"Travel, Romashov. Go away from here. I advise you to do so, for I myself have tasted freedom, and if I crept into my dirty cage again, whose fault was it? But enough of this. Dive boldly into life. It will not deceive you. Life resembles a huge building with thousands of rooms in which you will find light, joy, singing, wonderful pictures, handsome and talented men and women, games and frolic, dancing, love, and all that is great and mighty in art. Of this castle you have hitherto seen only a dark, narrow, cold, and raw cupboard, full of scourings and spiders' webs, and yet you hesitate to leave it." Romashov made fast the boat and helped Nasanski to land. It was already dusk when they reached Nasanski's abode. Romashov helped him to bed and spread the cloak and counterpane over him. Nasanski trembled so much from his chill that his teeth chattered. He rolled himself up like a ball, bored his head right into his pillow, and whimpered helplessly as a child. "Oh, how frightened I am of my room! What dreams! What dreams!" "Perhaps you would like me to stay with you?" said Romashov. "No, no; that's not necessary. But get me, please, some bromide and a little--vodka. I have no money." Romashov sat by him till eleven. Nasanski's fits of ague gradually subsided. Suddenly he opened his great eyes gleaming with fever, and uttered with some difficulty, but in a determined, abrupt tone: "Go, now--good-bye." "Good-bye," replied Romashov sadly. He wanted to say, "Good-bye, my teacher," but was ashamed of the phrase, and he merely added with an attempt at joking: "Why did you merely say 'good-bye'? Why not say _do svidánia_?"[25] Nasanski burst into a weird, senseless laugh. "Why not _do svishvezia_?"[26] he screamed in a wild, mad voice. Romashov felt that his body was shaken by violent shudders. XXII On approaching his abode, Romashov noticed, to his astonishment, that a faint gleam of light poured from the dark window of his room. "What can that be?" he thought, not without a certain uneasiness, whilst he involuntarily quickened his steps. "Perhaps it is my seconds waiting to communicate to me the conditions of the duel?" In the hall he ran into Hainán, but he did not recognize him immediately in the dark, and being startled, cried angrily: "What the devil----! Oh, it's you, Hainán--and who's in there?" In spite of the darkness, Romashov realized that Hainán was doing his usual dance. "It's a lady, your Honour. She's sitting in there." Romashov opened the door. The lamp, the kerosene of which had long come to an end, was still flickering feebly and was just ready to go out. On the bed was seated a female figure, the outlines of which could scarcely be distinguished in the half-dark room. "Shurochka!"--Romashov, who for a second was unable to breathe, slowly approached the bed on tip-toe--"Shurochka, you here?" "S-sh; sit down," she replied in a rapid whisper. "Put out the lamp."