When, by a sudden act of violence,
she injured Pista for life, it was instantly apparent to her that she
owed expiation for it, and she had not hesitated or delayed an instant
in punishing herself more severely than any judge would have done, by
voluntarily sacrificing the happiness of her whole existence. This had
cost her no self-conquest, it was a matter of course; the eternal law
of the universe of sin and atonement required it, and to this demand
there could be no resistance.
This law was her religion, she believed it and could not help
believing; if she did not, if there was no august law of the universe,
beyond all doubt, that sin exacted pitiless requital, it surely would
not have been necessary to shoot her brother, to deliver her father so
often to the hardships of prison-life, to bind her own youth to a
hideous being whom she did not love when she married him, whom only the
consciousness of duty voluntarily and proudly fulfilled afterwards
rendered dear to her. If this was not a necessity, surely God, fate,
mankind--use whatever name you choose--had basely, atrociously, robbed
her brother, her father, and herself of life and happiness, and their
destiny was enough to cause frenzy, despair, madness!
No, no, that could not be.
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