ff with
difficulty. She tugged at it, but could not get it off. The absurdity of
it struck her and she began to laugh almost inaudibly. But knowing that
he would hear her laughter and would be moved by it just as she wished
him to be, she laughed louder, and her laughter--gay, natural, and
kindly--really acted on him just in the way she wished.

'Yes, I could love a man like that--such eyes and such a simple noble
face, and passionate too despite all the prayers he mutters!' thought
she. 'You can't deceive a woman in these things. As soon as he put his
face to the window and saw me, he understood and knew. The glimmer of it
was in his eyes and remained there. He began to love me and desired me.
Yes--desired!' said she, getting her overshoe and her boot off at last
and starting to take off her stockings. To remove those long stockings
fastened with elastic it was necessary to raise her skirts. She felt
embarrassed and said:

'Don't come in!'

But there was no reply from the other side of the wall. The steady
muttering continued and also a sound of moving.

'He is prostrating himself to the ground, no doubt,' thought she.
'But he won't bow himself out of it. He is thinking of me just as I
am thinking of him. He is thinking of these feet of mine with the same
feeling that I have!' And she pulled off her wet stockings and put her
feet up on the bench, pressing them under her. She sat a while like that
with her arms round her knees and looking pensively before her. 'But it
is a desert, here in this silence. No one would ever know....'

She rose, took her stockings over to the stove, and hung them on the
damper. It was a queer damper, and she turned it about, and then,
stepping lightly on her bare feet, returned to the bench and sat down
there again with her feet up.

There was complete silence on the other side of the partition. She
looked at the tiny watch that hung round her neck. It was two o'clock.
'Our party should return about three!' She had not more than an hour
before her. 'Well, am I to sit like this all alone? What nonsense! I
don't want to. I will call him at once.'

'Father Sergius, Father Sergius! Sergey Dmitrich! Prince Kasatsky!'

Beyond the partition all was silent.

'Listen! This is cruel. I would not call you if it were not necessary.
I am ill. I don't know what is the matter with me!' she exclaimed in a
tone of suffering. 'Oh! Oh!' she groaned, falling back on the bench. And
strange to say she