"They say she's stolen six hundred roubles from a merchant, a pocket book, bills, and so on." Ilya laid a hand on his friend's shoulder, and then moved silently away. "When they searched they found the money at her house," said Gratschev, in a dull way. "The police inspector, she struck him in the face." "Oh, of course," said Ilya with a harsh laugh. "If you've got to go to prison, why not go in style!" When Masha understood that all this did not concern her she smiled and said softly: "If they'd take me to prison." Pavel looked at her, then at Ilya. "Don't you know her?" asked Ilya. "Masha, Perfishka's daughter, you remember." "Oh, yes," said Pavel slowly and indifferently, and turned away, although Masha, who had recognised him, greeted him with a smile. "Ilya," said Gratschev gloomily. "If she's done that for me? She spoke of it." "Oh, I don't know for whom, for you or for herself, it's all the same! Her song is finished." Lunev could not collect his thoughts. Weary for want of sleep, unwashed, and dishevelled, he sat down at Masha's feet, and looked first at her, then at Pavel, and felt overwhelmed. "I knew," he said slowly, "the whole business could come to no good end." "She wouldn't listen to me," said Pavel, in a lifeless tone. "That's it, of course!" cried Lunev ironically. "That's the whole trouble, that she wouldn't listen to you! What could you say to her?" "I loved her." "What's the good of your love? in the devil's name! What can you get with that? Apart from anything else you never got her enough to eat by your work." "That's true," said Pavel, sighing. Lunev was irritated, he felt that all these lives, Pavel's, Masha's, stirred him to wrath, excited him, and not knowing where to direct his feelings, he vented them on his friend. "Every one wants to be decent and happy, you too, but you say to her, I love you, therefore live with me, and suffer want; do you think that's the way to take it?" "How should I then?" asked Pavel gently. The question calmed Ilya a little, involuntarily he fell to thinking of it. "It would be easier for me to kill her with my own hands," said Pavel. Gavrik looked in. "Ilya Jakovlevitch! shall I open the shop!" "Oh, go to the devil!" shouted Lunev in anger. "Don't worry me with the shop." "Am I in the way," asked Pavel. He sat in the chair leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and looked at the floor. A vein, full of blood, swelled on his temple. "You," cried Lunev, and looked at him. "You don't disturb me, nor Masha; it's a very different thing! I've told you before, that there's something gets in the way of us all, you and me, and Masha. It's our folly or something. I don't know what; but it's not possible to live like human beings!"