“Take them, take them all!” said my wife, helping me to arrange them, and big tears ran down her cheeks.  “Take it all!  That’s all that was left me in life....  Take the last.”

“Ach!  Natalie, Natalie!” I sighed reproachfully.

She opened the drawer in the table and began flinging the papers out of it on the table at random, poking me in the chest with her elbow and brushing my face with her hair; as she did so, copper coins kept dropping upon my knees and on the floor.

“Take everything!” she said in a husky voice.

When she had thrown out the papers she walked away from me, and putting both hands to her head, she flung herself on the couch.  I picked up the money, put it back in the drawer, and locked it up that the servants might not be led into dishonesty; then I gathered up all the papers and went off with them.  As I passed my wife I stopped and, looking at her back and shaking shoulders, I said: 

“What a baby you are, Natalie!  Fie, fie!  Listen, Natalie:  when you realize how serious and responsible a business it is you will be the first to thank me.  I assure you you will.”

In my own room I set to work without haste.  The exercise books were not bound, the pages were not numbered.  The entries were put in all sorts of handwritings; evidently any one who liked had a hand in managing the books.  In the record of the subscriptions in kind there was no note of their money value.  But, excuse me, I thought, the rye which is now worth one rouble fifteen kopecks may be worth two roubles fifteen kopecks in two months’ time!  Was that the way to do things?  Then, “Given to A. M. Sobol 32 roubles.”  When was it given?  For what purpose was it given?  Where was the receipt?  There was nothing to show, and no making anything of it.  In case of legal proceedings, these papers would only obscure the case.

“How naive she is!” I thought with surprise.  “What a child!”

I felt both vexed and amused.

V

My wife had already collected eight thousand; with my five it would be thirteen thousand.  For a start that was very good.  The business which had so worried and interested me was at last in my hands; I was doing what the others would not and could not do; I was doing my duty, organizing the relief fund in a practical and business-like way.

Everything seemed to be going in accordance with my desires and intentions; but why did my feeling of uneasiness persist?  I spent four hours over my wife’s papers, making out their meaning and correcting her mistakes, but instead of feeling soothed, I felt as though some one were standing behind me and rubbing my back with a rough hand.  What was it I wanted?  The organization of the relief fund had come into trustworthy hands, the hungry would be fed—­what more was wanted?

The four hours of this light work for some reason exhausted me, so that I could not sit bending over the table nor write.  From below I heard from time to time a smothered moan; it was my wife sobbing.  Alexey, invariably meek, sleepy, and sanctimonious, kept coming up to the table to see to the candles, and looked at me somewhat strangely.