On the staircase he came into violent collision with a little man in grey who was leaving the Murins’ rooms with downcast eyes.

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried the little man, rebounding against the wall with all the elasticity of indiarubber.

“Have I hurt you?” asked Ordynov.

“Oh no!—though I humbly thank you for your attention. . . . O my God, my God!” And the little man went stumbling, gasping, and muttering his prayers down the staircase. He was the proprietor of whom the dvornik had seemed to stand so much in awe. Only when he was gone did Ordynov recall that once before he had seen him since his (Ordynov’s) removal to Murin’s. The young man felt irritated and uneasy; but, knowing that his imaginative and sensitive faculties had well-nigh reached the breaking-point, he resolved to take a little rest. Gradually he was falling into a sort of torpor. He felt heavy, and as though his raw, aching heart had been bathed in tears.

Throwing himself upon his bed (which he found to have been made up during his absence), he set himself to listen. The breathings of two persons came to his ears—the one of them deep, laboured, and convulsive, and the other one light, but irregular, as though it were depressed in spirit, as though it came from a heart which was beating with the same force, the same passion, as possessed the other one. Occasionally, also, the swish of a dress and the gentle rustle of light footsteps could be distinguished—sounds which awakened in Ordynov’s heart a sweet, but mournful, echo. At length he heard—or thought he heard—sobs, sighs, and some muttered prayers. Instantly there occurred to his vision a picture of her—of her kneeling there before the ikon, with hands tightly clasped and her arms raised. . . . Who was she? For whom was she praying? To what invincible passion had she surrendered her heart? Why was that heart such an inexhaustible fountain of tears?

All that she had ever said to him now recurred to his ears like the sound of music; and to each of her words, as he eagerly recalled and repeated them, his heart responded with a violent throb. . . . Yet, stay! Was it not all a dream? . . . The late scene between her and himself returned to his memory; it passed again before his mind’s eye. Once more he beheld Katerina and her sad, sad face. Once more he felt her warm breath upon his lips. And at her kisses!——

Closing his eyes, he sank into a kind of doze. Far away a clock struck the hour. It was getting late, then, and night was falling. . . .

Suddenly, half-waking, he seemed to see her bending over him, and looking at him with those wonderful, those brilliant, eyes of hers—eyes which were now sparkling with tears of joy—eyes which seemed as clear and gentle as the azure vault of heaven on a beautiful mid-summer’s day. Her face looked so bright, her smile was radiant with such profound happiness, she leaned upon Ordynov’s shoulder with such a childlike, yet amorous, abandon, that he could bear his felicity no longer, and uttered a groan. She spoke to him, she murmured to him words of tenderness, until at length he recognised the music which had been fluttering in his heart. He drank in the warm air to which the young girl’s ardent breath communicated such an electric fragrance; he stretched out his arms; he sighed; he opened his eyes. . . .