The mistress cried out, angry and terrified:
"Have you gone out of your mind? What do you want to say such things to him for?"
I took Montepaine to the soldier and told him what had happened. Sidorov took the book, opened a small trunk, took out a clean towel, and, wrapping the novel in it, hid it in the trunk.
"Don't you take any notice of them. Come and read here. I shan't tell any one. And if you come when I am not here, you will find the key hanging behind the icon. Open the trunk and read."
The attitude my employers had taken with regard to the book raised it to the height of an important and terrible secret in my mind. That some "readers" had robbed a train or tried to murder some one did not interest me, but I remembered the question the priest had asked me in confession, the reading of the gymnasiast in the basement, the words of Smouri, the "proper books," and grandfather's stories of the black books of freemasonry. He had said:
"In the time of the Emperor Alexander Pavlovich of blessed memory the nobles took up the study of 'black books' and freemasonry. They planned to hand over the whole Russian people to the Pope of Rome, if you please! But General Arakcheev caught them in the act, and, without regard to their position, sent them all to Siberia, into prison. And there they were; exterminated like vermin."
I remembered the "umbra" of Smouri's book and "Gervase" and the solemn, comical words:
Profane ones who are curious to know our business,
Never shall your weak eyes spy it out!
I felt that I was on the threshold of the discovery of some great secret, and went about like a lunatic. I wanted to finish reading the book, and was afraid that the soldier might lose it or spoil it somehow. What should I say to the tailor's wife then?
The old woman watched me sharply to see that I did not run to the orderly's room, and taunted me: