"Nothing."
"A little one, thin and jolly. She used to hide my hat, or something else, and I would say, 'Olga, where's my hat?' And she would say, 'Look for it. You're a spy.' She liked to joke, but she was a loose woman. I hardly had my head turned, before she was with somebody else. I was afraid to beat her. She was frail. Still I pulled her hair. You've got to do something."
"Lord!" quietly exclaimed Klimkov. "What am I going to do?"
His comrade was silent for a while, then said dully and slowly:
"That's the way I howl, too, sometimes."
Klimkov buried his head in the pillow, compressing his lips tightly, to restrain the stubborn need to utter cries and complaints.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Yevsey awoke with a certain secret resolution, which held his bosom as with a broad invisible belt. It stifled him. The ends of this band, he felt, were held by some insistent being, who obstinately led him on to an inescapable something. He harkened to this desire and tested it carefully with an awkward, timorous thought. At the same time he did not want it to define itself.
Melnikov dressed and washed, but uncombed, was sitting at the table next to the samovar, munching his bread lazily like an ox.
"You sleep well," he said. "I drowsed a little, then awoke, while it was still night, and suddenly saw a body beside me. I remembered that Tania wasn't here, but I had forgotten about you. Then it seemed to me that that person was lying there. He came and lay down—wanted to warm himself." Melnikov laughed a stupid laugh, which, apparently, embarrassed him the next instant. "However, it's not a joke. I lighted a match and looked at you. It's my idea you're not well. Your face is blue like—" He broke off with a cough, but Yevsey guessed the unspoken word, and thought gloomily: