"You see the paper is quite new, the window looks on the garden, what could be nicer? In the morning I'll put the samovar outside your door, but you must take it in yourself." "Do you do the waiting here, then?" asked Ilya with curiosity. The girl ceased to smile, her eyebrows twitched, she drew herself up and said, condescendingly: "I am not the housemaid, but the owner of this house, and my husband----" "Why, are you married?" cried Ilya in astonishment, and looked incredulously at her pretty slender figure. She was not angered, but laughed gaily: "How funny you are! first you take me for a housemaid, then you won't believe I'm married." "How can I believe it, when you look just like a little girl?" said Ilya, and laughed too. "And I tell you, that I've been married for three years, and that my man is district inspector--in the police." Ilya looked in her face and smiled quietly, he did not know why. "What a silly!" cried the girl, shrugging her shoulders and inspecting Ilya curiously. "Well, anyhow, will you take the room?" "Agreed! D'you want a deposit?" "Of course, a rouble, at least." "I'll bring my things in, in two or three hours." "As you please. I'm glad to have such a lodger, you're a cheerful one, I fancy." "Not specially," said Lunev, smiling. He went out into the street still smiling, with a feeling of pleasure in his breast. He liked both the room, with its blue wall-paper, and the brisk little woman, and he liked specially to think he was going to live in the house of a police inspector. It seemed to him at once comical, with a certain irony, and rather dangerous. He was on his way to visit Jakov at the hospital, and took a droshky to get there sooner. On the way he laughed in his heart and considered what to do with the money, and where to hide it. When he reached the hospital, he was told that Jakov had just had a bath, and was now fast asleep. He stood by the corridor window, and did not know whether to go away or wait till Jakov woke up. Patients passed him, shuffling slowly in slippers, in yellow night-gowns, and as they went they looked at him with melancholy eyes. They chattered in low voices with one another, and through their whispers rang a painful, groaning coming from somewhere far off. A dull echo, redoubling every sound, boomed through the long corridor; it was as though some one floated invisible on the heavy air of the hospital, groaning mournfully and lamenting. Ilya felt he must leave these yellow walls at once, but suddenly one of the patients came up to him with outstretched hand, and said in a muffled voice: "How are you?" Lunev looked up, then stepped back in surprise. "Pavel? Goodness! are you here too?" "Who else is here?" asked Pavel quickly. His face was curiously grey, his eyes blinked restlessly and confusedly. "Jakov is here! his father thrashed him--and now you here too! Been here long?" Then he added compassionately: "Ah, brother, how changed you look!"