ng she asked, in a whisper, as if speaking to
herself:

"How did he do the portrait of me? From memory?"

Nejdanov turned to her quickly.

"Yes, from memory."

Mariana was surprised at his reply. It seemed to her that she merely
thought the question. "It is really wonderful..." she continued in
the same tone of voice. "Why, he can't draw at all. What was I talking
about?" she added aloud. "Oh yes, it was about Dobrolubov's poems. One
ought to write poems like Pushkin's, or even like Dobrolubov's. It is
not poetry exactly, but something nearly as good."

"And poems like mine one should not write at all. Isn't that so?"
Nejdanov asked.

"Poems like yours please your friends, not because they are good, but
because you are a good man and they are like you."

Nejdanov smiled.

"You have completely buried them and me with them!" Mariana slapped his
hand and called him naughty. Soon after she announced that she was tired
and wanted to go to bed.

"By the way," she added, shaking back her short thick curls, "do you
know that I have a hundred and thirty roubles? And how much have you?"

"Ninety-eight."

"Oh, then we are rich... for simplified folk. Well, good night, until
tomorrow."

She went out, but in a minute or two her door opened slightly and he
heard her say, "Goodnight!" then more softly another "Goodnight!" and
the key turned in the lock.

Nejdanov sank on to the sofa and covered his face with his hands. Then
he got up quickly, went to her door and knocked.

"What is it?" was heard from within.

"Not till tomorrow, Mariana... not till tomorrow!"

"Till tomorrow," she replied softly.

XXIX

EARLY the next morning Nejdanov again knocked at Mariana's door.

"It is I," he replied in answer to her "Who's that?" "Can you come out to
me?"

"In a minute."

She came out and uttered a cry of alarm. At first she did not recognise
him. He had on a long-skirted, shabby, yellowish nankin coat, with small
buttons and a high waist; his hair was dressed in the Russian fashion
with a parting straight down the middle; he had a blue kerchief round
his neck, in his hand he held a cap with a broken peak, on his feet a
pair of dirty leather boots.

"Heavens!" Mariana exclaimed. "How ugly you look!" and thereupon threw
her arms round him and kissed him quickly. "But why did you get yourself
up like this? You look like some sort of shopkeeper, or pedlar, or a
retired servant. Why this long coat? Why not si