“Marie … you know … you are very tired, perhaps, for God’s sake, don’t be angry. … If you’d consent to have some tea, for instance, eh? Tea picks one up so, doesn’t it? If you’d consent!”
“Why talk about consenting! Of course I consent, what a baby you are still. Get me some if you can. How cramped you are here. How cold it is!”
“Oh, I’ll get some logs for the fire directly, some logs … I’ve got logs.” Shatov was all astir. “Logs … that is … but I’ll get tea directly,” he waved his hand as though with desperate determination and snatched up his cap.
“Where are you going? So you’ve no tea in the house?”
“There shall be, there shall be, there shall be, there shall be everything directly. … I …” he took his revolver from the shelf, “I’ll sell this revolver directly … or pawn it. …”
“What foolishness and what a time that will take! Take my money if you’ve nothing, there’s eighty kopecks here, I think; that’s all I have. This is like a madhouse.”
“I don’t want your money, I don’t want it I’ll be here directly, in one instant. I can manage without the revolver. …”
And he rushed straight to Kirillov’s. This was probably two hours before the visit of Pyotr Stepanovitch and Liputin to Kirillov. Though Shatov and Kirillov lived in the same yard they hardly ever saw each other, and when they met they did not nod or speak: they had been too long “lying side by side” in America. …
“Kirillov, you always have tea; have you got tea and a samovar?”
Kirillov, who was walking up and down the room, as he was in the habit of doing all night, stopped and looked intently at his hurried visitor, though without much surprise.
“I’ve got tea and sugar and a samovar. But there’s no need of the samovar, the tea is hot. Sit down and simply drink it.”
“Kirillov, we lay side by side in America. … My wife has come to me … I … give me the tea. … I shall want the samovar.”
“If your wife is here you want the samovar. But take it later. I’ve two. And now take the teapot from the table. It’s hot, boiling hot. Take everything, take the sugar, all of it. Bread … there’s plenty of bread; all of it. There’s some veal. I’ve a rouble.”
“Give it me, friend, I’ll pay it back tomorrow! Ach, Kirillov!”
“Is it the same wife who was in Switzerland? That’s a good thing. And your running in like this, that’s a good thing too.”
“Kirillov!” cried Shatov, taking the teapot under his arm and carrying the bread and sugar in both hands. “Kirillov, if … if you could get rid of your dreadful fancies and give up your atheistic ravings … oh, what a man you’d be, Kirillov!”
“One can see you love your wife after Switzerland. It’s a good thing you do—after Switzerland. When you want tea, come again. You can come all night, I don’t sleep at all. There’ll be a samovar. Take the rouble, here it is. Go to your wife, I’ll stay here and think about you and your wife.”
Marya Shatov was unmistakably pleased at her husband’s haste and fell upon the tea almost greedily, but there was no need to run for the samovar; she drank only half a cup and swallowed a tiny piece of bread. The veal she refused with disgust and irritation.
“You are ill, Marie, all this is a sign of illness,” Shatov remarked timidly as he waited upon her.
“Of course I’m ill, please sit down. Where did you get the tea if you haven’t any?”
Shatov told her about Kirillov briefly. She had heard something of him.
“I know he is mad; say no more, please; there are plenty of fools. So you’ve been in America? I heard, you wrote.”
“Yes, I … I wrote to you in Paris.”
“Enough, please talk of something else. Are you a Slavophil in your convictions?”
“I … I am not exactly. … Since I cannot be a Russian, I became a Slavophil.” He smiled a wry smile with the effort of one who feels he has made a strained and inappropriate jest.
“Why, aren’t you a Russian?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Well, that’s all foolishness. Do sit down, I entreat you. Why are you all over the place? Do you think I am lightheaded? Perhaps I shall be. You say there are only you two in the house.”
“Yes. … Downstairs …”
“And both such clever people. What is there downstairs? You said downstairs?”
“No, nothing.”
“Why nothing? I want to know.”
“I only meant to say that now we are only two in the yard, but that the Lebyadkins used to live downstairs. …”
“That woman who was murdered last night?” she started suddenly. “I heard of it. I heard of it as soon as I arrived. There was a fire here, wasn’t there?”
“Yes, Marie, yes, and perhaps I am doing a scoundrelly thing this moment in forgiving the scoundrels. …” He stood up suddenly and paced about the room, raising his arms as though in a frenzy.
But Marie had not quite understood him. She heard his answers inattentively; she asked questions but did not listen.
“Fine things are being done among you! Oh, how contemptible it all is! What scoundrels men all are! But do sit down, I beg you, oh, how you exasperate me!” and
