t now--"

"Wait!" cried Madame Hohlakov. And jumping up and running to a handsome
bureau with numerous little drawers, she began pulling out one drawer
after another, looking for something with desperate haste.

"The three thousand," thought Mitya, his heart almost stopping, "and at
the instant ... without any papers or formalities ... that's doing things
in gentlemanly style! She's a splendid woman, if only she didn't talk so
much!"

"Here!" cried Madame Hohlakov, running back joyfully to Mitya, "here is
what I was looking for!"

It was a tiny silver ikon on a cord, such as is sometimes worn next the
skin with a cross.

"This is from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," she went on reverently, "from
the relics of the Holy Martyr, Varvara. Let me put it on your neck myself,
and with it dedicate you to a new life, to a new career."

And she actually put the cord round his neck, and began arranging it. In
extreme embarrassment, Mitya bent down and helped her, and at last he got
it under his neck-tie and collar through his shirt to his chest.

"Now you can set off," Madame Hohlakov pronounced, sitting down
triumphantly in her place again.

"Madam, I am so touched. I don't know how to thank you, indeed ... for
such kindness, but ... If only you knew how precious time is to me....
That sum of money, for which I shall be indebted to your generosity....
Oh, madam, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me," Mitya
exclaimed impulsively, "then let me reveal to you ... though, of course,
you've known it a long time ... that I love somebody here.... I have been
false to Katya ... Katerina Ivanovna I should say.... Oh, I've behaved
inhumanly, dishonorably to her, but I fell in love here with another woman
... a woman whom you, madam, perhaps, despise, for you know everything
already, but whom I cannot leave on any account, and therefore that three
thousand now--"

"Leave everything, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," Madame Hohlakov interrupted in
the most decisive tone. "Leave everything, especially women. Gold-mines
are your goal, and there's no place for women there. Afterwards, when you
come back rich and famous, you will find the girl of your heart in the
highest society. That will be a modern girl, a girl of education and
advanced ideas. By that time the dawning woman question will have gained
ground, and the new woman will have appeared."

"Madam, that's not the point, not at all...." Mitya clasped his hands in
entreaty.