The place consisted of a single large room, divided into three compartments by a couple of partition-walls. From the entrance a lobby led into a diminutive chamber wherein a door in the further wall evidently led into a bedroom. The former of these rooms was so small, with two low windows placed close together, that even the smallest essential articles had the appearance of being cumbersome. Despite its niggardliness, however, the furniture—which consisted only of a white wooden table, two chairs, and a couple of benches placed against the wall—was extremely clean. In one corner, also, there stood a large ikon, adorned with a golden crown, and supported on a ledge; while in front of it there was burning a lamp. This apartment and the bedroom shared a large, clumsy store between them, and in every way the tenement seemed to be ill-adapted for the accommodation of three persons.

Ordynov and the girl fell to discussing terms, but disconnectedly, and with little comprehension of one another. Standing but two paces from her, he could plainly hear the beating of her heart, and see that she was trembling with emotion and a kind of fear. At length an agreement was come to, and, stating that he would go and fetch his impedimenta immediately, Ordynov glanced at the old man, who all this while had remained standing near the entrance—looking as pale as before, but with a quiet, almost a meditative, smile playing on his lips. As soon, however, as he saw that Ordynov was looking at him he bent his brows again.

“Have you got a passport?” he asked in a loud, rude voice as he opened the front door.

“Yes,” said Ordynov in an absent-minded way.

“Who are you, then?”

“Vassilii Ordynov—a gentleman—of no occupation—engaged on my own affairs.” Ordynov spoke as brusquely as the old man had done.

“Well, I am Ilia Murin—burgher. Is that all you want? You may go.”

An hour later Ordynov found himself installed. This surprised him more than it did Herr Schpis, who, with the gentle Tinchen, had already begun to suspect that his lodger was going to fail him. Ordynov himself hardly knew how things had come about, but he did not trouble his head much on the subject.

II

SOON HIS HEART began to beat so forcibly that his eyes ached and his head swam. Mechanically he set to work to put his scanty effects in order—first of all unpacking his portmanteau of necessaries, and then his box of books, which he arranged in rows upon the table. After a little while the task grew wearisome to him, and, on his desisting from it, there recurred to his blurred vision the image of the girl whose aspect had so shaken his soul, and to whom his heart had turned with such a convulsive, such an irresistible, impulse. So great had been the plethora of happiness which had come into his dull existence that his thoughts were all in confusion, and his spirit was plunged in uneasiness and gloom.