“Certainly,” I cried, “ice even. You are very much upset. You are pale and your hands are trembling. Lie down, rest, and put off telling me. I’ll sit by you and wait.”
He hesitated, but I insisted on his lying down. Nastasya brought a cup of vinegar. I wetted a towel and laid it on his head. Then Nastasya stood on a chair and began lighting a lamp before the ikon in the corner. I noticed this with surprise; there had never been a lamp there before and now suddenly it had made its appearance.
“I arranged for that as soon as they had gone away,” muttered Stepan Trofimovitch, looking at me slyly. “Quand on a de ces choses-là dans sa chambre et qu’on vient vous arrêter it makes an impression and they are sure to report that they have seen it.…”
When she had done the lamp, Nastasya stood in the doorway, leaned her cheek in her right hand, and began gazing at him with a lachrymose air.
“Eloignez-la on some excuse,” he nodded to me from the sofa. “I can’t endure this Russian sympathy, et puis ça m’embête.”
But she went away of herself. I noticed that he kept looking towards the door and listening for sounds in the passage.
“Il faut être prêt, voyez-vous,” he said, looking at me significantly, “chaque moment … they may come and take one and, phew!—a man disappears.”
“Heavens! who’ll come? Who will take you?”
“Voyez-vous, mon cher, I asked straight out when he was going away, what would they do to me now.”
“You’d better have asked them where you’d be exiled!” I cried out in the same indignation.