If I refused to be brought to reason by all this and continued my rebellion, he would suddenly begin to sigh as he looked at me, sigh long and deeply, as if measuring with each sigh the full depth of my moral fall, and, of course, it would end at last with him overcoming me completely: I'd get furious, I'd shout, but with that which had been the whole point I'd be forced to comply.
This time, however, as soon as the usual "stern look" maneuvers began, I immediately lost my temper and fell on him in a fury. I was all too irritated to begin with.
"Stop!" I yelled in a frenzy, as he was turning, slowly and silently, one arm behind his back, to go to his room. "Stop! Come back! Come back, I tell you!" And I must have bellowed so unnaturally that he turned and began to study me even with a certain surprise. However, he still did not say a word, and it was this that infuriated me.
"How dare you come in here without permission and stare at me like that! Answer!"
But he, having looked at me calmly for about half a minute, again began to turn around.
"Stop!" I roared, running up to him, "don't move! So. Now answer: what did you come in here and stare for?"
"If there's something you want done direckly, it's my duty to see to it," he replied, again after some silence, lisping softly and measuredly, raising his eyebrows, and calmly shifting his head from one side to the other - and all that with horrifying composure.
"That's not it, that's not what I'm asking you, hangman!" I shouted, shaking with anger. "I'll tell you myself, hangman, why you keep coming here: you see I'm not giving you your wages, in your pride you don't want to bow and beg, and for that you come with your stupid staring to punish me, to torture me, and you don't even r-r-realize, hangman, how stupid it is, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!"
He again began to turn silently, but I grabbed him.
"Listen," I was shouting at him. "Here's the money, see, here it is!" (I took it out of the drawer.) "All seven roubles, but you won't get it, you will not get it, until such time as you come respectfully, with a guilty head, to ask my forgiveness. Do you hear!"
"That can never be!" he replied, with a sort of unnatural self-assurance.
"It will be!" I was shouting. "I give you my word of honor, it will be!"
"And there's nothing for me to ask your forgiveness about," he went on, as if not noticing my shouts at all, "seeing as you yourself have abused me with 'hangman,' on which offense I can always apply against you at the precinct."
"Go! Apply!" I roared. "Go now, this minute, this second! And you're still a hangman! hangman! hangman!" But he just looked at me, then turned and, no longer listening to my appeals, went smoothly to his place without a backward glance.
"There wouldn't be any of this if it weren't for Liza!" I decided to myself. Then, after a moment's pause, pompously and solemnly, but slowly and with a pounding heart, I myself proceeded behind his screen.
"Apollon!" I said softly and measuredly, though I was suffocating, "go for the police chief at once, without the slightest delay!"
He had managed meanwhile to sit down at his table, put on his spectacles, and begin some sewing. But hearing my order, he suddenly snorted with laughter.
"Go now, this minute! Go, or you can't even imagine what will happen!"
"Truly, you're not in your right senses," he observed, without even raising his head, with the same slow lisp, and continuing to thread his needle. "Who's ever seen a man go to the authorities against himself? And as to scaring me - you're exerting yourself in vain, because - nothing will happen."
"Go!" I shrieked, grabbing him by the shoulder. I felt I was about to strike him.
And I did not even hear how the outer door opened at that moment, softly and slowly, and some figure entered, stopped, and began gazing at us in perplexity. I looked, died of shame, and rushed to my room. There, clutching my hair with both hands, I leaned my head against the wall and stood frozen in that position.
About two minutes later I heard the slow steps of Apollon.
" Some… one is asking for you out there," he said, looking at me with particular sternness, then stepped aside and let in - Liza. He did not want to leave, and stared at us mockingly.
"Get out! Get out!" I ordered repeatedly, quite lost. At that moment my clock strained, hissed, and struck seven.
IX
And now, full mistress of the place, Come bold and free into my house.
From the same poetry
I stood before her, destroyed, branded, disgustingly embarrassed, and, I think, smiling, trying as hard as I could to wrap myself in my ragged old quilted dressing gown - well, exactly as I had pictured to myself recently in fallen spirits. Apollon hovered around us for about two minutes and then left, but that made it no easier for me. Worst of all was that she, too, suddenly became embarrassed, much more so than I would even have expected. From looking at me, of course.
"Sit down," I said mechanically, and moved a chair out for her at the table, while I myself sat on the sofa. She sat down at once and obediently, staring at me all eyes, apparently expecting something from me right then. The naivety of this expectation infuriated me, but I restrained myself.
The thing to do here would have been to try not to notice anything, as if it were all quite ordinary, but she… And I sensed vaguely that she was going to pay dearly for it all…
"You find me in an odd situation, Liza," I began, stammering, and knowing that this was precisely not how I should have begun.
"No, no, don't think anything of the sort!" I cried, seeing her suddenly blush. "I'm not ashamed of my poverty… On the contrary, I look upon my poverty with pride. I'm poor, but noble… One can be poor and noble," I went on mumbling. "However… would you like some tea?"
"No…" she tried to begin.
"Wait!"
I jumped up and ran to Apollon. I really had to vanish somewhere.
"Apollon," I whispered in a feverish patter, flinging down before him the seven roubles, which had remained in my fist all the while, "here's your wages; see, I'm giving it to you; but for that you must save me: go at once and bring some tea and ten rusks from the tavern. If you refuse to go, you'll ruin a man's happiness. You don't know what this woman is… This is -everything. You're perhaps having certain thoughts… But you don't know what this woman is!…"
Apollon, who had already sat down to work, and had already put his spectacles back on, at first, without abandoning his needle, silently cast a sidelong glance at the money; then, paying no attention to me and not answering me at all, he went on fussing with his thread, which he was still trying to put through the needle. I waited for about three minutes, standing before him, my arms folded a la Napoleon. My temples were damp with sweat; I was pale, I could sense it. But, thank God, he must have felt sorry looking at me. Having finished with his needle, he slowly rose from his seat, slowly moved the chair aside, slowly took off his spectacles, slowly counted the money, and at last, having asked me over his shoulder: should he get a full portion? - slowly walked out of the room. As I was returning to Liza, it occurred to me on the way: why don't I flee, just as I am, in my wretched old dressing gown, wherever my feet take me, and come what may?
I sat down again. She looked at me anxiously. For several minutes we said nothing.