"But you yourself were the person who suggested that? You yourself wished it?"
"I?"
Presently, thrusting his hands up his sleeves, he added dully and brokenly:
"Yes, I DID wish it. Why not, indeed, seeing that at least it would have brought comfort to the poor people of this place? Sometimes I feel very sorry for them with their bitter, troublous lives—lives which may be the lives of rogues and villains, yet are lives which have produced amongst us a pravednik," [A "just person," a human being without sin].
All the evening sky was now aflame. Upon the ear there fell the mournful lament:
When snow has veiled the earth in white, The snowy plain the wild wolves tread. They wail for the cheering warmth of spring As I bewail the bairn that's dead.
Vologonov listened for a moment. Then he said firmly:
"These are mere accesses of impulse which come upon her. And that is only what might be expected. Even as in song or in vice there is no holding her, so remorse, when it has fastened upon such a woman's heart, will know no bounds. I may tell you that on one occasion two young merchants took her, stripped her stark naked, and drove her in their carriage down Zhitnaia Street, with themselves sitting on the seats of the vehicle, and Felitzata standing upright between them—yes, in a state of nudity! Thereafter they beat her almost to death."
As I stepped out into the dark, narrow vestibule, Antipa, who was following me, muttered:
"Such a lament as hers could come only of genuine grief."