XXVIII
First they clasped each other's hands again; then Marianna cried, 'Come, I'll help you arrange your room,' and she began unpacking his things from the trunk and the bag. Nezhdanov would have helped her, but she declared she was going to do it all alone.
'Because I must get used to making myself useful' And she did in fact hang up his coat on nails which she found in the table drawer, and knocked into the wall, unaided, with the back of a brush for want of a hammer; the linen she laid in a little old chest which stood between the windows.
'What's this?' she asked suddenly; 'a revolver? Is it loaded? What do you want with it?'
'It's not loaded . . . but give it here, though. You ask what I want with it? How is one to get on without a revolver in our calling?'
She laughed and went on with her task, shaking out each thing separately and beating
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