bearded frame, I
should go on living in those little blue eyes, that silky flaxen
hair, those dimpled pink hands which stroked my face so lovingly
and were clasped round my neck.

Sonya's future made me anxious. Orlov was her father; in her birth
certificate she was called Krasnovsky, and the only person who knew
of her existence, and took interest in her--that is, I--was at
death's door. I had to think about her seriously.

The day after I arrived in Petersburg I went to see Orlov. The door
was opened to me by a stout old fellow with red whiskers and no
moustache, who looked like a German. Polya, who was tidying the
drawing-room, did not recognise me, but Orlov knew me at once.

"Ah, Mr. Revolutionist!" he said, looking at me with curiosity, and
laughing. "What fate has brought you?"

He was not changed in the least: the same well-groomed, unpleasant
face, the same irony. And a new book was lying on the table just
as of old, with an ivory paper-knife thrust in it. He had evidently
been reading before I came in. He made me sit down, offered me a
cigar, and with a delicacy only found in well-bred people, concealing
the unpleasant feeling aroused by my face and my wasted figure,
observed casually that I was not in the least changed, and that he
would have known me anywhere in spite of my having grown a beard.
We talked of the weather, of Paris. To dispose as quickly as possible
of the oppressive, inevitable question, which weighed upon him and
me, he asked:

"Zinaida Fyodorovna is dead?"

"Yes," I answered.

"In childbirth?"

"Yes, in childbirth. The doctor suspected another cause of death,
but . . . it is more comforting for you and for me to think that
she died in childbirth."

He sighed decorously and was silent. The angel of silence passed
over us, as they say.

"Yes. And here everything is as it used to be--no changes," he
said briskly, seeing that I was looking about the room. "My father,
as you know, has left the service and is living in retirement; I
am still in the same department. Do you remember Pekarsky? He is
just the same as ever. Gruzin died of diphtheria a year ago. . . .
Kukushkin is alive, and often speaks of you. By the way," said
Orlov, dropping his eyes with an air of reserve, "when Kukushkin
heard who you were, he began telling every one you had attacked him
and tried to murder him . . . and that he only just escaped with
his life."

I did not speak.

"Old servants do not forget t