"Now, listen. I'll read over your statement to you, and you will sign it."
He held a sheet of paper covered with writing before his face, and began to read quickly and monotonously. When he had finished, he put a pen in Ilya's hand. Ilya bent down, signed, rose slowly from his chair, and said in a loud, assured voice, looking at the magistrate: "Good-day!"
A short, condescending nod was his answer, and the magistrate bent over his desk, and began to write. Ilya stood thinking. He would gladly have said something more to this man who had held him so long on the rack. In the quiet, only the scratch of the pen was heard, then the woman's voice, singing, "Dance away, dance away, dolly."
"What do you want now?" asked the magistrate, and raised his head.
"Nothing," said Ilya gloomily.
"I told you, you can go."
"I'm going."
"All right, then."
They looked angrily at one another, and Ilya felt something heavy, terrifying, grow in his breast. He turned sharp round and went out into the street. A cold wind greeted him, and for the first time he noticed that he was sweating profusely. Half-an-hour later he was sitting with Olympiada. She opened the door to him herself, having seen him from the window. She met him with almost a mother's joy. Her face was pale, and she gazed restlessly about with wide-open eyes.
"My clever boy!" she cried, when Ilya told her that he had just come from the magistrate. "Tell me, tell me, how did you get on?"