I am sorry, Vladimir.I never meant to write you such a melancholy letter without a few cheering words at the end.(You will no doubt tumble across some defects in the lines!) When shall I write to you again? Shall I ever write? But whatever happens to me I am sure you will never forget,Your devoted friend,A.N.
P.S.--Our people are asleep...But I have a feeling that if anything does wake them, it will not be what we think.
After writing the last line, Nejdanov flung down the pen."Well, now you must try and sleep and forget all this nonsense, scribbler!" he exclaimed, and lay down on the bed.But it was long before he fell asleep.
The next morning Mariana woke him passing through his room on her way to Tatiana.He had scarcely dressed when she came back.She seemed excited, her face expressing delight and anxiety at the same time.
"Do you know, Aliosha, they say that in the province of T., quite near here, it has already begun!""What? What has begun? Who said so?"
"Pavel.They say the peasants are rising, refusing to pay taxes, collecting in mobs.""Have you heard that yourself?"
"Tatiana told me.But here is Pavel himself.You had better ask him."Pavel came in and confirmed what Mariana had said.
"There is certainly some disturbance in T.," he began, shaking his beard and screwing up his bright black eyes."Sergai Mihailovitch must have had a hand in it.He hasn't been home for five days."Nejdanov took his cap.
"Where are you off to?" Mariana asked.
"Why there of course," he replied, not raising his eyes and frowning, "I am going to T.""Then I will come with you.You'll take me, won't you? Just let me get a shawl.""It's not a woman's work," Nejdanov said irritably with his eyes still fixed on the floor.
"No, no! You do well to go, or Markelov would think you a coward...but I'm coming with you.""I am not a coward," Nejdanov observed gloomily.
"I meant to say that he would have thought us both cowards.I am coming with you."Mariana went into her own room to get a shawl, while Pavel gave an inward ha, ha, and quickly vanished.He ran to warn Solomin.
Mariana had not yet appeared, when Solomin came into Nejdanov's room.The latter was standing with his face to the window, his forehead resting on the palm of his hand and his elbow on the window-pane.Solomin touched him on the shoulder.He turned around quickly; dishevelled and unwashed, Nejdanov had a strange wild look.Solomin, too, had changed during the last days.His face was yellow and drawn and his upper front teeth showed slightly--he, too, seemed agitated as far as it was possible for his well-balanced temperament to be so.
"Markelov could not control himself after all," he began."This may turn out badly both for him and for others.""I want to go and see what's going on there," Nejdanov observed.
"And I too," Mariana added as she appeared in the doorway.
Solomin turned to her quickly.
"I would not advise you to go, Mariana.You may give yourself away--and us, without meaning to, and without the slightest necessity.Let Nejdanov go and see how the land lies, if he wants to-- and the sooner he's back the better! But why should you go?""I don't want to be parted from him."
"You will be in his way."
Mariana looked at Nejdanov.He was standing motionless with a set sullen expression on his face.
"But supposing there should be danger?" she asked.
Solomin smiled.
