Felitzata looked at the old man with sarcasm and sauciness gleaming in her brown eyes. Suddenly, however, she contracted her brows, counterfeited a sigh, and whined:
"Ah, I was good-looking then, and desired of all. In those days I had both a good heart and a happy nature."
"But the monk may prove to have been an important factor in the question," was Antipa's thoughtful remark.
"Yes, and many another man than he has run after me for his pleasure," continued Felitzata in a tone of reminiscence. This led Vologonov to cough, rise to his feet, lay his hand upon the woman's claret-coloured sleeve of satin, and say sternly:
"Do you come into my room, for I have business to transact with you."
As she complied she smiled and winked at me. And so the pair departed—he shuffling carefully with his bandy legs, and she watching her steps as though at any moment she might collapse on to her left side.
Thenceforth, Felitzata visited Vologonov almost daily; and once during the time of two hours or so that the pair were occupied in drinking tea I heard, through the partition-wall, the old man say in vigorous, level, didactical tones:
"These tales and rumours ought not to be dismissed save with caution. At least ought they to be given the benefit of the doubt. For, though all that he says may SEEM to us unintelligible, there may yet be enshrined therein a meaning, such as—"
"You say a meaning?"
"Yes, a meaning which, eventually, will be vouchsafed to you in a vision. For example, you may one day see issue from a dense forest a man of God, and hear him cry aloud: Felitzata, Oh servant of God, Oh sinner most dark of soul—"