonia cried in terror.