and hid his eyes; he bit his lips and gnawed his moustache.
'Yes, I have made up my mind!' he repeated with a swing of his arm down on his knee. 'I'm an obstinate man, you know . . . I'm not half a Little-Russian for nothing.'
Then he got up, and, staggering as though his legs were failing him, he went into his bedroom, and brought out from there a small portrait of Marianna framed under glass.
'Take it,' he said in a mournful but steady voice; 'I did it once. I draw very badly; but look, I think it's like.' (The sketch, a pencil drawing taken in profile, was really like.) 'Take it, brother; it 's my last bequest. Together with this portrait I give up to you all my right . . . I never had any . . . but you know, Alexey, everything! I give you everything, Alexey . . . and her, dear brother; she 's a good . . .'
Markelov was silent; the heaving of his breast was visible.
'Take it. You 're not angry with me, Alexey? Then take it. I have nothing now . . . I don't want that.' Nezhdanov took the portrait; but a strange sensation oppressed his heart. It seemed to him that he had no right to accept this gift; that if Markelov had known what was in his,
11
