have to resort to a regular series of deceptions, little and big, in order to get free of her; and again there would be tears, boredom, a disgusting existence, remorse, and so there would be no new life.  Deception and nothing more.  A whole mountain of lies rose before Laevsky’s imagination.  To leap over it at one bound and not to do his lying piecemeal, he would have to bring himself to stern, uncompromising action; for instance, to getting up without saying a word, putting on his hat, and at once setting off without money and without explanation.  But Laevsky felt that was impossible for him.

“Friday, Friday . . .” he thought.  “Friday. . . .”

They wrote little notes, folded them in two, and put them in Nikodim Alexandritch’s old top-hat.  When there were a sufficient heap of notes, Kostya, who acted the part of postman, walked round the table and delivered them.  The deacon, Katya, and Kostya, who received amusing notes and tried to write as funnily as they could, were highly delighted.

“We must have a little talk,” Nadyezhda Fyodorovna read in a little note; she glanced at Marya Konstantinovna, who gave her an almond-oily smile and nodded.

“Talk of what?” thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna.  “If one can’t tell the whole, it’s no use talking.”

Before going out for the evening she had tied Laevsky’s cravat for him, and that simple action filled her soul with tenderness and sorrow.  The anxiety in his face, his absent-minded looks, his pallor, and the incomprehensible change that had taken place in him of late, and the fact that she had a terrible revolting secret from him, and the fact that her hands trembled when she tied his cravat—­all this seemed to tell her that they had not long left to be together.  She looked at him as though he were an ikon, with terror and penitence, and thought:  “Forgive, forgive.”

Opposite her was sitting Atchmianov, and he never took his black, love-sick eyes off her.  She was stirred by passion; she was ashamed of herself, and afraid that even her misery and sorrow would not prevent her from yielding to impure desire to-morrow, if not to-day —­and that, like a drunkard, she would not have the strength to stop herself.

She made up her mind to go away that she might not continue this life, shameful for herself, and humiliating for Laevsky.  She would beseech him with tears to let her go; and if he opposed her, she would go away secretly.  She would not tell him what had happened; let him keep a pure memory of her.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she read.  It was from Atchmianov.

She would live in some far remote place, would work and send Laevsky, “anonymously,” money, embroidered shirts, and tobacco, and would return to him only in old age or if he were dangerously ill and needed a nurse.  When in his old age he learned what were her reasons for leaving him and refusing to be his wife, he would appreciate her sacrifice and forgive.