Department of Finance, which is so badly off at present. The depreciation of the rouble keeps me awake at night, Dmitri Fyodorovitch; people don’t know that side of me…”

“Madame, Madame!” Dmitri interrupted with an uneasy presentiment. “I shall indeed, perhaps, follow your advice, your wise advice, Madame.…I shall perhaps set off…to the gold-mines.…I’ll come and see you again about it…many times, indeed…but now, that three thousand you so generously…oh, that would set me free, and if you could to-day…you see, I haven’t a minute, a minute to lose to-day…”

“Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, enough!” Madame Hohlakov interrupted emphatically. “The question is, will you go to the gold-mines or not; have you quite made up your mind? Answer yes or no.”

“I will go, Madame, afterwards.…I’ll go where you like…but now…”

“Wait!” cried Madame Hohlakov. And jumping up and running to a handsome bureau with numerous little drawers, she began pulling out one drawer after another, looking for something with desperate haste.

“The three thousand,” thought Mitya, his heart almost stopping, “and at the instant…without any papers or formalities…that’s doing things in gentlemanly style! She’s a splendid woman, if only she didn’t talk so much!”

“Here!” cried Madame Hohlakov, running back joyfully to Mitya, “here is what I was looking for!”

It was a tiny silver ikon on a cord, such as is sometimes worn next the skin with a cross.

“This is from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” she went on reverently, “from the relics of the Holy Martyr, Varvara. Let me put it on your neck myself, and with it dedicate you to a new life, to a new career.”

And she actually put the cord round his neck, and began arranging it. In extreme embarrassment, Mitya bent down and helped her, and at last he got it under his neck-tie and collar through his shirt to his chest.

“Now you can set off,” Madame Hohlakov pronounced, sitting down triumphantly in her place again.

“Madame, I am so touched. I don’t know how to thank you, indeed… for such kindness, but…If only you knew how precious time is to me. …That sum of money, for which I shall be indebted to your generosity. …Oh, Madame, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me (Mitya exclaimed impulsively) then let me reveal to you…though, of course, you’ve known it a long time…that I love somebody here.…I have been false to Katya…Katerina Ivanovna I should say.…Oh, I’ve behaved inhumanly, dishonourably to her, but I fell in love here with another woman…a woman whom you, Madame, perhaps, despise, for you know everything already, but whom I cannot leave on any account, and therefore that three thousand now…”

“Leave everything, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Madame Hohlakov interrupted in the most decisive tone. “Leave everything, especially women. Gold-mines are your goal, and there’s no place for women there. Afterwards, when you come back rich and famous, you will find the girl of your heart in the highest society. That will be a modern girl, a girl of education and advanced ideas. By that time the dawning woman question will have gained ground, and the new woman will have appeared.”

“Madame, that’s not the point, not at all.…”Mitya clasped his hands in entreaty.

“Yes, it is, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, just what you need; the very thing you’re yearning for, though you don’t realise it yourself. I am not at all opposed to the present woman movement, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The development of woman, and even the political emancipation of woman in the near future—that’s my ideal. I’ve a daughter myself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, people don’t know that side of me. I wrote a letter to the author, Shtchedrin, on that subject. He has taught me so much, so much about the vocation of woman. So last year I sent him an anonymous letter of two lines: ‘I kiss and embrace you, my teacher, for the modern woman. Persevere.’ And I signed myself, ‘a Mother.’ I thought of signing myself ‘a contemporary