Busy with such thoughts he entered Matiza's room and saw her sitting on a chair beside her bed. She cast a glance at him, warned him with a finger, and whispered in a deep bass voice, like a far-off storm-wind:
"Sh! She's asleep."
Masha lay on the bed, huddled in a heap.
"What kind of a thing d'you call this?" Matiza whispered, and rolled her big eyes angrily. "Thrash children to ribbons, do they, the cursed villains! to lay hands on children! curse them! the scoundrels!"
Ilya stood by the stove and listened, while he gazed at the delicate form of the cobbler's daughter, wrapped in a grey shawl.
"What's to become of the poor things?" rang in his head.
"D'you know that the blackguard struck Masha, too?" went on Matiza. "Tore her hair, the cursed scoundrel, the old bar loafer! Beat his son, and the girl, and he's going to turn them both out of doors, d'you know that? Where are they to go, poor orphans? How——"
"Perhaps I can find her a place," said Ilya, thoughtfully, remembering that Olympiada needed a housemaid.
"You!" whispered Matiza, reproachfully. "You come in always now as if you were a fine gentleman. You get on and grow for yourself like a young oak-tree, give no shadow and no acorns. You might have done something for her long ago. Aren't you sorry for the child?"
"Wait a bit and don't jaw!" said Ilya, crossly. It was an excuse for him to visit Olympiada at once, and he asked: "How old's Mashutka?"