Liubka seemed to wilt.  “He thinks I want him to marry me.  And I absolutely don’t need that,” she thought sadly.  “It’s possible to live just so.  There are others, now, living on maintenance.  And, they say, far better than if they had twirled around an altar.  What’s so bad about that?  Peaceful, quiet, genteel ...  I’d darn socks for him, wash floors, cook ... the plainer dishes.  Of course, he’ll be in line to get married to a rich girl some time.  Well, now, to be sure, he wouldn’t throw me out in the street just so, mother-naked.  Although he’s a little simpleton, and chatters a lot, still it’s easy to tell he’s a decent man.  He’ll provide for me with something, somehow.  And, perhaps, he’ll get to like me, will get used to me?  I’m a simple girl, modest, and would never consent to be false to him.  For, they say, things do fall out that way ...  Only I mustn’t let him see anything.  But that he’ll come again into my bed, and will come this very night—­that’s as sure as God is holy.”

And Lichonin also fell into thought, grew quiet and sad; he was already feeling the weight of a great deed which he had undertaken beyond his powers.  That was why he was even glad when some one knocked on the door, and to his answer, “Come in!”, two students entered:  Soloviev, and Nijeradze, who had slept that night at his place.

Soloviev, well-grown and already obese, with a broad, ruddy Volga face and a light, scandent little beard, belonged to those kindly, merry and simple fellows, of which there are sufficiently many in any university.  He divided his leisure—­and of leisure he had twenty-four hours in the day—­between the beer-shop and rambling over the boulevards; among billiards, whist, the theatre, reading of newspapers and novels, and the spectacles of circus wrestling; while the short intervals in between he used for eating, sleeping, the home repair of his wardrobe, with the aid of thread, cardboard, pins and ink; and for succinct, most realistic love with the chance woman from the kitchen, the anteroom or the street.  Like all the youths of his circle, he deemed himself a revolutionary, although he was oppressed by political disputes, dissensions, and mutual reproaches; and not being able to stand the reading of revolutionary brochures and journals, was almost a complete ignoramus in the work For that reason he had not attained even the very least party initiation; although at times there were given him instructions of a sort, not at all of a safe nature, the meaning of which was not made clear to him.  And not in vain was his steadfast faithfulness relied upon; he carried out everything rapidly, exactly,—­with a courageous faith in the universal importance of the work; with a care-free smile and with a broad contempt of possible destruction.  He concealed outlawed comrades, guarded forbidden literature and printing types, transmitted passports and money.  He had a great deal of physical strength, black-loam amiability and elemental simple-heartedness.  Not infrequently he would receive from home, somewheres in the depth of the Simbirskaya or Ufimskaya province, sums of money sufficiently large for a student; but in two days he scattered and dispersed it everywhere, with the carelessness of a French grandee of the seventeenth century, while he himself remained during winter in only his everyday coat, with boots restored by his own devices.