A sudden fear seized him that
he would not succeed in persuading her, and that this young, beautiful
woman, fitted to bestow such joy upon others, might vanish into the
dark, senseless void. Lida was silent. She strove to repress her
longing to live, which, despite her will, had mastered her whole
trembling frame. After all that had occurred, it seemed to her shameful
not only to live, but to wish to live. Yet her body, strong and full of
vitality, rejected so distorted an idea as if it were poison.
"Why this silence?" asked Sanine.
"Because it is impossible.... It would be a vile thing to do!... I...."
"Don't talk such nonsense!" retorted Sanine impatiently.
Lida looked up at him again, and in her tearful eyes there was a
glimmer of hope.
Sanine broke off a twig, which he bit and then flung away.
"A vile thing!" he went on, "A vile thing! My words amaze you. Yet why?
The question is one that neither you nor I can ever rightly answer.
Crime! What is a crime? If a mother's life is in danger when giving
birth to a child, and that living child, to save its mother, is
destroyed that is not a crime, but an unfortunate necessity! But to
suppress something that does not yet exist, that is called a crime, a
horrible deed.
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