“Yes, she was eccentric. I suffered enough with her. She would take offence at some trifle and then get nervous.... And what happened afterwards?” “A week passed, a fortnight.... I was sitting at home writing. Suddenly, the door opened and she comes in. ‘Take your cursed money,’ she said, and threw the parcel in my face.... She could not resist it.... Five hundred were missing. She had only got rid of five hundred.” “And what did you do with the money?” “It’s all past and done with. What’s the good of concealing it?... I certainly took it. What are you staring at me like that for? Wait for the sequel. It’s a complete novel, the sickness of a soul! Two months passed by. One night I came home drunk, in a wicked mood.... I turned on the light and saw Sophia Mikhailovna sitting on my sofa, drunk too, wandering a bit, with something savage in her face as if she had just escaped from the mad-house. ‘Give me my money back,’ she said. ‘I’ve changed my mind. If I’m going to the dogs, I want to go madly, passionately. Make haste, you scoundrel, give me the money.’ How indecent it was!” “And you ... did you give it her?” “I remember I gave her ten roubles.” “Oh ... is it possible?” Usielkov frowned. “If you couldn’t do it yourself, or you didn’t want to, you could have written to me.... And I didn’t know ... I didn’t know.” “My dear man, why should I write, when she wrote herself afterwards when she was in hospital?” “I was so taken up with the new marriage that I paid no attention to letters.... But you were an outsider; you had no antagonism to Sophia Mikhailovna.... Why didn’t you help her?” “We can’t judge by our present standards, Boris Pietrovich. Now we think in this way; but then we thought quite differently.... Now I might perhaps give her a thousand roubles; but then even ten roubles ... she didn’t get them for nothing. It’s a terrible story. It’s time to forget.... But here you are!” The sledge stopped at the churchyard gate. Usielkov and Shapkin got out of the sledge, went through the gate and walked along a long, broad avenue. The bare cherry trees, the acacias, the grey crosses and monuments sparkled with hoar-frost. In each flake of snow the bright sunny day was reflected. There was the smell you find in all cemeteries of incense and fresh-dug earth. “You have a beautiful cemetery,” said Usielkov. “It’s almost an orchard.” “Yes, but it’s a pity the thieves steal the monuments. Look, there, behind that cast-iron memorial, on the right, Sophia Mikhailovna is buried. Would you like to see?” The friends turned to the right, stepping in deep snow towards the cast-iron memorial.