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They walked in silence to the village. When they began to get close to the hut, Avdotya was so overcome with terror that her knees began to tremble. "Good Petrovitch," she said, "go in first.... Tell him that I have come." The old man went into the hut and found Akim lost in thought, sitting just as he had left him. "Well?" said Akim raising his head, "hasn't she come?"
"No, Akim Semyonitch, kill me, wretched sinner as I am; beat me, don't heed him," cried Avdotya, writhing convulsively at Akim's feet. He stood a moment, looked at her, moved a few steps away and sat down on the grass beside the road. A brief silence followed. Avdotya turned her head in his direction.
"Certainly, madam," answered Kirillovna, and going calmly back to her room she locked the note in an iron-cased box which stood at the head of her bed; she kept in it all her spare cash, and there was a considerable amount of it. Kirillovna had reassured her mistress by her report but the conversation between herself and Akim had not been quite what she represented.
"Akim and Petroff can never be Nihilists. The idea is absurd. I have never heard them say a word against the government or the Czar." Then he thought of their friend Katia, and how she had got him to aid in the escape of a Nihilist. "It is all nonsense," he murmured, "the idea of a girl like that being mixed up in a conspiracy."
Luckily I caught him in the act; now I am taking him to the town." "Was it Akim, I wonder?" Yefrem asked slowly. "How did you know? Akim. He came at night with a burning log in a pot and got into the yard and was setting fire to it ... all my men are witnesses. Would you like to see him? It's time for us to take him, by the way."
He told the labourers to put up the horse in the yard. At last the door opened and he walked into the room. "Good-day," he said, and took off his cap. "Good-day," Akim repeated through his teeth. "Where has God brought you from?" "I was in the neighbourhood," replied Naum, and he sat down on the bench. "I have come from your lady." "From the lady," said Akim, not getting up from his seat.
"So I am a merchant, it seems," Akim said to himself, standing before the gate in hesitation. "A nice merchant!" He waved his hand and laughed bitterly. "Well, I suppose I had better go home." And entirely forgetting Naum's horse with which he had come, he trudged along the road to the inn. Before he had gone the first mile he suddenly heard the rattle of a cart beside him.
The peasant who had been ordered to drive the second cart was pulling on his smock, stoutly maintaining that it was not his turn to go, but Akim’s. But Akim was not to be seen. They ran to look for him. The peasant persisted and besought them to wait. “You see what our peasants are, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch.
In the corridor we met the gardener, Akim, who had been wont to amuse us with his grimaces, but at this moment I could see nothing comical in him. Indeed, the sight of his thoughtless, indifferent face struck me more painfully than anything else.
Lizaveta Prohorovna was confused, too, when she was informed that Akim had come. She immediately summoned Kirillovna to her boudoir. "I can't see him," she began hurriedly, as soon as the latter appeared. "I absolutely cannot. What am I to say to him? I told you he would be sure to come and complain," she added in annoyance and agitation. "I told you." "But why should you see him?"
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