“Who are you?”
“Boulatoff,” Pavel answered, with sadness in his heart. He expected other absurdities from his insane neighbour. “And you?”
“Bieliayeff. I am not well. But I feel much better to-day. My lucid interval, perhaps. I remember everything.”
Pavel had met him two years before. They talked of themselves, of their mutual friends, of the last news that had reached Bieliayeff through his other wall. It appeared that Bieliayeff’s neighbour on that side of his cell was Elkin.
Pavel received the information with a thrill of pleasure. He was going to ask Bieliayeff to convey a message to his fellow townsman; but at this he had an instinctive feeling that there was an eye at the peephole and he dropped his hand to his side, pretending to be absorbed in thought.
They resumed their conversation a quarter of an hour later.
“Tell Elkin I love him; he is dear to me,” Pavel tapped out. “I feel guilty and miserable. If it were not for me he would be in America now. Besides, I have been unjust to him. This oppresses me more than anything else.”
These communications through the wall are the most precious things life has to offer in living graves like those of the fortress of Peter and Paul. The inmate of such a grave will listen to the messages of his neighbours with the most strenuous attention, with every faculty in his possession, with every fibre of his being; and he will convey every word of a long message as if reading it from a written memorandum.
After a lapse of five or ten minutes Bieliayeff came back with Elkin’s answer.