“Whom do you wish to see, sir?” asked the midwife, Maria Ivanovna, when he stepped on the narrow landing of the steep, stuffy staircase.

“Does Madame Silvestrova live here?”

“Vera Ivanovna?  Yes; please come in.  She has gone out; she’s gone to the shop round the corner.  But she’ll be back in a minute.”

Michael Ivanovich followed the stout figure of Maria Ivanovna into a tiny parlour, and from the next room came the screams of a baby, sounding cross and peevish, which filled him with disgust.  They cut him like a knife.

Maria Ivanovna apologised, and went into the room, and he could hear her soothing the child.  The child became quiet, and she returned.

“That is her baby; she’ll be back in a minute.  You are a friend of hers, I suppose?”

“Yes—­a friend—­but I think I had better come back later on,” said Michael Ivanovich, preparing to go.  It was too unbearable, this preparation to meet her, and any explanation seemed impossible.

He had just turned to leave, when he heard quick, light steps on the stairs, and he recognised Lisa’s voice.

“Maria Ivanovna—­has he been crying while I’ve been gone—­I was—­”

Then she saw her father.  The parcel she was carrying fell from her hands.

“Father!” she cried, and stopped in the doorway, white and trembling.

He remained motionless, staring at her.  She had grown so thin.  Her eyes were larger, her nose sharper, her hands worn and bony.  He neither knew what to do, nor what to say.  He forgot all his grief about his dishonour.  He only felt sorrow, infinite sorrow for her; sorrow for her thinness, and for her miserable rough clothing; and most of all, for her pitiful face and imploring eyes.

“Father—­forgive,” she said, moving towards him.

“Forgive—­forgive me,” he murmured; and he began to sob like a child, kissing her face and hands, and wetting them with his tears.

In his pity for her he understood himself.  And when he saw himself as he was, he realised how he had wronged her, how guilty he had been in his pride, in his coldness, even in his anger towards her.  He was glad that it was he who was guilty, and that he had nothing to forgive, but that he himself needed forgiveness.  She took him to her tiny room, and told him how she lived; but she did not show him the child, nor did she mention the past, knowing how painful it would be to him.

He told her that she must live differently.

“Yes; if I could only live in the country,” said she.

“We will talk it over,” he said.  Suddenly the child began to wail and to scream.  She opened her eyes very wide; and, not taking them from her father’s face, remained hesitating and motionless.

“Well—­I suppose you must feed him,” said Michael Ivanovich, and frowned with the obvious effort.

She got up, and suddenly the wild idea seized her to show him whom she loved so deeply the thing she now loved best of all in the world.  But first she looked at her father’s face.  Would he be angry or not?  His face revealed no anger, only suffering.