ng,
her eyes fixed on space, the tears trickling down her face. "Life,"
Nikitin once said to me, "I sometimes think is like a dark room, the
door closed, the windows bolted and your enemy shut in with you. Whether
your enemy or yourself is the stronger who knows?... Nor does it matter,
as the issue is always decided outside.... Knowing that you can at least
afford to despise him."

I felt something of that impotence now. I cursed the Isvostchick, but
wherever he went this slow endless stream seemed to impede our way. Poor
Nina! Such a baby! What was it that had driven her to this? She did not
love the man, and she knew quite well that she did not. No, it was an
act of defiance. But defiance to whom--to Vera? to Lawrence?... and
what had Semyonov said to her?

Then, thank Heaven, we crossed the Nevski, and our way was clear. The
old cabman whipped up his horse and, in a minute or two we were outside
16 Gagarinskaya. I will confess to very real fears and hesitations as I
climbed the dark stairs (the lift was, of course, not working). I was
not the kind of man for this kind of job. In the first place I hated
quarrels, and knowing Grogoff's hot temper I had every reason to expect
a tempestuous interview. Then I was ill, aching in every limb and seeing
everything, as I always did when I was unwell, mistily and with
uncertainty. Then I had a very shrewd suspicion that there was
considerable truth in what Semyonov had said, that I was interfering in
what only remotely concerned me. At any rate, that was certainly the
view that Grogoff would take, and Nina, perhaps also. I felt, as I rang
the bell of No. 3, that unpleasant pain in the pit of the stomach that
tells you that you're going to make a fool of yourself.

Well, it would not be for the first time.

"Boris Nicolaievitch, _doma_?" I asked the cross-looking old woman who
opened the door.

"_Doma_," she answered, holding it open to let me pass.

I was shown into a dark, untidy sitting-room. It seemed at first sight
to be littered with papers, newspapers, Revolutionary sheets and
proclamations, the _Pravda_, the _Novaya Jezn_, the _Soldatskaya
Mwyssl_.... On the dirty wall-paper there were enormous dark
photographs, in faded gilt frames, of family groups; on one wall there
was a large garishly coloured picture of Grogoff himself in student's
dress. The stove was unlighted and the room was very cold. My heart
ached for Nina.

A moment after Grogoff came in. He came f