"If only one could tell that in Petersburg!" she brought out, almost
falling over with laughter, and propping herself against the table.
"If one could tell that in Petersburg!"

IX

Now we used to see each other often, sometimes twice a day. She
used to come to the cemetery almost every day after dinner, and
read the epitaphs on the crosses and tombstones while she waited
for me. Sometimes she would come into the church, and, standing by
me, would look on while I worked. The stillness, the naïve work of
the painters and gilders, Radish's sage reflections, and the fact
that I did not differ externally from the other workmen, and worked
just as they did in my waistcoat with no socks on, and that I was
addressed familiarly by them--all this was new to her and touched
her. One day a workman, who was painting a dove on the ceiling,
called out to me in her presence:

"Misail, hand me up the white paint."

I took him the white paint, and afterwards, when I let myself down
by the frail scaffolding, she looked at me, touched to tears and
smiling.

"What a dear you are!" she said.

I remembered from my childhood how a green parrot, belonging to one
of the rich men of the town, had escaped from its cage, and how for
quite a month afterwards the beautiful bird had haunted the town,
flying from garden to garden, homeless and solitary. Mariya Viktorovna