"Shall we walk over to the cemetery?" he turned to Anninka and explained his idea to her.
"Why, if you wish, we'll drive out there."
"No, not drive, but——" started Porfiry Vladimirych, but halted abruptly, as if struck by the thought that Anninka might be in his way.
"I have sinned against my dear departed mother. I, I was the cause of her death!"
The thought preyed on him, and the desire to "take leave" grew stronger in his heart, to take leave not by mere conventional words, but by throwing himself on her grave and bursting out in the sobs of a death agony.
"So you say no one is to be blamed for Lubinka's death?" he suddenly asked, as if trying to cheer himself up.
At first Anninka paid no attention to his question. Two or three minutes later, however, she felt an irresistible impulse to return to the subject of Lubinka's death and torment herself with it.
"And her words were, 'Drink, you street-walker,'" he said, after she had repeated the story in detail.
"Yes, her very words."
"And you didn't drink?"