and with such attributes: for who would have incurred so much trouble for nothing?
I know Nastasya may be angry with me for free-thinking, but..._enfin, tout est dit._" He wouldn't have been himself if he could have dispensed with the cheap gibing free-thought which was in vogue in his day.

Now, at any rate, he comforted himself with a gibe, but not for long.
"Oh, if that day after to-morrow, that Sunday, might never come!" he exclaimed suddenly, this time in utter despair.

"Why could not this one week be without a Sunday--_si le miracle existe_?
What would it be to Providence to blot out one Sunday from the calendar?
If only to prove His power to the atheists _et que tout soit dit!_ Oh, how I loved her! Twenty years, these twenty years, and she has never understood me!" "But of whom are you talking?
Even I don't understand you!" I asked, wondering.
"_Vingt ans!_ And she has not once understood me; oh, it's cruel! And can she really believe that I am marrying from fear, from poverty?
Oh, the shame of it! Oh, Auntie, Auntie, I do it for you!...

Oh, let her know, that Auntie, that she is the one woman I have adored for twenty years! She must learn this, it must be so, if not they will need force to drag me under _ce qu'on appelle le_ wedding-crown." It was the first time I had heard this confession, and so vigorously uttered.

I won't conceal the fact that I was terribly tempted to laugh.
I was wrong.
"He is the only one left me now, the only one, my one hope!" he cried suddenly, clasping his hands as though struck by a new idea.