Page 584 - the-idiot

way was so dark that I could see nothing whatever. It was
one of those large houses built in small tenements, of which
there must have been at least a hundred.
‘When I entered the yard I thought I saw a man going
along on the far side of it; but it was so dark I could not
make out his figure.
‘I crossed to that corner and found a dirty dark staircase.
I heard a man mounting up above me, some way high-
er than I was, and thinking I should catch him before his
door would be opened to him, I rushed after him. I heard a
door open and shut on the fifth storey, as I panted along; the
stairs were narrow, and the steps innumerable, but at last I
reached the door I thought the right one. Some moments
passed before I found the bell and got it to ring.
‘An old peasant woman opened the door; she was busy
lighting the ‘samovar’ in a tiny kitchen. She listened silently
to my questions, did not understand a word, of course, and
opened another door leading into a little bit of a room, low
and scarcely furnished at all, but with a large, wide bed in
it, hung with curtains. On this bed lay one Terentich, as the
woman called him, drunk, it appeared to me. On the table
was an end of candle in an iron candlestick, and a half-bot-
tle of vodka, nearly finished. Terentich muttered something
to me, and signed towards the next room. The old wom-
an had disappeared, so there was nothing for me to do but
to open the door indicated. I did so, and entered the next
room.
‘This was still smaller than the other, so cramped that I
could scarcely turn round; a narrow single bed at one side