The black circles under her eyes trembled and threw an ominous shadow on her face. She bit her lips.
"You go against me—that's your right; I'm your enemy. But in defending your power don't corrupt people; don't compel me to have instinctive contempt for them; don't dare to poison my soul with your cynicism!"
Nikolay looked at her through his glasses, and screwing up his eyes, shook his head sadly. But she continued to speak as if those whom she detested stood before her. The mother listened with strained attention, understanding nothing, and instinctively repeating to herself one and the same words, "The trial—the trial will come off in a week!"
She could not picture to herself what it would be like; how the judges would behave toward Pavel. Her thoughts muddled her brain, covered her eyes with a gray mist, and plunged her into something sticky, viscid, chilling and paining her body. The feeling grew, entered her blood, took possession of her heart, and weighed it down heavily, poisoning in it all that was alive and bold.
Thus, in a cloud of perplexity and despondency under the load of painful expectations, she lived through one day, and a second day; but on the third day Sasha appeared and said to Nikolay:
"Everything is ready—to-day, in an hour!"
"Everything ready? So soon?" He was astonished.
"Why shouldn't everything be ready? The only thing I had to do was to get a hiding place and clothes for Rybin. All the rest Godun took on himself. Rybin will have to go through only one ward of the city. Vyesovshchikov will meet him on the street, all disguised, of course. He'll throw an overcoat over him, give him a hat, and show him the way. I'll wait for him, change his clothes and lead him off."
"Not bad! And who's this Godun?"
"You've seen him! You gave talks to the locksmiths in his place."