"Ah--the boy!" said Masha, indifferently; but her lifeless face did not move. Then she began to drink her tea, but her hands shook so that the saucer rattled against her teeth. Ilya looked on and wondered--was he sorry for Masha--or not? But his heart was heavy, and he thought of her husband with hatred. "What will you do?" he asked after a long pause. "I don't know," she answered with a sigh. "What can I do? I'll rest--till they catch me again." "You ought to complain to the police," said Lunev, firmly. "Why should he torment you? Who has any right to torment any one like that?" "He did the same to his first wife," said Masha. "He tied her to the bed by her hair--and pinched her--just the same--and once I was asleep and suddenly I felt a pain and woke and screamed--he'd burnt me with a lighted match." Lunev sprang up and said fiercely and loudly that the very next morning she should go to the police and show her bruises and demand to have her husband condemned. She listened to him, shifting unceasingly to and fro, looked at him in terror, and said: "Don't shout--don't shout, please! They'll hear you." His words only distressed her. He soon perceived this little girl, once so cheerful and gay, had been beaten and crushed till all human spirit was tortured out of her. "Very well," he said, and sat down again. "I'll see to it. I'll find a way. You'll stay here, Mashutka--d'you hear?" "Yes. I hear," she answered softly, and looked round the room. "You can have my bed, and I'll go into the shop--but to-morrow." "I'll lie down at once, I think. I'm tired." He folded back the coverlet from the bed. She fell on it and tried to cover herself with the bedclothes, but could not manage it, and said with a dull smile: "How silly I am. I might be drunk." Ilya drew the coverlet over her, arranged the pillows, and was going away, when she said anxiously: "Don't go. Stay a little. I'm so frightened alone--there's something haunts me." He sat down by the bed, looked once at her pale face, framed in its curls, and turned away. All at once he was full of shame that she should lie there, hardly alive. He remembered Jakov's entreaties, and Matiza's account of Masha's life, and he hung his head. "And his father beats Jasha, they say. Matiza says, 'What a life!'" she said. "Such fathers," said Lunev between his teeth, interrupting her soft, lifeless speech. "Such fathers--ought to go to penal servitude--your father and Petrusha Filimonov." "No, my father is weak--he isn't wicked." "If you can't look after your children you've no business to have any." From the house opposite came the music of two voices singing together, and the words of the song drifted through the open window into Ilya's room. A strong, deep bass sang fiercely: "My heart is disenchanted." "There. I shall go to sleep," murmured Masha. "How nice it is--so peaceful--and the singing--they sing well."