XXX
A fortnight later, in the same place, this was what Nezhdanov was writing to his friend Silin, as he bent over his little three-legged table, on which a tallow candle gave a dim and niggardly light. (It was long after midnight. On the sofa and on the floor lay mud-stained garments, hurriedly flung off; a fine, incessant rain was pattering on the window-panes, and a strong, warm wind breathed in great sighs about the roof.)
'Dear Vladimir,—I am writing to you without putting an address, and this letter will even be sent by a messenger to a distant posting-station, because my presence here is a secret; and to tell it you might mean the ruin not of myself alone. It will be enough for you to know that I have been living at a large factory, together with Marianna, for the last fort-night. We ran away from the Sipyagins' the very day I wrote to you last. We were given
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