Vjera and her
companion stopped on the other side of the street. The sentinel paid no
attention to them.
"You are quite sure it is there?" asked the girl, under her breath.
Schmidt nodded instead of answering.
"Then I will pray that all may be well this night," she said.
She dropped the Cossack's arm and slipped away from him; then pausing at a
little distance, in the deep shadow of an archway opposite the station,
she knelt down upon the pavement, and taking some small object, which was
indistinguishable in the darkness, from the bosom of her frock she clasped
her hands together and looked upwards through the gloom at the black walls
of the great building. The Cossack looked at her in a sort of half-stupid,
half-awed surprise, scarcely understanding what she was doing at first,
and feeling his heart singularly touched when he realised that she was
praying out here in the street, kneeling on the common pavement of the
city, as though upon the marble floor of a church, and actually saying
prayers--he could hear low sounds of earnest tone escaping from her
lips--prayers for the man she loved, because he was shut up for the night
in the police-station like an ordinary disturber of the peace. He was
touched, for the action, in its simplicity of faith, set in vibration the
chords of a nature accustomed originally to simple things, simple hopes,
simple beliefs. Instinctively, as he watched her, Johann Schmidt raised
his hat from his round head for a moment, and if he had possessed any
nearer acquaintance with praying in general or with any prayer in
particular it is almost certain that his lips would have moved.
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