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She went out quickly.

* * * * *

In the partition there was a chink; I applied my eye to it. The crazy pilgrim was sitting on a bench with his back to me; I saw nothing but his shaggy head, as huge as a beer-can, and a broad bent back in a patched and soaking shirt. Before him, on the earth floor, knelt a frail-looking woman in a jacket, such as are worn by women of the artisan class–old and wet through–and with a dark kerchief pulled down almost over her eyes. She was trying to pull the holy man’s boots off; her fingers slid off the greasy, slippery leather. The landlady was standing near her, with her arms folded across her bosom, gazing reverently at the ‘man of God.’ He was, as before, mumbling some inarticulate words.

At last the woman succeeded in tugging off the boots. She almost fell backwards, but recovered herself, and began unwinding the strips of rag which were wrapped round the vagrant’s legs. On the sole of his foot there was a wound…. I turned away.

‘A cup of tea wouldn’t you bid me get you, my dear?’ I heard the hostess saying in an obsequious voice.

‘What a notion!’ responded the holy man. ‘To indulge the sinful body…. O-ho-ho! Break all the bones in it … but she talks of tea! Oh, oh, worthy old woman, Satan is strong within us…. Fight him with hunger, fight him with cold, with the sluice-gates of heaven, the pouring, penetrating rain, and he takes no harm–he is alive still! Remember the day of the Intercession of the Mother of God! You will receive, you will receive in abundance!’

The landlady could not resist uttering a faint groan of admiration.

‘Only listen to me! Give all thou hast, give thy head, give thy shirt! If they ask not of thee, yet give! For God is all-seeing! Is it hard for Him to destroy your roof? He has given thee bread in His mercy, and do thou bake it in the oven! He seeth all! Se … e … eth! Whose eye is in the triangle? Say, whose?’

The landlady stealthily crossed herself under her neckerchief.

‘The old enemy is adamant! A … da … mant! A … da … mant!’ the religious maniac repeated several times, gnashing his teeth. ‘The old serpent! But God will arise! Yes, God will arise and scatter His enemies! I will call up all the dead! I will go against His enemy…. Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo!’

‘Have you any oil?’ said another voice, hardly audible; ‘let me put some on the wound…. I have got a clean rag.’

I peeped through the chink again; the woman in the jacket was still busied with the vagrant’s sore foot…. ‘A Magdalen!’ I thought.

‘I’ll get it directly, my dear,’ said the woman, and, coming into my room, she took a spoonful of oil from the lamp burning before the holy picture.

‘Who’s that waiting on him?’ I asked.

‘We don’t know, sir, who it is; she too, I suppose, is seeking salvation, atoning for her sins. But what a saintly man he is!’

‘Akulinushka, my sweet child, my dear daughter,’ the crazy pilgrim was repeating meanwhile, and he suddenly burst into tears.

The woman kneeling before him lifted her eyes to him…. Heavens! where had I seen those eyes?

The landlady went up to her with the spoonful of oil. She finished her operation, and, getting up from the floor, asked if there were a clean loft and a little hay…. ‘Vassily Nikititch likes to sleep on hay,’ she added.

‘To be sure there is, come this way,’ answered the woman; ‘come this way, my dear,’ she turned to the holy man, ‘and dry yourself and rest.’ The man coughed, slowly got up from the bench–his chains clanked again–and turning round with his face to me, looked for the holy pictures, and began crossing himself with a wide movement.