He was very fond of the phrase “a vale of tears.”  One day—­it was in Christmas week, when I was walking by the bazaar—­he called me into the butcher’s shop, and not shaking hands with me, announced that he had to speak to me about something very important.  His face was red from the frost and vodka; near him, behind the counter, stood Nikolka, with the expression of a brigand, holding a bloodstained knife in his hand.

“I desire to express my word to you,” Prokofy began.  “This incident cannot continue, because, as you understand yourself that for such a vale, people will say nothing good of you or of us.  Mamma, through pity, cannot say something unpleasant to you, that your sister should move into another lodging on account of her condition, but I won’t have it any more, because I can’t approve of her behaviour.”

I understood him, and I went out of the shop.  The same day my sister and I moved to Radish’s.  We had no money for a cab, and we walked on foot; I carried a parcel of our belongings on my back; my sister had nothing in her hands, but she gasped for breath and coughed, and kept asking whether we should get there soon.

XIX

At last a letter came from Masha.

“Dear, good M. A.” (she wrote), “our kind, gentle ‘angel’ as the old painter calls you, farewell; I am going with my father to America for the exhibition.  In a few days I shall see the ocean—­so far from Dubetchnya, it’s dreadful to think!  It’s far and unfathomable as the sky, and I long to be there in freedom.  I am triumphant, I am mad, and you see how incoherent my letter is.  Dear, good one, give me my freedom, make haste to break the thread, which still holds, binding you and me together.  My meeting and knowing you was a ray from heaven that lighted up my existence; but my becoming your wife was a mistake, you understand that, and I am oppressed now by the consciousness of the mistake, and I beseech you, on my knees, my generous friend, quickly, quickly, before I start for the ocean, telegraph that you consent to correct our common mistake, to remove the solitary stone from my wings, and my father, who will undertake all the arrangements, promised me not to burden you too much with formalities.  And so I am free to fly whither I will?  Yes?

“Be happy, and God bless you; forgive me, a sinner.

“I am well, I am wasting money, doing all sorts of silly things, and I thank God every minute that such a bad woman as I has no children.  I sing and have success, but it’s not an infatuation; no, it’s my haven, my cell to which I go for peace.  King David had a ring with an inscription on it:  ‘All things pass.’  When one is sad those words make one cheerful, and when one is cheerful it makes one sad.  I have got myself a ring like that with Hebrew letters on it, and this talisman keeps me from infatuations.  All things pass, life will pass, one wants nothing.  Or at least one wants nothing but the sense of freedom, for when anyone is free, he wants nothing, nothing, nothing.  Break the thread.  A warm hug to you and your sister.  Forgive and forget your M.”