Oh, you
blind, deluded man!
Rosmer. I? What makes you say that?
Kroll. Because I dare not--I WILL not--think the worst. No, no, let
me finish what I want to say. Am I to believe that you really
prize my friendship, Rosmer? And my respect, too? Do you?
Rosmer. Surely I need not answer that question.
Kroll. Well, but there are other things that require answering--
that require full explanation on your part. Will you submit to it
if I hold a sort of inquiry--?
Rosmer. An inquiry?
Kroll. Yes, if I ask you questions about one or two things that
it may be painful for you to recall to mind. For instance, the
matter of your apostasy--well, your emancipation, if you choose to
call it so--is bound up with so much else for which, for your own
sake, you ought to account to me.
Rosmer. My dear fellow, ask me about anything you please. I have
nothing to conceal.
Kroll. Well, then, tell me this--what do you yourself believe was
the real reason of Beata's making away with herself?
Rosmer. Can you have any doubt? Or perhaps I should rather say,
need one look for reasons for what an unhappy sick woman, who is
unaccountable for her actions, may do?
Kroll. Are you certain that Beata was so entirely unaccountable
for her actions? The doctors, at all events, did not consider
that so absolutely certain.
Rosmer. If the doctors had ever seen her in the state in which I
have so often seen her, both night and day, they would have had
no doubt about it.
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