Fortunately for me, the soldiers spread the story over the whole yard, the whole street, and in the evening, as I lay in the attic, I heard the loud voice of Natalia Kozlovski below. "No! Why should I hold my tongue? No, my dear fellow, get away! Get along with you! Go away, I say! If you don't, I will go to your gentleman, and he will give you something!" I felt at once that this noise was about me. She was shouting near our steps; her voice rang out loudly and triumphantly. "How much money did you show me yesterday? Where did you get it from? Tell us!" Holding my breath with joy, I heard Sidorov drawl sadly: _"Aie! aie_! Ermokhin--" "And the boy has had the blame for it? He has been beaten for it, eh?" I felt like running down to the yard, dancing there for joy, kissing the washerwoman out of gratitude; but at that moment, apparently from the window, my mistress cried: "The boy was beaten because he was insolent. No one believed that he was a thief except you, you slut!" "Slut yourself, madam! You are nothing better than a cow, if you will permit me to say so." I listened to this quarrel as if it were music. My heart burned with hot tears of self-pity, and gratitude to Natalia. I held my breath in the effort to keep them back. Then the master came slowly up to the attic, sat on a projecting beam near me, and said, smoothing his hair: "Well, brother Pyeshkov, and so you had nothing to do with it?" I turned my face away without speaking. "All the same, your language was hideous," he went on. I announced quietly: "As soon as I can get up I shall leave you." He sat on in silence, smoking a cigarette. Looking fixedly at its end, he said in a low voice: "What of it? That is your business. You are not a little boy any longer; you must look about and see what is the best thing for yourself." Then he went away. As usual, I felt sorry for him. Four days after this I left that house. I had a passionate desire to say good-by to Queen Margot, but I had not the audacity to go to her, though I confess I thought that she would have sent for me herself. When I bade good-by to the little girl I said: "Tell your mother that I thank her very much, will you?" "Yes, I will," she promised, and she smiled lovingly and tenderly. "Good-by till to-morrow, eh? Yes?" I met her again twenty years later, married to an officer in the _gendarmerie_. CHAPTER XI Once more I became a washer-up on a steamboat, the _Perm_, a boat as white as a swan, spacious, and swift. This time I was a "black" washer-up, or a "kitchen man." I received seven rubles a month, and my duties were to help the cook.