Forget all I said to you just now, the slander I uttered in a moment of delirium.

I know very well it was untrue.

And now, let me embrace you as I would if you had really saved me from drowning.

Ah, my friend, my only friend!" And he rushed up to clasp to his bosom the novelist, who replied with the words uttered at the beginning of this conversation: "Calm yourself, I beseech you, calm yourself!" and repeating to himself, brave and loyal man that he was: "I could not act differently, but it is hard!".