beg you, finally—oh, how you irritate me!' and, exhausted, she lowered her head onto the pillow.
'Marie, I won't... Maybe you want to lie down, Marie?'
She did not answer and strengthlessly closed her eyes. Her pale face became like a dead woman's. She fell asleep almost instantly. Shatov looked around, straightened the candle, looked anxiously at her face one more time, clasped his hands tightly in front of him, and tiptoed out of the room into the hallway. At the top of the stairs he pressed his face into a corner and stood that way for about ten minutes, silently and motionlessly. He would have stood there longer, but suddenly he heard soft, cautious footsteps from below. Someone was coming up. Shatov remembered that he had forgotten to lock the gate.
'Who's there?' he asked in a whisper.
The unknown visitor kept coming up without haste and without answering. When he reached the landing, he stopped; to make him out in the darkness was impossible; suddenly there came his cautious question:
'Ivan Shatov?'
Shatov gave his name, and immediately reached his hand out to stop him; but the man himself seized him by the hand and—Shatov gave a start, as if he had touched some horrible viper.
'Stop there,' he whispered quickly, 'don't come in, I can't receive you now. My wife has come back to me. I'll bring a candle out.'
When he came back with the candle, there stood some young little officer; he did not know his name, but he had seen him somewhere.
'Erkel,' the man introduced himself. 'You saw me at Virginsky's.'
'I remember; you sat and wrote. Listen,' Shatov suddenly boiled up, frenziedly stepping close to him, but speaking in a whisper as before, 'you gave me a sign just now with your hand, when you seized mine. But know that I could spit on all these signs! I don't acknowledge ... I don't want to ... I could chuck you down the stairs now, do you know that?'
'No, I don't know any of it, and I don't know at all why you got so angry,' the visitor replied, mildly and almost simpleheartedly. 'I only have to tell you something, and that is why I've come, wishing above all not to waste any time. You have a press that does not belong to you, and for which you are accountable, as you know yourself. I was told to demand that you hand it over tomorrow, at exactly seven o'clock in the evening, to Liputin. Furthermore, I was told to inform you that nothing else will ever be demanded of you.'
'Nothing?'
'Absolutely nothing. Your request is being granted, and you are removed forever. I was told to inform you positively of this.'
'Who told you to inform me?'
'Those who gave me the sign.'
'Are you from abroad?'
'That... that, I think, is irrelevant for you.'
'Eh, the devil! And why didn't you come sooner, if you were told?'
'I followed certain instructions and was not alone.'
'I understand, I understand that you weren't alone. Eh ... the devil! And why didn't Liputin come himself?'
'And so I will come for you tomorrow at exactly six o'clock in the evening, and we will go there on foot. There will be no one there except the three of us.'
'Will Verkhovensky be there?'
'No, he won't. Verkhovensky is leaving town tomorrow, in the morning, at eleven o'clock.'
'Just as I thought,' Shatov whispered furiously and struck himself on the hip with his fist, 'he ran away, the dog!'
He lapsed into agitated thought. Erkel was looking intently at him, waiting silently.
'And how are you going to take it? It can't be picked up in one piece and carried away.'
'There will be no need to. You'll just point out the place, and we'll just make sure it really is hidden there. We know just the whereabouts of the place, but not the place itself. And have you pointed the place out to anyone else?'
Shatov looked at him.
'And you, and you, such a boy—such a silly boy—you, too, have gotten into it up to your neck, like a sheep? Eh, but that's what they need, such sap. Well, go! Ehh! That scoundrel hoodwinked you all and ran away.'
Erkel looked at him serenely and calmly, but seemed not to understand.
'Verkhovensky ran away! Verkhovensky!' Shatov rasped furiously.
'But he's still here, he hasn't left yet. He's only leaving tomorrow,' Erkel observed gently and persuadingly. 'I especially invited him to be present as a witness; my instructions all had to do with him' (he confided like a young, inexperienced boy). 'But, unfortunately, he did not agree, on the pretext of his departure, and he really seems to be in a hurry.'
Shatov again glanced pityingly at the simpleton, but suddenly waved his hand as if thinking: 'What's there to pity?'
'All right, I'll come,' he suddenly broke off, 'and now get out of here, go!'
'And so I'll come at exactly six o'clock,' Erkel bowed politely and went unhurriedly down the stairs.
