'He will lend me money, I'm sure of that. I'll tell him I need it to get back to Dresden. Then I'll find somewhere else to stay.'

'Why not just go back to Dresden? Won't that solve all your problems?'

'The police still have my passport. There are other considerations too.'

'Because surely you have done all you can, surely you are wasting your time in Petersburg.'

Has she not heard what he has said? Or is she trying to provoke him? He stands up, gathers the papers together, turns to face her. 'No, my dear Anna, I am not wasting my time at all. I have every reason to remain here. No one in the world has more reason. As in your heart I am sure you must know.'

She shakes her head. 'I don't know,' she murmurs; but in the voice of someone ready to be contradicted.

'There was a time when I was sure you would conduct me to Pavel. I pictured the two of us in a boat, you at the prow piloting us through the mist. The picture was as vivid as life itself. I put all my trust in you.'

She shakes her head again.

'I may have been wrong in the details, but the feeling was not wrong. From the first I had a feeling about you.'

If she were going to stop him, she would stop him now. But she does not. She seems to drink in his words as a plant drinks water. And why not?

'We made it difficult for ourselves, rushing into… what we rushed into,' he goes on.

'I was to blame too,' she says. 'But I don't want to talk about that now.'

'Nor I. Let me only say, over the past week I have come to realize how much fidelity means to us, to both of us. We have had to recover our fidelity. I am right, am I not?'

He examines her keenly; but she is waiting for him to say more, waiting to be sure that he knows what fidelity means.

'I mean, on your side, fidelity to your daughter. And on my side, fidelity to my son. We cannot love until we have their blessing. Am I right?'

Though he knows she agrees, she will not yet say the word. Against that soft resistance he presses on. 'I would like to have a child with you.'

She colours. 'What nonsense! You have a wife and child already!'

'They are of a different family. You are of Pavel's family, you and Matryona, both of you. I am of Pavel's family too.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'In your heart you do.'

'In my heart I don't! What are you proposing? That I bring up a child whose father lives abroad and sends me an allowance in the mail? Preposterous!'

'Why? You looked after Pavel.'

'Pavel was a lodger, not a child!'

'You don't have to decide at once.'

'But I will decide at once! No! That is my decision!'

'What if you are already pregnant?'

She bridles. 'That is none of your business!'

'And what if I were not to go back to Dresden? What if I were to stay here and send the allowance to Dresden instead?'

'Here? In my spare room? In Petersburg? I thought the reason you can't stay in Petersburg is that you will be thrown in jail by your creditors.'

'I can wipe out my debts. It requires only a single success.'

She laughs. She may be angry but she is not offended. He can say anything to her. What a contrast to Anya! With Anya there would be tears, slammed doors; it would take a week of pleading to get back in her good books.

'Fyodor Mikhailovich,' she says, 'you will wake up tomorrow and remember nothing of this. It was just an idea that popped into your head. You have given it no thought at all.'

'You are right. That is how it came to me. That is why I trust it.'

She does not give herself into his arms, but she does not fight him off either. 'Bigamy!' she says sofdy, scornfully, and again quivers with laughter. Then, in a more deliberate tone: 'Would you like me to come to you tonight?'

'There is nothing on earth I want more.'

'Let us see.'

At midnight she is back. 'I can't stay,' she says; but in the same movement she is shutting the door behind her.

They make love as though under sentence of death, self-absorbed, purposeful. There are moments when he cannot say which of them is which, which the man, which the woman, when they are like skeletons, assemblages of bone and ligament pressed one into the other, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, ribs interlocked, leg-bones intertwined.

Afterwards she lies against him in the narrow bed, her head on his chest, one long leg thrown easily over his. His head is spinning gendy. 'So was that meant to bring about the birth of the saviour?' she murmurs. And, when he does not understand: 'A real river of seed. You must have wanted to make sure. The bed is soaked.'

The blasphemy interests him. Each time he finds something new and surprising in her. Inconceivable, if he does leave Petersburg, that he will not come back. Inconceivable that he will not see her again.

'Why do you say saviour?'

'Isn't that what he is meant to do: to save you, to save both of us?'

'Why so sure it is he?'

'Oh, a woman knows.'

'What would Matryosha think?'

'Matryosha? A little brother? There is nothing she would like more. She could mother him to her heart's content.'

In appearance his question is about Matryosha; but it is only the deflected form of another question, one that he does not ask because he already knows the answer. Pavel would not welcome a brother. Pavel would take him by his foot and dash his brains out against the wall. To Pavel no saviour but a pretender, a usurper, a sly little devil clothed in chubby baby-flesh. And who could swear he was wrong?

'Does a woman always know?'

'Do you mean, do I know whether I am pregnant? Don't worry, it won't happen.' And then: 'I'm going to fall asleep if I stay any longer.' She throws the bedclothes aside and clambers over him. By moonlight she finds her clothes and begins to dress.

He feels a pang of a kind. Memories of old feelings stir; the young man in him, not yet dead, tries to make himself heard, the corpse within him not yet buried. He is within inches of falling into a love from which no reserve of prudence will save him. The falling sickness again, or a version of it.

The impulse is strong, but it passes. Strong but not strong enough. Never again strong enough, unless it call find a crutch somewhere.

'Come here for a moment,' he whispers.

She sits down on the bed; he takes her hand.

'Can I make a suggestion? I don't think it is a good idea that Matryosha should be involved with Sergei Nechaev and his friends.'

She withdraws her hand. 'Of course not. But why say so now?' Her voice is cold and flat.

'Because I don't think she should be left alone when he can come calling.'

'What are you proposing?'

'Can't she spend her days downstairs at Amalia Karlov-na's till you get home?'

'That is a great deal to ask of an old woman, to look after a sick child. Particularly when she and Matryosha don't get on. Why isn't it enough to tell Matryosha not to open the door to strangers?'

'Because you are not aware of the extent of Nechaev's power over her.'

She gets up. 'I don't like this,' she says. 'I don't see why we need to discuss my daughter in the middle of the night.'

The atmosphere between them is suddenly as icy as it has ever been.

'Can't I so much as mention her name without you getting irritable?' he asks despairingly. 'Do you think I would bring the matter up if I didn't have her welfare at heart?'

She makes no reply. The door opens and closes.