Masha felt insulted, and turned away. Looking small and delicate, she shook back her dark hair from time to time, coughing and blinking when the smoke from the samovar she was tending irritated her eyes. Her face was thin, and the eyes shone all the more brightly for the dark circles round them. She was like the flowers that spring up amid grass and weeds in an overgrown garden. Ilya looked at her and thought how the child lived all alone in this underground cave, working like a full-grown woman, how there was not, and perhaps never would be, any joy in life for her, condemned always to live in this straitened, dirty place. But he might live now as he had always desired, in peace and cleanliness. The thought filled him with happiness. Then at once he felt his unkindness to Masha. "Masha!" he cried. "Well, what now, cross-patch?" "D'you know, I'm a bad lot," said Lunev, and his voice shook, while he wondered in his heart if he should tell her or no. Masha turned towards him with a smile: "Pity there's no one to give you a beating, that's what you want, you bad fellow!" "Oh! have a little patience." "No--no--you don't deserve any," said Masha, then approaching him quickly, she said in a tone of entreaty: "Ilya dear, ask your uncle to take me with him, will you? Ask him! I'll go on my knees and thank you." "Where do you want to go?" asked Lunev, tired and too busy with his own thoughts to attend. "To the holy places. Dear Ilya, ask him." With hands clasped and eyes streaming, she stood in front of him, as though before a shrine. "It would be so lovely, in spring, through the fields and woods. I'd go on and on, ever so far. I think of it every day--I dream that I'm going there, how good it would be; speak to your uncle, tell him to take me! He listens to you--I won't be a trouble to him. I'll beg for myself. I'm so little, they'll give to me. Will you, Ilusha? I'll kiss your hand." Suddenly she seized his hand and bent over it. He sprang up, pushing her back. "Silly girl," he cried, "what are you doing? I've strangled a man!" His own words terrified him and he added at once: "Perhaps--perhaps for all you know, I've done something terrible with these hands, and you'll kiss them." "No, let me," said Masha, pressing closer to him. "What does it matter? I'll kiss them! Petrusha is worse than you, and I kiss his hand for every bit of bread. I hate it, but he wants it, so I do it, and then he pinches me and touches me, the beast!" Ilya's heart sprang up joyfully in a moment, perhaps because he had said the terrible thing, perhaps because he had not said everything. He smiled and spoke gently to the child. "All right, I'll fix it up with uncle, I'll manage it, you shall go on your pilgrimage. I'll give you some money for the journey." "You dear!" cried Masha, and fell on his neck. "Here let go! Stop it," said Lunev, seriously. "I promise you shall go. Will you pray for me, Mashutka?" "Pray for you! My God!"