. I lighted a
candle.

"Excuse me, I don't see anything yet," I said, turning over the leaves
of the exercise books. "Where is the account of the receipt of money
subscriptions?"

"That can be seen from the subscription lists."

"Yes, but you must have an account," I said, smiling at her naivete.
"Where are the letters accompanying the subscriptions in money or in
kind? _Pardon_, a little practical advice, Natalie: it's absolutely
necessary to keep those letters. You ought to number each letter and
make a special note of it in a special record. You ought to do the same
with your own letters. But I will do all that myself."

"Do so, do so..." she said.

I was very much pleased with myself. Attracted by this living
interesting work, by the little table, the naive exercise books and the
charm of doing this work in my wife's society, I was afraid that my wife
would suddenly hinder me and upset everything by some sudden whim, and
so I was in haste and made an effort to attach no consequence to the
fact that her lips were quivering, and that she was looking about her
with a helpless and frightened air like a wild creature in a trap.

"I tell you what, Natalie," I said without looking at her; "let me take
all these papers and exercise books upstairs to my study. There I will
look through them and tell you what I think about it tomorrow. Have you
any more papers?" I asked, arranging the exercise books and sheets of
papers in piles.

"Take them, take them all!" said my wife, helping me to arrange them,
and big tears ran down her cheeks. "Take it all! That's all that was
left me in life.... Take the last."

"Ach! Natalie, Natalie!" I sighed reproachfully.

She opened the drawer in the table and began flinging the papers out
of it on the table at random, poking me in the chest with her elbow
and brushing my face with her hair; as she did so, copper coins kept
dropping upon my knees and on the floor.

"Take everything!" she said in a husky voice.

When she had thrown out the papers she walked away from me, and putting
both hands to her head, she flung herself on the couch. I picked up the
money, put it back in the drawer, and locked it up that the servants
might not be led into dishonesty; then I gathered up all the papers and
went off with them. As I passed my wife I stopped and, looking at her
back and shaking shoulders, I said:

"What a baby you are, Natalie! Fie, fie! Listen, Natalie: when you
realize how seriou