When three days had passed he appeared, quite pale, before Michael Dorofeich, took with trembling fingers a gold coin from under his cuff and gave it him, “Heaven’s my witness, Michael Dorofeich, that it’s all I have, and even that I borrowed from Zhdanov,” said he, sobbing again; “and the other two rubles I swear I will also return as soon as I have earned them. He” (whom “he” meant Velenchuk did not himself know) “has made me appear like a rascal before you. He—with his loathsome, viper soul—he takes the last morsel from his brother soldier, and I having served for fifteen years. …”
To the honour of Michael Dorofeich be it said, he did not take the remaining two rubles, though Velenchuk brought them to him two months later.