pale and clasped her hands.
“Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you who have a son!” she began, her pallor suddenly turning to a vivid red. “Master, what have you said? God forgive you!” And she crossed herself.
“Lord forgive him! My dear, what does it mean? …” she asked, turning to Princess Márya.
She got up and, almost crying, began to arrange her wallet. She evidently felt frightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a house where such things could be said, and was at the same time sorry to have now to forgo the charity of this house.
“Now, why need you do it?” said Princess Márya. “Why did you come to me? …”
“Come, Pelagéyushka, I was joking,” said Pierre. “ Princesse, ma parole, je n’ai pas voulu l’offenser. I did not mean anything, I was only joking,” he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his offense. “It was all my fault, and Andréy was only joking.”
Pelagéyushka stopped doubtfully, but in Pierre’s face there was such a look of sincere penitence, and Prince Andréy glanced so meekly now at her and now at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured.
XIV
The pilgrim woman was appeased and, being encouraged to talk, gave a long account of Father Amphilochus, who led so holy a life that his hands smelled of incense, and how on her last visit to Kiev some monks she knew let her have the keys of the catacombs, and how she, taking some dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs with the saints. > “I’d pray awhile to one, ponder awhile, then go on to another. I’d sleep a bit and then again go