“It is difficult to explain, but certainly not the hopes you have in your mind. Hopes—well, in a word, hopes for the future, and a feeling of joy that there, at all events, I was not entirely a stranger and a foreigner. I felt an ecstasy in being in my native land once more; and one sunny morning I took up a pen and wrote her that letter, but why to her, I don’t quite know. Sometimes one longs to have a friend near, and I evidently felt the need of one then,” added the prince, and paused.
“Are you in love with her?”
“N-no! I wrote to her as to a sister; I signed myself her brother.”
“Oh yes, of course, on purpose! I quite understand.”
“It is very painful to me to answer these questions, Lizabetha Prokofievna.”
“I dare say it is; but that’s no affair of mine. Now then, assure me truly as before Heaven, are you lying to me or not?”
“No, I am not lying.”
“Are you telling the truth when you say you are not in love?”
“I believe it is the absolute truth.”
“‘I believe,’ indeed! Did that mischievous urchin give it to her?”