"According to the law," he said thoughtfully, "a third of what you find, six kopeks, belongs to you." He was silent, sighed, and stuck the coin into his vest pocket. "But anyway you're a stupid boy." Yevsey did not get the six kopeks.
Quiet, unnoticed, and when noticed, obliging, Yevsey Klimkov scarcely ever drew the attention of the people to himself, though he stubbornly followed them with the broad, empty gaze of his owl-like eyes, with the look that did not abide in the memory of those who met it.
From the first days the reticent quiet Rayisa Petrovna interested him strongly. Every evening she put on a dark, rustling dress and a black hat, and sallied forth. In the morning when he put the rooms in order she was still asleep. He saw her only in the evening before supper, and that not every day. Her life seemed mysterious to him, and her entire taciturn being, her white face and stationary eyes, roused in him vague suggestions of something peculiar. He persuaded himself that she lived better and knew more than everybody else. A kindly feeling which he did not understand sprang up in his heart for this woman. Every day she appeared to him more and more beautiful.
Once he awoke at daybreak, and walked into the kitchen for a drink. Suddenly he heard someone entering the door of the vestibule. He rushed to his room in fright, lay down, and covered himself with the blanket, trying to press himself to the chest as closely as possible. In a few minutes he stuck out his ear, and in the kitchen heard heavy steps, the rustle of a dress, and the voice of Rayisa Petrovna.
"Oh, oh, you—" she was saying.
Yevsey rose, walked to the door on tiptoe, and looked into the kitchen. The quiet woman was sitting at the window taking off her hat. Her face seemed whiter than ever, and tears streamed from her eyes. Her large body swayed, her hands moved slowly.
"I know you!" she said, shaking her head. She rose to her feet, supporting herself on the window-sill.
The bed in the master's room creaked. Yevsey quickly jumped back on his chest, lay down, and wrapped himself up.
"They've done something bad to her," he thought, full of keen pity. At the same time, however, he was inwardly glad of her tears. They brought this woman, who lived a secret nocturnal existence, nearer to him.
The next moment someone seemed to be passing by him with sly steps. He raised his head, and suddenly jumped from the chest, as if burned by the thin angry shout: