He seemed quite abashed and said after a while: "And as I sat there, I thought, by God, I was right!" "Now, thank heaven, it's all passed over all right." Ilya looked at her with a smile. "I didn't need to lie much. I'm lucky, after all, Lipa!" He laughed again in a strange way. "The secret police are always at my heels," said Olympiada, in a low voice, "and after you too." "Of course," said Ilya, full of scorn and anger. "They go sniffing around, and want to hem me in, like the beaters do to the wolf in the forest. But they won't do it; they're not the men for that; and I'm not a wolf, but an unlucky man. I didn't mean to strangle any one. Fate strangles me--as Pashka says in his poem--and it strangles Pashka too, and Jakov, and all of us." "Never mind, Ilushka. Everything will go right now." Ilya got up, walked to the window, and said, with a despairing voice, as he looked at the street: "All my life I've had to wallow in the mud. I've always been pushed into things I disliked--hated. I've never met a soul I could look at really happily. Is there nothing pure in life, nothing noble? Now, I've strangled this--this man of yours,--why? I've only smirched myself, and damned myself. I took money. I ought not." "Don't be sorry!" She tried to console him. "He isn't worth it." "I'm not sorry for him; only I want to get myself straight. Every one tries, else he can't live. That magistrate, he lives like a sugar-plum in its box. No one will strangle him. He can be good and upright in his pretty nest." "Never mind, we'll go away together from this place." "No. I'll go nowhere," cried Ilya fiercely, and wheeled round to her, and added, seeming to threaten some unknown person. "No--no--patience! I'll wait and see what will come; I'll fight it out still," and he strode up and down the room, and shook his head defiantly. "Oh!" said Olympiada, in an injured tone. "You won't go with me, because you're afraid of me; you think I should always have a hold on you, you think I should use what I know--you're wrong, my dear. I'll never drag you with me by force." She spoke quietly, but her lips twitched as though she were in pain. "What did you say?" asked Ilya, quite surprised. "I won't compel you, don't be frightened; go where you will!" "Wait a moment," said Ilya, as he sat down near her, and took her hand. "I didn't understand what you said." "Don't pretend!" she cried, and drew away her hand. "I know you're proud, and passionate; you can't forgive the old man; you hate my life--you think that it's all come about through me." "You're talking foolishly," said Ilya, quietly. "I don't blame you in the very least, I know that for men like me there are no women who are pretty and fine and pure as well. Such women are dear, they are only for the rich, and we must love the soiled and those who are spat upon and abused." "Then leave me, the spat upon and abused!" cried Olympiada, springing up from her chair. "Go away--go away!"