Ach, mercy on us! Calm yourself, will you?" she shouted frantically.
"Oh, you bane of my life!"
"My dear," Stepan Trofimovitch murmured at last, addressing Sofya Matveyevna, "stay out there, my dear, I want to say something here...."
Sofya Matveyevna hurried out at once.
"Cherie... cherie..." he gasped.
"Don't talk for a bit, Stepan Trofimovitch, wait a little till you've rested.
Here's some water.
Do wait, will you!"
She sat down on the chair again.
Stepan Trofimovitch held her hand tight.
For a long while she would not allow him to speak.
He raised her hand to his lips and fell to kissing it.
She set her teeth and looked away into the corner of the room.
"Je vous aimais," broke from him at last.
She had never heard such words from him, uttered in such a voice.
"H'm!" she growled in response.
"Je vous aimais toute ma vie... vingt ans!"
She remained silent for two or three minutes.
"And when you were getting yourself up for Dasha you sprinkled yourself with scent," she said suddenly, in a terrible whisper.
Stepan Trofimovitch was dumbfounded.
"You put on a new tie..."
Again silence for two minutes.
"Do you remember the cigar?"
"My friend," he faltered, overcome with horror.
"That cigar at the window in the evening... the moon was shining... after the arbour... at Skvoreshniki?
Do you remember, do you remember?" She jumped up from her place, seized his pillow by the corners and shook it with his head on it.
"Do you remember, you worthless, worthless, ignoble, cowardly, worthless man, always worthless!" she hissed in her furious whisper, restraining herself from speaking loudly.
At last she left him and sank on the chair, covering her face with her hands.
"Enough!" she snapped out, drawing herself up.
"Twenty years have passed, there's no calling them back. I am a fool too."
"Je vous aimais." He clasped his hands again.
"Why do you keep on with your aimais and aimais?
Enough!" she cried, leaping up again.
"And if you don't go to sleep at once I'll... You need rest; go to sleep, go to sleep at once, shut your eyes.
Ach, mercy on us, perhaps he wants some lunch!
What do you eat?
What does he eat?
Ach, mercy on us! Where is that woman?
Where is she?"
There was a general bustle again.
But Stepan Trofimovitch faltered in a weak voice that he really would like to go to sleep une heure, and then un bouillon, un the.... enfin il est si heureux.
He lay back and really did seem to go to sleep (he probably pretended to).
Varvara Petrovna waited a little, and stole out on tiptoe from behind the partition.
She settled herself in the landlady's room, turned out the landlady and her husband, and told Dasha to bring her that woman. There followed an examination in earnest.
"Tell me all about it, my good girl. Sit down beside me; that's right.
Well?"
"I met Stepan Trofimovitch..."
"Stay, hold your tongue!
I warn you that if you tell lies or conceal anything, I'll ferret it out.
Well?"