Yevsey took up his hat, flung his coat over his shoulders, and walked away with bowed head. Several minutes later he was sitting on a bench at the gate of a house, mumbling as if drunk:
"The baggage!" But he had to strain himself to bring out the epithet. It was not genuine. He ransacked all the shameful names for a woman, all ugly oaths, and poured them over the tall, shapely figure of Olga, desiring to sully every bit of her with mud, to darken her from head to foot, in order not to see her face and eyes. But oaths did not cling to her. She stood before his eyes, stretching out her hands, pushing him away, serene and white. Her image robbed his oaths of their force, and though Yevsey persistently roused anger within himself, he felt only shame.
He looked for a long time at the round solitary ball of the moon, which moved in the sky in bounds, as if leaping like a large bright rubber ball; and he heard the quiet sound of its motion, resembling the beatings of a heart.
He did not love this pale melancholy disk, which always seemed to watch him with cold obstinacy in the heavy movements of his life. It was late, but the city was not yet asleep. From all sides floated sounds.
"Formerly the nights were quieter," thought Klimkov. He rose, and walked away, without putting his arms into the sleeves of his coat, his hat pushed back on his neck.
"Well, all right, wait," he thought, doing violence to himself. Finally he decided, "I'll deliver them over, and as a reward I'll ask to be transferred to another city. That's all."
He reluctantly surrendered himself to the desires to revenge himself upon Olga, and strengthened the feeling with a supreme effort. Nevertheless it continued to cover his heart with a thin scale, and was constantly breaking down so that he had to fortify it again. Beneath this desire unexpectedly appeared another, not strong, but restless. He wanted to see the girl once more, wanted to listen in silence to her talk, to sit with her in her room. He quenched the longing with thoughts that designedly lowered Olga.
"If I had a lot of money, you would dance naked before me. I know your lewd set." But to himself he said obdurately, "You won't sully her, you won't attain it."
He wanted this or the other, but neither this nor the other was attainable. In calmer moments he realized this truth, which fairly crushed him, and plunged him into a heavy sleep troubled by nightmares.