"Do you believe in God, Tatiana?" he asked her once.
"What a question," she cried. "Of course I do. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, then when you pray, you hurry up so as to get away from Him, I suppose," said Ilya laughing.
"First of all, don't say hurry up, but make haste; in the second place, I'm so tired with my day's work that God must forgive my haste."
And she closed her eyes, and added in a tone of deep conviction:
"He will forgive everything. He is merciful."
Olympiada used to pray silently and for a long time. She knelt before the eikon, hung her head, and remained motionless as if turned to stone. At such times her face was downcast, serious; and she did not answer if addressed. Now that Ilya grasped that Tatiana had cleverly over-reached him over the business, he felt a kind of disgust towards her.
"If she were a stranger—well and good," he thought. "All men try to cheat one another, but she is almost like my wife." He began to behave coldly and suspiciously towards her, and to avoid meeting her on all sorts of pretexts.
Just at this time he became acquainted with another woman. This was Gavrik's sister, who came now and then to see her brother. Tall, thin, and lanky, she was not pretty, and though Gavrik had said she was nineteen she seemed to Ilya much older. Her face was long and thin and yellow; fine wrinkles furrowed the brow. She had a flat nose, and the wide nostrils seemed distended with anger, while the thin lips were usually pressed together. She spoke distinctly, but as it were through her teeth, and unwillingly. She walked quickly with her head high, as though she were proud to display her ugly face, though possibly it was her long, thick black hair that drew her head backwards. Her big dark eyes looked serious and earnest, and the whole effect of her features was to give her tall figure an air of definite uprightness and inflexibility. Lunev felt afraid of her. She seemed to him proud and inspired him with respect. Whenever she appeared in the shop, he offered her a chair politely and said:
"Please take a seat."