and laid it on the table beside the sealed envelopes. Then with a resolute gesture he clutched his cap and was making for the door . . . but he stopped short, turned back, and went into Marianna's room. There he stood a minute, looked round him, and, approaching her little narrow bed, bent down, and with one stifled sob pressed his lips, not to the pillow, but to the foot of the bed.. . . Then he got up at once, and, pulling his cap over his eyes, rushed out.
Meeting no one, either in the corridor, on the stairs, or below, Nezhdanov slipped out into the little enclosure. It was a grey day with a low-hanging sky, and a damp breeze that stirred the tops of the grasses and set the leaves on the trees shaking; the factory made less rattle and roar than at the same time on other days; from its yard came a smell of coal, tar, and tallow. Nezhdanov took a sharp, searching look round, and went straight up to the old apple-tree which had attracted his attention on the very day of his arrival, when he had first looked out of the window of his little room. The stem of this apple-tree was overgrown with dry moss; its rugged, bare branches, with reddish-green leaves hanging here and there upon them, rose crooked into the air, like old bent arms raised in supplication. Nezhdanov stood with firm tread on the dark earth about its roots, and took out
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