The chair seemed to be giving way beneath him, the nausea, he thought, would immediately gush into his throat. He coughed, and examined the clean little room, which small and poor though it was, once more gripped at his heart. The moon looked into the room round as Yakov's face, and the light in the lamp seemed irritatingly superfluous. "More and more people come into being who realize that they are called upon by destiny to order life differently--upon truth and intellect," said Olga dreamily and simply. Yevsey, yielding more and more to the power of the triumphant feeling the girl and the quiet contracted room inspired in him, thought: "I'll put out the light, fall on my knees before her, embrace her feet, and tell her everything--and she will give me a kick." But the fear of ill treatment did not deter him. He raised himself heavily from his chair, and put out his hand to the lamp. Then his hand dropped lazily, drowsily, his legs shook. He started. "What are you doing?" demanded Olga. He tried to answer, but a soft gurgle came instead of words. He dropped to his knees, and seized her dress with trembling hands. She pressed one hot hand against his forehead, and with the other grasped his shoulder, at the same time hiding her legs under the table with a powerful movement. "No, no, get up!" she exclaimed sternly. "Oh my, how dreadful this is! My dear, I understand, you are worn out, I am sorry for you, you are an honorable man--I cannot--why, you don't ask for charity--then get up." The warmth of her strong body roused in him a sharp sensual desire, and he took the pushing of her hand as an encouraging caress. "She's not a saint," darted through his mind, and he embraced the girl's knees more vigorously. "I tell you, get up!" she exclaimed in a muffled voice, no longer persuasively, but in a tone of command. He rose without having succeeded in saying anything. The girl had confused his desires, his words, and feelings. She had put into his breast something insulting and stinging. "Understand--" he mumbled, spreading out his hands. "Yes, yes, I understand--my God, always this on the road!" she exclaimed. Looking into his face she went on harshly, "I am sick of it. I am insulted. I can't be only a woman to everybody. Oh, God! How pitiful you all are, after all." She went to the window, and the table now separated her from Yevsey. A dim, cold perplexity took hold of his heart; an insulting shame quietly burned him. "I tell you what--don't come to me--I beg of you. I'll feel awkward in your presence, and you, too--please." Yevsey took up his hat, flung his coat over his shoulders, and walked away with bowed head. Several minutes later he was sitting on a bench at the gate of a house, mumbling as if drunk: