When, towards eight o’clock, he awoke, the sun was throwing broad shafts of light upon the tiles of the floor. A delightful sensation of rest and quiet and well-being was soothing all his limbs. Presently he thought that some one seemed to move softly away from his side, and he tried to rouse himself and find out who that invisible some one had been, since he would have liked to have embraced his friend, and to have said to her, for the first time in his life, “I greet you, my beloved!”

“What a long time you have been asleep!” came in a gentle feminine voice.

Ordynov turned his head, and saw the face of his beautiful landlady bending over him with a kindly smile—a smile that was as clear as sunshine.

“And what a long time you have been ill, too!” she went on. “But it is over now, and you must get up. Why should you stay here in prison? Liberty is better than bread, and more beautiful even than the sun. Come, get up, my dear boy. Try to get up.”

Ordynov seized her hand, and pressed it. He believed himself still to be dreaming.

“Wait a moment,” she added, “and I will make you some tea. Would you like some? You must drink it, for it will do you good. Yes, know it will, for I have been ill myself.”

“Yes, please get me something to drink,” assented Ordynov faintly as he raised himself up. He felt perfectly strengthless. Shivers kept running down his back, and his limbs were aching as though they had been fractured. Yet his heart was light, for the sun was shining warm upon him, and though his head was swimming with weakness and vertigo, a new and splendid, a new and unknown, life had opened before him.

“Your name is Vassilii, is it not?” she asked. “I only half heard what your landlord said to you yesterday.”

“Yes, it is Vassilii,” said Ordynov. “And yours?”

He would have liked to have approached nearer to her, but staggered as soon as he tried to stand. Smiling, she steadied him with her arm.

“My name is Katerina,” she replied, and looked him straight in the face with her great clear blue eyes. For a moment or two he and she stood clasping one another’s hands in silence.

“You have something to ask me?” she said at length.

“Yes—I do not know,” replied Ordynov with a blush.

“Oh, but look at you! Nay, nay! Do not disturb yourself so. Sit down here by the table, where the sunlight will catch you. Stop there, and do not follow me” (this last she added on seeing him make a movement to detain her). “I will come back presently, and then you shall look at me as much as you like.”

Returning with the tea, she placed it upon the table, and seated herself on the opposite side of the latter to Ordynov.

“Drink some,” she said. “Are you often ill like this?”