. . . mant! A . . . da . . . mant!' the religious maniac repeated several times, gnashing his teeth. 'The old serpent! But God will arise! Yes, God will arise and scatter His enemies! I will call up all the dead! I will go against His enemy. . . . Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo!'
'Have you any oil?' said another voice, hardly audible; 'let me put some on the wound. . . . I have got a clean rag.'
I peeped through the chink again; the woman in the jacket was still busied with the vagrant's sore foot. . . . 'A Magdalen!' I thought.
'I'll get it directly, my dear,' said the woman, and, coming into my room, she took a spoonful of oil from the lamp burning before the holy picture.
'Who's that waiting on him?' I asked.
'We don't know, sir, who it is; she too, I suppose, is seeking salvation, atoning for her sins. But what a saintly man he is!'
'Akulinushka, my sweet child, my dear daughter,' the crazy pilgrim was repeating meanwhile, and he suddenly burst into tears.
The woman kneeling before him lifted her eyes to him.. . . Heavens! where had I seen those eyes?
The landlady went up to her with the spoonful of oil. She finished her operation, and, getting up from the floor, asked if there were a clean loft and a little hay.. . . 'Vassily Nikititch likes to sleep on hay,' she added.
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