Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VII).djvu/237

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
VIRGIN SOIL

it was Markelov's old servant. He had, seemingly, come to the town after his master, and would not move away from his prison.. . . But why did he look like that at Paklin? It was not he who had betrayed Markelov!

'And what induced me to go poking my nose where I was no manner of use?' he thought again in desperation. 'Why couldn't I have kept quiet and minded my own business? And now they'll talk, and most likely write: "A certain Mr. Paklin has told of everything, he has betrayed them . . . his friends, betrayed them to the enemy!"' He recalled at this point the glance Markelov had flung at him, he recalled his last words: 'You'll never whisper your way out, no fear!'—and then those aged, dejected, despairing eyes! And as it is written in the scriptures, 'he wept bitterly,' and made his way to the oasis, to Fomushka and Fimushka, to Snanduliya. . . .

223