with me. I'm a good-natured chap, I am! Never you mind my being drunk, you look at my heart. There, you ask this . . . fellow. So, you see, I turn out to be in fault. And now, of course, I'm a ruined man.'
Ivan Afanasiitch was more and more in need of Onisim's support.
'All the same, you did wrong, very wrong. I loved you, I respected you . . . what's more, I'm ready to go to church with you this minute. Will you? You've only to say the word, and we'll start at once. Only you wounded me cruelly . . . cruelly. You might at least have turned me away yourself—but through your aunt, through that fat female! Why, the only joy I had in life was you. I'm a homeless man, you know, a poor lonely creature! Who is there now to be kind to me? who says a kind word to me? I'm utterly alone. Stript bare as a crow. You ask this . . .' Ivan Afanasiitch began to cry. 'Vassilissa, listen what I say to you,' he went on: 'let me come and see you as before. Don't be afraid. . . . I'll be . . . quiet as a mouse. You can go and see whom you like, I'll—be all right: not a word, no protests, you know. Eh? do you agree? If you like, I'll go down on my knees.' (And Ivan Afanasiitch bent his knees, but Onisim held him up under the arms.) 'Let me go! It's not your business! It's a matter
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