"I——" answered Lunev, not very clear who was speaking. Olympiada's servant, a plump, pock-marked person, had a loud harsh voice, and always opened the door without question.
"Whom do you want?" asked the voice again.
"Is Olympiada Danilovna at home?"
The door opened suddenly, and a strong light fell on Ilya's face. The lad fell back a step, half shut his eyes, and looked perplexedly at the door, as though what he saw appeared an illusion. Before him, lamp in hand, stood a little old man, in a wide heavy dressing-gown, the colour of raspberries. His head was all but entirely bald, only a thin crown of grey hair ran from one ear to the other, and on his chin a short thin grey beard quivered uneasily. He looked at Ilya's face, and his keen, piercing eyes blinked evilly, and his upper lip, with its scanty hairs, twitched up and down. The lamp shook and trembled in his thin, swarthy hand.
"Who are you, then? Well, come in. Who are you?"
Ilya understood. He felt the blood mount to his head and an untoward feeling of disgust and wrath filled his heart. This was the rival who shared with him the favours of the stately, beautiful lady!
"I am—a pedlar," he said, in a dull voice, as he crossed the threshhold.
The old man winked at him with his left eye, and smiled. His eyes were red with inflammation, without eyelashes, and instead of teeth, a couple of yellow, pointed pegs showed in his mouth.
"Oh, ho! A pedlar, eh? What sort of a pedlar?" asked the old man, with a cunning smile, and held the lamp up to illumine Ilya's face.
"I deal in all sorts of little things—scent and ribbons, and so on," said Ilya, and hung his head. A giddiness seized him and red spots danced before his eyes.
"Oh, oh! Ribbons and scent. Yes, yes! Ribbons and laces to deck pretty faces. But what do you want here, my young pedlar? Eh?"
"I want to see Olympiada Danilovna."
"Eh, to see her? What do you want of her, now?"
"I have to get some money for things she's had," Ilya brought out, with difficulty.
He felt an incomprehensible fear of this horrible old man and hated him. In his thin, soft voice and in his evil eyes lay something that penetrated within Ilya's heart and took away his courage, and cast him down.
"Money, eh? A little debt. All right, my lad."
Suddenly the old man took the lamp away from Ilya's face, put it down, brought his yellow, withered face close to Ilya's ear, and asked him softly, with another, cunning smile: "Where's the bill? Give me the bill."
"What bill?" said Ilya, recoiling, frightened.
"Why, from your master. The bill for Olympiada Danilovna. You've got it, I suppose? What? Give it here! I'll take it to her. Quick, be quick!"
The old man moved nearer, while Ilya retreated towards the door. His mouth was dry with fear.
"I have no bill," he said loudly in despair, feeling that something terrible must happen the next moment.
The tall, stately figure of Olympiada appeared behind the old man. Calmly, without the trembling of an eyelash, she looked at Ilya over the head of the old man, and said in her measured way: "What is the matter?"
"It's a pedlar, he says you owe him money; you've bought ribbons, eh? and not paid for them? He! He! Well, here he is and wants his money."
He paced with short steps to and fro and blinked suspiciously first at Olympiada, then at Ilya. With a commanding gesture, she waved him to one side, put her hand in the pocket of her cloak, and said to Ilya in a severe tone: "What is it? Could you not come another time?"
"Quite right," squeaked the old man. "Silly fool, isn't he?"
"Coming when he's least wanted—donkey!"
Ilya stood as though turned to stone.
"Don't scream so, Vassili Gavrilovitsch, it doesn't sound well," said Olympiada, and turning to Ilya, "How much? three roubles forty kopecks isn't it? here, take it!"
"And now clear out!" squeaked the old man again. "Allow me. I'll bolt the door myself. I'll do it."
He drew his dressing-gown round him, opened the door, and cried:
"Now then, go along!"
Ilya stood in the frost before the closed door, and stared stupidly at it. He could not yet decide if all that he had just seen were reality, or a hateful dream. In one hand he held his cap, in the other the money Olympiada had given him. He stood there so long that he felt the frost round his head like a ring of ice, and his legs were stiff with cold. Then he put on his cap, put the money in his pocket, tucked his hands into the sleeves of his overcoat, drew in his shoulders, and went slowly down the street with bowed head. His heart seemed ice and in his head a couple of balls rolled here and there and knocked against his temples. Before his eyes swam the dusky face of the old man, the yellow skull illuminated by the cold lamp-light.
And the face of the old man smiled evilly, cunningly, triumphantly.
On the day following his encounter with Olympiada's aged lover, Ilya walked to and fro along the main street of the town, slowly and silently. He did not call his wares as usual, but looked at his box gloomily, and hidden in his heart there lay immovable, a heavy leaden feeling. He never ceased to see before him the scornful face of the old man, Olympiada's calm blue eyes and the gesture with which she had given him the money. Sharp little snowflakes drove through the dry, frosty air, stinging his face like needles.
He had just passed a little shop, half-concealed in a niche between a church and the big house of a rich merchant. Over the entrance hung an old rusty sign with the inscription:
"Bureau de Change. W. G. Poluektov. Old gold and silver, ornaments for shrines, rarities of every kind, old coins."
As Ilya passed the door, he thought he saw behind the window panes the old man's face, grinning and nodding at him mockingly. He felt an irresistible desire to see the old man closer. He easily found an excuse. Like all pedlars, he collected the old coins that came into his hands, and sold them to the money-changers at an advance of twenty kopecks to the rouble. He had a few at that moment in his wallet. He turned back, opened the shop door boldly, went in with his box, took off his cap and said, "Good-day!"
The old man was sitting behind a small counter, and at the moment removing the metal clasps from an eikon, loosening the little nails with a small chisel. He was deep in his work. He shot a hasty glance at the lad as he came in, then turned again to his work, and said drily without looking up:
"Good day! What can I do for you?"
"Did you recognise me?" asked Ilya.
The old man looked at him again.
"Perhaps. What d'you want?"
"You buy old coins?"
"Show me."
Ilya shifted his box towards his back, and felt for the pocket where he had his purse with the coins—his hand failed to find it; it trembled like his heart, which beat furiously with hate of the old man, fear of him, and a vague impulse to achieve something decisive. Whilst with his hand he felt under the flap of his overcoat, he looked steadily at the little bald head of the money-changer, and a cold shiver ran down his back.
"Well, have you got them?" the old man addressed him crossly.
"One moment," answered Ilya softly.
At last he succeeded in getting out his purse; he went close up to the counter and shook the coins out on to it. The old man gave one look at them.
"That's all, eh?"
He took the silver coins up in his thin yellow fingers, and looked at them one at a time, murmuring to himself:
"Katherine the Second, Anna, Catherine, Paul, another Paul, a cross-rouble, a thirty-two piece. H'm, who's to see what this is? This is no good, it's all worn away."
"But the size shows it's a quarter rouble," said Ilya, harshly.
"Fifteen kopecks you can have for it, no more."
The old man pushed the coins aside, drew out the drawer of his till with a quick movement, and began to feel about in it. A fierce, stabbing rage took possession of Ilya, piercing through him like a frost-cold iron. He struck out with his arm, and his powerful fist caught the old man on the temple. The money-changer fell against the wall and struck his head hard upon it, but braced himself with his breast against the counter, held fast to it with his hands and stretched out his thin neck towards Ilya. Lunev saw the terrified eyes blinking in the dusky little face and the lips quiver, and he heard a penetrating, groaning whisper:
"My darling—my darling."
"Ah! you beast!" cried Ilya in a low voice, and crushed the old man's neck with his hands in disgust. He throttled and pressed him and began to shake him, while the old man's throat rattled, and he tried convulsively to get away. His eyes filled with blood, became bigger and bigger, and gushed with tears. His tongue protruded from his dark mouth and moved to and fro as though mocking the murderer. The warm saliva dropped on Ilya's hand, and a hoarse, whistling, gurgling sound came from the old man's throat. The cold crooked fingers caught at Lunev's neck, but he clenched his teeth, threw back his head, and shook the frail body more fiercely and dragged it over the counter; he would not have loosed his hold on the yielding throat, had any one come behind him and struck him. Filled with rigid fear and glowing hate, he saw Poluektov's dim eyes grow bigger and bigger, and still he gripped him more fiercely, more passionately, and ever as the old man's body grew heavier the weighty load on Ilya's heart was lightened. At last he let go of the body and pushed it away, and the money-changer's corpse sunk slackly to the ground.
Now Lunev looked round him; the shop was deserted and still, behind the door in the street snow was falling thickly. On the floor at his feet lay two pieces of soap, a purse, and a roll of ribbon. He perceived that these objects had fallen from his box, picked them up and replaced them. Then he leant over the counter and looked once more at the old man. He was crumpled in the small space between the counter and the wall. His head hung down on his breast, nothing could be seen but the yellow, bald patch at the back of it. Then Lunev looked at the open till—gold and silver coins shone back at him, packets of paper money met his eyes; he trembled with joy, hastily caught a packet, then a second and a third, stuffed them under his shirt, and looked once more anxiously round.
Carefully, without haste, he stepped back into the street, stopped three paces from the shop, covered his wares with the oil-cloth cover, and then went on in the midst of the thick snow that fell from invisible heights. Round him, even as in him, floated a cold, misty cloud; his eyes strove to pierce it with tense alertness. Suddenly he felt a dull pain in his eyes, he touched them with a finger of his right hand, and stood still, gripped by terror, as though his feet were suddenly frozen fast to the ground. He felt as though his eyes were coming out of their sockets, like those of old Poluektov, and he feared lest they should remain for ever thus protruded, never to be closed, for all men to read in them the crime he had committed. They felt as though they were lifeless. He touched the pupils with a finger, felt a sudden pain in them, and tried for a long time vainly to close the lids. Fear caught the breath in his throat. At last he managed to close them. He rejoiced at the darkness that suddenly enclosed him, and stood motionless, seeing nothing, breathing deep breaths of the cold air. Some one ran against him. He looked quickly round, and saw a tall man, in a short fur coat, passing. Ilya looked after the unknown till he vanished in the thick drifting snow. Then he straightened his cap and strode on, feeling still the pain in his eyes and a weight at his head. His shoulders twitched, his fingers involuntarily clenched, and a daring boldness awakened in his heart and banished his fear.
He went on till the road divided, there saw the grey figure of a policeman, and went, as if by accident, slowly, quite slowly, straight up to him. His heart stopped as he drew near. "Here's weather," said Ilya, going close to the policeman and looking boldly into his face.
"Ye—es! Snowing pretty well! Thank heaven, it'll be warmer now," answered the policeman, with a good-natured expression on his big, red, bearded face.
"What's the time, by the way?" asked Ilya.
"I'll have a look." The policeman knocked the snow from his sleeve, and put his hand under his cloak.
Lunev felt both relieved and again made anxious by the proximity of this man. Suddenly he laughed, in a dry, forced way.
"What are you laughing at?" asked the policeman, opening the front of his watch with his nail.
"If you could see yourself. It's as though some one had tipped a cart of snow over you!"
"No need for that; it's coming down in bucketsful. Just half-past one, all but five minutes. Yes, brother, it's bad for men of my trade this weather. You'll go into the public house, in the warm, and I must stick about here till six. Oh, just see; your box is full of snow!"
The policeman sighed and snapped his watch to.
"Yes, I'm off to the alehouse," said Ilya, with a forced laugh, and added, for no particular reason: "That one, up there, that's where I'm going."
"Don't chaff me!" cried the policeman, sulkily.
In the alehouse Ilya took a seat near the window. From this window, as he knew, the church could be seen next to Poluektov's shop. But now all was covered with a white curtain. Ilya watched attentively how the flakes slowly slid past the window and settled on the ground, covering the footsteps of the wayfarers as with a thick carpet. His heart beat strongly and full of life, but easily. He sat and waited for what should befall, and the time seemed to pass slowly.
When the waiter brought him tea he could not refrain from asking, "Well, how goes the neighbourhood? anything new?"
"It's got warmer, much warmer," answered the other quickly and hurried away.
Ilya waited and waited, he felt as though he were weary and fell into a doze. He poured out a glass of tea, but did not drink it, sat still, and thought of nothing. Suddenly he felt hot; he unbuttoned the collar of his overcoat, and shuddered as his hands touched his chin. It felt as though these were not his hands but the strange cold hands of an enemy that had touched him. He held them up and observed his fingers attentively—his hands were clean, but the thought came to him that he must wash them very carefully with soap.
"Poluektov has been murdered!" cried some one suddenly in the bar. Ilya sprang up from his chair as though the cry had been addressed to him. But all the other customers also were in commotion and rushed to the door, pulling on their caps.
Ilya threw a ten-kopeck piece on the counter, slung his box over his shoulder, and followed in the same haste as the others.
Already a big crowd had collected before the shop of the money-changer. Policemen moved up and down, and full of officious zeal shouted at the people; the bearded one with whom Ilya had spoken was there too. He stood in the doorway, keeping back the crowd that pressed towards it, regarded every one with troubled eyes, and passed his hand constantly over his left cheek that seemed redder than the right.
Ilya found a place near him and listened to the remarks of the crowd. Next him stood a tall, black-bearded merchant with a stern face, who listened with knitted brows to an old man in a fox-skin coat, who was relating in a lively way:
"The errand boy comes to the house and thinks his master has fainted. He runs to Peter Stepanovitch. 'Ah!' he says, 'come quick to our house, the master is ill.' Naturally Peter hurries off, and when he comes in he sees the old man is dead. A pretty business! and think of the audacity, in broad day, in such a busy street, it's past belief!"
The black-bearded merchant gave a low cough, and said severely:
"It is the finger of God! Evidently the Lord would not receive his repentance."
Lunev pressed forward to look again at the face of the merchant and struck him with his box. The merchant called out, pushing him away with his elbow and regarding him angrily:
"Where are you coming with that box of yours?" Then he turned again to the old man: "It is written, 'not a hair falls from the head of a man except by the will of God.'"
"What's one to say?" said the old man, and nodded in agreement: then he added, half aloud, his eyes twinkling, "It is well known that God marks the wicked. The Lord forgive me, it's wrong to speak of it, but it's difficult also to be silent."
"And you'll see," went on the stern merchant, "they'll never find the guilty one; mark my words."
Lunev laughed right out. The sound of this conversation seemed to send new strength and courage streaming through him. If any one at this moment had asked him: "Did you murder him?" he would have answered "yes" boldly and fearlessly. With this feeling in his breast he pushed through the crowd, close up to the policeman.
The man looked at him, gave him a push on the shoulder, and said loudly: "Now then, what are you doing here? Be off!"
Ilya backed away and struck against a bystander. He received another push and a voice cried: "Give him one over the head!"
Then he left the crowd, sat on the church steps and laughed in his heart at all these men. He heard the snow scrunch under their feet and the muttered conversation, fragments of which reached his ears.
"Why must the rascal do his dirty work just when I'm on duty?"
"In all the town he took the biggest discount, he always was a thief."
"It'll never stop snowing to-day, you can't see the shop at all."
"He used to fleece his debtors properly."
"He was a man after all—one can't help pitying him."
"They're all greedy—think of nothing but their profits."
"Look! there's his wife."
"Ah! poor thing!" sighed a ragged peasant.
Lunev stood up and saw a stout, elderly woman in a loosely-fitting dress and a black veil, getting heavily out of a wide sledge covered with a bear's skin. The police officer and a man with a red moustache helped her.
"Ah! my dear, my husband." As her trembling, frightened voice was heard, silence fell on all the bystanders.
Ilya looked at her and thought of Olympiada.
"Where's the son?" said some one, softly.
"He's in Moscow, they say."
"He'll get the bad news soon enough."
"That's true."
Lunev heard, and his heart sank. He preferred to hear that no one lamented Poluektov; although at the same time, he thought all these men stupid and unreasoning, except the black-bearded merchant. This man had an air of strength and of firm faith, but the others stood like trees in a wood, and chattered in their silly way, pleased at the suffering of others. He waited until the frail body of the money-changer was carried from the shop, and then went home, cold, tired, but calm. Reaching home, he bolted himself in his room, and began to count his money: in two thick packets there were five hundred roubles in small notes, in the third packet, eight hundred and fifty roubles. There was also a little bundle of coupons which he did not count. He wrapped all the money up in paper, and considered where to hide it. As he thought, he felt that his head was heavy and that he was sleepy. He determined to hide the money in the attic, and started out there, holding the parcel in his hand. In the passage he met Jakov.
"Ah, you're back," said Jakov.
"Yes, I'm back."
"How pale you are. Are you ill?"
"I'm not feeling up to much."
"What have you got there?"
"What have——" Ilya began; then suddenly he shivered in fear lest he should babble away his secret, and said hurriedly, swinging his parcel to and fro:
"It's ribbon, that's all, out of my box."
"Coming to tea?" said Jakov.
"I? Oh, yes, in a minute."
He went quickly through the passage. He trod unsteadily, and his head was dizzy, as though he were drunk. As he mounted the attic stairs, he went carefully, in constant fear lest he should make a noise or meet some one. While he buried the money under the flooring, near the chimney, he thought all of a sudden that some one was hidden in the darkness in the corner, watching him; he felt a wish to throw a stone in that direction, but mastered his feelings, and came slowly downstairs again. Now he had no fears. It was as though he had left them with the money; but a fresh doubt waked in his heart: "Why did I kill him?"
Masha greeted him joyfully in the cellar, where she was busy at the stove with the samovar.
"Ah, how early you are to-day!"
"That's the snow," he said; then added, crossly: "What d'you call early? I've come, as usual, when it's time. Can't you see how dark it is, you little goose?"
"It's dark here in the morning; and what are you shouting at?"
"I'm shouting, as you call it, because you talk like the police. 'You're very early—Where are you going?—What have you got there?' What business is it of yours?"
Masha looked searchingly at him, and said, reproachfully:
"How high and mighty you've grown!"
"Oh, go to the devil!" snarled Lunev, and sat down at the table.
Masha felt insulted, and turned away. Looking small and delicate, she shook back her dark hair from time to time, coughing and blinking when the smoke from the samovar she was tending irritated her eyes. Her face was thin, and the eyes shone all the more brightly for the dark circles round them. She was like the flowers that spring up amid grass and weeds in an overgrown garden.
Ilya looked at her and thought how the child lived all alone in this underground cave, working like a full-grown woman, how there was not, and perhaps never would be, any joy in life for her, condemned always to live in this straitened, dirty place. But he might live now as he had always desired, in peace and cleanliness. The thought filled him with happiness. Then at once he felt his unkindness to Masha.
"Masha!" he cried.
"Well, what now, cross-patch?"
"D'you know, I'm a bad lot," said Lunev, and his voice shook, while he wondered in his heart if he should tell her or no.
Masha turned towards him with a smile:
"Pity there's no one to give you a beating, that's what you want, you bad fellow!"
"Oh! have a little patience."
"No—no—you don't deserve any," said Masha, then approaching him quickly, she said in a tone of entreaty: "Ilya dear, ask your uncle to take me with him, will you? Ask him! I'll go on my knees and thank you."
"Where do you want to go?" asked Lunev, tired and too busy with his own thoughts to attend.
"To the holy places. Dear Ilya, ask him."
With hands clasped and eyes streaming, she stood in front of him, as though before a shrine.
"It would be so lovely, in spring, through the fields and woods. I'd go on and on, ever so far. I think of it every day—I dream that I'm going there, how good it would be; speak to your uncle, tell him to take me! He listens to you—I won't be a trouble to him. I'll beg for myself. I'm so little, they'll give to me. Will you, Ilusha? I'll kiss your hand."
Suddenly she seized his hand and bent over it. He sprang up, pushing her back.
"Silly girl," he cried, "what are you doing? I've strangled a man!"
His own words terrified him and he added at once: "Perhaps—perhaps for all you know, I've done something terrible with these hands, and you'll kiss them."
"No, let me," said Masha, pressing closer to him. "What does it matter? I'll kiss them! Petrusha is worse than you, and I kiss his hand for every bit of bread. I hate it, but he wants it, so I do it, and then he pinches me and touches me, the beast!"
Ilya's heart sprang up joyfully in a moment, perhaps because he had said the terrible thing, perhaps because he had not said everything.
He smiled and spoke gently to the child. "All right, I'll fix it up with uncle, I'll manage it, you shall go on your pilgrimage. I'll give you some money for the journey."
"You dear!" cried Masha, and fell on his neck.
"Here let go! Stop it," said Lunev, seriously. "I promise you shall go. Will you pray for me, Mashutka?"
"Pray for you! My God!"
Jakov appeared in the door, and said wonderingly:
"What on earth are you screaming at? Can hear you in the courtyard."
"Jakov!" cried the girl joyfully, eager to tell him. "I'm going away, on the pilgrimage. Ilya's promised to speak to the hunchback, he'll take me with him," and she laughed delightedly.
"Will he do it?" Jakov asked thoughtfully.
"Why not? She won't get in the way, and it's a good thing for her. Look at her, her eyes are shining, hardly like a live person."
"Yes—yes," said Jakov. After a moment's pause, he began to whistle softly.
"What's up," asked Ilya.
"Now I'm done for, all alone here, like the moon in the sky."
"Oh, hire a nurse," said Ilya laughing.
"I'll take to drink," said Jakov, shaking his head.
Masha looked at him, hung her head, and went towards the door; from there she spoke in a reproachful, sad voice:
"How weak you are, Jakov!"
"And you're very strong, aren't you? leaving a friend in the lurch. Nice way you treat me—how shall I endure it without you?"
He sat down at the table opposite Ilya with a gloomy face, and said:
"Suppose I just go with Terenti, too, eh! on the quiet?"
"Do it! I would," advised Ilya.
"Yes, but my father'll put the police on me!"
All were silent. Jakov began with forced gaiety:
"It's jolly to get drunk! You think of nothing, you understand nothing, and it's jolly."
Masha put the samovar on the table, and said, shaking her head:
"Oh, you Aren't you ashamed to talk like that?"
"You can't talk," cried Jakov, crossly. "Your father doesn't worry you—let's you do as you like. You live as you please."
"A nice sort of life!" answered Masha. "I'd run away to get rid of it."
"It's bad for us all," said Ilya softly, and fell to brooding again.
Jakov began looking thoughtfully out of the window.
"If one could get away, anywhere, out of all this, sit in a wood, by a river, and think about things."
"That would be silly, to run away from life," said Ilya, peevishly. Jakov looked at him inquiringly, and said shyly:
"D'you know, I've found a book."
"What sort of book?"
"Very old. It's bound in leather. It looks like a psalter, and it's really a heretic book. I bought it of a Tartar for seventy kopecks."
"What's it called?" asked Ilya. He had no wish for conversation, but felt that silence might be perilous for him, and compelled himself to keep talking.
"The title's torn out," answered Jakov, sinking his voice, "but it's all about the very beginning of things. It's difficult, and so horrible. It says that Thales, of Miletus, first of all said: 'All life proceeds from the water, and God dwells in matter as the power of life.' And then there was a wicked man called Diagoras, who taught that there were more gods than one, and he didn't believe in God properly. And Epicurus is talked about, and he said that there is a God, but He troubles about no one, and cares for no one. That's to say that if there is a God, men have nothing to do with Him; at least, that's how I understand it. Live just as you please, there's no one who takes any heed what you do."
Ilya got up out of his chair with wrinkled brow, and interrupted his friend's discourse.
"It'd be a good thing to take that book and thump you on the head with it."
"Whatever for?" cried Jakov, hurt at Ilya's comment.
"So's you won't read any more, stupid! And the man who wrote that book's a stupid too." He went round the table, bent over his friend, full of anger, shouting at Jakov, as though hammering his big head with the words.
"There is a God! He sees everything. He knows everything. There's no one beside Him. Life is given to you to try you, and sin to prove you. Can you stand firm or no? If you can't then comes the punishment, be sure of it. Not from men; from Him, d'you see? It'll come; it won't fail."
"Stop!" cried Jakov. "Did I say anything about that?"
"I don't care. Your punishment'll come. How can you judge me, eh?" cried Ilya, pale with excitement, mastered by a quite incomprehensible passion that had caught him all of a sudden. "Not a hair falls from your head, except by His will, d'you hear? And if I have fallen into sin, it was by His will, you fool!"
"Are you crazy or what is it?" cried Jakov, terrified, and leaning against the wall. "What sin have you fallen into?"
Ilya heard the question through the buzzing and roaring in his ears, and it was like a cold breath blowing upon him. He looked suspiciously at Jakov and at Masha, who was also disturbed by his excitement and outcry.
"I was only speaking by way of example," he said, in a dull way, and sat down again.
"You don't seem well," remarked Masha shyly.
"Your eyes are so heavy," added Jakov, and examined him attentively.
Ilya passed his hand involuntarily over his eyes and said, quietly:
"It's nothing; it'll pass off."
A few minutes later he felt he could not endure this painful, distressing association with his friends, and went to his own room without waiting for tea. He had scarcely lain down on his bed before Terenti appeared. Ever since the hunchback had decided to go to the Holy Cities to seek forgiveness for his sins, his face wore a clearer, happier expression, as though he experienced already a foretaste of the joy that release from his weight of guilt would achieve for him. Gently he approached his nephew's bed, and said, smiling and friendly, stroking his beard:
"I saw you come in, and I thought, I'll go and have a chat. We shan't be here together much longer."
"You're really going?" asked Ilya, drily.
"As soon as it's warmer, off I go. I want to be in Kiev for Easter."
"Look here! Couldn't you take little Masha with you?"
"What? No; that's impossible," cried the hunchback, with a gesture of refusal.
"Listen," Ilya went on, obstinately. "She's nothing to do here; and now she's just the age—Jakov, Petrusha, and all the rest, you understand? This house is like a gulf of destruction for every one, a damnable place! Let her go. Perhaps she'll never come back."
"But how can I take her with me?"
"Take her—just take her!" said Ilya, persisting. "You can spend for her the hundred roubles you were going to give me. I don't need your money. And she will pray for you. Her prayers will be worth a good deal."
The hunchback came nearer, and said, after a pause: "A good deal—That's true—You're right. But I can't take the money from you. We'll leave it as we settled. And for Masha, I'll see to it." His eyes shone with joy, and he whispered: "Do you know whom I got to know yesterday? A famous man, Peter Vassilitsch. Have you never heard of the Bible preacher, a man of wisdom! God must have sent him to me, to free my soul from doubt concerning the Lord's forgiveness of a sinner like me."
Ilya said nothing. He only wished that his uncle would leave him alone. With half-shut eyes he looked out of the window.
"We talked of sin and the salvation of the soul," whispered Terenti. "He said to me: 'As the chisel needs the stone to gain its sharpness, so man heeds sin, to wear away his soul, and bring it to the dust at the feet of all-merciful God.'"
Ilya looked at his uncle, and said, with a mocking laugh:
"Tell me, is this preacher like Satan, by any chance?"
"How can you talk like that?" and Terenti recoiled a step. "He's a God-fearing man, he's more famous than Antipa, your grandfather—yes."
"Oh! all right, what else did he say?"
Suddenly Ilya laughed, a dry, unpleasant laugh; his uncle turned away surprised and asked: "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing. He was quite right, that preacher. Yes—the devil! I think so too, word for word."
"He said, too," Terenti began with relish, "that sin gives the soul wings—wings of repentance to fly to the throne of the Almighty."
"Do you know," interrupted Ilya, "you're rather like Satan, too!"
The hunchback stretched out his arms like a great bird spreading its wings, and stood paralysed with fear and anger.
Ilya sat up on his bed, pushed his uncle aside, and said, gloomily:
"Get away!"
Terenti stood in the middle of the room; he looked darkly at his nephew who sat on the bed, his head on his breast, and his shoulders up to his ears.
"Suppose I won't repent," said Ilya boldly. "Suppose I think I didn't want to sin—everything happened of itself, everything is by God's will, why should I trouble? He knows all, and guides all; if He hadn't willed it, He would have held me back. So I was right in all I did. All men live in unrighteousness and sin, but how many repent?—Well, what do you say to that?"
"I don't understand; God help you!" said Terenti sadly and sighed.
"You don't understand? Then let me alone!"
He stretched himself again on his bed; after a pause, he added:
"Really, I believe I'm ill."
"It looks like it."
"I must get to sleep; go, let me alone. I want to sleep."
When he was alone, Ilya felt a whirlpool raging in his head. All the extraordinary experiences he had lived through in a few short hours, grew to a dense hot mist, and weighed on his brain. He felt as though he had endured the torture for ever so long, as though he had killed the old man not to-day, but many days ago.
He shut his eyes and did not move. In his ears rang the old man's squeaking voice: "Now then, your coins, quick!" and again came that hoarse cry of anguish: "My darling! My darling." The harsh voice of the black-bearded merchant, Masha's entreaty, the words of the heretic book, the pious talk of the preacher, all blended into one wild confused sound. Everything reeled around him, and in swift, ungoverned movement, swept him down. Fear left him, he needed only rest, sleep, forgetfulness. He slept.
In the morning when he waked, he saw by the light on the wall opposite the window that it was a clear, frosty day. His head was dull and confused, but his heart was peaceful. He recalled the events of yesterday, watched the course of his own thought and felt convinced that he would know how to conduct himself. Half an hour later he went down the sunny street, his box against his breast, blinking his eyes before the dazzle of the snow, and calmly contemplating the folk he met. If he passed a church he took off his cap and crossed himself. Even before the church near the closed shop of Poluektov he crossed himself and went on without a trace of fear or remorse or any disturbing feeling. At his mid-day meal in an ale-house, he read in a paper the account of the daring murder of the money-changer. At the end of the article was written: "The police are taking active steps to arrest the criminal." As he read these words he shook his head with an incredulous smile, he was firmly convinced that the murderer would never be arrested, unless he himself desired to be taken.
In the evening of this day Olympiada sent a letter to Ilya by her servant:
"Be at the corner of Kusnezkaya Street, by the Public Baths, at nine o'clock."
As Ilya read the words, he felt his body contract internally, and he shivered as if with cold. Once more he saw the contemptuous expression on the face of his mistress, and in his ears rang her rough, insulting words: "Couldn't you come some other time?"
He looked the letter all over, and could not determine why Olympiada had appointed this particular meeting place. Then all at once, he feared to understand, and his heart beat fiercely. He was punctual. The sight of Olympiada's tall figure among the many women who were walking, singly or in couples, near the public baths, increased his anxiety and restlessness. She wore an old fur jacket and a veil. He could only see her eyes. He stood before her in silence.
"Come!" she said, and added, softly: "Turn up your coat-collar!"
They walked through the passage of the building, keeping their faces turned aside, and disappeared quickly into a private room. Olympiada quickly threw aside her veil, and Ilya took new courage at the sight of her calm face, its colour heightened by the cold. Almost immediately he felt, however, that he disliked to see her so unmoved. She sat down on the divan, and said, looking in his face in a friendly way:
"Well, my lad! We'll soon appear together before the police?"
"Why?" asked Ilya, and wiped the hoar frost from his moustache.
"How stupid you can seem! As if you didn't know!" cried Olympiada quietly, with a tinge of mockery. Then her brows contracted, and she said, seriously, in a low tone:
"D'you know the police agent was at my house to-day. What d'you say to that?"
Ilya looked at her, and said, drily:
"What's that to me? Don't trouble me with your police, or anything else. Tell me simply why you've brought me here, with all this precaution."
Olympiada looked at him searchingly, then said, with a mocking laugh: "Oh, you'll still play the innocent—but there's no time for that. Listen. When the police officer examines you and asks you when you got to know me, and whether you visited me often, say just the plain truth—exactly—do you hear?"
"I hear," said Ilya, and smiled.
"And if he asks you about the old man, say you never saw him, never; that you know nothing of him, that you never heard that any one was keeping me—d'you understand?"
She looked Ilya through and through with an air of command. He felt an evil thought push up in him, that yet gave him pleasure. He thought that Olympiada feared him, and he found in himself a desire to torture her. He knit his brows and looked in her face with a furtive smile, but said nothing. A spasm of fear twitched her features, and she stepped back a pace, pale, whispering softly: "What is the matter? Why do you look like that? Ilya, Ilya!"
"Tell me, why should I lie?" he asked, showing his teeth scornfully. "I have seen the old man at your house."
Then, resting his elbows on the marble-topped table, he went on slowly and quietly, with a sudden access of bitter anger:
"I did see him once, and I thought: 'This is the man who stands in my way and has spoilt my life;' and if I did not strangle him then and there——"
"Don't tell lies!" cried Olympiada, loudly, and struck the table. "It is a lie! He was not in your way."
"How was he not?"
"He did nothing to you. You had only to wish it, and I'd have given him the go-by. Didn't I tell you I'd show him the door right away, if you wanted it? You smile there and you don't say anything. You never really loved me. It was your own choice to share with him. You worthless——"
"Stop! Be quiet!" cried Ilya. He sprang up, but at once sat down again, as though the woman had crushed him by her accusation.
"I will not be quiet!" she cried aloud. "I loved you because you were good-looking and wholesome; and you, what have you done to me? Did you ever say: 'Choose—him or me!' Did you ever say it? No! You were nothing but a love-sick tom-cat, like all the others."
Ilya started at this insulting reproach. There was a darkness before his eyes, and with clenched fist he sprang up again.
"Stop! How dare you?"
"You'll strike me, will you? Well, then, do it!" and her eyes flashed threateningly and she ground her teeth. "Strike me, and I'll tear the door open and cry out that you killed him and planned it with me. Well, do it!"
For a moment Ilya was paralysed with fear, but the feeling only touched his heart and vanished at once. Only he breathed with difficulty, as though unseen hands had him by the throat.
Again he sank back on the divan, was silent for a while, then gave a forced laugh. He saw Olympiada bite her lips and look as if seeking something round the dirty room, full of a damp, soapy vapour. Then she sat down on the divan close to the door, let her head fall, and said:
"Laugh away, you devil!"
"I will, certainly."
"When I saw you, I said 'that's the man for me, he'll help me, save me.'"
"Lipa," said Ilya gently.
She sat motionless and did not answer.
"Lipa," he repeated, and then with a sense as of hurling himself into an abyss, he said slowly, clearly:
"I did strangle the old man, by God!"
She shuddered, lifted her head and looked at him with wide eyes. Her lips began to tremble and she stammered:
"Silly boy, how frightened you are!"
Ilya understood that it was she who felt the fear, and did not want to believe his words. He got up, moved nearer, and sat down beside her, smiling vaguely. She caught his head to her breast, and whispered in her deep voice, as she kissed his hair: "Ilushka! Ilushka! Why do you hurt me so? I was so glad you killed him, the old sneak."
"Yes, I did it," he said, and nodded his head.
"Sh!" said the woman, anxiously. "I'm glad he's out of the way. That's what should happen to them all—all who ever touched me. You are the only man I ever met. You are the first, my dear one."
Her words drew him closer to her. He nestled with his face against her breast, till he could hardly breathe, but would not loosen his embrace, for he felt she was the only human being that was really near to him, and that more than ever now he needed her.
"When you stand there fresh and healthy, and look at me angrily, then I feel the degradation of my life, and I love you even for that, because of your pride."
Great tears fell on Ilya's face, and as their falling moved him, over his own cheeks flowed a stream that freed his soul. She took his head in her hands, kissed eyes and cheeks, and lips, and said:
"I know it's only my beauty holds you—your heart doesn't love me, and it condemns me. You can't forgive me my life, and that old man."
"Don't speak of him," said Ilya. He dried his face with her kerchief and rose up calm.
"Let come what may," he said slowly and firmly. "If God means to punish, He finds the way. I thank you, Lipa, for your words, what you say is right. I am guilty towards you. I thought you were—only such a one as——and you are——forgive me dear!"
He stammered with dry lips and dim eyes. Slowly, he smoothed his disordered hair with a trembling hand, and said in a dull, hopeless way:
"I am guilty of everything. Why? Why? Oh! Satan!"
"Olympiada caught his hand; he sank on the divan beside her and said, not heeding her whispered words:
"Do you understand? I strangled him; do you believe it?"
"Sh!" cried Olympiada, in an anxious muffled voice. "What are you saying?"
She embraced him closely, and looked into his face with troubled eyes.
"Let me go! it—it happened all of a sudden—God knows I didn't mean to do it. I only wanted to see his hateful face again, that's why I went into the shop. I had no intention,—and then it came in a moment, the devil urged me and God did not hold me back. I shouldn't have taken the money, that was silly, ah!"
He sighed deeply, and the hard rind of his heart seemed to loosen. Olympiada was quivering at his story, she held him even closer and whispered brokenly, disconnectedly. Presently she said: "It was a good thing you took the money, they'll think now it was for robbery, and not for jealousy; that would be worse for us."
"I don't feel sorry," said Ilya thoughtfully. "I won't repent. God may punish me! Men are not my judges; what sort of judges would they be! I know no men without sin, not one. I'll wait."
"O God," stammered Olympiada. "What is it? What will happen? Dear, I'm quite stupid. I can't think clearly—but let's go away from here—it's time."
She stood up and swayed like a drunken woman. But when she had fastened her veil, she said of a sudden, quite calmly:
"What's going to happen, Ilya? Will it go hard——?"
Ilya shook his head.
"Tell the magistrate everything, just as it was; that is, not everything, but——"
"I'll say it. Do you think I won't stand up for myself, or that I want to go to Siberia for this old wretch and a matter of two thousand roubles? No? I've something else to do with my life!"
His face was red with excitement, and his eyes shone. She came close to him and said in a whisper:
"Did you really only take two thousand roubles?"
"Two thousand and a little more."
"Poor boy; no luck even there!" and the tears shone in her eyes.
Ilya, smiled and said bitterly:
"Ah! d'you think I did it for the money? you know better—wait!—let me go first."
"Come and see me soon; there's no need for us to hide; come soon."
They parted with a long passionate kiss. As soon as Ilya reached the street he hailed a droshky. As he went he kept looking back to see if he were followed. His heart was lighter and a warm, tender feeling for Olympiada awaked in it. By no word or look had she wounded him, when he made his confession, she had rather taken on herself a part of the guilt than thrust him away. One minute before, when she did not know, she was ready to destroy him; he had read it in her face; then suddenly she had changed; he smiled gently as he thought of it.
Next day Ilya felt like the quarry that finds the huntsman on its track. Petrusha met him in the bar room early; he answered Ilya's greeting with a nod, and looked at him strangely, searchingly. Terenti looked hard at him, sighed and said nothing, Jakov met him in Masha's room, and said with a terrified face:
"Last night the Ward Superintendent was here; he asked father all about you. Why did he do that?"
"What did he ask about?" said Ilya quietly.
"Everything—how you live, if you drink brandy, if you go with women,—he mentioned some Olympiada; didn't you know her, he asked. Why did he want to know all this?"
"Heaven knows;" answered Ilya, and left him.
That evening came another letter from Olympiada.
"They've questioned me about you. I have said everything exactly; there's nothing in all that, and it isn't risky. Don't be anxious. I kiss you dearest."
He threw the letter at once in the fire. In Filimonov's house as well as in the bar, the talk was all of the murder. Ilya listened with a distinct sense of pleasure. He liked to pass near men who were discussing his deed, asking for details, which were invented freely, and thought with pleasure what profound amazement he could bring on them if he said:
"I did it—I!"
Some praised the cleverness of the criminal, some pointed out that he had failed to get all the money, some seemed to fear, lest he should yet be arrested, but not one single voice was heard to lament the victim, no one uttered on his account so much as a friendly word. Ilya despised them that they had no pity for the merchant, though he himself had none. He thought no more of Poluektov, only realising that he had taken a burden of guilt on himself and would be punished at some future time. This thought, in the present, disturbed him not at all; he bound it into his conscience and it became a part of his soul. It was like a bruise from a blow, it did not hurt if it were not disturbed.
He was deeply convinced that the hour must come when the vengeance of God would overtake him. God knows everything, and would not forgive the transgressor of His law: but this calm steady readiness to meet the punishment, any day, any hour, enabled Ilya to feel and behave as he did before the murder. Only he watched men more closely, and traced their weaknesses more zealously. This pleased him, though he realised that he was in no way exonerated thereby.
He was gloomier, more reserved, but from morning to night, as usual, he carried his wares about the town, visited alehouses, observed men, and listened to their talk. One day he thought of the money he had hidden and wondered if he would conceal it elsewhere. But at once he said to himself: "It's no good. Let it be. If they look and find it, I'll confess."
There was as yet no search after the money, and it was the sixth day before Ilya was summoned before the magistrate. Before he went, he changed his linen, put on his best jacket, and brushed his boots till they shone. He went in a sleigh. It jolted over the uneven streets till he had difficulty in holding himself upright and motionless. He felt his body so tensely strung that he feared to break something in him by a sudden movement. He mounted the steps of the Court House slowly and carefully, as though he were wearing clothes of glass.
The magistrate was a young man, with curly hair and a hooked nose, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. When he saw Ilya, he first rubbed his thin white hands, then removed his spectacles and polished the lenses with his handkerchief, looking the while at Ilya with his big dark eyes. Ilya bowed silently.
"Good-day! Sit down there."
He indicated a chair at a big table covered with a dull red cloth. Ilya sat down, carefully pushing away with his elbow a pile of legal documents lying at the edge of the table. The magistrate noticed the movement, politely moved the papers, and sat down opposite Ilya. Without speaking, he began to turn the leaves of a book, and measured Ilya with sidelong glances. Ilya disliked the silence. He turned away and looked round the room. It was the first time he had seen a place so orderly and so richly furnished. All round the walls hung framed portraits and pictures. In one Christ was represented, walking, lost in thought, His head bowed, alone and sad, among ruins. Corpses of men and scattered weapons lay at his feet, and in the background, a dense black smoke rose up into the sky. Something was burning. Ilya looked long at this picture, and tried to understand what it represented. So much so that he was on the point of asking when suddenly the magistrate shut his book with a bang. Ilya started and looked at him. The magistrate's face wore a weary, dull expression, his lips were depressed oddly at the corners, as though some one had hurt his feelings.
"Well," he said, and tapped the table with his finger, "you are Ilya Jakovlevitch Lunev, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"You can guess why I have summoned you?"
"No," answered Ilya, and took another fleeting look at the picture. Then his eyes travelled over the solid, fine furniture, and he was conscious of the perfume the magistrate had been using. It distracted his thoughts and calmed him to observe his surroundings, and envy rose in his heart.
"This is how distinguished people live." The thought went through his head. "It must be very profitable to catch thieves and murderers. I wonder what he gets."
"You can't guess?" repeated the magistrate. "Has Olympiada said nothing to you?"
"No. It's some time since I saw her."
The magistrate threw himself back in his chair, and the corners of his lips went down.
"How long?" he asked.
"I don't know, eight or nine days perhaps."
"Ah! is that so? tell me, did you often meet old Poluektov at her house?"
"The old man who was murdered a little while ago?" asked Ilya, and looked his questioner in the eyes.
"Yes, that's the man."
"I never met him."
"Never?"
"Never."
The magistrate fired off his questions quickly with a certain nonchalance, and when Ilya, who answered very cautiously, was slow to reply, he drummed impatiently on the table with his fingers.
"You knew that Olympiada Petrovna was kept by Poluektov?" he asked suddenly, and looked sharply through his spectacles.
Ilya reddened at the glance, which seemed in some way to wound him.
"No," he said in a dull tone.
"Oh! yes, she was kept by him," repeated the magistrate, angrily,—"to my thinking that is not good," he added, as he saw Ilya about to answer.
"How should there be anything good in it?" said Ilya softly, at length.
"True."
But Ilya said no more.
"And you—you've known her a long time?"
"More than a year."
"You were intimate with her before her acquaintance with Poluektov?"
"You're a cunning fox," thought Ilya, and said quietly:
"How can I say, when I didn't know that she lived with the man that's dead."
The magistrate drew his lips together and whistled, and began to finger the pile of documents. Ilya looked again at the picture; he felt that his interest in it helped him to keep calm. From somewhere, the clear, gay laugh of a child came to his ear. Then a happy, gentle, woman's voice sang tenderly: "My Annie, my little one, my darling, my dear."
"That picture appears to interest you greatly."
"Where is Christ supposed to be going?" asked Ilya.
The magistrate looked in his face with a weary, disillusioned expression, and said after a pause:
"You can see. He's come down to earth to see how men fulfil His commands. He's going over a battle-field—round about are dead men, houses destroyed, fire plundering."
"Can't He see that from Heaven?"
"H'm, it's rather an allegory, it's represented like that, so as to be plainer, to show how little real life agrees with the teaching of Christ, that is——But come, I must ask you a question or two yet."
Ilya turned from the picture and looked in the magistrate's face; a number of little unimportant questions followed, annoying Ilya like autumn flies. He grew tired and felt his attention growing slack and his carefulness wither under the monotonous dull sound. He grew angry with the magistrate, who set these questions, as he well understood, on purpose to weary him.
"Can you tell me perhaps," said the magistrate quickly, apparently without any particular intent, "where you were on Thursday between two o'clock and three."
"In the ale-house; I was having tea."
"Ah! in which inn then? Where?"
"In the Plevna."
"How is it you are so certain that you were there just at that time?"
The magistrate's face looked tense, he leaned over the table and stared into Ilya's face with flaming eyes. Ilya did not reply at once. After a second or two he sighed and said with composure:
"Just before I went in, I asked the time of a policeman."
The magistrate leaned back again, and began to tap his finger-nails with a blue pencil.
"The policeman told me it was twenty minutes to two, or something like that."
"He knows you?"
"Yes."
"Have you no watch?"
"No."
"Have you ever before asked him the time?"
"Yes, it has happened."
"The town hall is near, there's a clock."
"One forgets to look, and then it was snowing."
"Were you long in the Plevna?"
"Till the news came of the murder."
"Where did you go then?"
"I went to look."
"Did any one see you there, in front of the shop?"
"That policeman saw me, he sent me off—pushed me."
"Very good, very important for you," said the magistrate approvingly, then asked at once without looking at Ilya:
"Did you ask the time before the murder or after?"
Ilya saw the drift of the question. He turned sharp round in his chair full of rage against this man with the shining white linen, the thin fingers, well-tended nails, and gold spectacles in front of piercing dark eyes.
Instead of answering, he asked:
"How can I tell?"
The magistrate coughed drily, and rubbed his hands till the fingers cracked.
"Well done," he said in a tone of displeasure. "Splendid!—yes."
And he shifted his chair as though tired.
"Very good; one or two questions now and I'll let you go. Do you know, by any chance, that policeman's name?"
"Jeremin, Matvey Ivanovitch."
The magistrate's tone was bored and indifferent; obviously he did not expect now to hear anything interesting.
Ilya answered, always on the look out for another question like the one as to the time of the murder. Every word echoed in his breast again as though it plucked a tense string in an empty space. But no more cunning questions came.
"As you went down the street that day, did you not meet a tall man in a short fur jacket and black lambs-wool cap? Do you remember?"
"No," said Ilya harshly.
"Now, listen. I'll read over your statement to you, and you will sign it."
He held a sheet of paper covered with writing before his face, and began to read quickly and monotonously. When he had finished, he put a pen in Ilya's hand. Ilya bent down, signed, rose slowly from his chair, and said in a loud, assured voice, looking at the magistrate: "Good-day!"
A short, condescending nod was his answer, and the magistrate bent over his desk, and began to write. Ilya stood thinking. He would gladly have said something more to this man who had held him so long on the rack. In the quiet, only the scratch of the pen was heard, then the woman's voice, singing, "Dance away, dance away, dolly."
"What do you want now?" asked the magistrate, and raised his head.
"Nothing," said Ilya gloomily.
"I told you, you can go."
"I'm going."
"All right, then."
They looked angrily at one another, and Ilya felt something heavy, terrifying, grow in his breast. He turned sharp round and went out into the street. A cold wind greeted him, and for the first time he noticed that he was sweating profusely. Half-an-hour later he was sitting with Olympiada. She opened the door to him herself, having seen him from the window. She met him with almost a mother's joy. Her face was pale, and she gazed restlessly about with wide-open eyes.
"My clever boy!" she cried, when Ilya told her that he had just come from the magistrate. "Tell me, tell me, how did you get on?"
"The brute," said Ilya, in wrath. "He set traps for me."
"He can't help it," remarked Olympiada, in a tone of common sense. "Let him be; it's his infernal duty."
"Why didn't he say straight out—'So-and-so, this is what people think of you.'"
"Did you tell him everything straight out?" she asked, smiling.
"I!" cried Ilya in astonishment. "Why, yes—as a matter of fact—ah, devil take him!"
He seemed quite abashed and said after a while:
"And as I sat there, I thought, by God, I was right!"
"Now, thank heaven, it's all passed over all right."
Ilya looked at her with a smile. "I didn't need to lie much. I'm lucky, after all, Lipa!"
He laughed again in a strange way.
"The secret police are always at my heels," said Olympiada, in a low voice, "and after you too."
"Of course," said Ilya, full of scorn and anger. "They go sniffing around, and want to hem me in, like the beaters do to the wolf in the forest. But they won't do it; they're not the men for that; and I'm not a wolf, but an unlucky man. I didn't mean to strangle any one. Fate strangles me—as Pashka says in his poem—and it strangles Pashka too, and Jakov, and all of us."
"Never mind, Ilushka. Everything will go right now."
Ilya got up, walked to the window, and said, with a despairing voice, as he looked at the street:
"All my life I've had to wallow in the mud. I've always been pushed into things I disliked—hated. I've never met a soul I could look at really happily. Is there nothing pure in life, nothing noble? Now, I've strangled this—this man of yours,—why? I've only smirched myself, and damned myself. I took money. I ought not."
"Don't be sorry!" She tried to console him. "He isn't worth it."
"I'm not sorry for him; only I want to get myself straight. Every one tries, else he can't live. That magistrate, he lives like a sugar-plum in its box. No one will strangle him. He can be good and upright in his pretty nest."
"Never mind, we'll go away together from this place."
"No. I'll go nowhere," cried Ilya fiercely, and wheeled round to her, and added, seeming to threaten some unknown person.
"No—no—patience! I'll wait and see what will come; I'll fight it out still," and he strode up and down the room, and shook his head defiantly.
"Oh!" said Olympiada, in an injured tone. "You won't go with me, because you're afraid of me; you think I should always have a hold on you, you think I should use what I know—you're wrong, my dear. I'll never drag you with me by force."
She spoke quietly, but her lips twitched as though she were in pain.
"What did you say?" asked Ilya, quite surprised.
"I won't compel you, don't be frightened; go where you will!"
"Wait a moment," said Ilya, as he sat down near her, and took her hand.
"I didn't understand what you said."
"Don't pretend!" she cried, and drew away her hand. "I know you're proud, and passionate; you can't forgive the old man; you hate my life—you think that it's all come about through me."
"You're talking foolishly," said Ilya, quietly. "I don't blame you in the very least, I know that for men like me there are no women who are pretty and fine and pure as well. Such women are dear, they are only for the rich, and we must love the soiled and those who are spat upon and abused."
"Then leave me, the spat upon and abused!" cried Olympiada, springing up from her chair. "Go away—go away!"
But suddenly tears shone in her eyes and she covered Ilya with a flood of burning words, like hot coals.
"I myself, of my own will crept into this pit, because there's money in it. I meant to climb up the ladder again with the money, begin a decent life—and you helped me, I know, and I love you, and will love you though you strangle twenty men; it isn't your goodness I love, but your pride, and your youth, your curly head and your strong arms and your dark eyes, and your reproaches that pierce my heart. I shall be grateful for all this till I die.—I'll kiss your feet."
She threw herself at his feet, and embraced his knees.
"God is my witness, I sinned to save my soul. I must be dearer to Him if I don't end my life in this filth, but struggle through it and lead a clean life. Then I will entreat His forgiveness. I will not endure this torment all my life; they have soiled me with mud and filth; all my tears will never wash me clean."
At first Ilya tried to free himself and raise her from the ground, but she clung close to him, pressed her head against his knees and laid her cheek at his feet. And she spoke on with a low, passionate, gasping voice. Presently he caressed her with a trembling hand, raised her, embraced her, and laid her head on his shoulder, her hot cheek pressed close to his, and as she lay supported by his arms on her knees before him, she whispered:
"Does it do any one any good if a woman who has sinned once spends almost her whole life in humiliation? When I was a girl and my stepfather came near me to make me impure, I stuck a knife in him. I did it without a thought. Then they made me drunk with wine and ruined me. I was a girl, so tidy, so pretty and red-cheeked as an apple. I cried for myself. I hurt myself. I cried for my beauty. I didn't want it! I didn't want it! And then I said to myself: 'It's all the same now. There's no going back. Good,' I thought, 'at least I'll sell my shame as dear as I can.' I never kissed from my heart till I kissed you. I always just lived in filth and rioting."
Her words were lost in a soft whisper. Suddenly she tore herself from Ilya's embrace. "Let me go!" she cried, and thrust him away.
But he held her closer, and began to kiss her face, passionately, despairingly.
"Let me go! You hurt me!" she said.
"I can say nothing," said Ilya, feverishly. "Only one thing—no one has had pity on us, and we need have pity on no one. You spoke so beautifully! Come, let me kiss you. How else can I make it up to you? My dear! My dearest! I love you! Ah, I don't know how I love you. I've no words to tell you."
Her lamentation had really roused in him a burning feeling of affection for this woman. Her sorrow and his misfortune were molten together, and their hearts came nearer and nearer. They held one another in a close embrace, and softly told one another all the long sufferings they had endured from life. A courageous, fierce feeling rose in Ilya's heart.