"This is the first time I've heard such words."
"What can I say?" she replied, shaking her head sadly, and spreading her hands in a gesture of impotence. "If I had the words to express my mother's heart—" She arose, lifted by the power that waxed in her breast, intoxicated her, and gave her the words to express her indignation. "Then many and many a one would weep, and even the wicked, the men without conscience would tremble! I would make them taste gall, even as they made Christ drink of the cup of bitterness, and as they now do our children. They have bruised a mother's heart!"
Nikolay rose, and pulling his little beard with trembling fingers, he said slowly in an unfamiliar tone of voice:
"Some day you will speak to them, I think!"
He started, looked at his watch again, and asked in a hurry:
"So it's settled? You'll come over to me in the city?"
She silently nodded her head.
"When? Try to do it as soon as possible." And he added in a tender voice: "I'll be anxious for you; yes, indeed!"
She looked at him in surprise. What was she to him? With bent head, smiling in embarrassment, he stood before her, dressed in a simple black jacket, stooping, nearsighted.
"Have you money?" he asked, dropping his eyes.