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"Well?"
"I don't venture to believe it, but they say his prediction came true. He has a gift, Vassily Mihalitch. . . . You are pleased to smUe at my guileless story. I know that you are greatly ahead of me in culture; but I believe in him; he's not a charlatan. Pushkin himself mentions a similar case in his works."
"H'ml I don't want to contradict you. I think you said he's not living alone?"
"I don't know ... I believe his daughter is with him."
"Daughter?"
"Yes, or perhaps his wife; I know there is some woman with him. I have had a passing glimpse of her, but I did not notice."
"H'm! Strange ..."
The young man fell to musing, Yaroslav Ilyitch to tender contemplation of him. He was touched both at seeing an old friend and at having satisfactorily told him something very interesting. He sat sucking his pipe with his eyes fixed on Vassily Mihalitch; but suddenly he jumped up in a fluster.
"A whole hour has f)assed and I forgot the time! Dear Vassily Mihalitch, once more I thank the lucky chance that brought us together, but it is time for me to be off. Will you allow me to visit you in your learned retreat?"
"Please do, I shall be delighted. I will come and see you, too, when I have a chance."
"That's almost too pleasant to believe. You gratify me, you gratify me unutterably 1 You would not believe how you have delighted me!"
They went out of the restaurant. Sergeyev was already flying to meet them and to report in a hurried sentence that Vilyam Emelyanovitch was pleased to be driving out. A pair of spirited roans in a smart light gig did, in fact, come into sight. The trace horse was particularly fine. Yaroslav Ilyitch pressed his best friend's hand as though in a vice, touched his
hat and set off to meet the flying gig. On the way he turned round once or twice to nod farewells to Ordynov.
Ordynov felt so tired, so exhausted in every limb, that he could scarcely move his legs. He managed somehow to crawl home. At the gate he was met again by the porter, who had been dihgently watching his parting from Yaroslav Ilyitch, and beckoning him from a distance. But the young man passed him by. At the door of his flat he ran full tilt against a little grey-headed figure coming out from Murin's room, looking on the ground.
"Lord forgive my transgressions!" whispered the figure, skipping on one side with the springiness of a cork.
"Did I hurt you?"
"No, I humbly thank you for your civility. . . . Oh, Lord, Lord!"
The meek little man, groaning and moaning and muttering something edifying to himself, went cautiously down the stairs. This was the "master" of the house, of whom the porter stood in such awe. Only then Ordynov remembered that he had seen him for the first time, here at Murin's, when he was moving into the lodging.
He felt unhinged and shaken; he knew that his imaginatiffli and impressionabilify were strained to the utmost pitch, and resolved not to trust himself. By degrees he sank into a sort of apathy. A heavy oppressive feeling weighed upon his chest. His heart ached as though it were sore all over, and his whole soul was full of dumb, comfortless tears.
He fell again upon the bed which she had made him, and began Ustening again. He heard two breathings: one the heavy broken breathing of a sick man, the other soft but uneven, as though also stirred by emotion, as though that heart was beating with the same yearning, with the same passion. At times he heard the rustle of her dress the faint stir of her soft light steps, and even that faint stir of her feet echoed with a vague but agonisingly sweet pang in his heart. At last he seemed to distinguish sobs, rebelUous sighs, and at last, praying again. He knew that she was kneeling before the ikon, wringing her hands in a frenzy of despair! . . . Who was she? For whom was she praying? By what desperate passion was her heart torn? Why did it ache and grieve and pour itself out in such hot and hopeless tears?
He began to recall her words. All that she had said to him was still ringing in his ears like-music, and his heart lovingly
responded with a vague heavy throb at every recollection, every word of hers as he devoutly repeated it. . . . For an ^ instant a thought flashed through his mind that he had dreamed all this. But at the same moment his whole being ached in swooning anguish as the impression of her hot breath, her words, her kiss rose vividly agedn in his imagination. He closed his eyes and sank into obUvion. A clock struck somewhere; it was getting late; twilight was falling. —
It suddenly seemed to him ttiat she was bending over him again, that she was looking into his eyes with her exquisitely clear eyes, wet with sparkling tears of serene, happy joy, soft and bright as the infinite turquoise vault of heaven at hot midday. Her face beamed with such triumphant peace; her smile was warm with such solemnity of infinite bliss; she leaned with such sympathy, with such childlike impulsiveness on his shoulder that a moan of joy broke from his exhausted bosom. She tried to tell him something, caressingly she confided something to him. Again it was as though heartrending music smote upon his hearing. Greedily he drank in the air, warm, electrified by her near breathing. In anguish he stretched out his arms, sighed, opened his eyes. . . . She stood before him, bending down to his face, all pale as from fesir, all in tears, all quivering with emotion. She was saying something to him, entreating him with half-bare arms, clasping and wringing her hands; hie folded her in his arms, she quivered on his bosom . . .
PART II CHAPTER I
WHAT is it? What is the matter with you?" said Ordynov, waking up completely, still pressing her in his strong, warm embrace. "What is the matter with you, Katerina? What is it, my love?"
She sobbed softly with downcast eyes, hiding her flushed face on his breast. For a long while she could not speak and kept trembling as though in terror.
"I don't know, I don't know," she said at last, in a hardly audible voice, gasping for breath, and scarcely able to articulate. "I don't know how I came here . . ." She clasped
him even more tightly, with even more intensity, and in a violent irrepressible rush of feeling, kissed his Moulder, his hands, his chest; at last, as though in despair, she hid her face in her hands, fell on her knees, and buried her head in his knees. When Ordynov, in inexpressible anguish, lifted her up impatiently and made her sit down beside him, her whole face glowed with a full flush of shame, her weeping eyes sought forgiveness, and the smile that, in spite of herself, played on her lip could scarcely subdue the violence of her new feeling. Now she seemed again frightened, mistrustfully she pushed away his hand, and, with drooping head, answered his hurried questions in a fearful whisper.
"Perhaps you have had a terrible dream?" said Ordynov. "Perhaps you have seen some vision . . . Yes? Perhaps he has frightened you. ... He is delirious and unconscious. Perhaps he has said something that was not for you to hear? Did you hear something? Yes?"
"No, I have not been asleep," answered Katerina, stifling her emotion with an effort. "Sleep did not come to me, he has been silent all the while and only once he called me. I went up, called his name, spoke to him; I was frightened; he did not wake and did not hear me. He is terribly sick; the Lord succour him! Then misery came upon my heart, bitter misery! I prayed and prayed and then this came upon me."
"Hush, Katerina, hush, my life, hushl You were frightened yesterday. ..."
"No, I was not frightened yesterday! . . ." "Has it ever been like this with you at other times?" "Yes." And again she trembled all over and huddled up to him like a child. "You see," she said, repressing her sobs, "it was not for nothing that I have come to you, it was not for nothing that I could not bear to stay alone," she repeated, gratefully pressing his hands. "Enough, enough shedding tears over other people's sorrows! Save them for a dark day when you are lonely and cast down and there is no one with you! . . . Listen, have you ever had a love?" "No. ... I never knew a love before you. . . ." "Before me? . . . You call me your love?" She suddenly looked at him as though surprised, would have said something, but then was silent and looked down. By degrees her whole face suddenly flushed again a glowing crimson; her eyes shone more brightly through the forgotten tears still warm on her eyelashes, and it could be seen that