"How do you feel?" asked Korolyov.

"Well, thank you."

He touched her pulse, then straightened her hair, that had fallen
over her forehead.

"You are not asleep," he said. "It's beautiful weather outside.
It's spring. The nightingales are singing, and you sit in the dark
and think of something."

She listened and looked into his face; her eyes were sorrowful and
intelligent, and it was evident she wanted to say something to him.

"Does this happen to you often?" he said.

She moved her lips, and answered:

"Often, I feel wretched almost every night."

At that moment the watchman in the yard began striking two o'clock.
They heard: "Dair . . . dair . . ." and she shuddered.

"Do those knockings worry you?" he asked.

"I don't know. Everything here worries me," she answered, and
pondered. "Everything worries me. I hear sympathy in your voice;
it seemed to me as soon as I saw you that I could tell you all about
it."

"Tell me, I beg you."

"I want to tell you of my opinion. It seems to me that I have no
illness, but that I am weary and frightened, because it is bound
to be so and cannot be otherwise. Even the healthiest person can't
help being uneasy if, for instance, a robber is moving about under
his window. I am constantly being doctored," she went on, looking
at her knees, and she gave a shy smile. "I am very grateful, of
course, and I do not deny that the treatment is a benefit; but I
should like to talk, not with a doctor, but with some intimate
friend who would understand me and would convince me that I was
right or wrong."

"Have you no friends?" asked Korolyov.

"I am lonely. I have a mother; I love her, but, all the same, I am
lonely. That's how it happens to be. . . . Lonely people read a
great deal, but say little and hear little. Life for them is
mysterious; they are mystics and often see the devil where he is
not. Lermontov's Tamara was lonely and she saw the devil."

"Do you read a great deal?"

"Yes. You see, my whole time is free from morning till night. I
read by day, and by night my head is empty; instead of thoughts
there are shadows in it."

"Do you see anything at night?" asked Korolyov.

"No, but I feel. . . ."

She smiled again, raised her eyes to the doctor, and looked at him
so sorrowfully, so intelligently; and it seemed to him that she
trusted him, and that she wanted to speak frankly to him, and that
she thought the same as he did. But she was silent, perhaps waitin