er room, snatched up her baby, and went with it out of
the house into the street. It was a damp morning, there was a fog.
She met no passers-by in such an out-of-the-way street. She ran on
breathless through the wet, cold mud, and at last began knocking at the
doors of the houses. In the first house no one came to the door, in the
second they were so long in coming that she gave it up impatiently and
began knocking at a third door. This was the house of a merchant called
Titov. Here she wailed and kept declaring incoherently that her husband
was murdered, causing a great flutter in the house. Something was
known about Shatov and his story in the Titov household; they were
horror-stricken that she should be running about the streets in such
attire and in such cold with the baby scarcely covered in her arms,
when, according to her story, she had only been confined the day before.
They thought at first that she was delirious, especially as they could
not make out whether it was Kirillov who was murdered or her husband.
Seeing that they did not believe her she would have run on farther,
but they kept her by force, and I am told she screamed and struggled
terribly. They went to Filipov's, and within two hours Kirillov's
suicide and the letter he had left were known to the whole town. The
police came to question Marya Ignatyevna, who was still conscious, and
it appeared at once that she had not read Kirillov's letter, and they
could not find out from her what had led her to conclude that her
husband had been murdered. She only screamed that if Kirillov was
murdered, then her husband was murdered, they were together. Towards
midday she sank into a state of unconsciousness from which she never
recovered, and she died three days later. The baby had caught cold and
died before her.

Arina Prohorovna not finding Marya Ignatyevna and the baby, and guessing
something was wrong, was about to run home, but she checked herself at
the gate and sent the nurse to inquire of the gentleman at the lodge
whether Marya Ignatyevna was not there and whether he knew anything
about her. The woman came back screaming frantically. Persuading her not
to scream and not to tell anyone by the time-honoured argument that "she
would get into trouble," she stole out of the yard.

It goes without saying that she was questioned the same morning as
having acted as midwife to Marya Ignatyevna; but they did not get much
out of her. She gave a very cool and sen