ly free.' She repeats it over and over again.
She is living in Petersburgskaia, with my sister-in-law, as I told you
in my letter."

"She is there at this moment?"

"Yes, unless she has gone to Pavlofsk: the fine weather may have tempted
her, perhaps, into the country, with Daria Alexeyevna. 'I am quite
free,' she says. Only yesterday she boasted of her freedom to Nicolai
Ardalionovitch--a bad sign," added Lebedeff, smiling.

"Colia goes to see her often, does he not?"

"He is a strange boy, thoughtless, and inclined to be indiscreet."

"Is it long since you saw her?"

"I go to see her every day, every day."

"Then you were there yesterday?"

"N-no: I have not been these three last days."

"It is a pity you have taken too much wine, Lebedeff I want to ask you
something... but..."

"All right! all right! I am not drunk," replied the clerk, preparing to
listen.

"Tell me, how was she when you left her?"

"She is a woman who is seeking..."

"Seeking?"

"She seems always to be searching about, as if she had lost something.
The mere idea of her coming marriage disgusts her; she looks on it as
an insult. She cares as much for HIM as for a piece of orange-peel--not
more. Yet I am much mistaken if she does not look on him with fear and
trembling. She forbids his name to be mentioned before her, and they
only meet when unavoidable. He understands, well enough! But it must be
gone through She is restless, mocking, deceitful, violent...."

"Deceitful and violent?"

"Yes, violent. I can give you a proof of it. A few days ago she tried
to pull my hair because I said something that annoyed her. I tried to
soothe her by reading the Apocalypse aloud."

"What?" exclaimed the prince, thinking he had not heard aright.

"By reading the Apocalypse. The lady has a restless imagination, he-he!
She has a liking for conversation on serious subjects, of any kind; in
fact they please her so much, that it flatters her to discuss them. Now
for fifteen years at least I have studied the Apocalypse, and she agrees
with me in thinking that the present is the epoch represented by the
third horse, the black one whose rider holds a measure in his hand. It
seems to me that everything is ruled by measure in our century; all men
are clamouring for their rights; 'a measure of wheat for a penny, and
three measures of barley for a penny.' But, added to this, men desire
freedom of mind and body, a pure heart, a healthy life, and all God's