‘And who’s to blame for it? I’ll tell you, if you like, who’s to blame. I’m to blame, in the first place. What ought I to have said? I ought to have said to you: Vassilissa, I love you. Good--well, will you marry me? Will you? It’s true you’re a working girl, granted; but that’s all right. It’s done sometimes. Why, there, I knew a fellow, he got married like that. Married a Finnish servant-girl. Took and married her. And you’d have been happy with me. I’m a good-natured chap, I am! Never you mind my being drunk, you look at my heart. There, you ask this ... fellow. So, you see, I turn out to be in fault. And now, of course, I’m a ruined man.’ Ivan Afanasiitch was more and more in need of Onisim’s support. ‘All the same, you did wrong, very wrong. I loved you, I respected you ... what’s more, I’m ready to go to church with you this minute. Will you? You’ve only to say the word, and we’ll start at once. Only you wounded me cruelly ... cruelly. You might at least have turned me away yourself--but through your aunt, through that fat female! Why, the only joy I had in life was you. I’m a homeless man, you know, a poor lonely creature! Who is there now to be kind to me? who says a kind word to me? I’m utterly alone. Stript bare as a crow. You ask this ...’ Ivan Afanasiitch began to cry. ‘Vassilissa, listen what I say to you,’ he went on: ‘let me come and see you as before. Don’t be afraid.... I’ll be ... quiet as a mouse. You can go and see whom you like, I’ll--be all right: not a word, no protests, you know. Eh? do you agree? If you like, I’ll go down on my knees.’ (And Ivan Afanasiitch bent his knees, but Onisim held him up under the arms.) ‘Let me go! It’s not your business! It’s a matter of the happiness of a whole life, don’t you understand, and you hinder....’ Vassilissa did not know what to say. ‘You won’t ... Well, as you will! God be with you. In that case, good-bye! Good-bye, Vassilissa. I wish you all happiness and prosperity ... but I ... but I ...’ And Pyetushkov sobbed violently. Onisim with all his might held him up from behind ... first his face worked, then he burst out crying. And Vassilissa cried too. XI Ten years later, one might have met in the streets of the little town of O---- a thinnish man with a reddish nose, dressed in an old green coat with a greasy plush collar. He occupied a small garret in the baker’s shop, with which we are familiar. Praskovia Ivanovna was no longer of this world. The business was carried on by her niece, Vassilissa, and her husband, the red-haired, dim-eyed baker, Demofont. The man in the green coat had one weakness: he was over fond of drink. He was, however, always quiet when he was tipsy. The reader has probably recognised him as Ivan Afanasiitch. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Desperate Character and Other Stories, by Ivan Turgenev