'And will you go further with me? Everywhere?'
'Yes!'
'Yes? Marianna . . . Yes?'
'Yes. I have given you my word, and so long as you are the man I loved, I will not take it back.'
Nezhdanov went on sitting in his chair; Marianna stood before him. His arms lay about her waist; her hands rested on his shoulders. 'Yes, no,' thought Nezhdanov. . . 'but yet—before, when it was my lot to hold her in my arms, just as at this moment, her body was at least motionless; but now, I feel it gently and perhaps against her will shrink away from me!' He loosened his arms . . . Marianna did, in fact, scarcely perceptibly draw back.
'I tell you what!' he said aloud, 'if we must run away . . . before the police discover us . . . I suppose it would be as well for us to be married first. Most likely we shouldn't meet with such an accommodating priest as Zosim anywhere else!'
'I'm ready,' said Marianna.
Nezhdanov looked intently at her.
'Roman maiden!' he said with an evil half-smile. 'What a sense of duty!'
Marianna shrugged her shoulders.
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