You can come all night, I don't sleep at all.
There'll be a samovar.
Take the rouble, here it is.
Go to your wife, I'll stay here and think about you and your wife."
Marya Shatov was unmistakably pleased at her husband's haste and fell upon the tea almost greedily, but there was no need to run for the samovar; she drank only half a cup and swallowed a tiny piece of bread.
The veal she refused with disgust and irritation.
"You are ill, Marie, all this is a sign of illness," Shatov remarked timidly as he waited upon her.
"Of course I'm ill, please sit down.
Where did you get the tea if you haven't any?"
Shatov told her about Kirillov briefly.
She had heard something of him.
"I know he is mad; say no more, please; there are plenty of fools.
So you've been in America?
I heard, you wrote."
"Yes, I... I wrote to you in Paris."
"Enough, please talk of something else.
Are you a Slavophil in your convictions?"
"I... I am not exactly.... Since I cannot be a Russian, I became a Slavophil." He smiled a wry smile with the effort of one who feels he has made a strained and inappropriate jest.
"Why, aren't you a Russian?"
"No, I'm not."
"Well, that's all foolishness.
Do sit down, I entreat you.
Why are you all over the place?
Do you think I am lightheaded?
Perhaps I shall be.
You say there are only you two in the house."
"Yes.... Downstairs..."
"And both such clever people.
What is there downstairs?
You said downstairs?"
"No, nothing."
"Why nothing?
I want to know."
"I only meant to say that now we are only two in the yard, but that the Lebyadkins used to live downstairs...."
"That woman who was murdered last night?" she started suddenly.
"I heard of it.
I heard of it as soon as I arrived.
There was a fire here, wasn't there?"
"Yes, Marie, yes, and perhaps I am doing a scoundrelly thing this moment in forgiving the scoundrels...." He stood up suddenly and paced about the room, raising his arms as though in a frenzy.
But Marie had not quite understood him.
She heard his answers inattentively; she asked questions but did not listen.
"Fine things are being done among you!
Oh, how contemptible it all is!
What scoundrels men all are!
But do sit down, I beg you, oh, how you exasperate me!" and she let her head sink on the pillow, exhausted.
"Marie, I won't.... Perhaps you'll lie down, Marie?"
She made no answer and closed her eyes helplessly.
Her pale face looked death-like.
She fell asleep almost instantly.
Shatov looked round, snuffed the candle, looked uneasily at her face once more, pressed his hands tight in front of him and walked on tiptoe out of the room into the passage.