pay a woman who gave herself to me (having probably taken a fancy to me) and how I only became tranquil after having sent her some money—thereby intimating that I did not consider myself in any way morally bound to her … Don’t nod as if you agreed with me,” he suddenly shouted at me. “Don’t I know these things? We all, and you too unless you are a rare exception, hold those same views, just as I used to. Never mind, I beg your pardon, but the fact is that it’s terrible, terrible, terrible!”
“What is terrible?” I asked.
“That abyss of error in which we live regarding women and our relations with them. No, I can’t speak calmly about it, not because of that ‘episode,’ as he called it, in my life, but because since that ‘episode’ occurred my eyes have been opened and I have seen everything in quite a different light. Everything reversed, everything reversed!”
He lit a cigarette and began to speak, leaning his elbows on his knees.
It was too dark to see his face, but, above the jolting of the train, I could hear his impressive and pleasant voice.