"I did. I know you'll give it to us." She said these words simply, with a confidence not to be shaken. They were like a blow to Yevsey. He flung himself on the back of the chair astonished. "Why do you know?" he asked dully after a pause. "When I asked you, you said neither yes nor no. So I thought you would certainly say yes." Yevsey did not understand. He tried not to meet her look. "Why?" he queried again. "It must be because I consider you a good man. I trust you." "You mustn't trust," said Yevsey. "Well, enough nonsense, you must." "And suppose you've been mistaken?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, what of it?" After a pause she added calmly, "Not to believe a man means not to respect him. It means to think him beforehand a liar, an ugly person. Is that possible?" "That's what is necessary," mumbled Yevsey. "What?" "I can furnish the type." He sighed. The task was accomplished. He was silent for several minutes, sitting with his head bowed, his hands pressed tight between his knees, while he listened suspiciously to the rapid beating of his heart. Olga leaned her elbows on the table, and in a low voice told him when and where the promised type must be brought. He made a mental note of her words, and repeated them to himself, desiring by this repetition to hinder the growth of the painful feeling in his empty breast. Now that he had fulfilled his duty a stifling nausea slowly arose from the depths of his soul; and that feeling of an alien inside himself, of a constantly widening cleft in his being, came over him in a tormenting wave. "You noticed," the girl said quietly, "how rapidly the people are changing, how faith in other persons is growing, how quickly one gets to know the other, how everybody seeks friends and finds them. All have become simpler, more trusting, more willing to open up their souls. See how good it is." Her words trembled before him like moths, each with its own character. Simple, kind, joyous, they all seemed fairly to smile. Unable to make up his mind to look Olga in the face, Klimkov took to watching her shadow on the wall over his shoulders, and drew upon it her blue eyes, the medium-sized mouth with the pale lips, her face somewhat weary and serious, but soft and kind. "Shall I tell her now that all this is a hocus-pocus? That she will be ruined?" He answered himself: "They'll drive me out. They'll swear at me, and drive me out." "Do you know Zimin the joiner?" he suddenly asked. "No, why?" Yevsey sighed painfully. "Just so. He's a good man, too, a Socialist." "We are many," observed Olga with assurance. "If she knew the joiner," Klimkov thought slowly, "I would tell her to ask him about me. Then--"