In Ilya's head all was confusion. He wanted to question this clever little man about many things, but the words rattled in his brain like peas in a basket. There was in the man something unpleasant, dangerous, that frightened Ilya, but at once the persistent thought of Petrusha in the seat of justice, swamped every other idea. The thought forged an iron ring round his heart and kept out every other. As he drew near to the door of the hall he saw in the crowd in front of him the thick neck and small ears of Pavel Gratschev. Overjoyed, he twitched Pavel by the sleeve and smiled in his face; Pavel smiled too, but feebly, with evident effort. "How are you?" "How are you?" They stood for a few moments in silence, and the thought of each was expressed almost simultaneously. "Come to see?" asked Pavel with a wry smile. "She--is she here?" asked Ilya. "Who?" "Why--your Sophie Nik----" "She isn't mine," answered Pavel, interrupting coldly. Both went into the hall without further speech. "Sit near me!" asked Lunev. Pavel stammered. "You see--I--I'm with some people." "Oh, very well." "I say--d'you know," added Pavel quickly. "Listen to what her advocate says." "I'll listen," said Ilya quietly, and added in a lower voice: "So--good-bye--brother." "Good-bye--we'll meet presently." Gratschev turned away and walked quickly to one side. Ilya looked at him with the sensation that Pavel had rubbed an open wound. Burning sorrow possessed him, and an envious, evil feeling to see his friend in a good new overcoat, looking, too, healthier, clearer in the face. Gavrik's sister sat on the same bench with Pavel; he said something to her, and she turned her head quickly to Lunev. When he saw her expressive, eager face, he turned away and his soul was wrapped more firmly and densely in dark feelings of injury, enmity and inability to understand. His thoughts stormed giddily in his head like a whirlwind, one tangled in another; suddenly they stopped--vanished; he felt a void in his brain, and everything outside seemed to move against him malevolently--and he ceased to follow the course of events. Vyera had already been brought in. She stood behind the railing in a grey dress, reaching to her heels like a night-gown, with a white kerchief. A strand of yellow hair lay against her left temple, her cheeks were pale, her lips compressed, and her eyes, widely opened, rested earnestly and immovably on Gromov. "Yes--yes--no--yes," her voice rang in Ilya's ears, as though muffled. Gromov looked at her kindly, and spoke in a subdued low voice like a cat purring. "And do you plead guilty, Kapitanovna, that on that night----" his insinuating voice glided on.