"Who's there?" he called, literally going stiff with fright.
"If you are Shatov," the answer came sharply and firmly from below, "then please be so good as to announce directly and honestly whether you agree to let me in or not?"
Right enough; he recognized the voice!
"Marie! ... Is it you?"
"It's me, me, Marya Shatov, and I assure you that I cannot keep the coachman any longer."
"Wait ... let me ... a candle..." Shatov cried weakly. Then he rushed to look for matches. The matches, as usual on such occasions, refused to be found. He dropped the candlestick and candle on the floor, and as soon as the impatient voice came again from below, he abandoned everything and flew headlong down his steep stairway to open the gate.
"Kindly hold the bag till I finish with this blockhead," Mrs. Marya Shatov met him below and shoved into his hands a rather light, cheap canvas handbag with brass studs, of Dresden manufacture. And she herself irritably fell upon the coachman:
"I venture to assure you that you are charging too much. If you dragged me for a whole extra hour around your dirty streets, it's your own fault, because it means you yourself did not know where this stupid street and asinine house were. Be so good as to accept your thirty kopecks, and rest assured that you will not get any more."
"Eh, little lady, wasn't it you who jabbed at Voznesensky Street, and this here is Bogoyavlensky: Voznesensky Lane is way over that way. You just got my gelding all in a stew."
"Voznesensky, Bogoyavlensky—you ought to know all these stupid names more than I,[188] since you're a local inhabitant, and, besides, you're wrong: I told you first thing that it was Filippov's house, and you precisely confirmed that you knew it. In any case, you can claim from me tomorrow at the justice of the peace, and now I ask you to leave me alone."
"Here, here's another five kopecks!" Shatov impetuously snatched out a five-kopeck piece from his pocket and gave it to the coachman.
"Be so good, I beg you, don't you dare do that!" Madame Shatov began to seethe, but the coachman started his "gelding," and Shatov, seizing her by the hand, drew her through the gate.
"Quick, Marie, quick... it's all trifles and—how soaked you are! Careful, there are steps up—sorry there's no light—the stairs are steep, hold on tighter, tighter, well, so here's my closet. Excuse me, I have no light... wait!"
He picked up the candlestick, but the matches took a long time to be found. Mrs. Shatov stood waiting in the middle of the room, silent and motionless.
"Thank God, at last!" he cried out joyfully, lighting up the closet. Marya Shatov took a cursory look around the place.
"I was told you lived badly, but still I didn't think it was like this," she said squeamishly, and moved towards the bed.
"Oh, I'm tired!" and with a strengthless air she sat on the hard bed. "Please put the bag down, and take a chair yourself. As you wish, however; you're sticking up in front of me. I'll stay with you for a time, until I find work, because I know nothing here and have no money. But if I'm cramping you, be so good, I beg you, as to announce it to me, which is your duty if you're an honest man. I can still sell something tomorrow and pay at the hotel, but you must be so good as to take me there yourself... Oh, only I'm so tired!"
Shatov simply started shaking all over.
"No need, Marie, no need for the hotel! What hotel? Why? Why?"
He pressed his hands together imploringly.
"Well, if it's possible to do without the hotel, it's still necessary to explain matters. Remember, Shatov, that you and I lived maritally in Geneva for two weeks and a few days; we separated three years ago, though without any special quarrel. But don't think I've come back to resume any of the former foolishness. I've come back to look for work, and if I've come directly to this town, it's because it makes no difference to me. I did not come to repent of anything; kindly don't think of that stupidity either."
"Oh, Marie! There's no need, no need at all!" Shatov was muttering vaguely.
"And if so, if you're developed enough to be able to understand that as well, then I'll allow myself to add that if I've now turned directly to you and come to your apartment, it's partly because I've always regarded you as far from a scoundrel, and perhaps a lot better than other... blackguards! ..."
Her eyes flashed. She must have endured her share of one thing and another from certain "blackguards."
"And please rest assured that I was by no means laughing at you just now when I declared that you are good. I spoke directly, without eloquence, which, besides, I can't stand. However, it's all nonsense. I always hoped you'd be intelligent enough not to be a nuisance ... Oh, enough, I'm tired!"
And she gave him a long, worn-out, tired look. Shatov stood facing her across the room, five steps away, and listened to her timidly, but somehow in a renewed way, with some never-seen radiance in his face. This strong and rough man, his fur permanently bristling, was suddenly all softness and brightness. Something unusual, altogether unexpected, trembled in his soul. Three years of separation, three years of broken marriage, had dislodged nothing from his heart. And perhaps every day of those three years he had dreamed of her, the dear being who had once said to him: "I love you." Knowing Shatov, I can say for certain that he could never have admitted in himself even the dream that some woman might say "I love you" to him. He was wildly chaste and modest, considered himself terribly ugly, hated his face and his character, compared himself with some monster who was fit only to be taken around and exhibited at fairs. As a consequence of all that, he placed honesty above all things, and gave himself up to his convictions to the point of fanaticism, was gloomy, proud, irascible, and unloquacious. But now this sole being who had loved him for two weeks (he always, always believed that!)—a being he had always regarded as immeasurably above him, despite his perfectly sober understanding of her errors; a being to whom he could forgive everything, everything (there could have been no question of that, but even somewhat the opposite, so that in his view it came out that he himself was guilty before her for everything), this woman, this Marya Shatov, was again suddenly in his house, was again before him... this was almost impossible to comprehend! He was so struck, this event contained for him so much of something fearsome, and together with it so much happiness, that, of course, he could not, and perhaps did not wish to, was afraid to, recover his senses. This was a dream. But when she gave him that worn-out look, he suddenly understood that this so beloved being was suffering, had perhaps been offended. His heart sank. He studied her features with pain: the luster of first youth had long since disappeared from this tired face. True, she was still good-looking—in his eyes a beauty, as before. (In reality she was a woman of about twenty-five, of rather strong build, taller than average (taller than Shatov), with dark blond, fluffy hair, a pale oval face, and big dark eyes, now shining with a feverish glint.) But the former thoughtless, naive, and simplehearted energy, so familiar to him, had given place in her to sullen irritability, disappointment, cynicism, as it were, to which she was not yet accustomed and which was a burden to her. But, above all, she was ill, he could see that clearly. Despite all his fear before her, he suddenly went up to her and took her by both hands: