"Pull yourself together," said Ilya to him coldly. "It's no good giving way."

"It's my conscience," said Gratschev, shaking his head. "I sit here and think that I drove her to prison."

"That's quite possible," said Ilya remorselessly.

Gratschev raised his head and looked at his friend reproachfully.

"Why do you look at me?"

"You're a bad-hearted man."

"Well, why should I be good? What joy have I to make me cheerful?" cried Ilya. "Who has ever done any good thing for me? Who has cared for me? One soul perhaps in all the world, and she was a ne'er-do-well, a vicious woman, ah! Every one may strike me, and I'm to keep quiet? No thank you!"

His face flushed as anger welled up in him, his eyes grew bloodshot; he sprang up in a paroxysm of rage, longing to scream, to insult them, to strike the walls or the table with his fists. Masha, terrified, cried aloud like a child:

"I want to go home, let me go," she said in a trembling tearful voice, and moved her head as though trying to hide it.

Lunev was silent; he saw Pavel look at him with enmity.