"Who's there?" said a muffled voice suddenly.
"To-day's the day my mother died," after a moment, said Matiza's voice out of the darkness.
"Is it long ago?" asked Ilya, just to say something.
"Oh! ever so long--fifteen years--more. And your mother, is she alive?"
"No. She's dead too. How old are you then?"
"Close on thirty," said Matiza, after a pause. "I'm old already, my foot hurts so, it's swollen as big as a melon and it hurts. I've rubbed it and rubbed it with all sorts of things, but it's no better."
Some one opened the bar room door; a torrent of loud sounds poured into the court. The wind caught them up and strewed them hither and thither in the darkness.
"And you, why are you here?" asked Matiza.
"Same as I. Up in my room it's like a coffin."
Ilya heard a deep sigh. Then Matiza said, "Shall we go to my room?"
Ilya looked in the direction of the voice and answered indifferently: "All right."
Matiza went first up the stair to her garret. She set always the right foot on each step and dragged the left slowly after with a low moaning. Ilya followed, unthinking, equally slowly, as though his depression of soul hindered his ascent as much as Matiza's foot delayed her.
Matiza's room was long and narrow, and the ceiling was actually the shape of a coffin lid. Near the door stood a Dutch stove, and along the wall, with its head against the stove a wide bed; opposite the bed a table and two chairs; a third chair stood in front of the window that appeared as a dark spot in the grey wall. Up here the howling and rushing of the wind was heard very distinctly. Ilya sat down in the chair by the window, looked round the walls and asked, pointing to a little eikon in one corner:
"Saint Anna," said Matiza softly and devoutly.
"Nobody knows!" said Matiza, and sat down heavily on the bed. Ilya looked at her but felt no desire to speak; Matiza also was silent and so they sat for a space, three minutes or so, dumb, with no indication that they noticed one another. Finally Matiza asked: "Well, what shall we do?"
"I don't know," answered Ilya, undecidedly.
"Well, that's good," said the woman, and laughed scornfully.
"First you can treat me; go and get a jug of beer. No--buy me something to eat. Nothing else, just something to eat."