"N--No! If she'd left me I'd have thrown myself in the river. 'Kill me if you like,' she said 'but let me alone! I know I'm a burden to you. No one shall have my soul,' she said."
"Do? I struck her once more, then I cried. What could I do; I can't find food for her."
"The devil knows. She said, 'it would be better this way.' If children came, what could we do with them, and so----"
Ilya thought for a little, then said: "A sensible girl."
Pashka went on a step or two in silence. Then he wheeled sharp round, stood in front of Ilya, and said in a dull hissing voice:
"When I think that other men kiss her, then it's like molten lead driving through my limbs."
"Let her go?" cried Pavel in the highest astonishment. Ilya understood afterwards when he saw the girl.
They came to a one-storied house on the outskirts of the town. Its six windows were fast shut with thick shutters so that the house had the look of an old straggling granary. The wet, sloppy snow clung to roof and walls, as though it would conceal or smother the house.
"This is where they're looked after. Sidorisha gives her girls board and lodging and takes fifty roubles from each of them for it; she has only four altogether. Of course she keeps wine too, and beer, and sweetmeats, and all that you want, for the rest she lets the girls do what they want to, go out if they like, or stop at home if they like, only pay the fifty every month. They are all jolly girls; they make money as easily as----One of them, Olympiada, never takes less than four roubles."
There was a rustling the other side of the door. A yellow streak of light quivered in the air.
"Oh! The door opened and a little dried-up old woman, with a big nose in her shrivelled face, held the candle up to Pavel's face, and said in a friendly way:
"Good evening, Pashka. Vyerunka has been waiting for you for a long time, and is quite cross. Who's that with you?"
"Who is it?" came a pleasant voice out of a long, dark corridor.
"A visitor for Vyera," said the old woman.
"Vyera, here's your sweetheart," cried the same clear voice, ringing through the corridor. At once at the end of the passage a door opened and the dainty figure of a girl, dressed in white, appeared in the bright patch of light, with her thick fair hair streaming round her face.