"So?" the spy rejoined indifferently. "What of it? He's a single man."
"Why did I tell him?" Yevsey reproached himself. A feeling of slight alarm and enmity came over him.
"Don't speak of this to anybody, please," he begged Viekov.
"About Maklakov? Very well—I have to go to the office. Aren't you going?"
"No, but we can go out together."
On the street Viekov remarked in dismal irritation, speaking in a subdued voice:
"Stupid people, after all. They ought not to be going about with flags and songs. Now they have once begun to feel themselves in power they ought to ask the authorities straightway to abolish all sorts of politics, to transform everybody into people, both us and the revolutionists, to distribute awards to whom they are due, both on our side and theirs, and to make a strict announcement, 'All politics strictly prohibited.' We've had enough of hide and seek!"
Viekov suddenly disappeared around the corner without taking leave of Klimkov. Yevsey walked like a man who to-day has no reason to hasten.
"I have one hundred and fifty rubles," he thought. "I have an inclination for business, and I know about it to some extent. In business a man is free. Soon I'll receive twenty-five rubles more."
The people moved about in the street excitedly, all spoke loud, all faces smiled joyously, and the gloomy autumn evening recalled a bright Easter day. Songs started up, now nearby, now at the end of the street curtained by a grey cloud. Loud shouts quenched the singing.