"I'm so sorry for you, both of you, poor fellows." Ilya liked Vyera very much. He treated her as a little child, was very disturbed if she quarrelled with Pashka, and made the peace between them every time. He liked to sit in her room and watch her comb her golden hair, or sew at something, singing softly. Often he surprised in her eyes a gnawing pain, and sometimes her face twitched with a hopeless weary smile. At such a time he felt even more drawn to her, the misery of this little girl touched him more keenly and he would comfort her as well as he could. But she said: "No, no, Ilya, we can't go on like this, it's quite impossible; think--I--I must live on in this filth, but Pavel, what place is there for him near me?" "But he chooses it," said Ilya. "Chooses?" came like an echo from her lips. Olympiada interrupted the conversation, entering noiselessly in a wide blue cloak, like a cold moonbeam. "Come to tea, my lad, and you come in too, presently, Vyerotchka." Fresh and rosy from the cold water, clean, neat and calm, she took Ilya to her room without many words, and he followed, marvelling that this could be the same Olympiada he had seen before, faded and soiled by lustful hands. While they drank their tea, she said to him: "It's a pity you're only a peasant lad and have learned so little, that'll make it harder for you in life, but anyhow you must drop your present business and try something else. Wait, I'll look out for a place for you--you must be looked after. As soon as I've fixed things up with Poluektov, I'll manage it." "Is he going to give you the five thousand?" "Of course," she answered with conviction. "Well, if I ever meet him near you, I'll pull his head off," cried Ilya jealously. "Why? he doesn't get in your way." "He does, most decidedly, get in my way." "But he's old and horrid," said Olympiada, laughing. "Laugh away! I'll never believe that it's anything but a great sin to caress such a dirty beast." "Wait a little, at least, till I get hold of his money." The merchant did everything for her that she desired. Soon Ilya was sitting in her new house, seeing the thick carpets and the heavy plush-covered furniture, and listening to his lady's business-like remarks. He found in her no special pleasure in her altered surroundings, she was as calm and self-contained as ever. It was as though only the clothes were changed, nothing else. "I am now twenty-seven,--when I am thirty, I shall have ten thousand roubles. Then I'll throw over the old man and be free; learn from me, my lad, how to deal with life."