Often he lay on his bed in the darkness listening to the deep stillness, and felt as though all round him life quivered, and twisted in a wild whirlpool with noise and outcry. The whirlpool would suck him in, and sweep him away like a feather or a fallen leaf, and destroy him, and he shuddered with the premonition of something uncanny. One evening, as he was about to close the shop, Pavel appeared, and said quietly, without greeting him: "Vyera has run away." He sat down on a chair, rested his elbows on the counter, and whistled softly as he gazed out into the street. His face was as though turned to stone, but his fair moustache twitched like a cat's whiskers. "Alone?" asked Ilya. "I don't know; it's three days ago." Ilya looked at him without speaking. The quiet face and voice made it impossible to tell how Gratschev felt the flight of his companion, but in the stillness Ilya was aware of an unalterable resolution. "What are you going to do?" he asked at length, when he saw that Pavel would not speak. Pavel stopped whistling, and said sharply, without turning round: "I'll cut her throat!" "Ah! talking like that again!" cried Ilya, and with a gesture of annoyance. "She's trod my heart under foot," said Pavel half-aloud. "There's the knife!" He drew from his bosom a little bread-knife and shook it. "I'll stick it in her throat." Ilya caught his hand, tore the knife away, and threw it on the counter, and said angrily: "An ox once raged against a fly----" Pavel sprang from his chair and turned his face on Ilya. His eyes were blazing, his face convulsed, and he trembled in all his limbs; then he sank back again on his chair and said, contemptuously: "You're a fool!" "You're so very clever, aren't you?" "The strength is in the hand, not in the knife." "Talk!" "And if my hands fall off, I'd tear her windpipe with my teeth." "Don't talk so horribly!" "Don't talk to me Ilya," said Pavel, once more quietly. "Believe or don't believe, but don't torment me. Fate is bad enough." "Think, think, you silly fellow----" began Ilya, speaking in a friendly tone. "I've thought for two years. Everything's settled long ago. Anyhow, I'll go--how can a fellow talk to you? You're well fed; you're no comrade for me." "Get rid of your crazy thoughts!" cried Ilya reproachfully. "But I'm hungry, body and soul." "It surprises me, the way men judge," said Ilya mockingly and shrugged his shoulders. "A woman is to be a man's property, like a cow or a horse! Will you do what I want? All right, you shan't be beaten,--won't you? then crack! there's one on the head for you, devil! A woman is like a man, and has a character of her own." Pavel looked at him and laughed hoarsely. "Then who am I, am I no man?" "Well, ought you to be just or not?" "Oh, go to the devil with your old justice!" shouted Gratschev furiously, and sprang up again. "Be just, that's easy for the well fed, d'you hear? Now, good-bye."