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“I understand, of course, but you must make allowances. You know my wife is nervous, headstrong; you mustn’t judge her too harshly.”

Mashenka did not speak.

“If you are so offended,” Nikolay Sergeitch went on, “well, if you like, I’m ready to apologise. I ask your pardon.”

Mashenka made no answer, but only bent lower over her box. This exhausted, irresolute man was of absolutely no significance in the household. He stood in the pitiful position of a dependent and hanger-on, even with the servants, and his apology meant nothing either.

“H’m! . . . You say nothing! That’s not enough for you. In that case, I will apologise for my wife. In my wife’s name. . . . She behaved tactlessly, I admit it as a gentleman. . . .”

Nikolay Sergeitch walked about the room, heaved a sigh, and went on:

“Then you want me to have it rankling here, under my heart. . . . You want my conscience to torment me. . . .”

“I know it’s not your fault, Nikolay Sergeitch,” said Mashenka, looking him full in the face with her big tear-stained eyes. “Why should you worry yourself?”

“Of course, no. . . . But still, don’t you . . . go away. I entreat you.”

Mashenka shook her head. Nikolay Sergeitch stopped at the window and drummed on the pane with his finger-tips.

“Such misunderstandings are simply torture to me,” he said. “Why, do you want me to go down on my knees to you, or what? Your pride is wounded, and here you’ve been crying and packing up to go; but I have pride, too, and you do not spare it! Or do you want me to tell you what I would not tell as Confession? Do you? Listen; you want me to tell you what I won’t tell the priest on my deathbed?”

Mashenka made no answer.

“I took my wife’s brooch,” Nikolay Sergeitch said quickly. “Is that enough now? Are you satisfied? Yes, I . . . took it. . . . But, of course, I count on your discretion. . . . For God’s sake, not a word, not half a hint to any one!”

Mashenka, amazed and frightened, went on packing; she snatched her things, crumpled them up, and thrust them anyhow into the box and the basket. Now, after this candid avowal on the part of Nikolay Sergeitch, she could not remain another minute, and could not understand how she could have gone on living in the house before.

“And it’s nothing to wonder at,” Nikolay Sergeitch went on after a pause. “It’s an everyday story! I need money, and she . . . won’t give it to me. It was my father’s money that bought this house and everything, you know! It’s all mine, and the brooch belonged to my mother, and . . . it’s all mine! And she took it, took possession of everything. . . . I can’t go to law with her, you’ll admit. . . . I beg you most earnestly, overlook it . . . stay on. Tout comprendre, tout pardonner. Will you stay?”

“No!” said Mashenka resolutely, beginning to tremble. “Let me alone, I entreat you!”

“Well, God bless you!” sighed Nikolay Sergeitch, sitting down on the stool near the box. “I must own I like people who still can feel resentment, contempt, and so on. I could sit here forever and look at your indignant face. . . . So you won’t stay, then? I understand. . . . It’s bound to be so. . . Yes, of course. . . . It’s all right for you, but for me–wo-o-o-o! . . . I can’t stir a step out of this cellar. I’d go off to one of our estates, but in every one of them there are some of my wife’s rascals. . . stewards, experts, damn them all! They mortgage and remortgage. . . . You mustn’t catch fish, must keep off the grass, mustn’t break the trees.”

“Nikolay Sergeitch!” his wife’s voice called from the drawing-room. “Agnia, call your master!”

“Then you won’t stay?” asked Nikolay Sergeitch, getting up quickly and going towards the door. “You might as well stay, really. In the evenings I could come and have a talk with you. Eh? Stay! If you go, there won’t be a human face left in the house. It’s awful!”

Nikolay Sergeitch’s pale, exhausted face besought her, but Mashenka shook her head, and with a wave of his hand he went out.

Half an hour later she was on her way.