“How could I despise you?” asked Gurov. “You don’t know what you are saying.”

“God forgive me,” she said, and her eyes filled with tears. “It’s awful.”

“You seem to feel you need to be forgiven.”

“Forgiven? No. I am a bad, low woman; I despise myself and don’t attempt to justify myself. It’s not my husband but myself I have deceived. And not only just now; I have been deceiving myself for a long time. My husband may be a good, honest man, but he is a flunkey! I don’t know what he does there, what his work is, but I know he is a flunkey! I was twenty when I was married to him. I have been tormented by curiosity; I wanted something better. ‘There must be a different sort of life,’ I said to myself. I wanted to live! To live, to live!⁠ ⁠… I was fired by curiosity⁠ ⁠… you don’t understand it, but, I swear to God, I could not control myself; something happened to me: I could not be restrained. I told my husband I was ill, and came here.⁠ ⁠… And here I have been walking about as though I were dazed, like a mad creature;⁠ ⁠… and now I have become a vulgar, contemptible woman whom anyone may despise.”

Gurov felt bored already, listening to her. He was irritated by the naive tone, by this remorse, so unexpected and inopportune; but for the tears in her eyes, he might have thought she was jesting or playing a part.