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They will marry me to a hateful... poor forsaken... Poor me! 'Sing away, sing away, muttered Viktor in an undertone, fidgeting with impatience as he stood. 'And he might say one word, one word.... He might say, "Akulina... I..."
Akulina ceased from her cooking for a while and helped to get Polikey ready for the journey. Most of the children were still in bed, very likely as a protection against the cold, for Akulina had taken away the big overcoat which usually covered them and had substituted a shawl of her own.
Akulina never took her eyes off him. I could see that she was gradually being overcome by emotion; her lips twitched, her pale cheeks faintly glowed. 'Viktor Alexandritch, she began at last in a broken voice, 'it's too bad of you... it is too bad of you, Viktor Alexandritch, indeed it is! 'What's too bad? he asked frowning, and he slightly raised his head and turned it towards her.
"But this is rather a personal matter of business, you see." "And you mean that you want some money, I suppose," suggested Akulina, at a venture. "No, no, not at all no money at all. It is not a question of money." He hoped to satisfy her by a statement which was never without charm in her ears.
But Ivan Fedotitch had his doubts about Sidoron Ivanovitch also. "Akulina shall have some. There, now, give something to the blind." To this I responded. I saw him at once. He was a blind old man of eighty years, without kith or kin. It seemed as though no condition could be more painful, and I went immediately to see him.
"I tell you," said Akulina to her husband as Schmidt passed through the outer shop, "that he will end by costing us so much in money lent, and squandered in charity, that the business will go to dust and feathers! I am only a weak woman, Christian Gregorovitch, but I have four children " The Cossack heard no more, for he closed the street door behind him and returned to Vjera's side.
One taste, however, convinced him of the necessity of consuming all that was set before him, and while he was thus actively employed Akulina entered into the consideration of the theft, recalling all the details she could remember about the intimacy supposed to exist between the Count and the swindler in coloured glasses, and conscientiously showing the matter in all its aspects.
Akulina had carefully sewed all the holes in the hat, but it burst out in other places owing to Polikey's removing it so often. In the darkness he did not notice the new rents, and tried to push the envelope further under the lining, and in doing so pushed one corner of it through the plush.
He was quite right in his surmises concerning his late employer and the latter's wife. Akulina had in the first place let her husband sleep as long as he pleased, and had allowed a considerable time to elapse before informing him of the events of the previous evening.
'But they say, continued Kostya, 'that Akulina threw herself into the river because her lover had deceived her. 'Yes, that was it. 'And do you remember Vasya? added Kostya, mournfully. 'What Vasya? asked Fedya. 'Why, the one who was drowned, replied Kostya, in this very river. Ah, what a boy he was! What a boy he was! His mother, Feklista, how she loved him, her Vasya!
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