He gave a sob, but immediately continued hurriedly:
“Only when I saw her dead face did I understand all that I had done. I realized that I, I, had killed her; that it was my doing that she, living, moving, warm, had now become motionless, waxen, and cold, and that this could never, anywhere, or by any means, be remedied. He who has not lived through it cannot understand. … Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! …” he cried several times and then was silent.
We sat in silence a long while. He kept sobbing and trembling as he sat opposite me without speaking. His face had grown narrow and elongated and his mouth seemed to stretch right across it. “Yes,” he suddenly said. “Had I then known what I know now, everything would have been different. Nothing would have induced me to marry her. … I should not have married at all.”
Again we remained silent for a long time.
“Well, forgive me. …” He turned away from me and lay down on the seat, covering himself up with his plaid. At the station where I had to get out (it was at eight o’clock in the morning) I went up to him to say goodbye. Whether he was asleep or only pretended to be, at any rate he did not move. I touched him with my hand. He uncovered his face, and I could see he had not been asleep.
“Goodbye,” I said, holding out my hand. He gave me his and smiled slightly, but so piteously that I felt ready to weep.
“Yes, forgive me …” he said, repeating the same words with which he had concluded his story.