"Pashka, dear, how nice it is!" cried Vyera, delighted.
"Ah! it's hot! Hullo, you there, Ilya, leave off! Can't you look enough? Get one for yourself!"
"But she must be pretty," said Vyera, with a strange emphasis, looking Ilya in the eyes.
"Prettier than you can't be found," sighed Ilya, and laughed.
"Don't talk of things you don't understand," said Vyera, softly.
"He knows his way about," said Pashka. Then, turning to Ilya, went on, wrinkling his brow: "Here, now, everything is so clean and jolly, and then, all of a sudden—one thinks—It cuts one's heart."
"Don't think then!" cried Vyera, and bent over the table. Ilya looked at her, and saw how her ears grew red.
"You must think—" she went on, softly but firmly—"if I have only a day, still it's mine! It isn't easy for me, either, but I don't mix up the joy and the trouble; I keep it, like the song says: 'The sorrow I alone will bear, the joy together we shall share.'"
Pavel listened, but hardened his heart, in his sulky mood. Ilya longed to say something comforting, encouraging, and, after a pause, began:
"What's to be done when the knots won't be loosened? If I had lots of money, a thousand or ten thousand roubles, I'd give it to you, and say: 'There, take it, take it because of your love,' for I see it and feel it; for you it's a real true heart affair, and that is always pure to the conscience, and all the rest you can spit at."